I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, you miss a lot of the Bible if you
don’t have a sense of humor—or at least of irony.
-Sarah laughs at the
idea of her and Abraham making a baby—so they name the kid “He Laughs”,
-Jonah is a parody of
the Prophet Nahum,
-some of the things
God calls the prophets to do skirt the line between the absurd and the
obscene—and their words are often as
sarcastic as any teenager alive,
-some of Jesus’
parables are patently funny,
and the author of the
Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles portray the Disciples as truly the duh-sciples.
And today is no exception, after the resurrection Jesus promises his Disciples
that they will receive the Holy Spirit, to which they reply, “Are you restoring
the kingdom of Israel?”
Jesus tells them of
the future, they look to the past.
Likewise, he tells them they will witness to the whole world, and ascends. They
all just stand their looking up… until, that is, the two men—the angels from
the end of Luke’s Gospel who witness to Jesus’ resurrection—show up, and ask
them, “Why ya’ll lookin’ up?”
Again, this is funny, or at least
ironic—The heavenly angels are on earth wondering why the earthly
humans are looking up into heaven.
Not Comedy Central worthy humor by any
means, but hopefully enough to make us grin and think about it for a moment.
Think about Restoration, Witness, Looking to Heaven, and Prayer.
Let us pray,
“Are you restoring the Kingdom of
Israel?”
It’s like they’re saying, “I know the
donkey makes all the Difference… but really… now that all that unpleasantness
is over—you’re going to act like we’d like you to act right? You’re going to be
Messiah in a overpowering and violent manner, right?—you’ll restore us to the
greatness of the Maccabees or Solomon, or David… or even some greatness that we
only hold in our heads and our hearts, because it never really existed in the
past…
As some of you know I’ve been reading
the works of St. Augustine, and I just finished up Books 3 and 4 of City of God
—In it Rome has just
been sacked and Christian worship is
blamed
—it is claimed there
was a golden era of Rome until worship of the Pagan gods was stopped—to which
Augustine responds,
“When was Rome great?
When were these Roman
gods protecting the people?”
—and then proceeds to
drop a 100 pages history of Rome behaving badly atop his society’s head.
The same could be said to the
Disciples, “What kind of Israel do you want restored? When was Israel great?”
-Not when it was ruled
by judges—each generation fowled up and forgot the commandments.
-Not when David was King—his
passion was erratic and cut short his own kingdom.
-Not when Solomon was
King—he was constantly pulled toward foreign powers and away from God.
-Not when the Kingdom
was divided…
-not when the
Assyrians or Babylonians blew through,
-not the farce of the
Maccabean Kingdom,
-not when the Greeks
or Romans dominated…
you get the point,
there is no idyllic past to pine for and idolize.
And so too for us Church folk
—there has never been
a time when there was a pure church,
a ideal Christianity.
-not the earliest
church in Acts, always reluctantly scrambling after the Spirit,
-not Augustine’s day,
when Christians confused the Kingdom of Heaven with the Empire of Rome,
-not the Middle Ages
nor the Reformation Era,
-not the puritans nor
the 1950’s.
We’re always a mixed
body, wheat and weeds grown together—the Church.
We’re always a few
steps behind the Spirit
—not restoration, but
faithful following and witness—that’s our calling.
Witnessing to the kind of Kingdom the
Kingdom of Heaven is
—that it is a kingdom
of humility
—as I’ve said, the
Donkey makes all the difference
—Jesus’ Kingship is
one crowned in service.
For that matter, it is
a Kingdom that transcends all borders
—“The Kingdom of
Israel?”
No!
A Kingdom encompassing
Judea, Samaria, the whole earth.
There are no borders
nor walls that can keep out the message of Christ’s love for the whole world!
Every boundary will be
blown away by the ruckus spirit of Christ.
Yet, there they are
—looking up, straining
and craning their necks, up toward heaven
—having to be reminded
by heavenly beings that Jesus will come without their eyes glued to the sky
—that the world around
them is in need of Christ’s love through them
—God’s work, Our
Hands!
That all heaven storming ambition—once
put away, leaves us free, here on earth, to serve our
neighbor next door, to savor the message of resurrection even as we spread
it and struggle to live it out in the day to day.
Finally, they all gather together and
pray, no small thing, it calls down the Holy Spirit, which propels the church
forward, despite itself, in every age.
Now, we often pray the Lord’s prayer
together—but to close today, let’s try something a little different—and pray
the prayer Jesus prayed to his Father in John’s Gospel for our sake:
"Father,
the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you
have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you
have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true
God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing
the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own
presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.
"I
have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were
yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know
that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to
me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I
came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.
I
am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on
behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.
All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I
have been glorified in them.
And now I am no
longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy
Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be
one, as we are one. AMEN.
