Sermon: Ascension Day Feet

A Sermon preached in 

Christ Church Grosse Pointe, Michigan
by The Reverend Vicki Hesse, Associate

Ascension Day, Year C

5 May 2016

Listen to this sermon here. 
For readings click here.

In the name of one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

This evening we celebrate the ascension of the risen Christ to heaven. 

Ascension Day is not, for most Christians, a day of great importance.  It’s the fortieth day after Easter.  There is no particular tradition associated with Ascension, nor is it a holiday around which families gathers.

And, it is a day of utmost importance in our faith story.  Without the Ascension, Jesus’ life – his incarnation, baptism, ministry, crucifixion, death and resurrection – without Ascension, his passion and life would stretch indeterminately out into time and space like a rocket ship into the cosmos…rather than Ascension standing as a conclusive witness to the dwelling of God in creation[1].

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams[2] uses this analogy: imagine what it is like when you first wake up in the morning.  When you turn on the light, all you can think of is how bright the light is.  Only gradually do your eyes adjust enough to make out what else is around the room.  Then, you are not thinking of the light. The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection, says Williams, are like that initial morning light - Jesus’ resurrected self was so blinding that the disciples could be conscious only of him.  The ascension, however, is that moment when the light itself recedes into the background.  It is through the light of Jesus that we see the rest of the world. As from Ephesians, “…that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.”[3]

With the creative use of light and reflection of colors, many artists have imagined the ascension.  Many of these scenes are painted inside the dome of churches. There are usually two parts – an upper (heavenly) part with Christ making the sign of benediction and the lower (earthly) part below him, signifying the entire Church (big C). 

Inside these churches, congregants, like those appointed witnesses, gaze up toward heaven to witness, once again, the ascension of Christ.  

One Ascension image stands out for me.  It is a stained-glass panel from a church in Norfolk, England,[4] dating from the 15^th century.  You can pull this image out from your leaflet as we reflect together.

In the image, we see only the feet of Christ ascending into a blue cloud, which is surrounded in a glory of rays.  His feet display their wounds as they disappear into the cloud.  Just below, we see prominent footprints on the summit of the rocky mound from which Christ has ascended. 

Next to the rising feet are two con-celebrating angels, blessing the ascension of Jesus with their outstretched hands.  Below, the panel is crowded with the haloed heads of all twelve Apostles, with various hairstyles and expressions. In the center of the composition is the figure of Mary, richly dressed: she gazes up at her ascending son, holding up her hands with their slender fingers. (hold up hands).

The captivating image calls to mind both the divinity of Christ (with his feet ascending) and the humanity of Jesus (with his footprints on earth).  Since his feet were the last part of him to touch earth, it makes sense that the center of the image is his feet – also the last part to be visible as he was taken up to heaven.

This captivating image of ascending feet and printed feet perhaps informs us why there are two collects for Ascension day in the BCP[5].  One collect asks God to give us faith to perceive that Jesus abides with his church on earth. The other collect asks God to give us a belief that Jesus has ascended into heaven – and so there we may also ascend. Both perspectives, both petitions, both realities in one whole truth of God.

Practically speaking, this captivating image also calls to mind something my 12-step sponsor often asks me: Where are your feet?  Which is, of course, a rhetorical question, but a question that invites me to be present to this moment, not anxious about the future or resentful of the past Where are your feet? This image empowers us to know and see that our feet are joined by the invisible presence of Jesus; his footprints right beside us, infused with the power of his Spirit. 

Today’s Gospel concludes, …“they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God.”  As they were worshipping the ascending Jesus, and in returning to their life in Jerusalem and the temple, the disciples found their faith. A faith not in Jesus’ resurrection, but their experience of the Ascension, and the revelation of Jesus’ divinity. [6]  

See, it was not “…his death and resurrection that changed Jesus from the human from Nazareth to the Savior of the World.  It was his willingness to be spiritually alive forever – to be a Spirit set free from physical limitations.” [7]

·         The ascension for the disciples was that moment when Jesus receded into the background of heaven.

·         The ascension for us is that moment when Jesus’ light itself recedes into the background of our lives and through which we glimpse God’s kingdom.

·         The ascension gives our hearts enlightened eyes so that we may know the hope to which Jesus has called us.[8]

·         The ascension is a reminder that our lives are caught up in something far grander than we can ask or imagine.

In the whole sweep of God’s story of human salvation, the Ascension stands as a crucial moment, illuminating for us the larger story of God’s loving action. 

