Luke 24:44-53 and Acts 1:1-11

Last week, after announcing Brian Hess’ graduation from college, one of our children marched up to me in the back of the church and announced: Mommy graduated this week too! I looked up at her mother, Marielena, who, before I could apologize for missing her event, demurred, no, no, I didn’t, I was only walking. I still have to defend my dissertation this summer and then I’ll let you know that I have really graduated. As I secured her promise to let us know so we could celebrate with her in the right time, I flashed back to a dream I used to have, my last semester of college: I am walking down the long aisle at the college chapel as my name is called. My proud parents sit watching, cameras at the ready. I shake the president’s hand, reach out for my diploma, flip it open. It is empty, I am a fraud. Frantically trying to understand, I remember that I forgot to attend my one credit ROTC class all spring. I am not ready to graduate, I am a fraud. I am only walking.

There are two different stories that describe the event the church calls “the Ascension of Jesus Christ.” One of them ends the gospel of Luke, and the other opens the book of Acts. Oddly enough, though they were written by the same hand, they are strikingly different stories, both in content and in feel. In the last verses of Luke, in his first “take” on the ascension of Jesus, the risen Christ take great pains to thoroughly prepare his disciples for their new life as leaders of the church following his departure. He opened their minds to understand the scriptures; he reminded them of everything he had taught them; he led them out; he blessed them. There is a satisfying feeling of completion in this story– as if, despite the fact that Jesus must go, he has taken great pains to adequately prepare them for their new life: fitted them so well, in fact, for their graduation that even as he disappears (though, actually, in Luke he more tactfully "withdraws") the disciples are so filled with strength, with conviction, with resources for the future, that they scarcely seem to mind his departure–I mean, his "withdrawal" at all: and they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the Temple blessing God. God has gone up with a mighty shout– and, it seems, everyone feels wonderful about the entire thing.

But in the beginning of the book of Acts, our writer seems to have had a change of heart…and the disciples, again poised to repeat the scene of Jesus’ Ascension into heaven, have had a definite change of mood. The joy is gone. The blessing is gone. The soft lighting has given way to the harsh glare of an unforgiving sun, into which the suddenly bereaved disciples are squinting as they struggle to get a last, good look at the disappearing Jesus. His last words to them were not blessing, but almost a rebuke–it is not for you to know the times or seasons, he said, and just as they were preparing to ask yet another of their important, pressing questions– he disappeared from their sight–snap–just like that.

There’s almost a fed-up kind of sense in this re-telling, as though the narrator has run out of patience with the neediness, the vulnerability, the incessant dithering of Jesus’ disciples…has run out of patience, and decided that it is high time the baby church relinquish its absorption with what used to be, and get on with making a new creation. In Acts, Jesus doesn’t merely "teach," he doesn’t "open their minds," he doesn’t “bless”, not at all: rather, he instructs, he orders, he rebukes them for their endless, pointless questions, and then, as if in a huff, he is taken up, and disappears. This time around, Luke doesn’t bother to suggest that the disciples were filled with joy, or that they went anywhere worshipping– anything but! These disciples, abandoned literally in mid-sentence, stand right where they are, rooted to the ground, eyes fixed on the heavens and mouths agape– as if freezing the frame of the picture will somehow make everything all better.

What makes these two stories so different?

I read again Luke’s twenty-fourth chapter, the first Ascension story, and I think: the apostle realized that learning, understanding and remembering are an important part of feeling ready to graduate, to take one’s adult place in the world. Looking back at who we were, at the old stories of our lives and our ancestors and our faith—this isn’t mere sentimentality, nostalgia for a vanished way of believing and knowing the world; but a powerful evoking of what used to be, in the service of what is to come. A child needs a past to face the future. A faith needs the foundation of well known stories and a common ground of shared spiritual values in order to be a practical resource for a young adult leaving the church family nest. Every time we baptize a child into the community of Riviera Church, I wonder what they will believe when they leave here, and whether what we have taught them will be a part of how they contribute to the world. Whenever one of them comes home or calls, to let us know that we have made a difference in the adult they have become, my heart soars. Brandon Bestard, who came here years ago with his mother an occasionally angry, often frustrated boy, grew in our sunday school, youth group and congregation to be a thoughtful, loving person who credits Riviera with being a big part of the man he has become. He calls me, Barbie, and Jeanine Hess every two or three weeks, from Uganda, where he is serving in the Army. How is everyone? Tell Michele and Robbie congratulations on their baby. Tell Brian I’m glad he graduated. Tell everyone I love them, and can’t wait to come to church when I’m back stateside on leave.

At the closing of the book of Luke, Jesus takes great care to make sure his friends have taken all their classes, not forgotten even ROTC, and reminds them of what they know and who they have become. Before he leaves his disciples behind, he tells stories. Reads the scriptures. Points out the connections. Reminds them. Weaves about them a shimmering web of memory and power and and love, so that when he is gone, and they are on their own, they will know in the midst of absence, where they come from, who they are, and how they have been, and always will be, beloved.

