Living in Coronavirusworld 64: Of Memorial Day....and Ascension

5/25

In Morningside Park

Memorial Day. When I was a kid, my dad would go to Somerset to put flowers on his father’s grave. In later Pittsburgh years, there were always morning 5K races and parades and American flags everywhere. We’d go down for opening day at my mom’s pool then back to her house for a cookout on the back deck and dinner on the upstairs deck, the decks built to feel like an Outer Banks beach house deck. It still feel like that’s what I should do on Memorial Day.

It’s supposed to be a day to honor those who died in this country’s various wars. Somehow Major League Baseball got that confused with “honoring the troops” and  wearing camo as a tribute.

Yankee camo

Thankfully, most of our troops are still alive. Truly honor them? Forget  wearing camo. Just bring them home. Or make damn sure we know what we're doing before sending them somewhere we'll have to bring them back from in the first place.          

We meet in Morningside Park for our walk again.  The turtles  are out in mass again

turtles

She’s lookingg for bees tttttt.              to photograph and share with one of her kids.  As we walk through Central Park, in the Garden I realize that all the tulips are gone, the beds empty,  I wonder what will come next. And I realize that I have lived here for 25 years and never  before was aware of how the seasons  of flowers changed in the Conservatory Garden. And that we spent all of tulip season in quarantine.    

                                                                ****

Time for our West Park Bible Study. Tonight we’re looking at Acts 1:6-14, the story of Jesus’Ascension.  I get a laugh out of Marsha when I  refer to “fly up day” which is what it used to be called when you went from  Brownies to  Girl Scouts.  I remember my surprise when I was in modern secular Germany on this day and discovered it is still a public holiday. Everything closed. And some how merged with Father’s Day, which is  basically men going  out to drink with  other fathers. The word in German, Himmelfahrt, from Heaven Journey.

I talk about  the three portal, or gateway days in the liturgical year. Days we walk through like doors to go from one season to the next. Took me a lifetime  to “get this” but here we are. Ascencion takes us from Easter into Pentecost, Christ the King, the crown of the church year,  from Pentecost into Advent, Transfiguration Epiphany into Lent.. Jesus is preparing his disciples for his leaving earth.  He makes  three promises…the gift of the Holy Spirit, the purpose of the spirit to help us be witnesses to the ends of the earth and finally, his eventual return.

I hadn’t noticed before that Easter to Ascension is 40days. That umber again. Days of rain for Noah. Years in the wilderness for the people of Israel, days of temptation in the wilderness for Jesus. These two 40 day periods bookend the ministry of Jesus. The accounts in Luke and Acts are directed  to 'dear Theophilus”, which means Lover of God. Either an homage to one person or intended for any and all lovers of God.  Also essentially a repeat of Luke 24:44-53.  Only here do we hear this discussion of kingdom where they want to see Israel returned  to sovereignty and Rome driven out.  (In scripture, Kingdom of God usually refers to the reign of God on earth. ) The answer is, it's not for you to know. As Russ points out, a message that this doesn’t negate the desire or expectation of kingdom restored, only the power to predict.

Marsha, trained in community  organizing, is taken by the use of the word  power. That is the goal of organizing, to gain power. In organizing, power is a necessity, not a negative. In Spanish, it’s the word poder, the same exact word as can, i.e. to be able. That  is the challenge ahead. 

Power to do what? Well, to witness. To Judea (the home), Samaria (hostile territory of our closest neighbors, a faith so similar to ours, our closest other ) and to the ends of the earth.  Is that Paul’s trip to Rome? Is it the mission to  the gentiles?   And what does it mean to witness?

All this takes place in a “cloud.” Which usually represents the presence and activity of God. And again takes us back to Moses on Mt.Sinai, waiting for the Ten Commandments,. And again for how long was Moses up there? Well, of course, 40 days. There is also a cloud during the Transfiguration. (Luke 9:34) and in the prediction of his second coming. (Luke 21: 27  And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.)

Our attention is drawn to the two men in white who speak to them 10:   While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them.  We can almost imagine them in white suits with a long white limo ready to take Jesus away. And although they are clearly angels, Luke does not say angels. While Luke speaks of angels several times and even very specifically of Gabriel once, (1:19) he only has two men in white twice. The other time being at the tomb. (Luke 24: 3-5) And both times they have questions as to why we are looking in the wrong direction:

Luke 24: 5.   “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6He is not here; He has risen! … and 

Acts 1: “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.” In both cases, we’re looking to the past and Jesus has already moved on. And we’ve got work to do. The two men in white are brackets, the parentheses that contain the 40 days of the risen Christ's time on earth.

Finally, we see a glimpse of their life, spent in prayer.  There’s a list of the disciples, minus Judas Iscariot, of course.  And the mention of Mary. The last time her name appears in the New Testament.   We spend some time talking about the lack of information about her death. What was it like? Who was there? What was said? (Just as interesting to me is what was Joseph’s death like? What was the conversation like between Joseph and this adult man he had raised as his child, a boy he had not fathered? A story still to be written.)

So we are left. On our own. We are called to witness. And we are on own, but not alone. The Holy Spirit will sustain us. Not just comfort us, not just an arm around the shoulder, but the sustenance to keep us going. As Marsha says, it’s a pretty horizontal vision.  We sustain each other in the vision, in the witness. 

In the days ahead, following the virus, many churches will not be able to afford pastors and perhaps even preachers. It will be up to communities to

bear the witness in new (or perhaps very old) ways. And we will not be alone.