Sermon for May 12, 2024 - The Sunday of the Ascension
Giving Space
Acts 1:1-11, Psalm 47, Ephesians 1:15-23, Luke 24:44-53
Today is a day of celebration. Today we celebrate Mother’s Day and all who mothered us throughout our lives. We have the opportunity today to reflect upon and give thanks to God for all the women who showed us love and care in our journeys. We can also lament and release to God all the difficulties we might have had with our mothers. It is also a time for those who wish to become mothers to hold fast to hope that God can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine; think Sarah, Hannah, Elizabeth, and of course Mary. So, while it might not be the easiest of days for some, trust in God that the day will come when your joy will be made complete. We also know that being a mother is not easy, but a constant stream of self-sacrifice, anxiety, and sleepless nights. And we all have had women mother us, biologically related or not, so today is a celebration of God’s love as we have experienced it through the women in our lives.
But today we also celebrate the Feast of the Ascension, one of our seven principal festival days. Technically, Ascension Day falls on a Thursday, this past Thursday to be precise. Thankfully it is transferred to Sundays, so that each year we can wrestle with this theological event. This is not the case in the Episcopal Church in the States which does not transfer the feast. As such, most congregations miss out on this feast day and their theological understanding of the ascension often becomes nothing more than a passing event on the way to the feast of Pentecost. Artistic representations don’t help very much in conveying the importance of this day either because most icons or paintings depict dangling feet from the sky, which is perhaps too simplistic and more comical than instructive.
If Ascension Day were indeed nothing more than a description of Jesus’ vertical locomotion toward the heavens, like that of a character from a bad science fiction film, then the tendency for the church to breeze past this feast day with eyes firmly fixed on Pentecost might be reasonable. But this feast day is about so much more.
Of the ten verses in today’s gospel, only half of a verse refers to Jesus’ heavenward movement. The focus of the passage is on Jesus’ role as a fulfillment of the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. Jesus proclaims that fulfillment through his own death and resurrection, and through the mission of the church. He does indeed depart from his disciples, but this occurs almost in passing and without breaking the flow of the story. In fact, the disciples seem so utterly surprised and confused that they are unsure how to react to this turn of events; they simply worship, rejoice, and begin their new mission.
Ascension Day is not so much about the physical act of ascension, or even about the reunification of the incarnate Word with the unbegotten Source. Rather, it is concerned with the divine act of making space, so that the mission of the church can begin. So long as God was in the world in human form, all eyes and hearts were fixed there. Jesus’ ascension makes space for the disciples to turn their gaze upon the world, where “repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in [the Messiah’s] name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
The Feast of Pentecost, the birthday of the church, is still a week away; nevertheless, in order for there to be space for the Spirit to inspire the apostles’ witness, the Word must, like Shakespeare’s “well-graced actor,” leave the stage. Jesus followers already know that another Advocate is to come, but not yet. As Jesus tells the disciples in John’s gospel, “For if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send [that one] to you.”
Such an act of “giving place” is characteristic of the Triune God. As Rowan Williams has suggested, each of the three divine “persons” seeks not to gain pride of place or to assert hierarchical dominion over the other, but to give place to the others, so that they too can most fully be what they are. As such, the divine Trinity models for us the true nature of community, in which self-assertion and accumulation of power give way to a polyphonic chorus of mutual participation and difference.
This then begs the question how are we making space so that we might give place to others? We can even turn the question around on ourselves; how are we making space within ourselves for God to dwell?
One clear and deeply missional expression of our community making space for others is the building across the courtyard. Through only what I can imagine was a difficult period of discernment, this parish was actually considering tearing down a crumbling parish hall that was the locus of fellowship, mission, and ministry, and conclude that changing that horizontal space, vertically into something that this city so desperately needs in affordable housing. Together, this parish has created space for people who lacked adequate housing to live in an apartment all their own.
I know that there are many other ways, both corporately and in our individual lives, in which we create space for others, allowing the Spirit to guide them, and welcome them into a deeper relationship. Another aspect to consider is how are we making space within ourselves for God to dwell? It is easy to get caught up in serving others, which is a good and right thing for us to be doing because Jesus calls us to a faith of action. However, we can neglect the inner work of prayer if we do not strike that balance of prayer and action.
For me, that balance means being intentional about taking time for prayer each day. It is not usually long periods of formal prayer like praying the Daily Office, but often it is in moments of stillness and silence, and saying simple prayers throughout my day, acknowledging God’s presence even in the midst of the mundane and ordinary moments of my life. I repeat the Jesus Prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner” as I do laundry, or when I am doing the dishes, or even driving. Each moment becomes an opportunity for prayer; to be mindful of the present and offer thanks to God for the moment. How might we give more space to God within ourselves? How might there be more opportunities for prayer in your day?
As we cast our reflective gaze on ourselves, we would do well to consider another closely related theme of our feast day; the importance of maintaining faith in that which is not physically present to us. We live in a world of empiricist assumptions, where truth is seen as dependent on the physical senses; we thus find ourselves challenged by our faith’s claims about the divine origin of “all things seen and unseen.” Therein lies an implicit acknowledgement of things existing beyond our visual perception of the cosmos. And yet the disciples find ways to worship and bless God, even though the incarnate Word has departed from their sight.
We are called to awaken our faith, to hold fast to Jesus who once dwelt among us but has now withdrawn heavenward. In doing so, he has given place so that another Advocate can lead us into all truth. And we are likewise called to a life of giving place to one another and trusting one another: in presence and also in absence, in death and also in life.
So, it is then, that as we celebrate our mothers, as we celebrate all that we are as a community, may we get out of our own way to allow the Spirit to work in our lives. May we continue to be an example of making space for others to join us here at God’s table of mercy and love. And may we continue to find space within our daily life, and within ourselves, for God to dwell and grow in our hearts, so that we can continue to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, together. Amen.
