death – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

Knowing the End of the Story

Posted on April 12, 2015Leave a comment

Welcome, friends, to Holy Humor Sunday. This day is part of a tradition (a very old tradition) of laughing on the Sunday after Easter as we celebrate the cosmic joke that God plays on sin and death when Jesus Christ is raised from the dead.

It is a day to laugh, to lift up our hearts, to thank God that we know already the end of the story.

And its important that we hold on to that promise, because while we look out at the world and think about our personal lives, we discover all sorts of things that might cause us to yell or scream or break down in tears.

Another unarmed black man was killed this week in our nation.

A tornado levels a community in Illinois.

Friends diagnosed with terminal illness.

Job losses.

So many people in our community are homeless today, are broken, are struggling right now.

I know in my bones that God has already won.

I know that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead.

I understand. I believe.

But I find it so hard to keep that Easter joy in my heart because we haven’t reached the end of the story yet! We are inbetween times… in between the empty tomb and the new creation. It’s here, but not fully. It’s already, but not yet.

How on earth can we laugh at a time like this? How can we laugh as towns are ravaged by deadly winds and little ones go to bed hungry tonight? How can we laugh when people are staring death in the face and losing? How can we laugh when the disparity between the haves and the have nots is so stark?

Maybe the question is… how can we not laugh?

How can we not just take a deep breath and remember that God is in control… not us.

St. John Chrysostom preached in his famous Easter sermon:

If anyone is devout and loves God, let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast. If anyone is a wise servant, let him rejoice and enter into the joy of his Lord.

He gives rest to him who comes at the 11th hour, even as to him who has worked from the first hour. And He shows mercy upon the last, and cares for the first. Let all then enter into the joy of your Lord; and receive your reward, both the first and likewise the second. You rich and poor together, keep the feast. You sober and you heedless, celebrate the day.

Rejoice today, both you who have fasted and you who have disregarded the fast… Let all receive the riches of loving-kindness.

Let no one weep for his iniquities, for pardon has shown forth from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Savior’s death has set us free.

O Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? Christ is risen, and thou art overthrown. Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen.

Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice.

Christ is risen, and life reigns.

Christ is risen, and the tomb is emptied of the dead.

To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen.

This world is broken and imperfect and horrible things happen all around us. But if we cannot laugh in the midst of our sorrows, then the Devil has already won.

If we cannot laugh and lift up one another’s spirits, then there is no hope.

If we cannot laugh and rejoice, then why keep going at all?

Christ is risen. Death is overthrown. Life reigns.

We don’t have to be afraid. We don’t have to be scared. We know the end of the story and we can laugh in the face of all that tries to hurt us.

Those words are so powerful… and so hard to believe in.

But maybe… just maybe… if we get together as a community and we laugh, if we practice together what we preach, then we will find the faith we need to trust.

Christ is risen. Death is overthrown. Life reigns.

And because of that our hearts are filled with joy. Amen.

Rescued

Posted on February 22, 2015Leave a comment

For the first 20 or so years of my life, I understood salvation as one concrete idea: that Jesus died for my sin on the cross.

Substitutionary Atonement is what we call it. Jesus took our place. He was our substitute and paid the price for our sins.

But before too long, I discovered that I was terribly mistaken.

Not about Jesus dying for our sins.

But about thinking that was all salvation meant.

In its fullest sense, “Salvation is ‘God’s deliverance of those in a situation of need… resulting in their restoration to wholeness.’ It is restoration because salvation does not offer something new; it is God’s original intent for creation.” (Introduction, The Lord is Our Salvation)

The best word I can find to describe that original intent, the life that God intends for each of us is the word shalom.

It means completeness, wholeness, well-being.

And God’s work of salvation in Jesus Christ rescues us from whatever hell we might experience in our lives that has destroyed shalom, so we might experience life and life abundant once again.

Christ dying and paying the price for our sins is one piece of that work of salvation. But it isn’t the only one.

In fact, in the Western world, there are three major understandings of what the cross means, all different ways of talking about how Jesus saves us.

These are called atonement theories. They describe how we become at-one again with God… how we are brought back into shalom… how we experience wholeness once again.

The first is the one most of us grew up being familiar with – a Forensic understanding of salvation. These theories say we are like a defendant on trial and have been found guilty of breaking our covenant with God. So, a penalty must be paid. Jesus knows we are guilty and out of love, pays the price for us. He satisfies the debt we owe.

