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Usually we move through this
passage fairly quickly—ready to get on to chapter two and
the excitement of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit:
-
Flames
of fire
-
Speaking in tongues
-
Preaching of Peter
-
Birth
of the church
Or we get hung-up on the
Ascension—the aerodynamics of this mystical, mysterious
lift-off of the Risen Jesus into heaven.
Or we focus
on the promise of the Second Coming and all that might mean.
But at the beginning of this
series of sermons which is meant to lead us into
conversation about the nature and mission of the church
today, I want to lift up this simple question, asked by some
strange messengers in white robes: “Men of Galilee,
why do you stand looking into heaven?”
Or, as the Eugene Peterson
translation asks it: “You Galileans! Why do you just stand
there looking up at an empty sky?”
Or to say
it another way: “What are you looking for?”
And the picture which comes to
mind is that wonderful story from Lake Wobegon, when
Garrison Keillor says a group of Lutheran pastors came for a
day in the country at the small town ministry conference.
Pastor Ingqvist asked Wally to take them out on the lake on
his pontoon boat, the Agnes D. Unfortunately, with
twenty-four preachers and a few kegs of beer—remember, they
were Lutherans—the Agnes D sank lower and lower in
the water.
Then Wally poured about half a
can of lighter fluid on the charcoal grill. As the heat
rose, the pastors all shifted to one side of the boat. The
fire got hotter and hotter, and the crowd shifted further
and further, until somebody yelled out, “We’re sinking!”
With that, they all tried to
rush to the front of the boat, the pontoon pitched forward
and, as Keillor says, “Twenty-four Lutheran clergy took
their first step toward total immersion.” As the boat
tipped, they all slipped over the side, clerical collars,
hush puppies and all; ready to give their lives for
Christ…but in only five feet of water. Keillor says:
The ministers stood perfectly
still in the water…five feet of water, some of them not six
feet tall, faces upraised to the bright blue sky in
prayerful apprehension. Twenty-four pastors standing up to
their smiles in water, chins upraised, trying to understand
this experience and the deeper meaning of it.
(G. Keillor, Leaving Home,
page 117)
So here stand the
disciples…faces upturned, gazing into the bright blue
heaven…and the messengers in white ask, “What are you gazing
at? What are you looking for?”
I’d like to begin by
turning the question a bit and asking the world around us,
“What are you looking for?”
The studies
and statistics tell us most people are looking for three
things:
1.
They are looking for meaning, purpose in life.
Looking for something that will
make their life count; looking for a life that will make a
difference in the world. In the face of frustration and
turmoil, in a world of violence where human life seems so
cheap, and in the shadow of 9/11 when life seems so fragile,
in a world where all too often the value of a person’s life
is measured by what they make rather than who they are,
people are looking for meaning, purpose for living.
If you need more evidence, just
look at the popularity of Rick Warren’s The
Purpose-Driven Life. My guess is that it says more about
what we are seeking than what we have found.
Retired
Chaplain of the Senate, Lloyd John Olgivie, says:
Everywhere I go these days, I
hear the same urgent appeal. People want their lives to
count. Everyone seems to know that something is missing. We
long for some-thing which will add zest and gusto to life.
(Lloyd John Olgivie, Drumbeat
of Love, page 11)
People are
looking for meaning in life.
2.
People are looking for relationships.
Meaningful, loving, lasting
relationships. Waylon Jennings says it best…we are all
“lookin’ for love,” and all too often, looking in “all the
wrong places.”
The most powerful witness to
that came from those last-ditch phone calls and voice
messages that came from the Twin Towers in New York or a
doomed airplane in Pennsylvania. And what did they say? You
can sum it up in one phrase: “I just want to tell you that I
love you.” They didn’t ask about their portfolio. They
didn’t even ask for help. They just wanted to reach out to
the people they loved. In the end, it’s the relationships
that matter.
Meaning in
life…relationships…and…
3.
People are looking for power for living.
I don’t mean “power” as in
“power tie and power suit,” political power or military
power or economic power. People are looking for the strength
to get through the day, confidence for the journey, courage
to face life’s uncertainties.
Some years ago, Lloyd John
Olgivie wrote a book on Acts. He titled his first chapter
“Prelude to Power,” and he describes what we are looking
for:
-
Intellectual power—that
is, wisdom, knowledge, insight for living in these
complex times
-
Spiritual power—that
is, faith, confidence, inner strength
-
Emotional power—that
is, deep love, radiant joy, compassion for the
world
(Lloyd John Olgivie, Drumbeat of Love, page 20)
People are looking for an
energizing, life-giving power for living the daily routine
of our lives.
It seems like we are all
standing around, up to our chins in water, gazing up into
heaven, looking for something to meet these basic needs. And
at this turning point in the journey, Jesus promises all
three: meaning in life, loving relationships, power for the
day.
1.
If you are looking for meaning and purpose, you will find it
in the service of Christ.
Jesus says, “You will be
my witnesses in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the
earth.” He offers a purpose worth dying for and a
vision worth living for: to live out the unfinished
work of Christ, to be his witnesses in this world.
Early in my ministry, I met Rev.
