Ascension Day Sermon

Stay in the city and look around.
A sermon preached by Christopher L. Webber at the Church of the Ascension, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, on Ascension Day, May 17, 2007.

It seems to me there’s a very clear message in the readings tonight – though it may not be one we want to hear. I doubt that we recognize how often we have that problem with the Bible, because the Bible has that reputation, you know, and we want to be comfortable with it so we just kind of screen it out when it might make us feel uncomfortable. Tonight’s readings ought to make us uncomfortable. The message I heard in those readings was: Stay where you are and look around.

Now that doesn’t sound too bad but let’s take a careful look. Stay where you are and look around. The texts put it this way:

Luke 24:49 And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city

In other words, Stay where you are.

Acts 1:11 Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?

In other words, look down and look around.

Did you read about the men arrested last week in New Jersey for plotting against Fort Dix? The news media interviewed their relatives to ask why they would do such a thing and one relative blamed it all on religion: “If you get too much to the religion,” he said, “you get out of your mind and you do stupid things.”

Well, but what did he mean by religion? He’s a roofer by trade and he said he had worked on roofs on mosques and churches and donated to synagogues. “You’ve got to donate,” he said, “because you don’t know next life which one is the true story, so you’ve got to be balanced.”

Sounds like some Episcopalians I’ve met.

But, you know, I think that’s a pretty common idea of what religion is all about: planning ahead, making your reservations, hedging your bets. And that’s where the disciples’ minds were until the angels straightened them out.

“Why do you stand looking up to heaven?” You could get a stiff neck. But you could also fail to see what needs to be done. I think that’s also why Jesus told them to stay in the city. That’s where the people are; that’s where the need is. So for goodness sake don’t get religion, don’t get crazy, don’t spend your time planning for the hereafter. Look around; get real; get involved.

How many times, how many ways did Jesus tell his followers what to do and where to do it? The Parable of the Last Judgement: I was naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, hungry and you gave me food. You won’t be likely to do that if you’re bird watching, star-gazing, up on the church roof worrying about the hereafter; you won’t see Jesus there. “Lo, I am with you always,” Jesus said. Not up there; right here; in the city. Stay here.

Now, you might ask, in view of that text what I was thinking of 47 years ago when I did what so many do and left this wonderful parish to move out on the island. To be honest, I don’t know. I do remember that the bishop offered to put my name in for another parish just six months after he instituted me as Rector here and I asked him not to. But another year went by and he did it without asking and I went. I remember talking about it with the social worker at St. John’s Hospital. And I told her I doubted life would be near as interesting out there. And she said, “Oh, you’ll find things to do.”

She was right. What I found myself in the middle of was the biggest school desegregation fight in the history of New York State: picketing, boycotts, protests, a lot of anger in that nice quiet suburb. “Stay in the city until – until you are given power from on high.” And maybe then move on to the next city, next community, and be there, be present there, as Jesus would be, as Jesus is, where you are, in the midst of things.

I spent the last twenty-two years before I retired - the first time - in Westchester County, where lawyers and stock brokers commute to Wall Street and the biggest fight we had was over a community residence for the retarded which we established in our own church buildings. Retarded people in our nice community? Some of them weren’t even white. Jesus was there also.

I read a paper last week by one of our bishops (Arthur Walmsley) who was reviewing the history of the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church over the last half century which is about the span of time that I’ve been a priest. It was the end of my first year in seminary that the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Brown vs Board of Education that ruled that segregated schools were inherently unequal. It was ten years later that the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church sent a pastoral letter to the church supporting non-violent civil disobedience and it’s been all down hill since then:

“As an institution,” the bishop wrote, “ the Episcopal Church has been in turmoil for a half century, from the civil rights struggle to conflicts over Vietnam, the nuclear arms race, Prayer Book revision, the ordination of women, the election of a first woman to the episcopate, response to the HIV-AIDS crisis, and more recently to the public affirmation of gay and lesbian clergy and same-sex blessings.” And along the way, the bishop added, “The Episcopal Church (and many other churches, I would add) have moved from being establishment elites to politically-marginalized critics of the government.” I don’t think that in Ascension Greenpoint we ever thought we were “establishment elite” but maybe others did. If so, they can’t anymore. They’ve been compelled to stop looking up and begin to look around. No longer do we “get too much to the religion.” We get with Jesus; we pay attention to the prayer he taught us: “thy kingdom come on earth” and we try not to get too upset when that prayer is answered and the world changes and the familiar land marks get swept away.

