Luke 24:44-53
There was a mouse that was being chased by a cat. The mouse ran into a hole in the wall, just escaping the jaws of the cat. Everything was quiet for awhile, and then the mouse heard the sound of a dog barking, "Bow wow! Arf arf!" Assuming the dog had chased the cat away, the mouse popped out of the hole, right into the jaws of the cat. As the cat swallowed the mouse he was heard to say, "It pays to be bilingual."
Of course it does pay to be bilingual. In this world you are handicapped if you are not at least bilingual. It is a lesson all us need to understand and it particularly helps in reading the Bible. A lot of people get in trouble with the Bible because they hear the words of the Bible through modern ears, not with first century ears.
The story of the Ascension, which we look at this morning, is one such example. To our ears, the Ascension sounds like astrophysics, or space aeronautics, or whatever that science is called that has to do with space travel. It sounds to us like some person is being transported through space, challenging our scientific understanding of the universe and the laws that run the world. That’s true especially of the description we heard read in Luke this morning, our Gospel lesson, which says that Jesus went out to Bethany, outside of Jerusalem, supposedly to a hill out there, a primitive launching site, where he was lifted up his hands in blessing over the disciples, and was propelled into heaven. The disciples in a small band gathered around, looking into heaven, watching Jesus get smaller and smaller as he disappears.
Which is why you need to be bilingual. In the first century the story was heard quite differently. In the first century the Ascension was not astrophysics, it was politics. We hear it as a description of a physical miracle. They heard it as a political manifesto. Listen again to the Ephesians passage. It says God has raised Jesus…from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in the age but also in that which is to come; and he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
That’s what the Ascension meant. It said Jesus is the ruler of the cosmos.. And to say that Jesus is Ruler over all things is to say that Caesar isn’t. To make such a statement in the first century was an act of political courage, with terrible consequences. In the second century, a bishop of the church named Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna, was arrested on charges of sedition against the Roman Empire, because he made this affirmation: Jesus Christ is Lord, not Caesar. He was tried, found guilty and sentenced to die by fire. The man who sentenced him was named Statius Quadratus, was the Proconsul for the Roman Empire for Asia Minor. When Statius asked Polycarp will you renounce your faith in Jesus? The bishop said, for all these years Jesus has never abandoned me, and I will not abandon him now." After his death the Christians in Smyrna wrote this commemoration of his death: Statius Quadratus, Proconsul of Rome’ Jesus Christ, King forever." This was a political statement, a statement of loyalty. The persecution of the Bishop was designed to intimidate the believers into conformity. Kill the shepherd and the sheep will scatter. But it didn’t work. The church entered into that persecution faithfully, and as a result the church was not eliminated but prospered.
However, the church did not rush into martyrdom. They tried to accommodate themselves to the world around them. That’s the message you get when you read those letters at the back of the New Testqament, expecially the practical advice given to the churches , including this letter to the Ephesians. The advice Paul gives them is be good citizens, and don’t cause trouble. Obey all rulers. Even if they happen to be evil rulers, obey them. Also, you will find passages that tell Slaves to be obedient to their masters. That advice was motivated by the desire of the followers of Jesus Christ not to cause trouble in this world, don’t upset things.
But I’d like to point out that the advice was given because those who followed Christ were upsetting things. They were upsetting things because if Jesus ascension means that he has all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named Then the rulers of this world are quite small.. And some oppressive master who owns slaves is powerless, the only person to whom we are indentured is Christ. So whay the advice to the churches to be obedient to the powers that be? Probably because they believed that Jesus was returning soon.
But by Polycarp’s time around 156 on the Common Era, in fact, before that, those who followed Christ began to say, maybe Jesus is not coming back right away. Maybe what we are waiting for him to come and do, he is trying to do through us. Maybe we ought to get on with it, "Go out into all the world and proclaim, the reign of Jesus Christ. If ultimate power resides with God, and if Jesus taught us the values of God. Then we should certainly do everything in our power to change the world so that the world so that its values reflect Christ. The last shall be first, the poor will be fed, the weak will be made strong. The world should look a little differently if we proclaim that Jesus is ruler of the heavens and the earth. It took awhile for the Church to understand this.
