Sunday, May 31, 2015

Who Will Go For Us?

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May 31, 2015 - Trinity Sunday
Isaiah 6:1-8
1In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. 2Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. 3And one called to another and said: 
     

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; 
     
the whole earth is full of his glory.” 


4The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. 5And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

6Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. 7The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” 8Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I; send me!”


Sermon: “Who Will Go For Us?”

I hope you had your Wheaties this morning, y’all, because today we’re going to ponder what is arguably the most perplexing and difficult concept in all of Christianity (don’t look so excited).  It’s Trinity Sunday.

The Trinity has mystified the church since it became our primary way of describing God at the Council of Nicaea in 325 a.d..  It is understandably confusing to say that God is one-in-three.  I’m not fantastic at math, but I’m fairly certain the Triune formula is the only time 1+1+1=1! 

In our struggle to understand the Triune God in this way, we have often made a few mistakes. 

The most amusing theories fall into what I like to call the “Food Edition of Understanding the Trinity”:
-God is an egg: the Father is the shell, the son is the yolk and the Spirit is the egg white.  Sounds cute, right?  But the problem is that the doctrine of the Trinity says God is three persons in one substance, not three separate substances, like a shell is made of something different than a yolk and an egg white.  So, egg won’t work for us.  That’s tri-theism, three gods, instead of monotheism.

-Next up in the Food Edition of understanding the Trinity, we have God as a sandwich.  The Father is the bread, Jesus is the peanut butter (?) and the Spirit is the jelly.  Yep, tri-theism again, and, honestly, can’t we all agree that God is more exciting than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?!

-And then we have an apple: the Father is the skin, Jesus is the flesh, the Spirit is the seeds.  Tri-theism again, just like that egg.

-Finally, we have the very popular notion that God is like water.  Water is one substance but can occur in three different forms: liquid, ice and vapor.  Sounds pretty good, right?  Well, unfortunately, this doesn’t fly because you’re not talking about what the water is, you’re talking about what it does.  That is called modalism – that we experience God only as Father, Son or Spirit because those are the modes God works in.  But the Trinity isn’t meant to describe the tasks of God – the Trinity describes the essence and being of God. 

So, none of these really help us understand the Trinity.  We can be like St. Patrick and use a clover to talk about God.  (I’m pretty sure I actually did this in last year’s Trinity Sunday children’s sermon – shame, shame!)  But again, we fall into what is called partialism – we split God into parts like a clover is split into three leaves.  When we sing, “Holy, holy, holy…” we don’t sing, “God in three paaaarts, blessed Trinity,” do we?  What do we sing?  God in three persons. 

That hymn connects us with one of the most powerful descriptions of the Trinity we can find in scripture – Isaiah 6.  Here we find that God is holy, holy, holy; a sort of holiness that permeates every single corner of this earth with glory. 

Now we’re getting somewhere!  What an amazing description of the nature of God, given to Isaiah exactly when he most needed it. 

We’re told that this vision takes place the same year that King Uzziah, also known as Azariah, died.  He had reigned for 52 years, and his death ushered in a time of deep instability, as the Assyrians continued to be a threat to the people of Israel.  This was a transition time, and they had no leader. 

So it’s fitting that Isaiah would see God as a leader on a throne, surrounded by heavenly beings.  They sang that song back and forth to one another, echoing throughout creation: “Holy, holy, holy.” 

It is rare that we experience such raw holiness, but we can imagine that Isaiah was terrified in the face of it.  Seeing the splendor of the leader of all creation – God – brought to mind his own inadequacy, his own shadowed places, his own sin.  And, remember that no one was supposed to see God and live to tell the tale.  This God is so radically “other,” that even that sight would overwhelm any mere mortal.  But Isaiah doesn’t die.  He confesses his sin.  And immediately, one of those angels brings a burning coal to his lips and says, “Your sin is blotted out.  Your guilt is gone.”  He is kissed with grace.

Then God said, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?  Who will go for us.  Of course, the Trinity is not a Jewish idea, and so was not the intent behind using plural language here.  But reading this through the lens of our Christian faith we can see hints of a Three-in-One God.  God who brings vision, God who forgives sin, God who sends us out.  Father, Son, Spirit; Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer, who together in perfect unity, fill the whole of creation with glory.

