Text: Acts 1:6-14 Transfiguration & Memorial Day



Text: Acts 1:6-14 Transfiguration & Memorial Day

May 28, 2017

Memories and Resurrections

We are here on a “double Sunday.” All the décor says it’s Memorial Day weekend. Before it became the gateway to summer & a time for sales at the big stores and car dealers, Memorial Day was set aside to honor those who died in defense of the country. It began in 1860’s in the North as a day of remembrance but was never celebrated on the same day in the South as long as those soldiers were alive. But WW I and II changed all of that as the country drew together to fight a common invader. Veterans groups pushed to have May 30 designated as Memorial Day but it wasn’t until 1968 when the President signed a uniform holiday law establishing the national date as May 30.

· Georgia has two national cemeteries—Marietta and Canton. Incidentally, the Canton location is 775 acres of mountain property donated by Scott Hudgens, a veteran, a developer and member of Peachtree Christian Church.

· So this is a day of thanksgiving for these men and women who served. Colin Powell puts it into words:

"We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we've done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own . . . lives, to live our own lives in peace."

And I would add to that all returned changed. They went out as boys and girls, they came back as men and women.

We are grateful here, for their sacrifice. I have heard it said: “Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you—Jesus and the American soldier—one died for your soul, the other for your freedom.” (Liftbump)

The other half of today is Ascension Sunday, the end of the Easter season. As the scripture from Acts reports 40 days after the resurrection, Jesus met one last time with his disciples before ascending to the Father.

· This is a classic “ending” story. The Bible is full of them. Adam and Eve come to the end of their time in the garden. Noah builds and ark and leaves the world he knows for 40 days of death and destruction—the

literal end of the first creation. Moses leads his people out of Egypt, ending generations of slavery. Isaiah watches helplessly as the Babylonians carry off most of Jerusalem back into captivity—the end of the old Israel. And the book of Jonah—Jonah and the great fish. The reluctant prophet does not want to be sent to Nineveh so he goes to sea, gets thrown overboard and enters into a tomb of darkness for 3 days. It is the end of the old Jonah.

Endings are absolutely necessary. Endings are in scripture, endings are everywhere in the “gospel of Nature.” Ecclesiastes is maybe the most famous: “for everything there is a season. A time to be born, a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap what is planted.” Jesus is quite fond of referencing Nature: “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)

· A month ago I attended my first meeting of the commission on ministry. Over the years our Disciple church has flowed with the trends in clergy training. When I came along, a seminary degree (or its equivalent) was required for ordination. Our tradition from Alexander Campbell, who began as a Presbyterian, calls for an educated clergy. Fewer clergy and fewer churches can afford the cost of seminary, so we now have alternatives—online classes, courses of study like Johan is taking. Our oldest seminary, Lexington, is now totally online. So at the Commission meeting we had 12 candidates for either ordination or commissioned ministry and roughly half of them were in alternative routes. I also noticed about half were over 55. At a time when many people are slowing down or completing their 30 years and headed for retirement, these people were hearing a call to lay down their old life.

· I remember talking to an Episcopal priest in his second career. His first life was in maritime law. He worked out of the port of New Orleans—all the legal angels of the shipping industry, international legal disputes, injuries and liabilities at sea. With all the nations in shipping, it’s a huge field. He was part of a prosperous law firm, had all the amenities of income and was at the same time empty. One day he dropped it all, went to his priest and said, “I want to die to this life. What do I do?” . . . Fast-forward a couple of years and he is serving an Episcopal church in New Orleans when Katrina hits. His church is one of the few that is not flooded, closest to the completely flooded Ninth Ward. He and his congregation are literally sheltering strangers, feeding the multitudes, and rescuing survivors. He said to me, “I looked at my life before, and where

I had come. I knew in my heart that God had prepared me for this time and this place. If I did nothing else in my ministry, I would have fulfilled my calling.”

