“Parting Instructions” Ascension Sunday, May 8, 2005

Acts 1: 1-11, Luke 24: 44:52 Rev. James W. Moore

Parting instructions, or words of farewell, sometimes become the standard by which a person’s life and character are remembered. So we recall the noble words of Lou Gehrig, tragically ill with the disease that is often linked with his name, making his farewell to baseball in 1939 and saying “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.....” And we recall the bitter words of Richard Nixon in 1962, making an apparent departure from politics after a defeat in California and saying “Just think how much you're gonna be missing. You don't have Nixon to kick around anymore.....” The last words of our Methodist father John Wesley, on his death bed, were “And best of all, God is with us.....”

Some leaders have used their farewell to give advice that speaks wisdom to people in later generations. In his farewell to the nation in 1961 President Dwight D. Eisenhower uttered the surprising, but all-too-prophetic words “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.....” – warning of a challenge for us and all nations through the Cold War, the Missile Race, and to this day, a warning that military and industrial forces should serve the nation, not become its reason for being....... Abraham Lincoln’s second Inaugural address was not intended to be his farewell but it turned out to be one of his last great speeches before his assassination, and in it he left this legacy for people of his era and for us as well: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.” He didn’t address those words to us, but that’s an appropriate mandate for us at this time of war – “to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, and to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.” Profound parting instruction......

What were Jesus’ parting instructions? I know that today is Mothers’ Day, and I won’t be ignoring that important observance. We’ll offer up prayers for Mother’s Day, and I hope that some of what I say today will apply to mothers and mothering and family life, but my preaching focus is on another holiday – one that seldom gets celebrated – namely Ascension Day. I’m sure nobody sent out any Ascension Day cards this year, and I don’t imagine you sent your loved ones flowers for Ascension Day, but last Thursday was the day, forty days after Easter, the day of remembering Jesus’ departure from earth. Since it falls mid-week we don’t always take note of it on Sundays, but today I want to look at this story, and especially at Jesus’ parting instructions to the disciples. There is a lot of wisdom there for Christian people, and it can apply to mothering and fathering and life in a family, to matters of spiritual growth and life in the church, to any aspect of Christian living. I want us to look at these parting instructions, which touch on two opposite poles of our experience – on waiting and going, being and doing, looking inward and looking outward, growing personally and getting to work for others............

As some of you know, Luke and Acts were written by the same author. Luke’s gospel tells the story of Jesus life, and the sequel, The Acts of the Apostles, gives an account of all that took place in the generation after Jesus. As you probably noticed, Luke uses the story of Jesus’ ascension as the bridge between the two – the concluding words of the gospel and, with slightly different details, the opening of Acts. One of Jesus’ final instructions is recorded in both books, namely his commandment that the disciples should wait in Jerusalem until they have received the Holy Spirit. Luke 24:49 says “And I myself will send upon you what the Father has promised. But you must wait in the city until the power from above comes down upon you.” Acts 1: 4-5 puts it this way: “He gave them this order: ‘Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift I told you about, the gift the Father promised. John baptized you with water, but in a few days you will be baptized by the Holy Spirit.’”

“Wait in the city, Wait in Jerusalem.......” Those might not have been very welcome words. I can just imagine some disciple saying “Wait in Jerusalem? This is the last place I’d like to stay – surrounded by enemies who tried to murder our leader. I’d leave in a minute, if I had the chance......” Or I can imagine some of them thinking “Wait in Jerusalem? This place is so full of negative memories for us, full of shameful recollections of our failures. This is where Peter denied our master; where Judas betrayed him; where we all ran in cowardice. This is the worst place for us to wait...” And some might have said “Wait here in this center of corruption and institutionalized religion gone bad? The temple and its hierarchy, the religious leaders who were so contrary to everything Jesus stood for – why should we spend another minute here in their company?” But Jesus says “Wait – wait for the Holy Spirit to empower you. Wait right where you are. Wait in the places where it is frightening; wait where you have to be honest about yourself; wait where you have challenges to face. Wait there, and you will receive power from above.”

That’s just part one of Jesus’ instructions, but it’s a counsel we sometimes ignore. We think Christian faith is about doing things, about getting up and moving out of the negative situations of our lives, about becoming a better person, about finding our place in positive communities like the church...... All of that is true. But sometimes, before we can do any of those things, we have to wait in some Jerusalem or other, and allow God’s Holy Spirit to impact us there. Sometimes the place in which God’s Spirit will truly empower us is not in the idealized family or work place or set of relationship we wish we had but in the real family, work place and social network where we are right now. If we face the truth about these things, inviting God’s Spirit into them and into us, then perhaps we begin to grow and to move toward the life God wants us to have. Sometimes the place in we know God’s Spirit most fully is not on the day when we have lived like a model Christian but on the day when we have failed miserably, have recognized our sins, and have asked for God’s forgiveness and help. God’s Spirit can encounter us there in our failures and then, empowered by the Spirit, we may have the strength to move towards the character and actions God intends.