It’s not as cute as an apple, is it?  It’s not as memorable as a clover, but the Trinity we find in Isaiah reminds us that God will always be radically other, far beyond our mortal powers of perception and understanding, and yet God will come to us with every ounce of that glory anyway. God’s glory is terrifying.  It is confusing.  It is beautiful.  This is the Trinity. 

At this point, even if you did have your Wheaties this morning, I’m betting some of you would like to say what Anne Lamott has said, “I didn't need to understand the hypostatic unity of the Trinity; I just needed to turn my life over to whoever came up with redwood trees.”   

If you feel overwhelmed, like you can’t describe God without reducing God to parts or modes, good!  We should never be able to easily explain the Trinity if we’re taking that understanding of God seriously. 

But we don’t have to understand God to do God’s work in this world.  Isaiah didn’t understand, and yet he was called, forgiven and sent to be a part of filling the whole earth with the glory of God. 

We are sent to do the same.  Person by person, moment by moment, saturating this world with God’s glory.  Which is why what I’m about to show you is my favorite description of the Trinity I’ve come across.  It is a poem by Phu Luu, put into story by Work of the People.  It shows the character, nature and essence of God on the streets, among those who need the Triune God to come to them in the form of food, maybe even a sandwich, an apple or an egg.  It is called You Are One.

(View video here:  http://www.theworkofthepeople.com/you-are-one)

God, In your diversity and unity

help to make us one as you are one,

the one who dances in harmony with each other

who is self-giving, 
other-giving, 
who honors each other and loves each other,

continually reaching out into your world

to bring the world closer to you.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. 

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Taking a Deep Breath

Graphic art I made (image source: Budi Satri Kwan at society6.com) inspired by A Brief Statement of Faith.
May 24, 2015 - Pentecost Sunday

Ezekiel 37:1-14
1The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2He led me all round them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” 4Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. 5Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. 6I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord. “7So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.

9Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” 10I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
11Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ 12Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. 14I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”


Sermon: “Taking a Deep Breath”

I went to the Sunrise Theater the other day.  There was a Russell Crowe movie showing.  Now, I know for some of you, that’s all you need to know to have motivation to go see it!  The movie is called The Water Diviner.  All I knew was that it was a drama set in Australia and Turkey at the end of World War I, and that Crowe’s character was a father and a farmer, especially gifted at finding water in the middle of the Australian bush. 

I expected adventure, intrigue and, well, you know, Russell Crowe.  What I saw was much more than that: a harrowing depiction of the ways war shapes and takes lives.  It was the story of a man named Joshua Conner, whose three sons had served in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC).  His sons were presumed dead after the Battle of Gallipoli in Turkey.  (You’ll remember from our Pentecost reading that there were folks from what is now Turkey among those who first received the Spirit.)

Joshua’s wife, Eliza, couldn’t cope with the grief of losing her sons.  She told him in anger, “You can find water, but you can’t find your sons!”  Her sorrow ultimately overwhelmed her, and Joshua was left alone.  But he promised her he would find their boys, even if all he found was dry bones.

And so he travelled all the way to Turkey, and managed to bribe his way onto a fishing boat to Gallipoli.   ANZAC soldiers were there to find their dead among the thousands killed there.  (It reminds me of our Ezekiel text today: 

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones….He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?”

Joshua, with the help of a Turkish general who should have been his enemy, wound up finding his sons’ bones.  It was a heart-breaking and desperate discovery.  I’ve not seen war personally, but those of you who have can imagine that sort of horror.  I pray God brings you freedom from such images.

Joshua only found two of their bodies.  His other son was missing.  Knowing that his sons would always protect each other, he was confused by this.  Then the Turkish general found his son’s name on a list of prisoners sent to a Turkish work camp.  After more searching and risk, Joshua eventually found his son, holed up in an old monastery.  He was completely broken.  Not his body – that had mostly recovered from its wounds.  But his spirit, that was as dry as dust.  That’s what war had done to him.  He was alive, but not really living. 

