The Bungee of Glory and Service

June 1, 2025 - The Seventh Sunday of Easter, The Sunday after the Ascension

Dear God, take our minds and think through them. Take our hands and work through them. Take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.

It's nice to be up here. (Laughter)

Today, we are celebrating the feast of the Ascension, which actually took place on Thursday. But because not so many people are around on Thursday, we have translated it, that's the term, to Sunday, so that we can all be here celebrating the Ascension together.

Whenever I think of the Ascension, a sermon that an assistant of mine preached a long time ago comes to mind. Actually, it's not the sermon that comes to mind. It's one image that he shared with us in the sermon. He said that he had been to a Roman Catholic Church, and when he entered that Church, coming from the ceiling were two legs and feet with sandals dangling beneath them, and that's all. Just then, the ceiling was above that. That was the Roman Catholic Church of the Ascension, and that's how they chose to portray their kind of crowning, so to speak, their crowning event.

Now, a similar metaphor, I could say, in some ways, is found in Dr. Seuss. The Lorax. You all know the Lorax? How many of you know the Lorax? Quite a few? Oh yeah, lots of you do.

The Lorax, Dr. Seuss' protector of trees against pollution, might serve as a creative metaphor for Christ as he departs from the disciples and descends to the father as Christ does, not as the Lorax does. But kind of.

And here's what Dr. Seuss writes:

"The Lorax said nothing, just gave me a glance, just gave me a very sad, sad backward glance as he lifted himself by the seat of his pants. And I'll never forget the grim look on his face when he heisted himself and took leave of this place through a hole in the smog without leaving a trace."

Actually, if we look at the entire story of Luke and Acts, a more helpful metaphor might be that Jesus was like attached to a bungee cord that moved in very slow motion. Although unlike John, Luke doesn't begin the gospel with the eternal Word coming down from heaven in power, Luke does announce Jesus' birth with an angelic proclamation from on high. But then, very soon, Luke moves earthward to Jesus, as you know, in a lowly stable. And much later, Luke reaches the absolute bottom, the Jesus of Luke reaches the absolute bottom with the crucifixion. Then, with the resurrection and the ascension, our metaphorical bungee cord re-ascends until Christ is seated in glory at God's right hand.

This is an interesting theological construct, but there is more to it than that.

Within the overarching scheme that I have just described, the drama repeatedly undulates between glimpses of glory and long periods of ministry in the trenches. In each instance, Luke gives us encouragement with a transcendent moment, then sends us back to earth to join Jesus in carrying out his ministry.

This, of course, is - or I say of course, it seems of course to me - to prepare us to live this same pattern in which, as one example, we come here every week to catch a glimpse of God, to be fed and refreshed, then to re-enter the world as servants of Christ.

Here are a few examples of this gospel dynamic.

As I just said, the birth narrative, after being heralded from heaven, quickly moves to a very lowly stable.

Later, at Jesus' baptism, we catch a glimpse of the Holy Spirit anointing Jesus, saying, You are my beloved Son, and by connection, by extension, saying the same thing to us. But then, He is thrust into the dry desert of temptation.

From there, we move to the synagogue at Nazareth, where Jesus reminds us that His ministry and ours is to the poor, to those in prison, as well as to the blind and the broken. And do these words not singe our ears in present-day America?

Later on, the same Jesus who gives us a taste of heaven on the Mount of Transfiguration soon descends to claim His cross and to chastise Peter for his refusal to come down to earth and face the reality that Jesus must die.

And looking at the Ascension, those who witnessed Jesus' grand departure are soon challenged by the question, we just heard it: "Why do you stand there gazing up into heaven?"

"Get to work." (Laughter)

A week from today, we will be treated to yet another taste of refreshment as we join the disciples at Pentecost, the last day of Easter season. Then, oh, so quickly, the Spirit pushes them and us out into the world to continue the work of the Master. And this dynamic that began early in Luke will continue to the very end of Acts, where the disciples repeatedly encounter the opposition Jesus had met in Luke punctuated by hopeful glimpses of God's transforming power.

As in Luke, so also in Acts, we find a dramatic tension between those seeking to preserve a status quo based on privilege for the few and those whom the Spirit is leading into a new possibility of abundance for all.

You may think of Acts as concerned with the spread of Christianity, and of course, it certainly is that. But within that context, the author has at least an equal concern for proclaiming a divine love that crosses ethnic boundaries as well as boundaries of station, class, religion, and by extension, all the boundaries that keep people apart and unequal.

Today, many younger people reject the Church. You read about it everywhere. Studies suggest that this is because many churches distort the Gospel message.

Sometimes, this is done by conservatives who turn the Church into a preserver of the very status quo that Jesus came to challenge.

Sometimes, it's distorted by pious souls who become so fixated on the vision of heaven that they forget that they are called to go out and serve.

And finally, it's distorted even by liberals. I'm tempted to say people like us. I'll at least say people like me, who can become so focused on changing the world that we fail to seek the spiritual sustenance that underlies and supports the journey.

The gospel drama's core issues of oppression and liberation, of despair and hope, of death and life, are as pressing today as they have ever been.

It's likely you know the story of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old African-American Chicagoan who was brutally murdered 70 years ago for supposedly whistling at a white woman while visiting relatives in Mississippi. Till's murderers went scot-free and even profited by selling the story of their crime to Look magazine. Just amazing.

And I have to say, and we need to be more concerned about the injustice white people experience? Even welcoming white Afrikaners while keeping people of color out? Really, it's an outrage.

In an interview in the year 2000, Emmett Till's mother, a person of remarkable character, said that after the death of her son, the Spirit spoke to her and said, go to school and be a teacher. "I have taken one, but I will give you thousands." She also said that what gave her the strength to continue was finding hope in connecting what had happened to Emmett to what Jesus endured out of love for those who suffered.

Whether or not she would view faith quite as I do, in her famous poem, I think it's famous, And Still I Rise, Maya Angelou describes a faith that is at once rooted in both reality and in hope, the dynamic I've been describing.

I close with her words.

You may write me down in history With your bitter twisted lies.

You may trod me in the very dirt, But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

Because I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and stars and suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don't you take it awful hard, Because I laugh like I've got gold mines

Digging in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Hmm. I just couldn't leave it out. I was back and forth. (Laughter)

Out of the huts of history's shame I rise

Up from the past that's rooted in pain

I rise I'm a black ocean leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling, I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise.

Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise.

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise.

I rise. I rise.

Amen.