Ascension Day 2021

Hallelujah, Christ is risen.

The Lord is risen indeed.

Hallelujah.

Let's pray together.

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.

Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

The Lord be with you.

And also with you.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, whose blessed Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, ascended far above all heavens that he might fill all things.

Mercifully give us faith to perceive that according to his promise, he abides with the church on earth even to the end of the ages, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God in glory everlasting.

Amen.

After giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.

After his suffering, he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father.

This, he said, is what you have heard from me, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, not many days from now.

So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom of Israel?

He replied, It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.

While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood next to them.

They said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward 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.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.

Clap your hands, all you people.

For the Lord is most high, is to be feared.

The great sovereign over all the earth.

The Lord subdues the people under us.

And the nations under our feet.

The Lord chooses our inheritance for us.

The pride of the love of Jacob.

God has gone up with a shout.

The Lord with the sound of the red horn.

Sing praises to God.

Sing praises.

Sing praises to our sovereign.

Sing praises.

For God is sovereign to all the earth.

Sing praises with all your will.

God reigns over the nations.

God sits upon God's holy throne.

The nobles of the peoples have gathered together.

With the people of the God of Abraham.

The rulers of the earth belong to God.

I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know Him, so that with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which He has called you.

What are the riches of His glorious inheritance among the saints?

And what is the immeasurable greatness of His power for us who believe according to the working of His great power?

God put this power to work in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named.

Not only in this age, but also in the age to come.

And He has put all things under His feet and has made Him the head of over all things for the church, which in His body the fullness of Him fulfills all in all.

Hear what the Spirit is saying to God's people.

That everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, Thus it is written that the Messiah is to suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sin is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

You are witnesses of these things, and see, I am sending upon you what my father promised, so stay here in the city until you've been clothed with power from on high.

And then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands, he blessed them.

While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them, and was carried up into heaven, and they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Today we celebrate the feast of the ascension, which actually happened on Thursday.

So the way this works, reminder, is that in the church, Easter is not one day.

Easter is fifty days.

Fifty days after Easter is the day of Pentecost, which will be next week.

That means that we have seven weeks to continue to spiral deeper and deeper into the resurrection of Jesus and what it means for the way we live our life and model our faith.

And the story goes like this: After 40 days with the disciples, Jesus ascended to heaven.

That was on Thursday.

40 is one of those big numbers in the Bible, right?

So then there's the 10 days that we find ourselves in the middle of between Jesus' physical departure and Pentecost.

And it's going to sound a little bit odd to us, I hope, because at the time the Bible was written, people believed in a three-tiered universe.

Under us is the underworld.

Here we are on earth and heaven is up.

And we still use language like this figuratively.

Oh, she's on a downward spiral, or I'm on the up and up, because up is good, up is God, and down is not.

And here we find ourselves in a handbasket, depending on where you are, going one way or the other.

And so this is the Ascension Day sort of mythic language, and we all know very well in this particular community that there's some punctures in this language if we take it too literally and forget to take it seriously.

Because you know, Yuri Gregarian, the first person in space, went up and said, I went up, and I didn't see God.

And this is our reminder, right, that the three-tiered universe is a concept, it's not a reality.

And if we hold on really tight to this idea of ascension, then notice what Jesus has done is showed up and then flown away.

And the scriptures tell us actually, there's this kind of oxymoronic thought that by Jesus ascending in the story, he didn't go away, he became even more fully present.

That's what I want to unravel for you, if I can.

And apologies in advance.

I went to seminary for three years so that I could inflict this upon you.

And I hope it's delightful.

So stay with me theoretically for a second, and then I want to talk about where the theory takes our faith and our living.

It goes like this God, whom we say theologically, is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, chose on Christmas, that's when we celebrate, to become incarnate in a human body, in a human form, in all of its limitations.

Now, if you've ever seen the Pope do this, this is not the peace sign.

The Pope is showing you the dual natures of Jesus, fully human and fully divine.

And just incidentally, these three fingers represent the Trinity.

So this is what the Pope uses to bless, the dual natures.

