Ascension Sunday
May 8, 2016
Mother’s Day
Acts 1:1-11; Luke 24:44-53
I’m guessing there are times when your mother has sounded
like an angel. Perhaps she has a lovely singing voice and sang in the church
choir. Or perhaps she’s the one who held you when you woke up from a nightmare
as a child and would tell you “don’t be afraid.” Maybe she’s the one who shared
the great news about Jesus with you, like the angels telling the shepherds
about Jesus’ birth. Hopefully, there have been many times when your mother has
sounded like an angel. In today’s passage from Acts, however, rather than a
mother sounding like these angels, these two angels sound a lot like my mother.
If your mom was anything like my mom, then you often got told to go do things,
and not just any things, but good, helpful things. Go set the table. Go pick up
your room. Go unload the dishwasher. Go feed the dog. Go see if you can help.
That was a common one, especially when we were visiting somewhere. Whether
Grandma’s kitchen or an aunt’s or a friend’s, Mom would nudge me and whisper in
my ear, “Go see if you can help.” Anyone else’s mom do that? Go make yourself
useful. Go see how you can help those
who are busy working. Sometimes, though, she had already volunteered your help,
right? I told Grandma you could help her
with this. Or, not volunteered you ahead of time, but volunteered you with you
present and the person you were going to help present as well, so you can’t say
no. One time when I was home from college on break and our church participated
in a ministry similar to Streets of Hope, except that the homeless families
rotated among the churches and volunteers from each church had to spend the
night at church with them. So one night my mom volunteered me. The thing about
it was, was that after that, I volunteered on my own to spend the night at
church once each time it was our church’s turn to host. And I often still go into whatever kitchen of
whatever host and ask how I can help.
Those kinds of things get ingrained in you. It’s our mom’s voice we can
still hear in our ear, whether she’s with us or not.
And what these angels say to the disciples, who are still
staring up at heaven after Jesus, sounds a lot like my mother. I’m willing to
guess that they sounded a lot like your mother, too. “Galileans, why are you
standing there looking up at the sky? This Jesus, who was taken from you into
heaven, will come back in the same way that you saw him go to heaven.”[1]
Or, in other words, “Hey, you! Why are
you just standing around? Jesus will come back. And until he does, there’s work
to be done.” It’s a bit like reminding a little kid at the door that their
parent is coming back. At the end of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is taken up to
heaven, and the disciples “were continuously in the temple praising God.”[2]
Then Luke keeps writing, beginning the book of Acts, and he adds a few details
here that he didn’t include in his gospel, like the conversation between Jesus
and his disciples right before Jesus ascends to heaven. The disciples
essentially say, “We know what you’re going to do. We know you’re going to
restore God’s kingdom here on earth. So, when are you going to do it?”[3]
It’s a question they ask repeatedly during their time with Jesus. Is now the
time? Is now the time? How about now? Again, the disciples sound like little
kids. Are we there yet? And like a parent tired of hearing the same question
over and over again, Jesus gives them a variety of answers, usually some
variation of ‘no’ or ‘not yet,’ sometimes adding an explanation of what his
kingdom will be like. Yet all the disciples want to know is, is it now? We know
and believe you’re the one to redeem and restore Israel, when is that coming?
How long, O Lord, must we wait to see this promise fulfilled? It’s like a kid asking
how old they have to be before they can do something special. (And my daughter
is very quick these days to point out that she will be 4 on her next birthday!)
The last answer Jesus gives before his ascension is to say, “You don’t get to
know the time. Timing is the Father’s business. What you’ll get is the Holy
Spirit, [which we’ll celebrate next week on Pentecost]. And when the Holy
Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over
Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world.”[4] Jesus says this, and then up he goes to
heaven. And the disciples are just left staring after him, until the angels
sound a lot like a mother and say, “Hey, you!
Quit standing around and go see if you can help!”
As y’all know, there
is always work to be done. Whether at your house or my house or here at
church or at the place where you work or a place where you volunteer, there is
always something that can be done. You cross of the last item of a to-do list
just to start the next to-do list, or, have you ever moved an item (or three)
from an old list to your new to-do list? The list never ends, there is always
something: a floor to clean, phone calls to make, trash to take out, toys to
pick up, laundry to wash, a meal to cook… It’s no wonder my mom would always
tell me to go see if I could help! Waiting during this time before Jesus’
return is an active waiting. We’ve a lot to get ready and a lot to do. Don’t
let the amount of it overwhelm you, because then you’ll just get a glass-eyed
stare like the disciples. And don’t let it stress you or pressure you. We’re
simply taking care of things until the Master returns, however long that is.
Jesus says the time is not for us to know, and God’s angels remind us that
there is work to be done here and now. Before Jesus ascended, he passed the
baton, so to speak, to his disciples. “As he returned to God, Jesus instructed
the disciples to pick up and continue his work. They were to be Jesus' witnesses,
and they were to expect God to send the Holy Spirit to help them with the task.”[5]
You see, we’re not
alone in this work. Jesus says elsewhere that he will not leave us orphans,
because he will send the Holy Spirit to be with us.[6] We
will celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit next week, on Pentecost. And we also have each other. Thanks to the
waters of baptism, we are all part of God’s family here at church. And this is
a family where even if we don’t have our own kids, we are mothers and uncles
and grandmas and big brothers and older cousins to all the kids here among us. It
doesn’t look like it now, because they’re all in Sunday School, but we average
about one child for every eight adults or so. Our children are important to us
as a church, and part of building up our church is to build up our families. It’s
helping out those with young kids. It’s making everyone feel welcome here and
included. And it’s work that we do together.
So,
as we stop staring at the sky or the past or whatever it is that we’re focused
on yet can’t change, let’s get back to the work there is to do, the work we
were given to do, to love and serve God and each other, as faithful witnesses
of Christ our Lord.[7] Today, which is not only
Ascension Sunday yet also Mother’s Day, we remember especially the work of
mothers. The past few years I have ended my Mother’s Day sermon with a litany
on the wide spectrum of motherhood, and I’d like to repeat that again today.
Litany on the Spectrum of Motherhood:[8]
To those who gave birth this year to their
first child—we celebrate with you.
To those who lost a child this year – we
mourn with you.
To those who are in the trenches with
little ones every day and wear the badge of food stains – we appreciate you.
To those who walk the hard path of
infertility, fraught with pokes, prods, tears, and disappointment – we walk
with you. Forgive us when we say foolish things. We don’t mean to make this
harder than it is.
To those who are foster moms, mentor moms,
and spiritual moms – we need you.
To those who have warm and close
relationships with your children – we celebrate with you.
To those who have disappointment, heart
ache, and distance with your children – we sit with you.
To those who lost their mothers this year –
we grieve with you.
To those who experienced abuse at the hands
of your own mother – we mourn with you that your childhood was not as it should
have been.
To those who lived through driving tests,
medical tests, and the overall testing of motherhood – we are better for having
you in our midst.
To those who are single and long to be
married and mothering your own children – we mourn that life is not turning out
the way you long for it to be.
To those who step-parent – we walk with you
on these complex paths.
To those who envisioned lavishing love on
grandchildren – yet that dream is not yet or will not be, we grieve with you.
To those who will have emptier nests in the
upcoming year – we grieve and rejoice with you.
To those who placed children in the
guardianship of others – we commend you for your selflessness and remember how
you hold that child in your heart.
And to those who are pregnant with new
life, both expected and surprising – we anticipate with you.
This Mother’s Day, we walk with you.
Mothering is not for the faint of heart and we have real warriors in our midst.
We remember you and what you have taught us and we give thanks to God for you. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment