Here is my first attempt at a Homily- It went very well!
When I was given the opportunity to speak for the first time from the pulpit, I was overjoyed to be able to speak on the Ascension. I’m not sure if you all are aware of what I do on the weekdays. I am a teacher and a visual artist. My training in art during the verrry hazy days of my undergraduate career took me to many galleries and museums all over the east coast and that was my first experience with the Ascension. There are many renditions of the Ascension from our pantheon of art history. We have classical renderings of Christ’s great leap to heaven by Copely, we also have views from Dali, a very devout man – no matter how odd his publicist recommended he should be- we have views from abstract painters who emotionally drag great swaths of color upward to heaven. I could continue with this long dissertation for at least two or three hours, but I would only recommend this if we were all diagnosed with some very odd case of group insomnia…………
So, for the sake of group lucidity, I want to focus on is not the ascension itself, but the guys on the ground and Christ’s promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit, and-by the way- the culmination of our Holy Trinity (Father Son and Holy Spirit), to them and us before the great leap to heaven. They are a faithful group that will find themselves very confused and charged with the dangerous mission of being the body of Christ in this world- most, even our own blessed Andrew, will be martyred in their very near future.
I try to picture how they have may have felt at the end of the miraculous scene – I know that we have all experienced loss. The loss of a loved one can be a devastating event and one that can take a lifetime to reconcile oneself to. Now, imagine yourself as a Disciple- your master and Savior- who has been revealed to you as the son of God, through the transfiguration- has been violently and suddenly taken from you. It was an existence that was the very presence of God made know to you, then it is gone. Then he is revealed to you again with the Resurrection, then he is gone again! I don’t know about you, but I think that without our benefit of hindsight- I would be a little shaken up to say the least!
But, here is the Good News! This time of confusion will be remedied very soon- we are looking forward to the celebration of Pentecost! This is when the Holy Spirit is made apparent to the Apostles. They are no longer alone and all is well because God is inspiring and guiding them to be the Body of Christ in the World through the Holy Spirit. This is promised by Jesus during the Ascension. But if you are like me with my incredible ability to be patient………..it is these few weeks before the amazing and fiery event that is Pentecost that would have driven me nuts. If I would have been there I could imagine myself grabbing after Jesus asking “Hey, excuse me sir, but could you give me a bit of a timeline on this arrival of the Holy Spirit?”
With all seriousness, we must acknowledge the fear that the first members of the Church must have had for their lives and their mission in this world and how exactly where they reassured so they could just carry on?. What must it have been like to be a true believer, a member of the Church and be left staring up at heaven after the Ascension and saying- “Ok guys, what now?”
In the Gospel reading for today- Christ gives us a clue and comfort of how to deal with this time of waiting. The reading is also known as the “High Priestly Prayer”. This prayer is the model for our Prayers of the People and it gives comfort to those who wait. It must have given the Apostles quiet confidence through the reassurance that God has sanctified them and will protect them from the forces that will align against them. This prayer enjoins all of us in the world as a part of a family who is charged to do the work of Jesus in this world. It taught them to pray and to trust, that no matter what God is active and involved in their lives. No matter what happens they are not alone.
These are promises guaranteed by Jesus in the prayer as our only Mediator and advocate.
· Promises that we will be one with God and the Son.
· These promises will be made apparent to the Apostles and to us a modern apostles during Pentecost- when the Holy Spirit descended upon the world and let the world know in no uncertain terms that the Holy Spirit brought the presence of the Father and the Son into our everyday trying, difficult and mundane lives
· This was made apparent to me during the story of my discernment was also a time of waiting and that God will reveal all to us in God’s time- introduce the idea of Kairos
· This time is the difficult time of waiting. A time that we must realize that The Holy Spirit does not command us, it moves with us while we are led to discover inspired answers. It is also a time where we must realize that Christ’s words during the Ascension make the most sense-
· No matter the issue, whether financial, in our relationships, our in our Church- we should be patient as our Church Fathers and Mothers were, we should keep faith during the “times of trial” and “take the long view of time” as the Archbishop of Canterbury says, in other words the Holy Spirit is worth waiting for, as well are the answers in other words- I doubt that the Holy Spirit partakes in knee jerk reactions and thus the RIGHT answers are worth waiting for. We also should strive to remember this in our church life, not only the whole universal catholic church, but within our Anglican Communion as well- places where we are lately confronted with incredibly hard questions. Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury- also asserts that “God doesn’t do waste”, in other words take time to wait for the Holy Spirit in your life, this is not wasted time. It is a Holy Time. It is the true model of faithfulness- what we all strive for.