And there's this mystery of the dual natures that Jesus was without limit as God, but took on every single limit we have.

It's a mystery.

But what I want to suggest to you is that if the human Jesus walked in the room and read everybody's mind, he wasn't human anymore.

So here's the mystery God had infinite power and became finite.

That's the promise of the incarnation.

And that means that the child Jesus, I guarantee you, it wasn't a silent night when he was born.

That song is about an organ that experienced power failure.

It's not about a baby, because you all know they're not quiet.

I guarantee you, he skinned his knee.

I bet you he had an intestinal parasite.

And I'm pretty sure he knew what it was like to be abandoned by people and experience feelings of self-doubt and despair.

And here's the miracle of the ascension.

Jesus had this full human experience so that God knows exactly what it's like to be you.

And if you've ever found yourself feeling like, geez, I just think God's forsaken me, uh, Jesus found that to be his own experience.

He said it on Friday.

Remember, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

And this is the Lord, who has experienced every doubt and frailty as a human being, experienced wounds that took his life, and then the miracle is on Easter, he shows up and he's got life and the wounds aren't gone.

And then on Ascension Day, Jesus goes back into heaven.

And what he does theologically is he brings the wounds of humanity back into the Godhead forever and ever.

We talked about this in Sunday school this morning.

The theology says when Jesus died, death entered into God's experience.

That means we don't die alone.

We don't even die next to God.

We die inside of God.

That's the theology of the day.

And so it's a little moxymoronic because Jesus isn't fleeing human experience on Ascension Day, He's raising it up into God forever and ever.

It's a neat theological concept.

And of course, what it tells us is a few things.

Not only does God understand what this is like, but that God is with us.

And when we say things like, Holy Spirit, in whom we live and move and have our being, that's because Ascension Day has raised the human experience into God's eternal, infinite nature.

Ascension is not about transcendence.

It's not about climbing a hierarchy.

Jesus doesn't run away and become, you know, actualized.

What the ascension does is it brings God to earth, don't you see?

By going up, God comes down.

That's the message of the ascension.

So you might be wondering, well, that's cool and glad that's been done, but what difference does that make?

The difference that I think it makes is that we practice the ascension whenever we find God in godless places.

Whenever we find God in godless places, we practice the ascension.

Because the promise of our faith is there is nowhere you can go where God is not.

And there's nowhere you can go where God is not gracious.

Now, if you want to challenge yourself with a spiritual discipline, this is how you do it.

You listen to music that seems godless and you find God in it.

You can do this as a spiritual discipline.

Now, I'm not your spiritual director, but if you ever find yourself thinking, oh, I don't care for pick any genre music you want.

Let's pick on rap, because it's really easy.

If God is really omnipresent, then God is in the lyrics.

And if we don't hear it, guess whose fault that is?

Our imaginations, not God's.

And that's an easy one because there's no real people involved.

But here's where the spiritual discipline continues to lead us.

Whether a person is related to you or you work with them or they're on the TV and they happen to make the hairs on your neck stand up because you're worried, the ascension says God is fully present in those people.

And if you can't see it, it's your vision, not God's.

And I kind of hate that, if I'm honest.

Because what I would rather do is transcend the people who bother me.

I'd rather fly away.

I grew up singing that song in church.

I don't know if you did.

One glad morning when this life is over, I'll fly away.

The ascension says God's flying down here every day.

And God's flying full speed into the people you think God has nothing to do with.

And Jesus brought all that with him into God forever and ever.

And that's the ascension story that we celebrate.

And so it reminds us that our spiritual, our spirituality is not aimed at transcendence.

It's not aimed at earning more of God's grace because guess what?

You can't get any more of that than you already have.

It's living into God's grace that's fully present right now, even in the places that we're afraid of.

As Paul Tillich says, the ascension is when God accepts us in all of our unacceptability forever and ever.

Accepts us in all of our unacceptability.

And we get to practice it because God thinks we'll enjoy it.

Now, that's important to hear.

We're not called to do this because we must.