The second is called Moral Example. This grouping of theories claims that the cross is the natural outcome of the life of Jesus, who spoke truth to power and dared to love those who society rejected. And in his life and death, Christ shows us how we should live, too.

The third of the major groupings is called “Christus Victor” – Christ as the Victor! This theory claims that in the eternal battle for good and evil, we are imprisoned by sin and held captive by Satan. Jesus defeats death and evil on the cross and we are set free.

Throughout this season of Lent, we are going to see how this isn’t a debate or competition about which of these sets of theories is right, but that each and every one of them is a part of the whole. Taken all together, they describe how God continually and relentlessly works to bring us salvation, to restore us to shalom.

I want to share with you one more scripture this morning as we hear the word.

In 1 Peter, chapter 3 we hear:

¹⁷It is better to suffer for doing good (if this could possibly be God’s will) than for doing evil.

¹⁸Christ himself suffered on account of sins, once for all, the righteous one on behalf of the unrighteous…

¹⁹And it was by the Spirit that he went to preach to the spirits in prison.

Right there, in three verses, all three of these major theories are at play. Be like Jesus and suffer for doing good… He died because of our sins… and he went down to hell and preached to the spirits in prison.

This morning, we are going to focus on the idea of being rescued. 1 Peter tells us, and the Apostles Creed affirms that Jesus descended to the dead. He went down into hell after the crucifixion to preach to the spirits held in the prison of death.

The verses go on to say:

In the past, these spirits were disobedient—when God patiently waited during the time of Noah. Noah built an ark in which a few (that is, eight) lives were rescued through water.

As we remember in our first reading this morning, the whole world was drowning in sin… and eight lives were rescued through the water.

With the children, we remembered the promise God made right then and there, a promise to seek forgiveness and not punishment. God put the rainbow in the sky as a reminder that never again would life be destroyed, that God wants to restore us to life.

But I sometimes wonder about those souls who weren’t rescued. Whatever happened to them?

1 Peter tells us, God’s rainbow promise extends even to those who died in the flood. They were trapped by their own sin, imprisoned by Satan and death, but through the cross, Jesus wins the victory over death itself and even the unfaithful disobedient spirits of the ancient world were given the opportunity to hear the message of God’s love and offered shalom.

That’s how powerful God is. That is how mighty Christ’s victory is.

And if Jesus can rescue disobedient spirits from hell itself, than Jesus can rescue you.

Maybe you are struggling with an addiction that just seems to have you in its grip. Jesus can help set you free.

Maybe bad habits and a poor attitude have been dragging you down. Jesus can lift you up.

Maybe you are swimming in worries and fears and feel lost in that sea. Jesus will keep you from drowning.

On Ash Wednesday, we were reminded of our sin, our mortality, our finite natures. We are all sinners. We are all made out the dust of the earth. And we can’t save ourselves from drowning in all of the dirt and muck of this world.

But Jesus can.

And just as God took the dust of the earth and formed us as his people, God can take the dust of our lives and make something beautiful out of it. God can rescue us from even the dust of death and raise us up.

We’ve talked about some big words and some big concepts this morning. Atonement. Christus Victor. Salvation and Shalom.

And sometimes the only antidote to being overwhelmed by new information is to look at pictures of puppies.

These puppies are rescue dogs and these amazing photos capture them on the day they were rescued… on the day they were brought home from the shelter.

They transform from these sad and pitiful creatures, to vibrant and life filled friends.

They come to find themselves at home, loved, taken care of.

And this is what God wants for us. God wants to rescue us from the hell we experience in our lives. God wants to save us from our guilt and addiction, from our sin and temptation, from our fears and our failures.

God wants to bring us home. To restore us to shalom. To wholeness. To life and life abundant.

Jesus is strong enough to save even the spirits in hell and Jesus can save you. Jesus can transform you. Jesus can set free this entire world.

It is interesting that Mark’s account of the wilderness is not a long series of temptations and failures, but a few words about faithfulness: Jesus was tempted by Satan. He was with the animals. The angels took care of him. No drama. No mistakes. No surrender. And in the midst of it all, Satan just disappears. Jesus transforms even the wilderness, the time of testing and struggle, into shalom – a place where all are cared for. Pheme Perkins writes that even before his ministry began, Jesus had already broken Satan’s power on this world.

And Jesus can enter the wilderness of our lives, the prisons we construct for ourselves, and can transform it too.