Ezekiel was called to be a prophet to an entire people like that.  His nation had been destroyed – much like the Armenian genocide in WWI, or the Jewish Holocaust in WWII.  They were occupied, oppressed, broken.

But God promised to help them.  With a mighty army of angels?  No.  By bringing destruction and death upon their enemies?  No.  God promised them breath. 

It’s perhaps helpful to know that the word breath, ruah, in the Old Testament is also the word for Spirit or wind.  The wind that swept over the waters of creation in the beginning: that was God’s breath. 

The breath that God breathed in the second creation account of Genesis into Adam, that was God’s Spirit.

The same Spirit asks Ezekiel, as he looks out on a horrific battleground, full of dry bones, “Mortal, can these bones live?”

Ezekiel says he doesn’t know.  The Spirit them tells him to prophesy to the bones.  To urge them to hear the life-giving word of God.  And he does.  Suddenly, there’s a rattling and bone joins to bone and flesh covers them.  They look alive.  But they’re not.  They have no breath in them.

We all know what that’s like, to look alive when you’re not really.  It’s like the moment you hear a loved one has died.  It’s like the moment your heart gets broken, or your life suddenly seems an endless burden.  You can’t catch your breath.  But God never leaves us that way.  God didn’t leave the people of Israel that way – God gave Ezekiel more to do.

This time, he was to prophesy to the breath itself.  Prophecy to the Spirit, to fill those empty bodies with life.  He does, and from the four winds, the corners of the earth, that breath comes and fills them.  They stand together, alive.  It is the promise that God keeps promises, that these broken, empty people will be brought out of the places of death, into a land of their own, and that God’s Spirit, breath, will be within them.  

All because of a deep breath from God.  A Pentecostal Spirit within their spirits, within their souls.  We did a lot of talking about our souls at Red Table last week (we do deep talking there, y’all), and discussed what exactly our soul was.  One of our young adults said, “our soul is the part of us that survives, the part of us that we use to communicate with God.”

We don’t think that much about our spirits, our souls, do we?  We think about our bodies, the ways we wish they were different: younger, stronger, thinner, taller.  We think about our minds, how we want to be challenged and grow, how frustrating it is when they let us down.  We think about our hearts, how we want to love and be loved.  But our spirits?  The part of us that speaks and listens to God?   We don’t often spend a lot of time thinking about them.

Pentecost reminds us that our spirits are everything.  They are the part of us that survives, because they are the part of us that connects us to our Creator.  When tomorrow, and each day, we remember those who have given their lives willingly for others, we also remember that their spirits live on.  When we feel dry and parched for hope, like people who are alive but not really living, it is our spirits that guide us to God’s Spirit like an oasis in a desert.

Today, we can talk about God’s Spirit: about how at Pentecost, the world was made one people as cultures and languages didn’t divide, but only enhanced the power of God’s story.  How the world was made one by a baptism of fire.  We can talk about how, once-upon-a-time, God breathed into the dry bones of an entire defeated people and made them alive again.  It’s worth talking about, but all of that talk keeps the Spirit of God at arm’s length.  It keeps the Spirit on the pages of a book and not burning within our very being.

What if instead, on this Pentecost Sunday, we talked about that part of us that makes us nervous with its raw honesty: our spirits?  What if we looked out on the places of our souls that have no life?  What if we confessed the ways we have neglected our spirits so much that we don’t know how to find them?  What if we admitted that we judge people by their bodies and backgrounds, their politics and allegiances, and fail to even see their spirits?

What if we confess that we have lost touch with our spirits, our souls?  If they are indeed the place within us that connects us with the Holy Spirit, we better find them.  Especially on Pentecost!  But how?

The funny thing is, we already know the answer.  Ezekiel gave it to us.  Remember that word: ruah, Spirit, wind, breath.  We simply stop, and take a deep breath.  

Not a rushed, anxious breath. 

Not a snoozing, lazy breath. 

But an intentional, from the core of who we are, breath.  In and out.  In and out. 

We breathe God’s Spirit into ours moment-by-moment, prayerfully, joyfully, until such breathing becomes automatic. 