May we then, tonight, know God’s LOVE in the empty places of our lives where we need to be made whole, God’s YES in the yearning of our souls where we need to know we are enough, and God’s LIGHT in the dimness of our hearts where we can see Jesus’ feet standing beside us, galvanizing us to do God’s work in the world.

Tonight, as we gaze our eyes upward, may we see the feet of Christ ascending as we notice his footprints always beside us, to the end of the ages.

Amen

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[1] Inspired by Joseph Britton’s Theological Perspective, Ephesians 1:15-23 in Feasting On The Word.

[2] Rowan Williams, Cowley Publications; 1st edition (March 28, 1995)

[3] Ephesians 1:18

[4] Cited at http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/medieval/zoom.php?id=478 on May 26, 2014

[5] Book of Common Prayer, 226

[6] Joseph Plevnik, "The Eyewitnesses of the Risen Jesus in Luke 24," The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 1987.

[7] The Rev. Rosemary Brown, Sent Forth By God’s Blessing, cited at http://day1.org/570-sent_forth_by_gods_blessing

[8] Ephesians 1:18

Sermon: That's It.

Sunday, April 24, 2016

The 5th Sunday of Easter, Year C

The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse, Associate

That's It

Listen here. 

In 2007, Professor Randy Pausch gave a speech entitled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,”
at Carnegie Mellon University.  It became a best seller, “The Last Lecture.” The talk had been part of a series that invited professors to share reflections on their professional journey while encouraging a freedom to talk about their own interests.  This “Last Lecture” tradition endures even today.  The pervading question is, “what legacy would you like to leave?”  In this spirit, faculty members showcase their particular knowledge and encourage the intellectual curiosity of students and the community.

Today’s gospel text, which begins, “When Judas had gone out…” marks the beginning of the end. Jesus wraps up his conversations in a kind of Last Lecture, teaching the disciples of their distinctive mark. The intimacy of the conversation is striking: “Little children,” he says to the grown adults around the table, “listen to me now…I’m getting ready to go where you cannot come.  It’s important we have this time now.”
We all can relate to this kind of final, intimate, intense conversation that we all will have or have had with loved ones.  The moment lasts an eternity: it is at once a sacred, honorable time – and many of us would rather not have it. Yet, we are compelled into it. It is not easy.

Jesus lays it out clearly (not in his usual way of speaking in parables).  “Love one another.”

That’s it.

As one NT scholar[1] wrote, “[this] new command is simple enough for a toddler to memorize and appreciate and it is profound enough that the most mature believers are repeatedly embarrassed at how poorly they comprehend it and put it into practice.”

“By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  Honestly, how embarrassing it is for us Christians to remember that Jesus wanted us to focus on this one thing. It’s hard to put into practice, maybe because it is so radical, focusing on love within and among members of the faith community.

A friend of mine recalled a conversation she had with a brother of SSJE – Society of St. John the Evangelist, an Anglican religious order. “Why do you say the confession every. single. day?” she asked the brother.  He replied, “Because we live in community. We need to say it.”

But, Jesus explained, the community’s love for one another was – and is – the distinctive mark of Jesus’ disciples.  Jesus was aware of the crippling divisions within the Christian community – then, and now.  A brief google search reveals that there are between 30,000 and 40,000 Christian denominations worldwide. [2]  There is nothing easy here, Jesus reminds his disciples.

“Love one another,” he says, in the midst of their betrayal of him.
“Love one another,” he models, with servant love by washing feet.
“Love one another,” he insists, while giving away his life for God.

Love one another, and you will know grace and love and that deep peace which the world cannot give. And, it will be difficult.

There is a story[3] in Isak Dinesen’s book “Out of Africa” about a boy named Kitau. The author recounts Kitau’s arrival at her door one day to ask for a job as a domestic servant.  She hired him, but just after three months he surprised her: asking for a letter of recommendation to his new employer, Sheik Ali bin Salim.  The Sheik was a Muslim who lived in a nearby town.  Dinesen tried offering to raise Kitau’s pay in order to keep him, but money was not his interest.