Now is the time. Today is the moment. Let Christ set you free.

Feasting with the saints #NaBloPoMo

Posted on November 2, 20141 Comment

Today, I served communion to a man with tears in his eyes. His father, though no longer with us, was present on this day. The Spirit was present. You could feel it in the space.

All Saints is one of those high holy days where the pomp and liturgy and tradition matters. Being a newbie in this congregation, I must admit I was nervous and anxious about doing justice to the way this particular community remembered their dead. I did not know most of those we named. I couldn’t tell you their story. So I told one of my own.

Though our experiences of loss are vastly different, there are common threads and moments. The experience of a long struggle. Whispers at the bedside. Caring for others instead of ourselves. The unexpected moments when we break down.

Today, I shared my experience surrounding my grandfather’s death. My Deda. We cracked walnuts together. We baked apple pies. He said few words, but knew how to make you smile. He was always faithfully hoeing weeds in the garden or field. A honey butter sandwich was the best thing in the world. I remember his stories about peeling potatoes in Korea. How he always said “spank you” instead of “thank you” with a twinkle in his eye. And how he could get all kinds of worked up if the right topic came along.

When I think about him, I realize in part how little we have in common. He was a person of few words. He made do on next to nothing. He worked with his hands and back almost every day of his life. Yet it is precisely because we are so different that I can appreciate all he had to teach me. Thinking of him makes me take a deep breath and slow down and listen more. It makes me pause to think of all that could be and should be. I wonder how life would be different if he had been with us longer. I want to eat a fried egg on a single slice of bread at breakfast with him once again. I wonder what he would have thought of his granddaughter the pastor.

When we celebrate All Saints, we remember that those who are gone are not gone forever. They continue to be with us… guiding us, encouraging us. I didn’t know much of Deda’s life of faith or relationship with God, but every time I plant something or pull a weed, he is with me. And today when we broke bread at communion and I thought of the farmers who had harvested the grain, I sensed his presence.

It is strange and wonderful how our lives and souls entwine. And I thank God for the promise and hope of the resurrection and the reminder that our differences dead are never truly gone.

Unrecognizeable

Posted on November 1, 2014Leave a comment

As we sit here this morning and think about feasting with the saints, I’m thinking about eating a honey and butter sandwich with my grandpa, my Deda. I’m Czech, you know, and my Babi and Deda were big parts of my life growing up.

He was a really quiet sort of guy. He didn’t say much unless you had spent an hour or two shelling walnuts with him at the kitchen table. Every so often, you would get a story out of him about peeling potatoes in the Korean War or about a neighbor down the street. He also loved to make up stories and when I was little he had all sorts of silly tales that he would tell us.

In October of 2006, my dad’s dad, my grandpa, my Deda, passed away. It was a long and slow and painful process – with diabetes doing a number on his body and its ability to heal itself. I was living in Nashville at the time, attending seminary, but it was fall break and he was still with us, so I went home to see him.

I got to spend an entire day in the hospital with Deda. It was probably the best day that he had had in a long time. The Hawkeyes were playing that morning and he was aware of the game and together we watched them win. Five or six of us were gathered in the room and he would try to talk, but his throat was sore and ravaged from the breathing tube that had been there. He grunted and moaned, tried to tell us things, but mostly we just held his hand and tried our best to understand. The next day wasn’t nearly so good and the next evening he passed away. Because of my break from school, I was able to be there not only for the funeral, but also stay farther into the week.

Because I was, you know, the seminary student, I did a lot of care-giving during that time. I gave one of the eulogies at the funeral. I sat in with my dad and uncles and aunt as they planned the service. I helped to decorate the funeral home ( complete with stalks of corn, pumpkins and gourds). I sat with my Babi.

It felt so good to be home and surrounded by my family during that time, but I remember the hardest part of it was going back to Nashville. Going back to a place where no one knew my grandfather, or even that he had been that sick. Going back to a place where no one knew that he had died or what a gaping hole was left in my life.

But I hadn’t missed any classes because of how the break fell. I didn’t have to call any professors about making up a test or getting the notes from lecture. Everyone had been gone, so there was no reason to notice I was gone.

And so I didn’t tell anyone. I kept my grief to myself. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to put myself out there and be greeted by all of the condolences and “I’m sorry’s” right then, so I hid it all. I don’t think I really wanted to be left alone – but I was somehow embarrassed by my grief. I felt like I had done an okay job of caring for everyone else and I could probably care for myself too. I guess I thought that I could handle it on my own.