A lot of nominal Christians, a lot of nominal Episcopalians, have trouble with that. They’ve got religion, and it’s a religion that’s a lot more interested in keeping things the way they used to be. It’s a feel-good religion, a religion of entertainment evangelism, a religion about “me” and how I feel and what I get out of it. You know that old revival hymn, “I come to the garden alone . . .”? That sums it up. It’s all about me and Jesus. “And he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I am his own.” Did Jesus ever say that to anybody? Peter said, “Lord, you know I love you.” And Jesus did not say, “I love you too;” he said, “Feed my sheep.”

And surely that’s the agenda. What I remember about this church from the years I was here was the reputation it had in the neighborhood. People would talk about “Ascension people” not because they had their gaze on things above but because they had their gaze on the community around them, because when things were happening. Ascension people were involved, they stayed in the city. There were other churches in this community fifty years ago that are gone now, closed up, disappeared. Ascension is here.

And I know it hasn’t been easy. Jesus never promised it would be. He said. “Take up your cross and follow me.” And the best part of that is the word “Follow.” You don’t have to take the lead. If you’re on the right track, you will never be out front; you’ll be following, following Jesus. And he will be sending back to you people you hadn’t noticed at first and problems you hoped someone else would solve. And you will never have more than just barely enough. In fact, you’ll never think you have even anywhere near enough resources. And, in fact, your own resources never will be enough – if we could do it ourselves, we wouldn’t need God – but you’ll go ahead anyway and somehow the job will get done and the little you have will turn out to have been enough after all -- somehow – because you plus faith can get it done; you plus power from on high, invisible power that the treasurer can’t measure when he or she tries to balance the books but it will be there and you will be here And you will take risks and therefore make a difference.

Did you read in yesterday’s paper that 103 bishops of the Episcopal Church sent a letter to every member of Congress telling them its time to deal with Iraq. 103 bishops! I didn’t know 103 Episcopal bishops had ever agreed about anything. But they said: “We believe it imperative that the United States now:

* Map out a strategy for a responsible transition to Iraqi governance, making clear that we do not have long term interests in occupying Iraq
* Join those in the region, including Syria and Iran, in seeking security and economic recovery for Iraq
* Provide the women and men of our military and their families with the sustained and responsive care they need
* Work for religious freedom and protection of religious minorities in Iraq
* Serve the needs of Iraqi refugees wherever they may be
* Seek peace in the region, including a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians

They said it’s time to move beyond partisan positions. They said we need to acknowledge our mistakes as well as our responsibilities. Stay in the city and look around. Not necessarily Baghdad or Washington, but the real political situation. Stay involved. Don’t look away. People are dying. We’re responsible. Because we are followers of Jesus we need to find ways to create peace.

In yesterday’s news as well was a report about a HIV/AIDS program our church is sponsoring in Honduras and an isolated mountain community where we’re sponsoring new housing. Our new Presiding Bishop was visiting these and other projects of the church in that growing diocese and she said, "You are transforming the world beginning in your own place.”

Right there, God is at work through them and, because we are one church, through you.

Right here in Greenpoint, "You are transforming the world beginning in your own place.” Right here God is at work through you because you are staying here and looking around and seeing where God is at work and joining in. It was my privilege to be here once and be part of what you are doing. I’m with you still in prayer and on Ascension Day whenever possible to share in that ministry right here, right now because our risen and ascended Lord calls us and strengthens us and is with us always.