But the retelling of the story in Acts cautions us that it is not only how we have been prepared, but who we understand ourselves to be that makes the difference between walking, and really graduating. When I graduated college, my best friend from childhood sent me a gift: a tee shirt on which was printed one large, ugly word: UNEMPLOYED. I think it was a joke. It didn’t feel like a joke. It probably wasn’t. I stuffed it into a back drawer, worrying and wondering whether that would in fact, be who I was to become. I needed to work, I needed to be off on my own, contributing.

I was terrified. Was I ready? Did I know what I needed to know, or would everybody know I was an empty vessel, a folder without a diploma?

At the opening of the book of Acts, Luke needs to tell the disciples’ story in a different way. The time for memory is past. The time for grieving is gone. The need to comfort, to recall, to celebrate, to look backward, is past. Now, there is a job to do. A church to grow. A group of people who have been trained and fitted for their new work in the world… but who don’t yet quite believe that they are ready. Now, before the bickering begins over what to pack and what to leave behind, before the arguing commences about who is an adult and who’s making the decisions about how late to stay out and when to hit the road, now, before the uncertainty and the fear of what may be on the horizon entirely paralyzes the future, now it is time to tell the story in a different way. And so Luke does: he shows them how unflattering it is, to be a disciple locked in the past, a child who won’t grow up, an older person who can’t let go of the past, a broken family consumed with bitterness and recrimination and grief. He shows them as they are, or as they could become: mouths agape, hands extended, reaching or something they don’t remember they already have, breath caught on a final, frozen, No! and he says: it doesn’t have to be like this. The past is a foundation, not a prison. You are ready to move on. What you have been given before, will never leave you entirely. You are ready to move on. You believe you are alone, but there are angels beside you, pointing the way. You are ready to move on. You are uncertain, and more than a little afraid, but look, you will receive power after the holy spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses. You are ready to move on. It is graduation: you’re not just walking, you’re on your way. You did the work, you learned everything you need to know, and more than that, you have mastered the skills to keep on learning and growing. It is Ascension, the Holy Spirit is just around the corner: Jesus has gotten himself out of the way because we are the body of Christ now, ready to do his work, that is, our work: we are ready to move on.

A whirlwind of feelings, images, and memory swirls around me as I listen to this story about the final leave-taking of the risen Jesus from his family of disciples and friends. A year ago this Sunday of the Ascension, Ellie Cole ended her long and weary fight with cancer, and released her spirit to God. How hard that was…to lose her example and her companionship—and then to discover that her passing was not just one isolated hard moment in our life together, but more, what has seemed to me to be the beginning of a weary season of learning about loss, and about moving on. From the body count in what was supposed to be post-war Iraq, through the unexpected dying of family members and dear church friends, even in the poignant joy of celebrating my daughter Aimee’s marriage this past week and coming home to bid godspeed to Sally and her family as they move on, every day has been feeling like Memorial Day…

…and I can imagine how the disciples and friends of Jesus felt, launched from life to death to resurrection and back again…hardly knowing where to stand, or how to understand how life was going to be…

I suppose it makes sense, then, that from one hand, the writer of Luke-Acts, we have two very different stories that describe the event the church calls “the Ascension of Jesus Christ.” One of them ends the gospel of Luke, and the other opens the book of Acts. In the last verses of Luke, in his first “take” on the ascension of Jesus, the risen Christ take great pains to thoroughly prepare his disciples for their new life as leaders of the church following his departure. He opened their minds to understand the scriptures; he reminded them of everything he had taught them; he led them out; he blessed them. There is a satisfying feeling of completion in this story– as if, despite the fact that Jesus must go, he has taken great pains to adequately prepare them for their new life: fitted them so well, in fact, for their independence that even as he disappears (though, actually, in Luke he more tactfully "withdraws") the disciples are so filled with strength, with conviction, with resources for the future, that they scarcely seem to mind his departure–I mean, his "withdrawal" at all: and they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the Temple blessing God.

Maybe this was how Luke reconstructed his memory, believing as we sometimes do that perfect memories are a joyful foundation upon which to build a healthy future: a perfectly composed portrait of the way it ought to have been. I think about how, as a child, I used to rehearse my leave-takings as my military family was transferred from base to base. I would have this kind of party; I would say that to this person, and give this to another, and my friends and teachers and I would each have the right moment and the right words to exchange, so that our departure, our loss, our new beginning would feel satisfying, complete. But it never happened quite that way…and leave-takings since always have had that sense of incompletion, of chances missed and words left unsaid… messy loose ends in what was meant to be a perfect piece of cloth.

In the version of the story at the beginning of the book of Acts, it gets more real, and the disciples, poised to repeat the scene of Jesus’ Ascension into heaven, have had a definite change of mood. The joy is gone. The blessing is gone. The soft lighting has given way to the harsh glare of an unforgiving sun, into which the suddenly bereaved disciples are squinting as they struggle to get a last, good look at the disappearing Jesus. His last words to them were not blessing, but almost a rebuke–it is not for you to know the times or seasons, he said, and just as they were preparing to ask yet another of their important, pressing questions– he disappeared from their sight—snap—just like that.