As long as I’m being honest, I’ve always had this attitude that says, “I can do it myself!” Whether it is putting something together or cooking a new recipe, or, as it turns out, grieving – I’ve always wanted to figure out my own way of doing something. Like I know better than how countless people have done it in the past or will continue to do it in the future.

Our whole culture it seems has that do-it-yourself mentality. We are expected to be strong, resourceful, and even if we don’t have it all figured out – with the right tools, or YouTube video, we should be able to do-it-ourselves.

But you see, the problem is, we were not made to do things ourselves.

It is exactly when we are down and out that we are more in tune with what it really means to be part of the body of Christ.

Christ tells us that it is precisely our places of vulnerability that we will find the promise of God being fulfilled.

The world may think that being vulnerable means you are weak and you can’t cut it, but in the strange and wonderful ways of God, our vunerability is the source of our greatest blessings.

Hear again some those very familiar words of the Beatitudes, but through the Message translation of the bible:

You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

You’re blessed when you feel you’ve lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are-no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.

You’re blessed when you care. At the moment of being ‘care-full,’ you find yourselves cared for.

You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.

Not only that-count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable.

The world gets uncomfortable around us, because they don’t understand the Kingdom that Jesus came to proclaim, the kingdom full of good news for the poor, freedom for captives, and comfort for those that mourn.

We have been blessed, precisely because of our vulnerability. We have been the poor, the down and out, we have grieved, we have struggled for peace. And we are blessed, because every step of the way, Jesus has been by our side.

The world can’t comprehend the love God has for us and the love we have for one another. And a big part of that love we share is the trust and belief that we can be vulnerable with one another. Our love is the most powerful, when we share our lives with one another, when we are honest about our weaknesses and our need for healing and love and grace.

And yet, that is precisely why the world doesn’t recognize Jesus. It is why the world doesn’t know him. Caught up in our bravado, believing we can do it on our own, John writes in his letter that the world can’t see the love God has for us. If the world can’t understand that love, they it can’t understand why the poor and the brokenhearted would be blessed.

And I experienced this. I tried to grieve on my own when my grandfather died. But I realized I couldn’t do it myself when I back our car into a parking barrier after church the first Sunday I returned to Nashville.

I was actually so anxious about getting away from the church where everyone seemed so happy and whose lives seemed to be so together that I wasn’t paying attention and clipped the parking barrier.

If I had been just an ordinary person of the world, I probably would never have gone back into that church. I would have backed my car out, gone straight to the repair shop, and would have continued quietly carrying my burden. I wouldn’t have known, I wouldn’t have recognized the love God has for us. I would have believed all of those happy people inside of that church building were strange and out of touch and in my grief, I didn’t belong.

But, I worked in that church and for half a second remembered that it was exactly because it was full of strange people that I loved it and them. Those peope inside that building were not perfect. They were happy and blessed precisely because they refused to handle their problems on their own.

I carefully shifted the car back into drive and parked it back in the spot. I got out and I walked back inside. I would deal with the car later. I sat down on the couch in my friend’s office and I just cried. And I finally let someone else be there for me. And I was overwhelmed by the love that community demonstrated.

The church – this body of Christ – should be a place where any and all of us can stand up at any time and freely share our lives with one another. It should be a place where each of us can trust that those joys and concerns and struggles will be heard faithfully and held onto sacredly – that they will be gently placed into God’s hands and that together we will weep, together we will laugh, together we will learn to forgive and live a new way.

That is why our lives are unrecognizeable. It is why we seem so strange to the rest of the world.

So many of the saints that we lift up this morning were those strange and unrecognizeable and wonderful people. They gave so much of their lives to this church and to other people.

You know their stories far better than I do.

You know how they loved one another.

You know how they shepherded the church through adversity.

You know how they leaned on one another in difficult times.

You learned from them what it means to be strange and unrecognizeable… what it means to be blessed.

And from them, we have learned how to share those blessings to others.

I’ve heard this saying many times in my life – when you share joy, you double it, when you share a burden, you cut it in half.

That is what community is for, that is what the body of Christ is for – to help you to carry your burdens and your joys.

Being a part of community means being vulnerable with one another, but the strength of the body of Christ is shown when we do whatever we can through God’s power to overcome that weakness.

