ASCENSION SUNDAY/EASTER 7

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: ASCENSION SUNDAY/EASTER 7
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: June 1, 2003


TEXT: John 17:11b-19 – The High Priestly Prayer
“I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”

ISSUE: This passage is the High Priestly Prayer and farewell to the gathered disciples in John’s account of the Gospel. Jesus prays to the Father for their protection and their distancing themselves from the world, but at the same time validates their being sent to the world for purposes of it redemption and reconciliation. While the disciples are in the world, they are called to be of the world and not trapped by it. We also live in the world, but are not meant to be usurped by the world’s evil and materialism, but to be ready for The Kingdom of God in the world, and to help usher in the redemption and reconciliation of God.
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We are now in the season of the church year known as Ascensiontide. This season marks the Ascension of Jesus into to his seat at the right hand of God, or the highest place of honor with God. Luke reports in his concept of the Ascension in his Gospel and his Book of the Acts of the Apostles that with the disciples gathered, Jesus is simply lifted into the heavens disappearing into the clouds. Mark’s gospel has a very simple statement alluding to Jesus assumption into the heavens. Matthew’s gospel ends with an appearance of the risen Lord to his disciples and sends or commissions them to teach and baptize all nations.
Once again, the Ascension accounts of Jesus seem to be emphasizing that Jesus is much like the great and honored prophets of old, who had traditions of their ascension into the heavens, namely Moses and Elijah. Note that the ascension seems to be also stating that Jesus is highly honored by his ascension into heaven. The early Catholic Church in which the Virgin Mother is highly honored developed a doctrine of the Assumption of Mary into the heavens, which is also accepted by some Anglican-Episcopalians. A specific date of celebration was removed from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in 1549. The teaching or doctrine of the Ascension is one that coming to the end of Jesus’ ministry, death and resurrection, teaches that he was greatly honored by the Father, and lifted to the presence of God.
So many of the teachings of Jesus are intended to lift up God’s people to his presence. He raises the dying, the poor, the afflicted, the paralyzed, the disenfranchised, the sinner into a relationship with God the Father. I’ve always thought that it was so spectacular for people over the years who have come into this church to have their eyes and being lifted with Christ into the heavens toward the metaphorical place of God. The eyes of all are lifted up toward the heavens to the place of God in this church. Notice too that the Ascension of Jesus flies in the face of the world’s teaching that whatever goes up must come down. Here we have another Great Reversal: What has come down will go up to the presence of God. Jesus is God having come down, and now lifts all who will believe in his ways and teaching up to the presence of God.
The Gospel of John does not have any references to the Ascension as such, but does indicate that Jesus will return to the Father. The passage today is still another part of Jesus’ farewell to his disciples, and what is referred to as The High Priestly Prayer of Christ. Jesus is praying on behalf of his disciples, as a parish priest or rabbi prays for the people in his congregation. The primary concern of the prayer is that the disciples living in the world will not be attacked or distracted by the evil one. He is praying like a Good Shepherd for his flock: that they will be protected and be kept as one. People of this period could not survive on their own. You survived through a fictive community or family. The prayer is concerned with the unity of the group as people under the Father. John’s concern with keeping the family of God together is again a great concern for those disciples that were living in very difficult times. There is a hope that the disciples will follow in the footsteps of Jesus and will lead the world up to the presence of God.
Notice that the passage is very concerned with the fact that the disciples are in the world, but not of the world. In John’s gospel, the world most often means Israel. The nation of Israel and its Jewish leadership frequently condemned the new Christian movement. This persecution was understandable. Whenever a religious faith is under persecution, as were the Jews of this period, there is an all out effort to keep strong and maintain the faith, in this case of Israel. Even though many of the early Christians attempted to keep their Jewish roots, corrupted Jewish authorities condemned them at this difficult time as heretics.
The seemingly important charge here is that Christians living in a hostile world were not to be separated from that world, but protected by God. And they were sent to the world in which they were persecuted, as Jesus had been, for the purpose of bearing witness to the truth revealed in Jesus Christ. The great hope and expectation is that God’s Holy Spirit will come down upon them, and keep them protected and empowered to carry on the ministry of the Kingdom of God.
We all today live in the world, and we have a much broader sense of the world than did John’s community. We are also, especially as Americans, committed to the notion that we are individuals and self made men and women. Yet while we know that certain individuals have made differences in the world, it is better by far to work together in groups to bring about significant changes in the world. The black community learned that very well back in the 60’s, and the labor unions learned and accomplished more by their unity than by individual attempts at needed change.
The Church as people today also has its share of persecution. Certain extreme Islamic fundamentalist nations persecute Christians. Saudi Arabia forbids public displays of Christian worship. The small Christian minority of the Sudan is persecuted. Moral standards are often denounced or mocked, as well as public witness to our faith. Some South American political groups have attempted to greatly stifle the Christian movement and teachings at odds with their political agenda. The news media reports the occasional persecution and torturing of Christian missionaries.
In our own country there are movements to prevent the outward expression of Christian witness in the public arena. There is embarrassment about our faith at times, like saying grace in public, or clearly standing up for moral values we believe to be important. The Christian faith does not always stand firm on the world scene be becomes absorbed into the fabric of the secular culture, rather than informing the culture as to what might be right and good. We are tending to lose the importance of the Sabbath as a day belonging to God. Marriage fails to have the commitment and sanctity demanded. Respect for others right and property, and public property is diminished. Honesty and decency as human beings seems to be getting lost, often in the highest ranks of people and in the public arena of politics and business. Sports becomes more enamored with making money than the development of sportsmanship and skill. Religious leaders slip morally. It is tricky for us to keep our balance in the world. It must be clear that the Christian Church makes every effort for the avoidance of bigotry, racism, intolerance, and injustice, but that Sunday mornings are often the most segregated hours of the week. It must be made clear that we stand for sacrificial love, and laying down our lives in behalf of what is right. We look forward to uplifting of the world into the realm of the Kingdom into the Godly standards. The world is not something that Jesus hoped his disciples would escape. The world is what Jesus himself came to love and charged his followers with that same commissioning.
Today we are celebrating the leadership of a new Vestry for St. John’s. Each of us with them is commissioned not to escape the world, but to work with Christ and for Christ in the accomplishments of bringing new hope to the world, and raising all who belong to God to his presence. A congregation as part of that community needs to stand behind and encourage its leadership to do what needs to be done, and to become invested in the needs of the world. To become trapped by our history, or be resistant to change and development for the glory of God pulls a congregation down, rather than allowing it to be lifted up with Christ in the community of the world. The call of the disciple in God’s world was hardly intended to keep the status quo. Women, slaves, children, handicapped folk were all intended to be lifted up and seen in a whole new worthiness as the people of God. These callings were tremendously difficult things to change in Jesus’ time, but he was invested in changing the world to be more like the Kingdom of God than the retention of world values.
In the Ascension of Jesus the world is challenged to look up and ahead into the future. That looking up were in the world, but had their sights lifted up toward the Kingdom of God. Jesus lifts up his community to be his body in the world, and promises the empowering spirit to indwell them and to carry on that work of God. The human condition is called, raised, lifted up into the realm of being active in the Spirit of God’s love.
In the beginning there was the Story of Adam and Eve. We often refer to the disobedience of Adam and Eve as the metaphorical fall of humanity, as it became separated from God. In the Christian story of the life of Jesus Christ you have a new Adam who does not fall, and who is raised up, and his life, and prayer is for the people of God, that living in this world they may be the resurrected, renewed and revitalized and lifted up family of God.