pic3

leftSunday Sermonsright

Lewis Memorial

05-24-09

8:30am Sermon “Prelude to Pentecost”

Acts 1:1-11 (NRSV)

1 In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning 2 until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God. 4 While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; 5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” 7 He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” 9 When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. 11 They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

The key for our consideration today is verse 6:

So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”

The word of God for the People of God: “Thanks be to God” Let us Pray….

Right here at the beginning of Acts, our author, Luke, identifies a major issue. The disciples ask the risen Jesus: “Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” This is the very heart of their concern. “The Messiah should finally restore the kingdom to Israel!” Don’t just skip over this question and hurry over to that “be witnesses to the uttermost ends of the earth” section. If we do that we get ahead of ourselves. Let’s really consider their question:

“Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” It is not a silly question or irrelevant question. We just finished our Disciple study and our last book of the Bible was Revelation and the Confirmands had a class on “Life after Death and the End of the World.” I said in both classes – “Jesus answered,

7 ‘It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has laid down on his own authority,’

….because people spend way too much time and energy on knowing when Jesus will return.” But that does not mean we should not consider this question. It was a central issue for the disciples and it was a central issue for Jesus.

Jesus, in three years of ministry, had proclaimed, “The kingdom of God is at hand.” The promised reign of God is about to break into human history. Already there were signs of that breaking in of God’s reign. Already where men and women were being set free from the powers that enslaved them, God’s reign was being established.

But primarily the coming kingdom of God, God’s reign, was a vision. Luke tells us that when Jesus stood up in the synagogue at Nazareth, he took up the scroll of Isaiah and read:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, he has sent me to preach liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to preach the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Remember that? He also said,

“Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God; blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be satisfied; blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.”

The vision of the kingdom was both something which Jesus proclaimed and something which he lived out during his ministry. It remains the great vision of the kingdom today, the prayer Jesus taught his disciples to pray: “Your kingdom come! Your will be done on Earth…as it is in Heaven’

So, when the disciples turned to Jesus and asked, “Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel’, they were giving voice to this passion. Their expectations had been raised. Jesus had declared God’s promised kingdom was at hand. He had been rejected and brutally put to death on the cross. But God had raised him from the dead. He was vindicated. He was right. The kingdom is at hand. But when?

The poor of Galilee remained poor. The people were not liberated. The hungry were still hungry. The broken hearted were still broken hearted. The weeping still wept. And over 2000 years later the problem is the same: the poor are still poor, the hungry are still hungry, the weeping still weep, the humble have not been exalted, the exalted have no t been brought low, and the rich have not been turned empty away.

Was Jesus wrong? Had he miscalculated? Was the vision too idealistic? The belief that the great reversal would happen very soon lived on in the early decades of the Church. The coming of the kingdom and, with it, the second coming of Jesus, was at hand. Paul could still believe for a long time that it would happen while he was alive.

But it did not come, as many expected; it had not come by Luke’s day; it has not come in ours. And so some might collapse into atheism and declare Jesus a fake. Newsweek had as their title in April of this year: “The decline and fall of Christian America.” And we know Europe has been in a spiritual decline for centuries. Except for Africa and South America, the life and love of God is spurned and rejected.

It’s hard to pause and face this reality. But this can be a real creative moment. Don’t try to avoid the pain of disappointment; don’t deny that it is there, don’t explain it away, or try to compensate for it. Pain is one of the most formative events in our Christian walk. At the point of pain there is a centre of enormous energy. For individuals and for churches that energy can be negative; but it can also be a major step together toward Christ’s way.

Negative because a common avoidance of the pain over this kingdom that has yet to materialize is to just postpone the vision. Make it entirely in the future. This vision is a vision only about heaven. One day at the end of the world, when Jesus comes again, or one day in heaven, these things will all be true, these hopes fulfilled. But don’t even look for it now!

You see this can solve the problem, because we now say that Jesus was not talking about life on earth at all, but only about life in heaven. So what if nothing much has changed on earth, that’s not a problem. Jesus was not talking about change on earth, only the change that comes in heaven.

