God of
All
June 1/2014 John
17:1-11 and Acts 1:6-14
I would like
to share a story with you that was told to me.
A few hundred years ago, in a beautiful part of the world – a group of
men and woman were out in their boats fishing in the ocean lagoon catching
their dinner of fish and seafood. They
were having a good time, feeling safe and secure in the waters that they knew
so well. Unbeknownst to them, while they
were fishing in their small boats that held only a few people a large ocean going
schooner ship sailed into their midst and into their lagoon. The fisherman
continued on with their tasks as if nothing had happened. The men on board the full rigged ship called
the “Endeavour”, captained by James Cook, watched in astonishment when the ones
in the small boats did not leave the waters in fact continued on as if they
could not see them, with no visible reaction to the presence of this large sea
going vessel. The indigenous people of
Australia acted like the ship was not there.
It was not until the large ship launched its small boats to go ashore
and get fresh water and game the people reacted at all – and as the small boats
hit the water – the Aboriginal saw the men, finally responded and hurriedly
paddled to the shore to take up positions in the bushes in case they strangers
did not come with good intentions. You may
be asking why it took the people in the small boats so long to react to this
strange occurrence in their fishing lagoon.
Why would they not have paddled to shore when the ship first entered the
harbour. The story says that what
happened was that the aboriginal people of Australia when they first encountered
the Europeans sailing into their harbours – they literally could not see the
ships. They could not perceive the ships
because what there were experiencing was so far out of what they knew that they
could not see what was in front of their eyes – they had no frame of reference,
they could not comprehend that there could be such a thing as a boat that could
hold hundreds of men and sail with a multitude of sails. And what they could not understand they could
not grasp. The HMS Endeavour was too big
for them to understand what was right in front of their eyes.
I think this
is how God is as well – too big for us to understand often that which is right
in front of our eyes. We see the world
through eyes that know what we know and understand what we understand but often
things are not as they seem. How many
times in our lives have we come to a new understanding and what we know now if
different from what we knew then? People
of a hundred years ago would be hard pressed to understand cell phones and wifi
and online dating let alone texting and facebook, and tablets and mp3 players –
the same holds true with what we know – our understandings, our ideas, our
frame of references and our outlook at the world– we used to believe that the
world was flat – and then Columbus set sail, we used to believe that the sun
revolved around the earth and then Copernicus, we used to believe – our history,
our astronomy, our anthropology, our science, all evolving and changing and challenging
our what we think we know….
My daughter Michelle
has a few friends that belong to a more conservative church than the United
Church, and on some Thursdays after school, she goes with them to the HUB which
a Youth Drop in Centre in Lion’s Head run by the Pentecostal Country
Church. The deal that she makes with us so
that we allow her to attend is that she has to open to conversation about what
they talked about –this past Thursday she took her tablet with her and took
pictures of the white boards that they were using to ‘talk about God’, most of
it was pretty benign, but the leader snuck in a piece about God and creation –
and said in passing that Evolution was wrong – that the world’s creation did
not happen the way that they are being taught in schools – it happened as any
good biblical person knows in seven days and by God – and it was morning and it
was evening – and life as we know it begun, and a little boat gets launched and
the big boat gets missed.
What we
witnessed this morning in the reading from Acts was that Ascension of
Jesus. This particular pieces of
scripture we in the church try to read through quickly and not look too closely
at the actual physical events that the disciples witness to this morning – one
moment the physical presence of the Jesus is in their midst talking, the next
moment he raises up off the ground and floats away off into the clouds – and
then as the disciples continue to stare up in the sky at the floating Jesus,
they are joined by two angles that take their attention from the messiah in the
sky and remind them of the Christ in the world.
Have you seen some of the art work that has been created around this
story – lots of clouds, lots of fog and light beams and a floating man usually
with his robes wrapped around his ankles six or seven feet above the awed crowd
below. I saw one sculpture this week on
line that was a set of feet mounted on a ceiling surrounded by clouds – look up
and you see the bottoms of feet with puncture wounds above your head, kind of
freaky! Jesus - going on up to the
spirit in the sky….