And when we are breathing in the Spirit of God in each moment, we can’t keep it in.  Breath doesn’t work that way!  We must exhale: breathing that Spirit into a world of dry and dusty bones, a world of war and grieving families, of poverty and violence, of kidnappings and disasters. 

We already have all we need to do this: Pentecost already happened!  The Spirit was poured upon everyone, regardless of age, gender, nationality or status.  And so God’s Spirit is within our spirits already.


Take a deep breath and remember that all will be well.  Take a deep breath and remember that death never wins.  Take a deep breath and remember that God still speaks and acts.  Take a deep breath, my friends.  Not just with your body, but with your spirit.  Amen.

Monday, May 18, 2015

A Relentless Call

May 17, 2015 (Graduate Recognition Sunday)
Jeremiah 1:1-10  (the Message transliteration)
1-4 The Message of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah of the family of priests who lived in Anathoth in the country of Benjamin. God’s Message began to come to him during the thirteenth year that Josiah son of Amos reigned over Judah. It continued to come to him during the time Jehoiakim son of Josiah reigned over Judah. And it continued to come to him clear down to the fifth month of the eleventh year of the reign of Zedekiah son of Josiah over Judah, the year that Jerusalem was taken into exile. This is what God said:
“Before I shaped you in the womb,
    I knew all about you. 
Before you saw the light of day,
    I had holy plans for you:
 A prophet to the nations—
    that’s what I had in mind for you.”

But I said, “Hold it, Lord God! Look at me.
    I don’t know anything. I’m only a boy!”

7-8 God told me, “Don’t say, ‘I’m only a boy.’
    I’ll tell you where to go and you’ll go there. 
I’ll tell you what to say and you’ll say it.
    Don’t be afraid of a soul. 
I’ll be right there, looking after you.”
    God’s Decree.

9-10 God reached out, touched my mouth, and said,
    “Look! I’ve just put my words in your mouth—hand-delivered! 
See what I’ve done? I’ve given you a job to do
   among nations and governments—a red-letter day!
 Your job is to pull up and tear down,
    take apart and demolish,
 And then start over,
    building and planting.”

Sermon: “A Relentless Call”

Don’t be a prophet.  Really, just don’t.  Especially not if you’re young. 

I was young when God called me to be a prophet.  Being raised in a family of priests, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.   But when God showed up to me, Jeremiah, saying some mumbo-jumbo about me being a prophet to the nations, I was not amused.

I saw what nations did to each other.  My homeland in Judah had been invaded by the Babylonians three times.  The king’s palace was destroyed, as was the Temple.  Several of my family members had gone missing, several more had been killed in the conflict.  Shops had to close, people had to move elsewhere if they could, and God, well, most everyone had given up on God.

But God didn’t say I was called as a prophet to my own broken people.  God said I was to be a prophet to the nations.  If I’d known in that moment just how demanding that would be, I’d have tried to run and hide.  God would have, of course, found me.  God always does.

Instead, I said I was too young, which is rather ridiculous when you realize that no one is ever experienced enough to speak publicly about seeking shalom (peace) for your enemies and calling out against political corruption and imperialism.  No amount of years makes you ready for that.

But that’s what prophets do.  We tell the truth – no matter what the cost.  God was right about what I’d do – I did a lot of pulling up, tearing down, taking apart and demolishing, hoping that someday, I’d get to build and plant. 

I was angry: angry at the injustice of the world, angry at the political systems that favored the powerful at the expense of the poor, angry at religious leaders who were more corrupt than anyone else, angry that we had no home, no rights, no hope.  And I, Jeremiah, was angry at God.

Does that surprise you?  I think we prophets get misrepresented these days.  You buy a “Jeremiah 29:11 – ‘For I know the plans I have for you…plans for a future with hope’” wall hanging from Hobby Lobby and think my story was all lovely plans and hopeful futures.

I suppose, “Why does the way of the guilty prosper?” isn’t as marketable or catchy, hung up in your living room.  But I gave God all my honest anger.  I called God a ‘deceitful brook,’ like water that’s either a flood (way too much) or a drought (not nearly enough).  And I told God I didn’t want to be a prophet anymore, if I’d ever even wanted that.  I turned my back on my calling – or at least I tried to.