Kitau was discerning whether to become a Christian or a Muslim and his purpose in working for Dinesen had been to see, up close, the way a Christian lived.  Now that he had worked for Dinesen and seen the ways of Christians, he would go and observe Sheik Ali to see how Muslims behave.  After this, he would decide.  The author remembers how she wished Kitau had told her that before he came to live with her.
Pause

The newness of this command is not that it had never before been taught (it is in Leviticus.)[4] The newness is found in the source of that love As one commentator said, “You are to love one another – not by copying my fruit, but by connecting to my vine. You don’t mainly imitate, you participate.  Your love for each other is not a simulation of mine, but a manifestation of mine… this is how all people know you are truly my disciples.”[5]

To love one another means to find a new relationship with our community – which is the wounded and the resurrected body of Christ. It means:
To trust one another with our vulnerability, and to risk loving recklessly
To accept our own and each others’ wounded and aging bodies, and to see each other with transformed eyes of boundless grace
To forgive one another for denying God’s goodness in us, and to see the face of Christ in the one sitting beside us

This coming week, I will attend a conference in Dio Tx called “Invite, Welcome, Connect,” which will teach both clergy and lay leaders how to encourage a culture of Love One Another.  We will share ideas and learn how to grow our congregations into flourishing, and vital communities who Love One Another.

See, our distinctive Christian mark is how we love one another.  When Christ’s love takes deep root within us, as at our baptism, we glorify God just for being. As one mystic[6] reminds us, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” When we love one another, especially in our mutual brokenness, God’s light heals enters our community and makes us whole, revealing God’s glory.

And lest we think that this commandment is only for those in our human community, on this Earth Day weekend,  I wonder what would it be like to understand Jesus as saying, "Love my creation with all your heart" and, "Love my world as you love yourself."  With that perspective, how might humanity treat the earth and all it holds?

Many of us feel nourishing love when we connect with the natural world: the sun and moon and stars, the ocean and river, mountains and meadows, (all that is listed in Psalm 148) our connection to all beings, human or not.  Might “love one another” mean living lightly, spending our time on earth in healing the world? Might “love one another” mean cheerfully taking only what we need and allowing the rest to sustain other creatures? Might we see ‘every day as Earth Day,’ and love one another, humans and non-humans alike?

This is not easy work, being Jesus’ disciples.  Judas had gone out.  Jesus gave the simple, yet hard, commandment. No more parables or paradoxes.  He said, “little children, love one another.”
May God’s glory shine through God’s Love that is unbounded, through God’s forgiveness that is unending and through God’s acceptance that is unfettered.

Love one another.
Amen.

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[1] D.A. Carson, “The Gospel According to John (Leicester, England: APOLLOS, 1991), 484, as offered in “Feasting On The Word: Pastoral Perspective: John 13: 31-35,” Fifth Sunday of Easter, p.468
[2] Cited at https://theway21stcentury.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/how-many-christian-de... on April 22, 2016
[3] Inspired by “Feasting On The Word: Pastoral Perspective: John 13: 31-35,” Fifth Sunday of Easter
[4] Leviticus 19:18
[5] Cited at http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/as-i-have-loved-you-love-one-another on April 22, 2016
[6] Quote from Rumi cited at http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/103315-the-wound-is-the-place-where-the-...

Sermon: Up and At 'Em and Jump In!

A Sermon preached in 

photo CCO Public Domain

Christ Church, Grosse Pointe, Michigan
by The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse, Associate

The Third Sunday of Easter, Year C
10 April 2016

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be always acceptable to you, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.
Listen here.

“Up and at ‘em and jump into the pool!”

This was our family wake-up call during my childhood’s long, hot, California summers.  And so we did.  Get up and jump into the pool.  And sometimes we would don our bathing suits, even.  Or just jump in with our pajamas on.  Hearing today about Peter’s jump into the sea, with his clothes on, like the buffoon he played, got me thinking about how Peter just, “got up and at ‘em and jumped in.”

The presence of Jesus on the beach served as Peter’s wake-up call during his long and difficult sleep of grief – the grief that “going fishing” was supposed to relieve.  Jesus woke him from the grief Peter thought would go away by the familiar spray of the sea mist, the sway of the boat beneath his feet, and the weight and texture of the fishing nets.

Of course, Peter wanted the familiar – just like we all do when a family drama turns our life sideways. We yearn for the familiar, we long for our sense of “normalcy.” That’s why Peter went fishing in the first place.

And, the beloved disciple’s exclamation, “It is the Lord!” woke Peter out of his sleepy post-traumatic shock from the week’s previous events: Jesus’ passion, crucifixion, death, empty tomb and re-appearances. Seeing Jesus on the beach also brought back Peter’s guilt.  He had said he would follow Jesus all the way to the end, even to death. Yet, when tested, Peter succumbed to his own vulnerability, his own fear and so denied Jesus – not once, but three times, just as Jesus had predicted. 