Today is the end of Easter. After resurrection Jesus has stayed with the disciples off/on for 40 days. Now there is another crisis, another loss. Like the seed that must die in order to bear more fruit, he is now going away. The ascension of Jesus into heaven is an ending story. Like all endings, it’s difficult. We overhear the anxiety of the 11. “He is going away. We’re going to be left alone again.” So they ask him, “Lord, what’s going to happen now? Is this the time when your kingdom will come here again and Israel will be restored?”

It’s a great question. “Can you tell us what’s going to happen next?” When things come to a halt, all of us want to know what’s going to happen now.

· Leo had successful cataract surgery this week. The next thing he wants to know is “When can I go back to work? I can’t just sit around.”

· Coming home from her shift two weeks ago Christy and a deer collided. It was painful & traumatic. First, what’s the damage to me . . . to the car? How will this be adjusted? After all those questions are settled, the next question is “When will the car be ready?” We have plans.

· I don’t remember my New Testament Greek well enough to translate, but I still remember a few words and one of the idiosyncrasies in Greek is the word “time” has two words—chronos, and kairos. When the disciples ask, “Is this the time when you will restore the kingdom?” they were asking, “Can you tell us chronologically—like next Tuesday--when the kingdom is coming.” In Greek Jesus’ answer uses the other word. He says, “It’s not for you to know the seasons that the Father sets.” . . . They asked a chronos question. He gave them a kairos answer.

· Here’s another way of saying it, “It’s time for you to get up and go to your appointment.” That’s chronology. But there’s a difference if I say, “You know it’s time that you set your own alarm and get yourself up.” It’s time to do things on your own.

So the disciples are at a transition time. They have all these chronological memories swirling in their heads of the past three years. It was only yesterday that he was walking by the Sea of Galilee and called a half dozen of them. Soon there were 12 and they went on a tour of little towns, big cities, hillsides, mountaintops with teachings, healings, friendships and confrontations. They have understood and been totally perplexed. They have

witnessed a traumatic, painful death and an incredible reunion. All the way they have been followers, disciples of Jesus. They want to know when is this kingdom of God that he’s taught & modeled actually coming? When the sick are healed, this is what the kingdom of God will be like. When the poor are fed, this is what the coming kingdom is about. When strangers are welcomed as friends, it’s the kingdom of God. When is that coming?

When is the Kingdom of God going to come here to earth? When are you going to make that happen? And Jesus says to them, “It’s not time for you to know this. Only the Father knows.”

And then he continued: “But 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.” He does not call them “disciples,” he calls them “witnesses.”

· They hear it, but they don’t get it. They, and a lot of the church we know, are still looking into the heavens for Jesus to return and make everything right. In other words, a lot of the church we know is still thinking “chronos”—calendar. The exact day when Jesus returns.

· What Acts is telling us is that God makes those decisions, and until Jesus shows up to restore the Kingdom of God on earth & separate the sheep from the goats, it is now the time for the disciples of Jesus, the Christian church, the followers to live as Jesus lived. To model Jesus. To be witnesses in familiar places—in Judea where there are people like them. And then across the border in Samaria—people they’re not so sure about, alienated from. And to the ends of the earth—to treat people they don’t know and don’t understand like Jesus would.

· Jesus didn’t say, “You will be the Pharisees witnesses.” The Pharisees started out good but lost their way. They wanted everybody to play by their rules. They didn’t mind taxing the poor. They let people die by the side of the road because they were unclean or different. Pharisees said, “If you are poor, if you are sick, if you had a string of bad luck it’s because you have sinned. Whatever you’ve got is your fault. You earned every bit of it.” The Pharisees turned the holiness of God into exclusion. Hospitality into separation. Love--Judgment. Pharaisees continue to turn compassion into violence and death.

· Jesus said, “You are going to be my witnesses. . . .

This transition where Jesus ascends is one of the holy moments in scripture. As Jesus finishes and starts to rise, suddenly two men in white robes are standing with the disciples. “Men of Galilee, why are you standing

here?”

Remember at the end of the gospel of Luke, when some disciples go to the tomb, they found it empty. Suddenly two men appeared and they said, “Why are you here? Jesus is risen.”

· When the angels come, God is at work. The time is changing. The kingdom of God, for now, is us.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download