The thing about God is, God’s used to complaints.  God’s even been known to complain from time to time.  And so, though I thought venting all of my anger and frustration to God would drive us apart, it did the opposite.  My fire for God burned even brighter.  At the time, I said, "With me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones. I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot" (20:9)*. 
I couldn’t not be a prophet you see.  Because I was called by God.  Calling sounds like a lovely thing, but I’m here to tell you, mine was not.  I experienced more tears than laughter, more loneliness than support, more ridicule than acceptance.  But I couldn’t keep from doing what God had planned for me anymore than you can keep back a flood with a fishing net.

And I suppose, if anything, that’s what I want to say to you, especially you young people.  God does have a plan for you, something woven into the fabric of your life before you were even born.  Search for it.  Pray for it.  Argue with God over it (Lord knows I did). 

You may not be called to be an outspoken prophet like I was (for your sake, I hope not).  But whatever you are meant to do, whatever you feel you were created for, don’t run away from it.  Don’t ignore it, no matter how impractical or dreamy it may seem.  God’s call was never to make good money.  Remember that.  God’s call is to live so fully in relationship with your Creator that there is a burning fire shut up in your bones that you have to let out in the way only you can.  

If you’re sitting here thinking you just feel cold inside, like there’s no warmth for yourself, much less to share, have hope.  We don’t create that burning fire, not through the right major or the right GPA.  Not through a 5-year plan or a vocational assessment.  That relentless fire, one I couldn’t hold in even if I wanted to, came the moment God touched my lips, putting a word within me.  You can’t do that for yourself.  Only God can, and trust me, God will, in God’s own time.   Sometimes it happens all at once, and sometimes God creeps your call into your life, bit-by-bit.

When the time comes, when you are reminded of what you were created for, don’t let anything stand in your way.  The path that God has for you will not be easy, but no one’s is.  And isn’t it better to take the difficult path that’s yours, than to struggle on a road someone else wants you to walk?  So many human beings waste their lives regretting what they were too afraid to try.  Perhaps that’s why God said to me, at the very beginning of it all, “Do not fear.  I’ll be with you.”

In the end, that’s all you need to know.  I hope your journey is easier than mine – it couldn’t help but be.  But I also hope that you will remember my example when it’s not easy.  Vent to God.  Be really angry.  Be real with the Creator who knows you from the inside out.  It won’t drive God from you so long as you keep the conversation going.  It might just be your salvation.  It was for me. 

Disaster might strike – it does for all of us.  But the greatest disaster is failing to be who God has made you to be.  Even…if God has made you to be a prophet. 
Find your calling – that relentless pull on your life you can’t resist, and pursue it with all you’ve got.  Do not be afraid, but even if you are, God is with you.  Always.  Amen.


*Translation by Kathleen O’Connor.

Monday, May 11, 2015

It's About Time

Image Source

May 10, 2015 - Observing the Ascension of the Lord
Acts 1:1-11
1In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning 2until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 4While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; 5for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
6So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” 9When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. 11They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”


Sermon: “It’s About Time”

A man nervously sat in the waiting room of his doctor’s office one day.  His doctor had called and asked him to come in to discuss, in person, the results from tests he’d had run (never a good sign). 

As he sat before his doctor, he felt a growing sense of dread.

She said to him, "I have got bad and worse news for you today."

The worried patient asked, "What is the bad news?"
The reply came, "You can live for one day at the most."
The frightened patient then asked, "What could possibly be worse that that?"
The doctor informed him, "I’ve been trying to contact you since yesterday afternoon."

Timing is everything. 

At the time of his ascension into heaven, Jesus’ apostles were a little time-obsessed.  He’d just spent 40 days with them after the resurrection, a month and a half in which he’d spoken entirely about the kingdom of God.  He told them that they would be filled with the Holy Spirit soon, and that they should stay put and wait on God’s promises to be revealed to them.

Like impatient children on a long car ride they asked,
“Are we there yet?”