For the longest time, the church on earth seemed satisfied that the Ascension was all about the fact that we have a special friend in high places. A friend that perhaps was ours individually, or as a body of believers. The Letter to the Hebrews, has often been used as a kind of touchstone for this text, where it says we now have an advocate with the Father who knows our weakness because he was here with us. So the idea of Jesus was one of personal satisfaction and salvation. God is in his heaven and all is well with me.
But there is a huge problem in that narrow interpretation. Because it is in the act of the Ascension, that Jesus is forever marked the ruler of the universe.
In America we are threatened by a powerful enemy inside our borders. The enemy is so subtle and devious, so difficult to pin down, because it cloaks itself in patriotic slogans and religious piety. You and I have heard it over and over again in speeches on what it means to be an American, or what it means to be a Christian. It goes under the name of individualism. It’s an "ism." A belief, a religion, an idol. And to challenge it in this society is like refusing to worship Caesar.
Individualism as an idol means this. I am the ruler of my own life. I can do what I please with my life. I owe nothing to anyone else. I am an island sufficient unto myself. Friends, If this is true, then God in Christ has not ascended to power over us. People who live in the shadow of the ascension, do owe something to everyone else. We owe love. We are not islands, we are those people who live interdependently – not self sufficiently. We live by grace given to us in the suffering, death and ascension of Jesus. We are freed from the individualism which says we get what we deserve in life. Now we live in the Easter light with Chrit who raises us up every day in more abundance than we ever deserve.
Individualism tears apart our world. It is manifested in war, poverty, drugs, crime, ignorance, racism, and despair. One out of three victims of physical abuse in our country is a child three years old and younger. Parents and others who are supposed to care are sick with illness and addictions that do not focus on the youngest, smallest weakest among us.
In the first century people who could afford it, or who were born to noble birth, dropped out of society. Much the same way people in our generation are doing. They did it with drugs, and sexual diversion, they did it with sophisticated despair and boredom that said there is nothing we can do about things. But not all people did that. Those persons the Church converted were told because Jesus Christ is our Ruler, you must live differently, despair is not an option. "Put off the works of darkness and but on the armor of light."
A group of students from America were traveling through Kenya, visiting the great game parks. They stopped at a little town in northern Kenya called Kitale, put their backpacks down and rested in the store. Joseph came in, introduced himself and said, "I’m a Christian, a pastor." His parish was in an area 200 miles north in a land which because of famine had incarcerated the people and the land. Some of the students decided to return with Joseph to see hs church. They arrived after two days and discovered, to their amazement 100 children milling around. That was his church all those children. The only building was a little church with a wooden cross on it. Joseph explained how he came there three years ago because of the famine. How he walked out in the desert and begqan collecting children from the tribes that still lived on the plains. Their parents were dead or too weak to care for their children, so Joseph carried them to the church. He said he walked each day ten, twenty, thirty miles, looking for children. He motioned to an enclosure, a fence made of thorny Acacia branches, that’s where the children sleep. I wanted to build them a shelter, but I only have enough money to buy food. He said that when he goes out into the desert he goes out alone, "I know God is with me, I am going to find his children, and I know that God comes with me."
The next day Joseph walked seven miles carrying one of the little children to a hospital. When he came back he reported that two children he had carried there the week before had died. Tommorrow, he said, I’ll dig their graves.
That night the students met in the church with Joseph for evening prayers. They didn’t say much, just sat there like the Quakers, waiting for the power from on high. Joseph said, "Sometimes all I need is some courage, just someone to say, You’re strong Joseph. You can go on. You can walk further. Then he bowed his head and said, Feel free, brothers and sisters, courage me. What a marvelous prayer that is. Courage me. In the Ascension God raises all of us up, that we might courage each other. Amen.