Now our only task is to tell people about the heavenly. We don’t have to concern ourselves with any change for the poor and hungry, the humbled and broken spirited. What we offer is hope beyond, not hope or change within the world. The vision of the kingdom is a promise; it is not an agenda. And the job of the church is simply to persuade people of the promise and the way of receiving it. “Your kingdom come” refers to the future. But what about “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven?” Does that depend upon how we define God’s will? Does it go no further than keeping commandments and telling others about heaven?

It doesn’t make sense that Jesus’ claimed that the kingdom could break in upon his ministry with people right then and right now. The promise is of a new heaven as well as of a new earth. But it is wrong to deny the promise to the here and now realities of this life.

Jesus’ vision of God’s reign was not an invitation to withdraw from the world and seek only to get our “fire insurance.” To seek the kingdom of God was never to pick out a part of reality where God might reign or a time in reality when he might reign. To seek the kingdom of God never meant anything less than to seek God’s promised rule in the whole of reality, in space and time. Everything is included. Everyone is included. This is the promise Jesus proclaimed. The vision is all encompassing. It is this hope of the kingdom on Earth that creates the pain in our gut when we see the kingdom unfulfilled.

We should all want to see a “Pentecost” when the Spirit falls and the vision is made clear! It happened to the Disciples and has happened to others over these 2000 years. I believe for John Wesley, it was a personal Pentecost that night at Aldersgate Chapel when he felt his heart “strangely warmed. But most of our Christian life is a “Prelude to Pentecost.” We are, most of the time, living in anticipation of Pentecost and the fullness of God’s kingdom.

Luke writes Acts to tell us not only that Jesus announced the kingdom, but also that the promise is being fulfilled. The Church is part of that promise. Jesus promised the kingdom and God sent the Church. The promise is not being fulfilled by a single stroke, as it were, but in two steps: first the Church and then the total fulfillment of the vision. The Church is the place where the kingdom is coming into being.

So just like Jesus in our reading today, we are “up in the air” ….somewhere between heaven and earth. Right now...is an awkward time. It’s an awkward moment in the school year. The work is done...but things aren’t quite over yet. There is something more still to happen. At least that what the graduates are hoping! College or a job or both await us! We hope!

It’s the same if you follow the church year. Right now we’re sitting between Ascension, where Jesus was lifted up into the clouds out of sight, and Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit comes down from heaven, to fill the disciples with power and energy and gifts for God’s work in the world. Up, down. Up, down.

I find myself feeling something like what those disciples must have felt on that hill. The Jesus they’d lost once, and then found risen from the dead, is now gone again. While he was with them, he always had an answer, a plan. They usually wouldn’t understand it, but it’s comforting to think that somebody knows what’s going on. And now...he’s gone, and they look after him where they saw him last.

“Did you see that? What just happened?” If your life is anything like mine, there is something up in the air, something unsettled, something going on which isn’t quite clear yet. So many things up in the air... And “suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?’ ” Isn’t that an amazing thing? Aren’t we supposed to be looking up toward heaven? These men, these angels, say Jesus “will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” So shouldn’t we have our eye firmly fixed on the last place we saw him? What goes up, must come down... Jesus went up, so surely he’s up there, and when he comes again it will be from on high. Right?

It’s a trick question, you know... now don’t get me wrong. Heaven is wonderful. We need heaven, there’s a need for holiness and beauty and purity and radiance, all the things we hope for in any decent heaven. But the big problem with looking up to heaven is that you can’t see the person next to you.

If you want to see Jesus, don’t be staring up into heaven. Look to the people who struggle each day for their daily bread. Come down off of your hill to the poor of this county, this nation, and this world. Share something of yourself with another, and take something of another into yourself.

So I offer this advice to us as individuals and to us as a body of Christ – a church. Learn patience and discipline. Wait and pray and study. As a body we should move together in unity. God is giving us a glimpse of our own Pentecost, so let us “not weary in well doing” but may we be found faithful on the day of Christ’s return. If we get our own little Pentecost right here at Lewis, well wonderful! But until then, wait and pray and study. Would you call yourself a patient disciple of Christ? What can you do to practice patience? Could we use more people in our prayer ministry? Could your prayer life be strengthened? Is the entire congregation involved an honest study of the scriptures? Who could you invite or mentor toward maturity? These lifestyles are a “Prelude to Pentecost” for Lewis. The more of us involved in this way, the closer we come to the kingdom of God – right here and right now. Lets us pray!