It's not our Christian duty, it's our opportunity to enjoy the world as God enjoys the world.

Now, we've got seven days until we're going to practice, um, celebrate Pentecost.

This is the gifting of the Holy Spirit.

And I may say some of this again next week.

I just think it's kind of important, it might bear repeating.

What's happened since Easter is that Jesus has shown up here and shown up there.

It's not like he's with the guys all the time, you know, or with the ladies.

He comes and he goes.

And you know how that works if you've ever been around the young child.

I think this is globally true.

I can ask you if you've ever seen this not happen.

There's a game we play with infants, and it works really well with babies.

You cover their eyes up, and hold on for a second, and you'll notice they start to become distressed because they don't understand the law of conservation of matter.

Right?

If I can't see you, you may not be there.

When you remove your hand, especially the first couple times you do it, you will see baby's eyes like surprised in a good way.

You came back.

I thought you were gone, and there you are.

And we call that little game peekaboo.

And this is what Jesus has been doing with the disciples.

He's been playing peekaboo with them.

He shows up over and over again.

They don't know when he's coming back.

And of course, what that does when you do it with an infant and when you're the risen Lord, right, is it teaches you to trust in the conservation of matter.

And even though I can't see you, that you're there and you care about me and you're coming back.

And Jesus does that for 40 days.

And then he says this interesting thing, right?

Not in today's reading.

This he says in John.

He says, Look, guys and girls, it's going to be better for you if I go away, because then you won't just look at me, you'll start to look all around you.

And you notice that's what the messengers say today, the angels.

They say, Why are you looking up?

And you know, the the the my natural inclination spiritually is that I'm just supposed to look up.

What the messengers say is look for Jesus in each other.

That's what transformation is about.

And that's how transformation is different from transcendence.

We're not called to fly away.

We're called to do what the colic says, to fill all things.

Jesus' ascension is about filling everything on earth with God's life-giving presence.

And remember, we're in resurrection, so there's times where faith, hope, and love, it feels like they're getting wounded.

The promise of the resurrection is they are infinite.

Faith, hope, and love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such things there is no law.

Those things expand infinitely.

And to borrow from physics, right?

This is why the universe continues to expand.

And we're invited when we practice ascension to expand the universe of God's grace with these disciplines.

Even though they can be wounded, their life is infinite.

Maybe rap music is easy for you.

Maybe it's harder with the person you work with, or quite honestly, the person you're related to.

And this is where we pray that God will open the eyes of that part of our brain we call the heart, you know, so that we can see Christ fully present in the most difficult people.

And that's when Christ ascends.

When we can see as God sees.

Now, today is the day we've been having this paschal candle up for a long time.

We start this on Easter and And we have it all days of Easter, and here we are, right?

42nd day of Easter.

What Jesus does is the same thing that happens in a godly play lesson.

He's physically in front of him, but he's going to change that.

Now, this is the promise of our faith that in the Lord our life is not ended, it's changed.

And what today Jesus does is he changes the light.

And that's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to change this light.

I'm going to put this on there, and I'm not going to put it out.

I'm going to change it.

And Jesus says, I'm going to change it for your benefit.

Because if you're only looking at my physical body, you won't see me and everybody else's physical body.

And this is the tension we get to live in for the next week.

Because on Pentecost, this is when the Holy Spirit breathes new life into that way of looking and living.

Transitions are hard.

They are hard.

But you're going to notice what's going to happen to this light when I change it.

It's going to rise.

And even though we don't believe in a three-tiered universe, we still use that language because by rising up is really how we bring God down.

We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary and was made man.

For our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate.

He suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again in accordance with the scriptures.

He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

With the Father and the Son, he is worshipped and glorified.

He has spoken through the prophets.

We believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

Amen.

Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor.

Have mercy upon us.

Most merciful Father, in your compassion forgive us our sin, known and unknown, things done and left undone.

And so uphold us by your Spirit that we may live and serve you in newness of life, to the honor and glory of your name through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

The Almighty and Compassionate Lord grant you absolution and remission of all your sin, true repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

And now we ascend.