And we can do so because we know death is not the end. Because we believe that sickness is not a curse. Because we have faith in the power of the resurrection and because we have seen miracles. We have felt the power of prayer. We know what hope truly is.

The saints we celebrate today are part of the people of God and present with us in this very room as we break bread and feast at the heavenly banquet.

And that is why this place and this people are so strange and wonderful.

Winter is Coming

Posted on February 24, 20141 Comment

As an introvert, I dont often make small talk with fellow passengers on a flight. Now that you can use a kindle during taxi and takeoff, my nose is often in a book or playing a game on my phone. But today, even my game of “caveman story” couldn’t save me from a conversation with a new single-serving friend. And I’m grateful.

It turns out we both went to seminary. And are currently in non traditional sorts of ministry. We had a great conversation about mission and development and empowering local communities. We also talked about how messed up the church can be.

At one point, he said we need to do as much as we can to serve God before the winter of our lives. In many ways, he was talking about the life cycle of churches… and how many of our congregations are living in their winter days. Or at least approaching them. What good can we do before we die and fade away?

On the first leg of my flight, I had been reading the “Game of Thrones” books ( book 2, in fact) and there, “winter is coming” has a slightly different meaning. We know how seasons work, with their cycle of life and death and life again. However, in Martin’s world, the seasons go on for years and are unpredictable in their length. The world is in the midst of a long summer… around a decade in length. But as the lords of the north often say, “winter is coming. ” It always does. So you must prepare.

The world as we know it is changing. Whether we are actively dying or merely adjusting to a change in the climate, we have to pay attention and we must act.

Bullard’s life cycle of churches describes how a congregation is born, matures and dies. He talks about vision, relationships, programs, and structure being the driving forces in various stages of that cycle. Unlike our physical human lives, however, churches can begin a new cycle if only they allow vision to take the reigns.

We need to not only believe winter is coming, we need to see what kind of life is required of us to make it through. If we don’t… if we keep pretending that the good old days of summer will last forever, we will die before the thaw.

May our churches see… and may they chose to live differently.

Imagine 31 Birthdays…

Posted on July 25, 2013Leave a comment

A gravedigger walks among dozens of fresh graves in the children's section of the Penga Penga Cemetery in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Only one in five children in this city of 3 million survives to age five due to malaria. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose. — A gravedigger walks among dozens of fresh graves in the children’s section of the Penga Penga Cemetery in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Only one in five children in this city of 3 million survives to age five due to malaria. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose.

Today is my thirty-first birthday.

My work with Imagine No Malaria has introduced me to the faces and stories of children all across the continent of Africa who will never live to see their fifth birthday, much less thirty-one.

In fact, of the 655,000 lives lost each year, 85% of those who die are children under the age of five.

In this photograph, a man walks through a graveyard in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This community has a practice of not giving their children names until they reach the age of five… in part to keep from forming attachments to children who are so unlikely to survive. Those tombstones that are simply empty wooden crosses… those are the graves of children who died without a name.

What if you could do something to change that picture? What if you could help a child to have another birthday? What if you could buy a bed net to prevent them from getting this terrible disease that will take their life?

It’s as simple as giving $10. Ten bucks saves a life.

For my birthday, I want to help save the lives of thirty-one children. I want to help provide a future, hope, life, and health for these little ones.

Will you help?

Visit Imagine 31 Birthdays… to celebrate my birthday this year by helping 31 children to have another.

Prayers from the kitchen sink

Posted on February 21, 2013Leave a comment

We must — at some point along our Lenten journey — be candid about death. Lent begins with the reminder of our mortality, with the ashes from which we are knit together, and the season reaches its climax in the crucifixion of Jesus… Even Jesus, praying at Gethsemane before his death, asked his friends to keep him company. “Then he said to them, ‘I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here and stay awake with me.'” (Matthew 26:8, NRSV)

Lord, tonight as I stood at my kitchen window washing dishes I thought of my mom and dad.

I’m excited to be traveling with them soon and I can’t wait to see the joy as they hold their newest grandson in their arms.

But to say I don’t worry about them would be… well, untrue.

It surprises me that I feel old somedays.

I know things change and life moves and sometimes it just moves way too fast.

And a scary realization is that if I’m getting older… if I’m an “adult”… then my parents are getting older, too. (sorry, mom.)

Between Brandon and me, we’ve had lots of conversations and what-ifs about our parents lately.

Help me to slow down, God.