Leave taking is hard and messy work. In Acts, Jesus doesn’t merely "teach," he doesn’t "open their minds," he doesn’t “bless”, not at all: rather, he instructs, he orders, he rebukes them for their endless, pointless questions, and then, as if in a huff, he is taken up, and disappears. This time around, Luke doesn’t bother to suggest that the disciples were filled with joy, or went anywhere worshipping– anything but! These disciples, abandoned literally in mid-sentence, stand right where they are, rooted to the ground, eyes fixed on the heavens and mouths agape—a perfect comic portrait of the human condition, here in the midst of it all.

There’s a reason both kinds of stories need to be told. Last weekend, Gillian and Warren and I were a part of my stepdaughter Aimee’s marriage to Dan. Without a great deal of input from any of her three families of origin, she and Dan composed a masterful portrait of a complicated family coming together in unity and joy to bless two young people on their way into a common future. From the complicated stuff of step, half, and ex-siblings, parents and grands, some of whom barely speak to one another, out of the tangled and sometimes unhappy memories of a childhood shaped by divorces, remarriages and frequent moves…Aimee chose to remember what was true and good about our lives together: and to honor the whole past, however involved its fitting together might be. And so: three women were corsaged and escorted to the front pews to share, side by side, the privileged space of having mothered Aimee. My parents shared with Aimee’s surviving biological grandparent in the place of patriarchs and matriarchs. Dan’s dad needed a list to keep the characters straight as he acknowledged the joining of his blessedly uncomplicated nuclear family with the family circus of Aimee’s heritage. The formal portraits after became a comedy of connections needing a chart and a ringmaster: okay, Wetzigs and Ladners; Krauses, Broomes and Kraus-Neales (yes, Wesley, you’re in this one, too); now, Zappas, okay, finally, Neales and all related persons….and later, parties held in mom’s suite, dad’s suite, and in all the rooms between, as, following the festivities, what Aimee’s stepmom called the “tribes” of each family mingled and made common cause to begin to heal the raw edges of the past with the new beginning in the marrying of Aimee’s and Dan’s lives.

I read again Luke’s twenty-fourth chapter, the first Ascension story, and I think: the apostle realized that choosing how we are remembering is an important part of moving on. Looking back at who we were, at the old stories of our lives and our ancestors and our faith—this isn’t mere sentimentality, nostalgia for a vanished way of believing and knowing the world; but a powerful evoking of what used to be, in the service of what is to come. A child needs a past to face the future. A family, even one broken by divorce and death, needs to remember the ties that knitted them together once in joy, if they are to make new beginnings flow gently out of the deep waters of what used to be. One of the reasons we read the bible, tell its stories, and gather week by week to remember and retell—is that this is the foundation upon which we build our life together, and imagine our future as Christ’s body, the church. How we remember—selectively, or as fully as we can; contemptuously, or with compassion and humor—inflects the way we are now; and the persons, families, and communities we will become. People who work in conflict resolution and peace-building disciplines in the international arena call this work “Memorializing”—and warn that we can tell our stories in such a way that freezes us in destructive patterns of relating; as is evident in the stories surrounding Palestine and Israel and their life together…or we can tell our stories in a way that opens a new future, even out of the fragmentation and horror of the past…as South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission undertook to accomplish after the end of apartheid.

What is important to realize is that people of faith and hope hold the key to the door that leads out of destructive memorializing and into rituals of remembering and healing. People of faith whose own sacred stories reveal the reality of sin, the possibility of forgiveness, the miracle of grace that transforms even the most hopeless of situations. People who have been formed by a way of viewing the world that is hopeful, open, and imaginative…who believe that even in the midst of chaos, God with us is making a new creation.

So Luke wants us to remember—he knows how important it is and he gifts us first with a way of remembering gently, and well. He weaves about the disciples a shimmering web of memory and power and nostalgia and love, so that when Jesus is gone, and they are on their own, they will know in the midst of absence, where they come from, who they are, and how they have been, and always will be, beloved.

At the opening of the book of Acts, Luke is ready to tell the disciples’ story in a different way. The time for grieving is gone. The need to comfort, to recall, to celebrate, to look backward, is past. Now, there is work to do. Unfinished business to acknowledge and examine. A church to grow. A group of people who have been trained and fitted for their new work in the world…but who don’t yet quite believe that they are ready. But Luke knows that somehow, they are ready: and he shows them how unflattering it is, to be a disciple locked in the past, a child who won’t grow up, an older person who can’t let go of the past, a broken family consumed with bitterness and recrimination. He shows them as they are, or as they could become: mouths agape, fists extended, breath caught on a final, frozen, No! and he says: it doesn’t have to be like this.

The past is a tool, not a prison. You are ready to move on. What you had before, will never leave you entirely. You are ready to move on. You believe you are alone, but there are angels beside you, pointing the way. You are ready to move on. You are uncertain, and more than a little afraid, but look, you will receive power after the holy spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses. You are ready to move on. It is Ascension, the Holy Spirit is just around the corner. The past is our heritage to know and embrace; the present moment is ours as well: an endless now of choosing what, and who, and how we will be God’s people in this crazy world…and the future, our futures: are shaped by our own hopeful imagination, and held in the heart of God’s bountiful grace.