This is old
thinking – this is the thinking of 2000 years ago – this is relating to the
world from the perspective of a 3 story universe – where we live in the middle
layer – Hell and the devil are below the ground in a fiery pit and God and the
angels and heaven are above the dome of the sky. This is reflected in much of our biblical
language we ‘look up to God’ – we say ‘heaven above’ we use the image of ‘God
watching over us’. Yet our understanding
is this era – after all the scientific discoveries of cosmology and
anthropology and astro-physics of the last few hundred years – and after
Galileo and Copernicus and Einstein, this three tiered world view no longer
encompasses the truths we know at this time.
Few people as one pastor put it online this week, ‘think that you can
get into a space ship and fly far enough that you will eventually get to a
place called heaven.’
But in the
day before telescopes and airplane, and spaceships and satellite images, God
was up there and out there. And so when
the gospel writers wrote about Jesus physical body leaving the earth, these
were the images they used – they also drew on their past stories – Elijah going
up to heaven on a chariot of fire – for example – and for the Jews of Jesus day
this was a beautiful and comfortable image of God and Jesus in the sky looking
down and overseeing the world with the saints and the angels.
But let’s
not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
This story from Acts, even in it’s pre-evolutionary theology still
speaks to us in 2014, still is relevant here and now – because it is in the
voice of the angels – the voice of the being that comes from God – and asks the
question – “why are you looking up?”
Jesus is here – Jesus is all around –
· in the what he was,
· in what he said
· in what he did
· how he lived, how he spoke, what as
important to him
It is in you
– the disciples of Jesus – says the angels – you who witnessed this man and his
life and his death and his teachings and his passion – you the disciples of
Jesus
Go and do
likewise
· go speak the truth
· go be with the poor
· go to bring sight to the blind and
hearing to the deaf
· go feed my sheep
· go love my people
· go live as Jesus did
· go and live into the sacred moments
of this life and be as one
a timeless
message that speaks not only to the disciples but also is our message for us as
we to are commissioned – we too are sent out to speak the truth, be with the
poor, bring sight to the blind and help the lame to walk, we are called to feed
Jesus sheep, lives as he did and to go and live the sacred moments of this life
– as one – one in Christ, one with Christ – one in the Lord!
These words
to be as one – are spoken first to Jesus disciples right before the
crucifixion, just before the arrest and trial and betrayal and denial. Just before all of Jesus friends abandon him
on the cross. Jesus and his disciples
have withdrawn into the upper room – they are sharing the Passover meal – and
more than that – they are sharing a sacred time as Jesus prays for his friends
and followers. This part of the book of
John is incredibly important for the author – for it is in this time that John
devotes 5 of his 21 chapter gospel that’s over one quarter of his rendition of
Jesus life and ministry to this three or four hour period of time that this
group of people spend sharing a meal together.
Jesus is sharing for the first time what the angels are reminding the
disciples of in the Acts reading – that although Jesus will be physically gone
from their daily lives – he has not abandoned them – he has not left them alone
– He is promising in the words of the prayer he is praying in that moment that
he will be there binding the disciples together – making them one.
And what we
are about to do – this is one of the ways that we become one… this moment when
we take the simple elements of yeast and flour and water formed into the shape
of a loaf and baked - and then grapes – mashed and strained and turned into
juice– simple foods, something our species have been consuming for thousands of
years – and yet these simple elements when combined with the story of the
Christ, and prepared in the context of communion, and infused with memory and
intention – and then only then to be open and willing to be in the presence
with the holy – the God in our midst – These simple elements when used in this
context with word and story and memory – and God – the bread is transformed the
wine is transformed and the ordinary becomes extraordinary and the commonplace
becomes sacred. And our world changes –
and we get a glimpse of the big ship that has sailed into our habour. God, the God of Jesus and the disciples, here
in this moment, in these simple elements – is here making us one – one in the
bread – one in the wine…..one church, one people, remember what the angels told
the disciples – that Jesus is will come, this Jesus will come and be with you
so that you can – so that we can know that Jesus is with us
It is in you
– you who are now the disciples of Jesus – says the angels – you who witnessed
this man and his life and his death and his teachings and his passion – you the
disciples of Jesus
· go speak the truth
· go be with the poor
· go to bring sight to the blind and
hearing to the deaf
· go feed my sheep
· go love my people
· go live as Jesus did
· go and live into the sacred moments
of this life and be as one. Amen.
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