Help me to take a deep breath.

Help me to not take so much for granted.

In Your last nights, You asked your friends to stay by your side.

The ones who had traveled with you.

The ones who knew you so well.

All you wanted was time. company. love. relationship.

Why is it so hard for us to make time for those things in our daily lives?

We know we want them. We know how important they truly are to us.

But the phone call isn’t made.

We fill our schedules instead of our hearts.

How on earth has it been this long since I talked with my dad?

We hurry and work and sweat and stress… and for what?

What if we lived as if we were dying?

That’s a silly cliche, I know.

And to be honest, God, if we moved beyond the trite statement and really took your words seriously…

well, I fear that if I truly died to my self and lived for you that everything would be different… and that’s scary.

You ask us to die… and you ask us to love… but what if we love so much that we don’t want to die?

What if we love people and don’t want them to go?

What if we don’t want things to change…. or if we want them to change in ways that might require less time for the work of ministry so that we can spend more time with family and the very companions you have brought into our beautiful messed up lives?

Help me to understand how to love… and live… and what it might really mean to die.

Going Up?

Posted on May 20, 2012Leave a comment

Are you going up?

Are you… climbing the ladder… increasing in stature… measuring success in leaps and bounds?

Are you going up?

I’m not asking if you are climbing the corporate ladder… or increasing your standing in the community… or raking in the dollars and cents.

Are you going up?

Are you climbing Jacob’s ladder? Are you increasing in holiness? Are you more successful today than you were yesterday at obeying God’s will?

Are you going up?

In the United Methodist Church, we have been talking a lot lately about growth and fruitfulness and effectiveness. And we are focused on those things because… well, lately we seem to be in a downward slide. Fewer members. Less money in offerings. A decrease in the number of baptisms and confirmations. Fewer people entering the ministry.

Down… down… down.

In fact, at General Conference, I heard words like “death tsunami” and “urgency” and “crisis.”

Evidently, downward movement and momentum isn’t a good thing.

We are supposed to be going up…

As a local congregation, the powers that be tell us that we should have more people in worship today than we did five years ago. We should have more baptisms and confirmations than funerals. We should be increasing our stewardship of resources and financial giving. Our numbers should be climbing. In fact, our very own Bishop Julius Trimble set a goal for our conference to have 10,790 new disciples in four years. That is 13 new disciples per congregation… that is only 3-4 new disciples every year for four years… We should have more new people in more new places. If we look at our numbers, they should be going up, up, up.

Are we going up?

I find this to be a very interesting question to think about today, because it is Ascension Sunday. Today is the day we celebrate that although Jesus died… he rose from the dead! And not only did he rise up from the grave and walk among us… but about forty days later, Jesus rose up into heaven. He ascended to the father.

And as our scripture from Acts tells us, the disciples who witnessed this amazing miracle were so dumbfounded that they stood staring, mouths wide open in astonisment, faces to the sky. They stood like that, staring at the heavens… looking up… for such a long time that angels had to come and remind them: Hey! you’ve got a job to do.

We can get awfully obsessed about what is happening up there. (pointing to the sky).

We want to follow Jesus up there and go to heaven.

We want to know that the big guy up there thinks about everything we say and do… or… maybe (eek) maybe we don’t. Maybe we want to hide everything we say and do from up there.

In fact, I bet if you really thought about it, you could plot out the points on your life when you were attaining the heights and growing in wisdom and stature and getting closer to up there. We could probably plot out the times when we were going up…

There are some half sheets of paper in the pews there and I want to invite you to take one of them and grab a pen or pencil.

I want us to start by drawing a simple graph. Put an x-axis on the left hand side… this will stand for the highs and the lows of your life. Now draw a y-axis through there… this will stand for the years you have been here on this earth.

Alright… now I want to give you a minute… just a minute… to roughly sketch out and plot some of the most successful and least successful times of your life… the highs and the lows. Think about this first graph in worldly terms – jobs and education and family and success… but also those times that were difficult like deaths and struggles with work or school. Just hit the most important and significant things for you right now. And when you are finished, connect the dots…

Okay… now I want us to make a second chart… right there on the same graph is fine. If you want, switch writing utensils with a neighbor so you can plot out your graph in pen or pencil or something different. This time, plot out your spiritual highs and lows. When were you closest to God (ie: highest on the chart) and when were you farthest from God? When did you grow in grace? When did you backslide? And for some of us, that includes times when we didn’t even know about God – a long time where we were flatlined at zero… I’ll give you a couple of minutes for that…

Now, I want you to look at your graph and answer the question… are you going up?