Jesus instruction to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit is a rebuke to our tendency to think we can accomplish everything by working hard, moving along, doing the right thing, getting to the right place...... He seems to be saying, “Let God enter the real world where you are now. That’s where you need healing, that’s where you need to grow, and that’s where God’s Spirit will find you. “Wait, wait in Jerusalem.......”

What are the places in your life, symbolic or literal, that you’d like to forget about.... that make you ashamed..... that you find threatening..... where grief is still strong.... where you are not in control? Perhaps that’s a Jerusalem in which you need to stay – not for ever, but for a while, a place in which you can wait for God’s Spirit to come with its healing, empowering presence.

Wait in Jerusalem – that’s instruction #1. But Jesus says that after this waiting, and after the coming of the Spirit, there will be another dimension of life. We’re not to stay in Jerusalem forever. We’re not supposed to stay in the places of our failures, our fears, our negative places, our sins forever. Luke gospel version of the Ascension doesn’t have this second saying of Jesus, but Acts 1:8 reports him saying this: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” He says that his followers will be witnesses, people who testify about what they know to be true – and as I remind you of St. Francis’ command, “Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words,” we affirm that Christian witness is often less about talk than about lifestyle. “You will be my witnesses,” says Jesus. And where? He describes an expanding sphere: first Jerusalem – where they were right then; then Judea – the homeland of faithful Jews; next, Samaria – the home of people who were despised and hated by many Jews (and who presumably responded with the same attitude); and then “the ends of the earth.”

If you have experienced something of God in your life, if God’s Spirit has touched you in a meaningful way, then you will begin to live in a different way. You’ll live by the teachings and example of Jesus. You’ll live with a depth and compassion. And you’ll live with the intention of bearing witness to the God who has blessed you.

So where should a disciple start? You start right where you are, in your Jerusalem, but that’s just the beginning. Jesus calls us out of that immediate space, but he’s kind enough to make our next assignment Judea – the place where our own kind live. So maybe for you the first place for you to spread your wings as a Christian is in your immediate circle of friends, in the places where you are comfortable and accepted, in your family. On this Mothers’ Day we can celebrate the ways in which so many women of Christian faith have lived out their calling in the “Judea” of their families – but many good mothers don’t draw the line of their caring there. They reach out beyond the family to others in need – perhaps even to some “Samaria” of people who are very different, but still in need of love.

A maturing Christian life can never make a permanent stay in the safe, predictable, comforting realm of “Judea.” A Christian who has been touched by the Spirit of God will understand that there are others in this world with whom he or she needs to relate – enemies, people who are different, people who are in need, people who test and stretch and challenge us..... And then if we’ve made a move from Jerusalem to Judea and to Samaria are we done? No, Jesus didn’t give a limit. It’s Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and “the ends of the earth......” To be a witness, to live in a way that proclaims the faith into which we’ve been called, is a life of ever-expanding possibilities.

So there we have the parting instructions of Jesus, two commandments about two very different ways of being faithful – waiting and going, receiving the Spirit and sharing it, looking inward and looking out, tending to our own growth and caring for others. And how to we reconcile these opposites? The story of the disciples is written in pretty straightforward way – they did the waiting first, and then when they had received the Spirit they went out to work on the command number two, on being witnesses. But in my life - and in most lives, I suspect – it’s not so cut and dried. My life rarely goes in a straight line, like a continuous march of progress. No, it’s more like a spiral – an ascending one, I hope – but a spiral in which these seasons of waiting and doing, of waiting in Jerusalem and going out as a witness, seem to ebb and flow. So, I’ll have times of living boldly, and caringly, and faithfully, as a witness – expanding my life into Judea and Samaria and beyond – and then I’ll come around the circle and find that I need to stop in Jerusalem again. I’ll need a time of dealing with myself, a time of receiving God’s Spirit again, a time for waiting for the power God promised. And then, fortified by the Spirit I go out again, to live a life of that is a witness to all that God has done for me.

Where are you in the journey of faith? Wherever it might be, you can be guided by Jesus’ parting instructions:

First: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift God promised.... the power from above, the Holy Spirit.....”

And then: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be my witness, in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and on to the ends of the earth.”