We ascend because God has promised that grace works.

Worthy to give one another peace and worthy to receive peace from God's table.

And also with you.

One is that we get to celebrate a couple of things.

So if you know the Alexanders, they're incredible in everything they do.

And Stephen Alexander took some essentially scrap metal that the church had and turned them into roses.

And we put these on the Lord's table anytime we're celebrating the birth of a child or a grandchild within the parish.

Today we've got two.

One is that Lewis and Kathy have welcomed their first granddaughter, Sophia, into their family.

And the other is that Max and Carol Claizel, who typically come at 8 o'clock, are welcoming their first great-granddaughter, Adeline.

And so, of course, these are roses on the Lord's table.

Yeah.

If you see Stephen Alexander, thank him.

Because again, this is what resurrection is like.

It's like taking regular things and turning them into beautiful ones.

And that's uh what he and his wife, Christine, do uh for us over and over.

Uh, speaking of beautiful things, on the way out, please take your time in the long hallway to look at what our children have done all year at school.

Uh, and it's great that our art teacher's here.

Uh, Becca Lowe has taught our students art all year, and and you're seeing uh their imagination and their technique and skill.

And I just want to brag about this because when I was in college, I learned about perspective drawing, and you know the number one painting is that Athenium where there's Plato and Aristotle and there's a vanishing point.

I learned about that in college.

My daughter's eight, and she made a prospective drawing with vanishing points, and I've never done that in my life.

And that's what we give children here.

We give them skills and beauty and virtue and faith, and thank you for supporting that.

Please enjoy.

Enjoy their imagination and creativity today.

It's fantastic.

Thank you, Becca.

Grateful.

Um, I I want to call to mind something else about school because not all of you are here day to day, and um we're we're having a tough change at school, just to be honest.

Moisina has been the director of admissions for 22 years, and she's retiring.

Uh, and I'll tell you, the lady kept the school open through some tough years kind of by herself, and uh she's an incredible human being.

Uh, and she was a physician in Albania and came to this country as a doctor speaking no English.

And she's been here 22 years, and um gosh, what a face of ministry she's had on behalf of the church and community.

So uh if you have time to write her an email or a thank you, she has served you in the community incredibly faithfully.

Uh, she's a wonderful woman, and we're sad to lose her, and we're grateful for her retirement, and that's happening in two weeks that that Moisina is retiring from the school.

Um I want to raise up to you also uh that next Sunday, and I know times are a little bit hard, but remember we have Wi-Fi here.

Next Sunday at 9 in our adult ed hour, uh, we're gonna be joined by Jennifer Salazar from the Houston Better Business Bureau.

This is on Zoom, so it's not in person, it's in Zoom.

She's gonna talk to us about the top ten scams of 2021, uh, which I think will be useful.

Uh not only is she gonna tell you about them, but how you can avoid them and be vigilant, because uh listen, as your priest, people try to do this to me and they do it to you, and they've done it in the bishop's name, and they've done it in my name, and and um this is about us being resilient and being faithful.

So if this opportunity speaks to you, please join us.

We'll as always we'll record it and post it on YouTube.

But this I think is valuable information for how we can be good stewards together.

Continue to walk in love as Christ first loved us and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God.

Christ that drew the holy light, starting to light, but company by me treatment I see to the same thing.

This is the table not of the church but of Jesus Christ.

It is made ready for those who love him and those who want to love him more, so come, you who have much faith and you who have little, you who have been here often and you who have not been for a long time or ever before.

You who have tried to follow and you who have failed, come.

Not because the church invites you, it is Christ, but he invites you to meet him here.

The Lord be here with you.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to truly God and pray.

It is truly right to glorify you, Father, and to who give you thanks, for you alone are God, living and true, dwelling in light, inaccessible from before time and forever, fountain of life and source of all whole goodness.

You made all things and filled them with your whole blessing, you created them to rejoice in the splendor of your radiance.

Countless throngs of angels stand be he for you to serve you who night and day, and beholding the glory of your presence, they offer you who unsee he sing praise, joining with them and giving voice to every creature under heaven, then we acclaim you and glorify your whole name as we sing.