They didn’t use those exact words, of course.  They asked the question everyone was thinking, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”  Never mind that Jesus had just spent forty days talking about the kingdom of heaven; these apostles were still expecting a literal Messianic kingdom, like those of the Old Testament, one centered in Israel.  But Jesus’ kingdom was never meant to fit in that one place.  And he never came to be a political leader to establish an earthly nation.

Gina Stewart, Pastor of Christ Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis, TN, reminds us that, Jesus does not reprove the apostles for their heightened anticipation, or their confidence (though misinformed) in the biblical promises. The second coming, or Parousia, brings the ultimate closure to the story of the kingdom and the gospel. But that is not to be the focus of the disciples’ attention. Instead, Jesus shifts the emphasis from speculation about the future to demonstration and transformation of the present. God’s promise to revitalize Israel is not a matter of when (v. 7), but how (v. 8).”

And so, like a patient travel companion on a long road trip, Jesus tells those anxious apostles, “It’s not for you to know the timetable God works in.  But you can know this: Israel was never a destination, but a beginning.  From Jerusalem, you will receive the Holy Spirit and be my witnesses in Judea and Samaria, and then to the ends of the earth.”

And those are the last words we have quoted from Jesus in our scriptures.  “To the ends of the earth.”  These people of Israel are restored not as an earthly kingdom, but a heavenly kingdom whose borders are time itself and whose only ruler is God. 

That’s a lot to take in, y’all.  And on top of that, then Jesus was ascended up into heaven.  It’s no wonder those apostles just stared up into the sky, confused.  They might have stayed there all day, too, with cricks in their necks, if it weren’t for two angelic figures stating the obvious, “Hey guys, why are you looking up into heaven?  Jesus will come back in the same way.”  Perhaps it’s like saying a watched pot never boils.  A watched Jesus never comes again!

Jesus never told his followers to stare into the clouds, divining when he’d return (though so often we Christians try to calculate the second coming today).  He never actually wanted us to fixate on heaven – when we go there is not up to us.  He wanted – and wants – his followers to fixate on the kingdom of heaven.  The peaceable reality of God breaking into this world in the mystery of already-and not-yet, to transform it with grace. 

We can’t participate in the kingdom of God with our heads in the clouds all the time.  We have to actively wait for it.  That means instead of staring into heaven we share heaven here on earth, even as we eagerly anticipate the fullness of Christ coming again.  We wait by being witnesses, to the ends of the earth, fulfilling those last words of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And, as we learned from that poor fella in the doctor’s office, timing is everything.  You can’t be a witness yesterday.  You can’t be a witness tomorrow.  You can only be a witness today.  These 24 hours with which you can be bearers of the kingdom of God. 

The past is, well, passed.  Our previous triumphs, our mistakes, our joys and our sorrows, shape reality today.  But they are only preserved in memory.  We cannot relive them.

And the future, well, that is in God’s hands.  We can meticulously plan, we can map out the next week, month, year, decade, but that won’t give us any more control over what mystery may unfold for us.  The future is not-yet.  We cannot live it now.

But today – today is enough.  We can either stare into heaven, like those apostles first did, desperate to experience Jesus in the ways we have before, and therefore miss the way he moves and lives now, or we can seek his kingdom first.  We can pray, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” and actually mean it. 

We can show what happens when the kingdom of heaven breaks into this world: when people know forgiveness, when reconciliation is possible, when bodies are cared for just as much as souls, when justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a never-failing stream, when we see the face of God in every face we meet.

We can live our lives as if we only had 24 hours left, and make them count, being a part of God’s kingdom which overturns all lesser earthly kingdoms with a reign of grace and peace.  What will it be?  Staring into heaven or sharing the kingdom of heaven on earth?
Imagine what could be done if we would live, not with the backward pull of the past or the forward tug of the future, but with the urgent hope of today.  Imagine what sort of witnesses we could be! 

Jesus is waiting on us, even as we wait on him.  And as we let go of a past we can’t change and a future we can’t control, and live in the present as witnesses to the kingdom of God in the here and now, I imagine Jesus will say one thing to us:

 “It’s about time.”  Alleluia!  Amen.