Could someone else in this world look at that graph and tell if you were going up?

Have the things that you have said and done, the life that you have lived… is it worthy of what is up there?

Have you felt a struggle in YOUR life… always trying to get closer to up there, always trying to reach the point where you have “made it?” Do you worry about how many highs and lows you have in your spiritual relationship with God.

To repeat the question we have been using all morning – are you going up?

I believe that this is a trick question. Or rather, I believe it is the wrong question.

Because you see in the end, we are NOT judged by the upward curve of our slope. We are NOT judged by the number of good deeds we have done. and we are NOT judged by the number of bible verses we have memorized… We are not judged by how long we have been close to God.

The irony is… in order to go “up to heaven” we have to be willing to be low and humble… we are judged by whether or not we have accepted how utterly unacceptable we are… and by God’s grace that dwells within us…

Somewhere this week, I read that holiness is not actually a characteristic that describes us. We are not holy. We can not grow in our own holiness. The only thing that makes us holy is God.

As we sang right before this message… Only Jesus is worthy… only Jesus is good… and only Jesus has the power to save us, redeem us, transform us and welcome us home.

Sometimes we get so focused on trying to do the right things in order to get up there, on living the right kind of life, that we forget it’s not about us at all… it’s about Jesus and what he has done.

And the Ascension story reminds us that Jesus goes up…. not us.

In their preaching helps this week, the General Board of Discipleship reminded us that heaven is not really “up.” As we know from our modern scientific inquiry – and I quote from the GBOD: “If Jesus went “up there,” he would have frozen to death, suffocated, been dangerously irradiated, or ripped to shreds by black holes (if he got that far!).”

The universe beyond the clouds is not a friendly place.

But what we forget with the language of going up… of ascension… is that this is really the “language of enthronement.” In the ascension of Jesus, he rises not simply from the grave, but up to his full authority. He no longer walks and talks among us but he is now “seated at the right hand of the Father.” He is no longer simply the prophetic carpenter from Galilee, but he has risen to his fullest stature as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

And that kind of a Jesus… that kind of a holy, awesome, powerful being… that majestic and awesome Lord up there… well, he can share holiness. He can bestow grace. He can transform lives. He can save.

The only reason we can go up…. is because he is already there.

And because Jesus has been raised from the dead… because Jesus has ascended to the Father… because he has demonstrated not just his power, but also his deep and abiding love for us…

I sometime worry that we focus so much on whether or not we are going up… whether we are climbing the ladder… whether we are increasing in stature… that we stand staring at the heavens with our mouths gaping open.

well, we don’t have to worry about whether or not we are going up anymore. We don’t have to graph out our successes and failures on a chart. We don’t have to plot the trajectory of holiness.

As the angels come and tell us – Hey – what are you still looking up for… you have a job to do!

And the Lord of Lords and King of Kings does have a job for us.

It isn’t something we have to do to earn his love or to become more holy… but it is something we do out of deep gratitude for what we have already been given.

The job is simple… Jesus tells us: Go, be my witnesses. Tell the world about what I have done. Love them because I love them.

Rev. Mindi from rev-0-lution.org tells about a sign she saw once in England. It read: “We believe in life before death.”

We can get so caught up in life after death, in what happens up there and whether or not we are going up there, that we forget about this life.

Jesus invites us to live before we die. He invites us to go and share and tell and bless and love. He invites us to not only live, but to share new life with the broken and hurting of this world. As Rev. Mindi wrote: “This is why we work for justice and peace in this world. This is why we stand against hate and stand for love.”

We do not work for the Kingdom of God in order to get up there, but because that Kingdom has already come down here and already dwells in our hearts. Because the King of Kings already lives in our hearts.

Because he has gone up, we can get down and dirty and engage people in the real mess of their lives.

Because he has gone up, we can stop worrying about whether or not we are saved and we can simply tell people about Jesus and invite them to get to know him and us better.

Because he has gone up, we can stop counting dollars and cents and we can start measuring how deep our conversations are, how real our expressions of love are, and how many people we have shared the story with.

Because he has gone up, because he is Lord of Lords, because “up there” there is really not “UP” at all… but is a completely new way of living and thinking and being… well, because of Jesus – we can truly live before we die.