EASTER 7-A, May 8, 2005

When I was growing up in the Roman Catholic Church, this past Thursday was a Holy Day of Obligation, meaning we were supposed to go to church under penalty of mortal sin if we did not. You know what day this past Thursday was, don’t you? Of course you do. Or maybe you don’t. It was the Feast of the Ascension. But don’t be too chagrined if you did not know the answer.

Several years ago I was asked to speak about the Episcopal Church to the seventh grade class at St. Aloysius’ School in Spokane on the campus of Gonzaga University, a Jesuit institution. It was the Feast of the Ascension. When I asked the students if they knew what day it was, the only answer they could come up with was "Thursday."

Things have changed in the Roman Catholic Church since I was a youngster, so much so that Ascension Thursday is being celebrated today in most Roman Catholic Churches. It’s still a Holy Day but only because it is also a Sunday. What has not changed is that the Feast of the Ascension, the account of which is found in today’s first reading, still leaves us in much of the same state as it left the Apostles.

Remember the scene: it’s about forty days after Easter. Jesus has appeared to the Apostles probably a half dozen times since his resurrection. Each time he takes some time to go over what he had taught them during those three years he walked the highways and byways of Israel with them. He needs just a little more time for them to get the message. When he is satisfied that he has said all he can say, taught all he can teach, do all he can do, he simply leaves. Or as Luke tells us, he ascends into the heavens.

All the disciples can do at that moment is stand there with their mouths open, hands on their hips, speechless, wondering "Now what?" This was not how they had envisioned everything, not before the crucifixion, certainly not after the resurrection. Before the crucifixion they assumed that Jesus would lead an overthrow of the Roman government. After the resurrection, I suspect they were even more convinced that he certainly would do so now. Instead, he up and leaves, literally.

And there they stand, left behind. The Left Behind Series purports to tell us about the final days and what it might be like to really be left behind. If the authors want to know what it really means to be left behind, all they would have to do is interview those men and women who were truly left behind when Jesus ascended into heaven. They cannot do that, of course. But, then, they do not have to. If they want to know what it means to be left behind, all they have to do is ask me – ask anyone of us. We know what it means to be left behind.

Being left behind means that we cannot keep looking up to heaven for answers. It means we cannot keep looking even to Jesus for answers, as the Apostles had done. When they walked this earth with Jesus, they knew what to do and what not to do, what to say and what not to say. Jesus was their way through life, told them the truth about their lives and gave the reasons for life itself. Now he was gone. But at least they had had the privilege of seeing and hearing for themselves.

Not so for us, who have been left behind. But surprising things happened to the apostles when they stopped looking up and wondering "what next?" and surprising things happen to us when we do what the apostles did. Listen to what Barbara Brown Taylor writes about this scene: She says: "No one standing around watching…[the disciples] that day could have guessed what an astounding thing happened when they all stopped looking into the sky and looked at each other instead. On the surface, it was not a great moment: eleven abandoned disciples [left behind] with nothing to show for all their following.

"But in the days and years to come it would become very apparent what had happened to them. With nothing but a promise and a prayer, [as we heard in today’s Gospel reading,] those eleven people consented to become the church and nothing was ever the same again, beginning with them. The followers became leaders, the listeners became preachers, the converts became missionaries, the healed became healers. The disciples became apostles, witnesses of the risen Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit, and nothing was ever the same again.

"That was probably not the way they planned it. If they had had it their own way, they probably would have tied Jesus up so that he could not have gotten away from them, so that they could have known where to find him and rely on him forever. Only that is not how it happened. He went away – he was taken away – and they stood looking up toward heaven [left behind]. Then they stopped looking up toward heaven, looked at each other, and got on with the business of being the church [left behind or not].

"And once they did that, surprising things began to happen. They began to say things that sounded like him, and they began to do things they had never seen anyone but him do before. They became brave and capable and wise. Whenever two or three of them got together it was always as if there was someone else in the room with them whom they could not see – the strong, abiding presence of the absent one, as available to them as bread and wine, as familiar to them as each other’s faces. It was almost as if he had not ascended but exploded, so that all the holiness that was once concentrated in him alone flew everywhere, flew far and wide, so that the seeds of heaven were sown in all the fields of the earth." So reflects Barbara Brown Taylor.

The disciples may have been left behind, but that did not deter them from doing what they knew Jesus would have them do. But they did it together. That does not mean it all came easy. As today’s epistle reminds us, it did not. Suffering and hardship came their way. Temptations to give it all up arose daily. Worry and care and concern were part and parcel of their lives of faith. But because they cared for, loved and supported one another, they did not fail. They may have been left behind but they were never alone. They had one another and they had the strength and support of the Holy Spirit.

So, too, of course, do you and I. Because of the Ascension you and I have been left behind, but we have not been left alone. We, too, as followers of Jesus, are to be leaders, preachers, and healers. That does not mean it will be easy. Again, as today’s epistle reminds us, and as we have all discovered, it is not. Suffering and hardship come to each one of us. Temptations to give in and give up arise almost daily. Worry and care and concern are part and parcel of our lives of faith. But because we care for, love and support one another, we will not fail.

We may have been left behind but we are never alone. As a church, as a community of faith, we have one another, we have Jesus words in Scripture, we have the Eucharist and we have the grace and strength and support of the Holy Spirit to remain faithful to be able to fulfill our responsibilities as Christians. Like those disciples who were left behind, we, too, are witnesses of the risen Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit living in and working through each of individually and all of us as a community of faith. May we so live and so witness today and every day.