Where is God in all this?

This sermon can be listened to here

Gate Pa - Ascension Sunday and Easter 7 Year A, 2020

Readings -
Psalm -             Psalm: 68:1-10, 32-35
First Reading - Acts 1:1-14
Second Reading - Eph 1: 15-23
Gospel -            John 17:1-11
What I want to say:
As we reflect on the Ascension and Jesus final prayer while we continue to not meet in church and live our lives under level 2 restrictions, where do we see God at work?
What I want to happen: How does our abiding in the Godhead affects how we see the world and how we live our lives.

The Sermon

1. Introduction:

This week we returned to the parish office. It was strange going back into the church, still with the Lenten purple and flowerless. It remains locked and apart from the cleaners, I am the only person going in there at the moment for prayers at 9.30 Tuesday to Friday. I wonder when we will safely be able to offer services again.
Here we are near the end of the season of Easter.
Next Sunday is Pentecost Sunday which marks the 50th and final day of Easter. All that time not in church
I wonder in all that time where God has been for you? How have you experienced God through these weeks?
I also wonder what it is that we most miss about being in church?

2. Ascension

On Thursday we commemorated the Ascension. I posted a reflection on the parish Facebook and YouTube pages and I hope some of you have seen that.

We hear that story from Acts 1 again this Sunday.There are a number of ways the ascension is understood in the New Testament. Matthew and Mark don’t mention it. John links the ascension with the resurrection, as does the writer of Luke - Acts in the Gospel of Luke. Only in Acts is it separated from the resurrection and happen 40 days later.

I wonder where we think Jesus goes as he ascends. I would say that Jesus returns to God the Father. So where is that? In heaven? So where is heaven

I suspect that for many people heaven is far away. As Bette Midler’s song says, God is watching us from a distance.

3. Where is God?

I have talked on a number of occasions about how the incarnation is God’s way of showing humanity God’s deep and eternal commitment to this world, God’s creation, and all who live here.

I’ve talked about how all the gospel writers understood Jesus to be the way we come to know God. In his life and ministry, in what he said and did, Jesus lived God’s character for all to see. In his life, death and resurrection Jesus lived God’s compassion and generosity, justice and mercy, God’s love. They wrote their gospels so that future generations would also come to know God in Jesus. But Jesus didn’t just show us God’s love, but also reminded us all that we are made in the image of this divine love.

One way to understand the ascension is that in that moment all that Jesus lived and taught about God is affirmed by God. God is not far away sitting in judgement, but as close as our breath inviting us into God’s compassion, generosity, justice, mercy.

And we might also say that God is not anywhere and is everywhere. As I said on Thursday and in the pew sheet theme, the crucified and resurrected Jesus of the particular time and place of first century Judea and Galilee becomes the Ascended Christ of all time and all places. So rather than becoming absent from this world, in the ascension the crucified and risen Christ is more present, and more active inviting us to live God’s love, so that as the prayer Jesus teaches says, God’s will is done on earth as in heaven.

And God’s will is compassion and generosity, justice and mercy, God’s love.

4. John

This theme of God’s deep and abiding compassion and commitment to this world is what John’s gospel is all about. In fact, John’s gospel from the prologue to the end is about Jesus being the means by which God breaks down the division between this world and the Divine.
We can see that very clearly in the passage we heard from John 17, the beginning of what is called by some as Jesus’ great high priestly prayer. This prayer was prayed for his followers and disciples who faced the dark night of Jesus arrest and execution. The future was bleak.
And in that moment of despair Jesus offers a deeply passionate and compassionate prayer for what they needed to survive in all that was unfolding around them.
They were invited into the love between God the Father and Jesus, and that eternally exists between the Father, Source of all Being and the Eternal Word. They were invited to abide or live in that love, to allow that love to shape them and their relationships with each other. They were invited to live that love in the same way Jesus lived that love; to be icons of that love.

5. Here we are

So here we are in level 2, facing an uncertain few weeks.

There is some angst about when we can return to church. There are some faith leaders arguing that we should be allowed to gather now. And there are some who suggest that maybe we should wait.
I want to say that whether we can gather with each other in church or with each other online, or in on our own in our homes, through the ascension we know that Christ is present
And whether we are able to meet in church or not, whether we can be part of the online services or not, the Ascended Christ continues to pray for each of us individually, and for us as a community. Just as Jesus offered that deeply passionate and compassionate prayer for what those disciples in our gospel reading needed to survive all that was unfolding around them, so too the ascended Christ offers that same deeply passionate and compassionate prayer for us. We are held in love.

6. Conclusion

As we reflect on the Ascended Christ present in all times and places,
- where has God been for you during these last two months?
- How have you experienced God through these weeks? One of the commentators I read talked about how the words we use in our prayers and what we pray for reveal who we think God is.
In Jesus prayer in John 17 we can see who Jesus knows God the father to be.
- Love
I’ve talked a lot over the last 8 years about who I think God is, from my reading of the gospels in particular, and from my own experience.
I wonder what it is you are praying for now, and what that says about who God is for you?
- Are you being invited during this time to know God in a new way?
- How might that change your prayer, if at all?
As we think about what it is that we most miss about being in church
- Are there other ways we are being invited to be church during this time?