Plymouth Congregational Church of Fort Wayne, UCC
May 16, 2010
Seventh Sunday of Easter

Scripture Lesson:  Acts 1:6-11

Wonder Working Power

"... But you will receive power when
the Holy Spirit has come upon you."
 (Act 1:8)

Prelude

Our lesson this morning is a narration

of the event known as the Ascension of Christ.

The Ascension is a twice-told tale in our scriptures.

Luke the evangelist, who is credited with composition

of the gospel that bears the name

and the companion volume, the book of Acts,

incorporates the Ascension into both works:

it serves to conclude the Gospel manifested by Word,

and it signals continuity of Gospel infused by Spirit.

In this bi-focaled view,

the Ascension is both an end

and a beginning.

It is Jesus taking leave;

it is Jesus saying, I'll soon be back.

At the end of the gospel,

Jesus bid farewell to the disciples;

he spoke of a promise that would

be forthcoming:

"I am sending upon you what God promised;

so stay here in the city (Jerusalem) until you

have been clothed with power from on high."

(Luke 24:49)

Then, Jesus withdrew; he was carried up to heaven;

he was transported out of sight, all while blessing the disciples. 

"... lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 

While he was blessing them, he withdrew ..."

"He parted" is the language of King James.

The disciples, we read, then returned from Bethany, where

the parting is said to have occurred, to Jerusalem, with joy.

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In Acts, there is additional detail.

We are told the resurrection appearances occurred for 40 days,

and in those appearances, he is said to have spoken to the

disciples about "the kingdom of God" (Acts 1:3).

It wasn't just a "guess who - here's Jesus" moment.

The appearances were character and content oriented.

In this final pre-ascent gathering,

the disciples ask the question: 

"Lord, is this the time when you will

restore the kingdom to Israel" (Acts 1:6)? 

Jesus does not respond directly.  He states -

some knowledge is off limits; some dates and

seasons are not disclosed with saving grace. 

He then returns to a theme previously expressed in the gospel.

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come

upon you; and you will be my witnesses ... the witness will not

be confined to zipcode, state line, or national boundary. 

The witness will work its way "to the ends of the earth."

Please observe the sequence set forth here.

After all that has been said and seen,

after all that has been taught and instructed,

still the disciples ask: 

Jesus, is now the time for you to

finish your work and complete your purpose?

Jesus answers: 

Fasten thy seat belts, friends!

You are gonna' receive power.  So wait and be prepared!

The circuit is not yet complete,

but it is here being forecasted.

Ascension is transition time. 

It is prelude to the Holy Spirit that is promised to come,

and the Spirit will empower,

to fuel, to propel,

both the Word and work of Jesus,

through which the kingdom,

for which we still pray,

comes into this world. 

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There are, I sense, few challenges in our faith

greater than attaining a right understanding of this power,

and properly accessing its currents.   We are a people in great

need of the promise for power to surge from within,

that we might faithfully witness in the world. 

John Gardner (no relation, the founder of Common Cause),

once observed:  "Most civilizations die from within

and are conquered less often by traitors within the gate

than by traitors within the heart - loss of belief,

corruption, and disintegration of shared purposes."

I sense, in church and society,

in so many ways, what appears to be an unraveling

of shared purposes, a prevailing anger and mistrust

of all things institutional (religious and secular),

and the rise of factions that care more for self

preservation than for the shared purposes of community. 

And the church is not always helpful, failing to assert

the power of Christ to counterbalance our fears.

Madeleine L'Engle was once quoted:

"Christians have given Christianity a bad name."

Jonathan Swift, the English satirist,

"We have just enough religion to make us hate,

but not enough to make us love another."

We are a people who should never cease to pray for more.

More power for good.

More power for courage.

More power for honesty.

More power for integrity.

More power to resist what is killing us.

More power for more love.

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The power to amend

is a power we need.

It is power to tell the truth,

to modify and correct,

that we might right ourselves, and

seek first the kingdom, the things that

are conducive to the life God desires.

We suffer in multiple ways

from regulatory failure,

and I need say it is heart-breaking.

It is the sorry state of too many churches

who cloak institutional faults with teachings of infallibility,

be it that of a person or a book. 

It is the horrific disaster

what Thomas Frank in a recent Wall St. Journal op ed

termed "this stomach-turning story"

that continues to unfold in the Gulf of Mexico,

an environmental mess we may never get fully cleaned up,

a nightmare that plays out till the end of our days,

the neglect of "industry self-regulation," the failure

of "regulatory capture."

Do we not need power to amend,

to fix, to correct, to turn creatively,

imaginatively, faithfully our lives more

fully into a living witness for Jesus?

We are mired, I believe, in a state of patience that

is not good for body, not good for soul, that

bars us from the blessing God intends.

Early in his ministry, Martin Luther King once observed

that there is "a patience that makes us patient with things

that are less than freedom and justice."

We need to be saved from such patience,

for it keeps us locked in life with no power, no promise,

no possibility of attaining what God intends.

We need to break our peace with patience that somebody

else is gonna' fix what we know to be broken.

This morning in the lesson, the disciples are being given fair

warning.  Get ready, for the Holy Spirit is on the way to lift

you up, set you right, and advance your life in ways that

will glorify God and honor Jesus.

I hold out for this hope in the church, that we are promised

the power to practice the love of Jesus. 

We.  Us.  Here.  Now.  We are promised the power to practice

the love of Jesus.  We can be forgiving.  We can be merciful.

We can be kind.  We can be strong in the face of great and

formidable obstacles.  We can be courageous in facing powers

that want us weak and ineffective.  We can show, we can

share the spirit that truly transforms lives,

the Jesus spirit that can change the world.

"Love must be our regulating ideal." 

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said.  And the beauty of this is

that love can lodge and animate each and all of our lives.

Young/old, left/right, male/female, gay/straight.  No one is

off limits to amazing grace.  

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I was reading an essay recently by Philip Jenkins,

"Pilgrims in our Time," where he was, in part,

dissecting a revival in pilgrimage in Europe, an

expression of faith in a place many have assumed

Christianity is dead or dying.  According to Jenkins

pilgrims are crisscrossing all over the continent.

Really quite remarkable.  He makes the point (and

this is what grabbed my attention) -

"When people cannot find miracle

in their parish churches,

they seek it elsewhere."

(Christian Century, May 18, 2010, p. 45).

The power we are promised is a power to amend,

to correct, to reassess and make change.  This is

the power of grace, the wisdom of God, the heart of

God at work within us.  The power we are promised

is power to live the Jesus life, to reverence the love

that is the regulating ideal in hearts, in the church.

The power we are promised is sacramental, it is the

miracle of trust, the grace of faith, the reality of

communion, prompting praise

of the One, in us, through us, for us, with us,

both now and forever. 

Amen.