Ben Holmes. He was well into his eighties when I first met
him. He lived to be the oldest clergy member of our
conference, and thus became the bearer of the “conference
cane”—a real cane which is passed from generation to
generation, always kept by the oldest living clergyperson.
Once you have it there is only one way to lose and one way
to claim it! (A side note: The cane is currently held by
Rev. Konstantin Wipp, who emigrated from Estonia in the
1940s and served most of his ministry in the U.P. Today he
is one of our living links with the newly emerging church in
the Baltics and our mission there.)
But back to Ben Holmes. A fiery
little man, he was ninety when he came to Annual Conference
to receive the conference cane. When the bishop gave it to
him, he responded, “You know, I don’t really need this yet.
I still have a vocation, a calling, a purpose, something to
get me out of bed in the morning, and that makes all the
difference.”
Then he turned to us young,
green-as-grass, would-be preachers and said: “I hope you all
will speak a good word for Jesus Christ.” And he went on to
make a passionate speech on behalf of senior citizens and
the need to build the new wing at Chelsea Retirement Home.
Ninety years old and still discovering meaning in his
passion for others, his witness for Jesus Christ.
The messengers in white seem to
be saying, “What do you think you are doing standing around
gazing up into the sky? You’ve got work to do. You’ve got a
world to save and a life to give. You’ve got ‘a story to
tell to the nations who will turn their hearts to the right,
a story of truth and mercy, a story of peace and light.’”
If you are
looking for meaning and purpose in life, you will find it in
service to the Risen Christ.
2.
If you are looking for loving relationships, you will find
them in the fellowship of Christ.
Luke says they returned to
Jerusalem—Peter and John, James and Andrew, Philip and
Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James, Simon, Judas the son
of James, Mary and Jesus’ brothers and the other women. In
one accord…in one place…together. The Eugene Peterson
translation says, “They agreed they were all in this for
good, completely together in prayer, women included.”
Don’t you wish we had a verbatim
record of what happened in those days? Wouldn’t it be great
to hear them retelling all the stories of their time with
Jesus? There must have been laughter and joy, tears and
remembrance. And if the rest of the New Testament is any
indication, there was probably some bickering and
nit-picking, jockeying for power and jealousy. Fearful and
fretful, delighted and depressed, disabled and doubting,
grieving for the past and dreaming of the future…it was all
there.
But through
it all, anticipation, joy and great love. That’s church!
I’d like to share a personal
story. If you ask why I am where I am today, I could say it
was because of loving parents who planted in me the seed of
faith, the call of God which I experienced at summer church
camps, the nurture I received in college. But if I trace it
back, I would have to say it goes back to the local church.
It was here, in the church, in the family of God, that even
as a kid I knew I was loved, I was welcomed, I was accepted
for who I was. See, I was a scrawny and awkward kid (some
things never change) and I was not the least bit athletic—
which, in my small town high school, meant I was a nobody.
But when I went to church,
Sunday school teachers like Emma Traister brought Kool-Aid
and Ritz crackers and made me feel special. My pastors
encouraged and praised me. Other adults seemed to tolerate
me. And in that world, I was somebody, I was accepted, and I
was loved. It wasn’t a perfect church, but then I wasn’t a
perfect kid. And in the circle of grace, I came to where I
could even accept myself.
Do you see why I believe in the
body, the loving care and nurture of the family of faith;
why it is so important for the church to be a welcoming,
loving, caring fellowship where every person who walks
through that door knows they are loved, accepted, special?
If you are looking for loving relationships, look here, in
the fellowship of Christ.
3.
And if you are looking for power, you will find it in the
Spirit of Christ.
Jesus gives
the promise, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit
comes upon you.”
No doubt about it, these are
difficult times. The anniversary of 9/11 is a vivid reminder
of the fragility of life. There are plenty of reasons for
genuine fear, and plenty of fear-mongers who would exploit
our fears. All that is real. But just as real is the
assurance of God’s Spirit, present with us in the life of
God’s people, to enable us to live with assurance and hope.
Every time we celebrate baptism,
we acknowledge “the spiritual forces of wickedness and the
evil powers of this world.” But in response, we boldly
accept “the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil,
injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present
themselves.”
We are saying, “Yes, there is
evil in the world. Yes, wickedness is all too present. But
it is not the full story. In Christ there is freedom and
power to overcome, power for living.” The old Gospel song
says:
There is power, power,
wonder-working power
in the blood of the lamb.
There is power, power, wonder-working power
in the precious blood of the lamb.
So
let me go back to the basic question: “What are you looking
for?”
One of my
favorite authors, Frederick Buechner, says what we are
looking for is “home:”
Wherever it is that we truly
belong, wherever it is that is truly home for us, we know in
our hearts that we have somehow lost it and gotten lost.
Something is missing from our lives that we cannot even
name—something we know best from the empty place inside us
all where it belongs. We come to acknowledge what we have
lost…we come to find our way home.
(Buechner, A Room Called
Remember, page 27)
Meaning and
purpose, loving relationships, power for living.
And sure
enough, that’s exactly what Christ has to offer, exactly
what we are looking for.
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