That morning, hearing Jesus’ voice, “…cast the net to the right side of the boat!” triggered Peter’s heartache and angst. And in that micro-second, Peter wondered if he would ever be able to make it right with Jesus, to forgive himself.  Then, seeing the abundance of fish in the nets was the last straw. 

Peter got up and at ‘em; and as he jumped into the sea, the rush of water gushing past his ears rang out a memorial torrent of struggle, of vulnerability, and of Love:

·        the wedding party at Cana where Jesus turned water into wine

·        the way Jesus up-ended the tables in the temple

·        the meeting Jesus had with the Samaritan woman,

·        the hungry crowd Jesus fed with just the 2 fish and 2 loaves.

Once Peter and the disciples had hauled in their catch Jesus told them to bring some of the fish they had just caught, to add to what he offered. In this simple, yet, profound request, Jesus not only provided for the disciples, but he also invited them to contribute. To contribute what they had and, by extension, who they were.

In sharing a meal of food that each provided, Jesus drew them all back into mutual relationship.  In this way, Jesus informed the disciples: he needed them to partner with him as co-creators of God’s realm here on Earth.  And Jesus asks us to bring what we have – and who we are: our gifts and our gaps, our strengths and struggles, our love and our longings – to be part of the Jesus movement. 

In the meal we share, Jesus draws us into mutual relationship, to make, together, a world as God dreams it can be. After sharing that meal, Jesus and Peter sat together.  The charcoal fire must have reminded Peter of that other charcoal fire – where Peter stood, warming himself, on that awful night of Jesus’ arrest and torture, when Peter denied knowing Jesus. 

Now Peter faced his Beloved teacher and Lord.  Courageously, in his vulnerability, he met Jesus one-on-one and looked into the eyes of the one he deeply loved – and denied.  Jesus spoke first, “Simon Peter, son of John, do you love me?”  Peter responded, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”  Jesus replied, “Feed my sheep.”  Three times he asked Peter to confess.  Three times he did, though by the third time he was disheartened, even hurt.  Three times he invited Peter to express his love, symbolically wiping away the three times Peter had denied him. 

Jesus got up and at ‘em and forgave Peter – and more. God was at work

through the Risen Christ restoring Peter back into the discipleship community and giving him meaningful work to do. The good news here is that forgiveness leads to mission, restoration to purpose, and inclusion to calling. 

A few years ago, I read a book called The Five Love Languages.[1]  The premise of the book is expressing love in a way that the other understands.  The five love languages are:

First, “words of affirmation.”  In this language, spoken praise and appreciation is like rain on parched soil.  “I forgive you”, “thank you” or “you are important” shows love and belonging for those who speak “verbal.”  

Second, “acts of service.” In this language, actions speak louder than words: preparing a casserole for someone in crisis, making meals at Crossroads, baby sitting for the neighbor, or planting trees & shrubs to beautify the Moross Greenway; serving means love and belonging for those who speak “show me.”

Third, “receiving gifts.”  In this language, love is symbolized. A cheerful Easter bouquet delivered to a friend who cannot get to church or a simple note card with a ribbon inside means the world for those who speak “gifted” love.

Fourth, “quality time.” In this language, undivided attention, such as sharing a cup of tea, sitting with someone in hospital, or even taking a walk around the block means so much for those who speak “be with me.”

Fifth, “physical touch.”  In this language, physical connection, such as a hand on a grieving friend’s shoulder or a simple handshake communicates love for those who speak “touch.”

Tell, serve, give, be, touch. Verbs of love.

Jesus asks us all, “do you love me?” and invites us to “tend my sheep,” to show our love, perhaps through words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time or physical touch.  And in so doing, we are restored. We have purpose.

God, through the Risen Christ, met and loved Peter right where he was. And that love inspired Peter to live his way into a new way of thinking, rather than think his way into a new way of living.[2] 

Today, Jesus gets up and at ‘em and forgives us– and more – he loves us, restores us and gives us purpose.  We the impetuous, clueless, head-strong ones who God entrusts to “feed my sheep,” to show God’s Love.

Jesus gets up and at ‘em and jumps into our pool – the pool of our life, individually and communally – our family, our work, our play, our callings, our worries, our quirks.  Today, Jesus’ love inspires us to get up & at ‘em and jump into the pool – the pool of God’s realm, the pool of the Jesus movement. 

May we all, today, jump in – whether in fishing clothes or pajamas – for the Love of God. 

Amen

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[1] Gary Chapman, The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts, (Northfield Publishing, Chicago, 1992)

[2] Richard Rohr, “We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking,” as quoted in several of his books, including Falling Upwards and Everything Belongs.