Acts 1: 1-11; Psalm 47; Ephesians 1: 15-23; Luke 24: 44-53
A
homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given
at St. John’s Church, Huntingdon,
Pennsylvania, on Sunday, May 17, 2015.
“INTEGRATING
OUR FOCUS ON THE
FUTURE AND ON THE PRESENT”
(Homily texts:
Acts 1: 1–11 & Luke 24: 44-53)
Two
pastors are chatting one day, when one pastor says to the other: “When do you think Jesus is coming back? I’d say that all the signs are telling us
that He will come back very, very soon.”
The other pastor thinks for a moment and replies: “Well, we know that He is coming back at some
time or another, but what we think Jesus wants us to be thinking about is the
good works that He wants us to be doing until He comes.”
These two positions pretty well sum up
some of the basic positions that Christians have taken as they live out their
faith….one position focuses on the end of all things, that time when Jesus will
return again, that time when His kingdom will have no end, and the other
position that sets that focus aside and, instead, seeks to be about living the
Christian life in everyday life, going about doing good works of service in the
Lord’s name.
Unfortunately, at times some
Christians have dismissed the opposing position as being a distortion of the
Christian faith: Those who can’t wait
for Jesus to come again might be tempted to think that those who don’t share
that concern are missing the essence of what the Christian life is all about. On the other hand, those whose focus is on
living the Christian life day in and day out might be tempted to dismiss that
other position because they might perceive in that position a temptation to
ignore the needs of the world.
Well, welcome to the Seventh Sunday
after Easter, sometimes known as the Sunday after the Ascension. Ascension Day always falls on a Thursday, 40
days after Easter. It occurred this past
Thursday, May 14th. We are
taking the liberty of using the Scripture readings from that day for our
Eucharistic celebration this morning.
Let’s look at two of these readings
more closely.
We have before us this morning the
very beginning of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, the first eleven
verses, and we have the very last few verses of the Gospel According to St.
Luke. The two books, the gospel and the
Book of Acts, dovetail together. St.
Luke is the author of both books. He
picks up in the beginning of Acts where he left off with the gospel account,
narrating Jesus’ ascension into heaven on the Mount of Olives.
In both readings, two things are
apparent: Jesus’ ascension into heaven,
and the word “witnesses”.
It seems to me that the two
positions with which we began this homily arise from the ascension event
itself:
Those we are watching and waiting
for Jesus’ return seem to take note of the words of the two men who appeared,
standing next to those who watched Jesus’ ascension, “Men of Galilee, why do
you stand looking up into 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.” In
particular, Christians who adopt this position seem to concern themselves with
these last few words: “This Jesus, who
as been taken up from you into heaven, will come again in the same way as you
saw him go into heaven.”
But notice the beginning of the
statement: “Men of Galilee, why do you
stand looking up into heaven?” The
admonition (my guess at least) seems to be that we Christians are not to
concern ourselves with an all-consuming focus on the heavens. Why might that be? I think the reason is that Jesus has just
told His disciples that they are going to be His witnesses, witnesses in
Jerusalem, His witnesses in the surrounding area of Judea, His witnesses northward
into Samaria, and finally, His witnesses to the very ends of the earth.
In short, the Lord is saying that we
Christians have work to do, and it is a work that focuses on the world and the
people in the world. It is this charge
that those Christians who focus on doing the Lord’s work in the world seem to
take as their charge for living the Christian life.
We remarked at the beginning of this
homily that these two basic positions seem to be somewhat antithetical to one
another. Christians on the one side of
these two positions tend to dismiss the other position.
Fortunately, this divide seems to be
changing somewhat, for churches that formerly had a singular focus on Jesus’
return and the establishment of His kingdom are awaking to the requirement to
be doing good works of love in Jesus’ name to alleviate suffering in the
world. Indeed, this is a very promising
development.
That is not to say that an
all-encompassing focus with the end of all things, and with Jesus’ return,
doesn’t still exist. It does. Even a cursory look at religious broadcasting
will reveal a wealth of preachers and evangelists who will attempt to spell out
with great detail the timeline for the Lord’s return and the signs that will
precede that return.[1]
What are we to make of all this?
Do we take one position or the other
as we choose those things to concentrate on as we seek to live out the
Christian life?
Do we look into the heavens, waiting
for the sound of the trumpet?
Apparently, this was a great problem for the early Church, for St. Paul
has to admonish the early Christians in Thessalonica, many of whom we sitting
around idly, looking into the skies and doing little else. Paul tells them to get busy, and to do the
work they are called to do.
Or do we set about doing good works
in the Lord’s name, setting aside much – if any – thought about the great, big
picture of God’s eventual plans?
I suspect that we Episcopalians,
most of us anyway, adopt the second position, and seek to do works of love and
mercy as God’s people.
But we Episcopalians are uniquely
situated to hold both of these great truths in tension with one another.
Perhaps this statement will need
some explanation.
We Episcopalians are inheritors of
the great Anglican tradition. The
Anglican expression of the Christian faith has been called by some “The most
comprehensive expression of Christianity.”
Personally, I believe that statement to be true.
Anglicanism presents us with some
wonderful gifts. One of those gifts is
the ability to hold two (or more) positions that might seem antithetical to one
another in tension.
Here, we have the opportunity to
apply those wonderful Anglican gifts to the matter of Jesus’ return and to the
business of being His witnesses to the world.
It is a case not of “either-or”, but
of “both-and”.
Applying this understanding, we can
say that “Yes, Jesus will come again (as the Nicene Creed affirms), and that
his kingdom will have no end (as the Creed also affirms).” But, we can also say that God has charged us
with spreading the good news by word and by deed (as our Baptismal Covenant
calls us to do) in Jesus’ name.
Holding the two truths in tension
allows us to understand that God has folded us into His great and final
plans. We have a role in those plans. Those
plans are worked out in the day-in-and-day out struggle of everyday living. And
so, God’s great plan transforms the everyday, the eternal gives meaning to the
temporal.
It may be difficult to maintain our
focus on the eternal and final plans of God, and on the work that God sets
before us as His people, but if we are able to do so, then the work set before
us can be done in view of the place that work has in God’s master plan.
AMEN.
[1] The late Harold Camping, about five years
ago, was one of the more recent predictors of the Lord’s return. Camping even set a definite date for the
event to happen. Of course, it didn’t
happen, and Camping responded to criticisms of his prediction by saying that
his calculations were wrong. He
attempted to correct those mistakes, but, of course, the second date he set
also turned out to be wrong.