We acclaim you, holy Lord, glorious in power.

Your mighty works reveal your wisdom and love.

You formed us in your own image, giving the whole world into our stewardship, so that in obedience to you, our Creator, we might shepherd and serve all your creatures.

When our disobedience took us far from you, you did not abandon us to the power of death.

In your mercy you came to our help so that in seeking you we might find you.

Again and again you called us into covenant with you, and through the prophets you taught us to hope for salvation.

Father, you love the world so much that in the fullness of time you sent your only Son to be our Savior.

Incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, he lived as one of us, yet without sin.

To the poor, he proclaimed the good news of salvation, to prisoners freedom, to the sorrowful joy.

To fulfill your purpose, he gave himself up to death, and rising from the grave destroyed death and made the whole creation new.

And that we might live no longer for ourselves, but for the one who died and rose for us, God sent the Holy Spirit, God's own first gift for those who believe, to complete Jesus' work in the world and bring to fulfillment the sanctification of all.

When the hour had come for Jesus to be glorified by you, his heavenly Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

At supper with them, he took bread.

And when he given thanks to you, he broke it, gave it to his disciples, and said, Take, eat.

This is my body which is given for you.

Do this for the remembrance of me.

After supper, Jesus took the cup of wine, and when he'd given thanks, he gave it to them and said, Drink this, all of you.

This is my blood of the new covenant which is shed for you and for all for the forgiveness of sins.

Whenever you drink it, do this for the remembrance of me.

Father, we now celebrate this memorial of our redemption, recalling Christ's death and his descent among the dead, proclaiming his resurrection and today ascension to your right hand, awaiting his coming in glory and offering to you from the gifts you've given us, this bread and this cup, we praise you and we bless you.

We praise you, we bless you, we give thanks to you, and we pray to you, Lord our God.

Lord, we pray that in your goodness and mercy your Holy Spirit may descend upon us and upon these gifts, sanctifying them and showing them to be holy gifts for your holy people, the bread of life and the cup of salvation, the body and blood of your Son Jesus Christ.

Grant that all who share this bread and cup may become one body and one spirit, a living sacrifice in Christ to the praise of your name.

Remember, Lord, your one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, redeemed by the love of your Christ, reveal its unity, guard its faith, and preserve it in peace.

Remember, Michael, our presiding bishop, Andy, Hector, Jeff, and Kay, our bishops.

In the diocesan cycle of prayer, all Saints Hitchcock, Good Shepherd Friendswood, and Grace Alban, the priests in their communities and our own.

Mark, Bob, Suzanne, Mike, Craig, Jim, Bill, and Lillian, and all who minister in your church.

Remember all your people and those who seek your truth, especially Chris, Sean, Jerome, Paxton, and Lee.

Remember all who have died in the peace of Christ and those whose faith is known to you alone.

Bring them into the place of eternal joy and light, and grant that we may find our inheritance with all the saints who have found favor with you in ages past.

We praise you in union with them and give you glory through your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

Through Christ and with Christ and in Christ, all honor and glory are yours, Almighty God and Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, forever and ever.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.

Therefore, let us keep the feast.

Hallelujah.

These are the gifts of God for you, the family of God.

Feed on them in your hearts by faith and with thanksgiving.

And I'm going to invite you to receive bread or a blessing by coming to the aisle closest to your right.

I'll begin over here.

And the cup is open for intention only.

So if you choose, you may dip your bread in the wine.

You may skip either and receive a blessing by crossing your arms.

Let's pray together.

Eternal God, Heavenly Father, you have graciously accepted us as living members of your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and you have fed us with spiritual food in the sacrament of his body and blood.

Send us now into a world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Do not pray for an easy belief.

Pray to be more faithful followers of Christ.

Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers, but for faithfulness equal to your opportunities.

And the living of your faith will be no miracle.

You will be the miracle.

Every day you will be a living sign to the world of resurrection, of God's grace and an ending compassion, and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be evident in your life this day, and remain with you always.

Amen.