Homily From Service On Sunday, May 21, 2023 – Seventh Sunday of Easter
by The Rev. Dr. Richard Burden
Sermon preached by The Rev. Dr. Richard Burden
Below is a TRANSCRIPT of the homily. It may vary considerably from the prepared version. Please do not cite without permission.
How many of you remember the Choose Your Own Adventure books. They were big in the 80s. They were they were these stories where you would start reading and then after a page or two, you had to decide what to do. And then every choice took you to a different page. So you went back and forth through the narrative until you got to some one of sometimes as many as 44 different endings in these books. They’ve been completely replaced by video games now, but I was thinking of them this week, when, as I was reflecting on Jesus’s ascension and this post ascension world that we live in. See the church year and church history. And certainly the lectionary likes to create this unified narrative out of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, I like to put all of these disparate pieces together into a single story arc.
But that’s not really what the Gospels present, the Gospels present, really something more like a choose your own adventure with a lot of different paths, that all ended up at the same kind of ultimate ending. We heard Luke’s version of the ascension in our x reading this morning. And Luke is the only gospel writer who actually has Jesus ascend into heaven, at least in the oldest manuscripts that we have, I guess that there had to be some explanation for why Jesus is no longer as present as he wants was when he was alive. But even in Luke, if you notice, the focus is much less on the ascension, and much more on what we are to do, how we are to respond to the reality of the resurrection.
It’s really more of a choose your own adventure. Right? in X, remember the apostles, were all thinking that Jesus was going to restore the kingdom in Israel, but that’s clearly not happening. And so they asked, by the way, when are you going to restore the kingdom to which Jesus replies, stop worrying about that. That’s not your job. Your job is to be my witnesses. Now, I have to admit that word witness conjures up for me images of trials, and judges and juries and verdicts and makes all of this feel maybe a little bit more abstract than I think it really needs to be. I checked the First Nations version of the New Testament, and I prefer the way they translate it. And there, Jesus simply says, tell my story. That’s it. Being a witness, sounds very formal and sounds like something I’m not sure that I could do on a daily basis, maybe if I was really forced to, but tell my story that sounds totally manageable on a daily basis, and telling Jesus’s story, living. That story is really the message behind all of the Gospels, even in the ones where Jesus doesn’t ascend into heaven. Like John, for instance. So the part of the gospel that we heard just now, remember that takes place before the crucifixion.
This is the prayer that Jesus prays at the end of the Last Supper before he goes to the garden to be arrested. So when we hear him say things like, I am coming to you, Holy Father, he’s really talking about his death, not his ascension. There is no ascension in John’s narrative. Instead, if you remember the apostles go fishing, and they see Jesus on the beach cooking fish. And he asks Peter these same questions three times do you love me and Peter answers, you know that I do. And then at the very end, Jesus simply says, Follow me. That’s it. Now, that’s both an invitation and a command. But it’s just follow me. Tell my story. How our how we respond to Jesus therefore is up to every one of us. Choose your own adventure. A very similar thing happens In the Gospel of Mark, at least in what most scholars now believe, is the oldest and original ending of Mark. And that ending is actually wonderfully ironic. The women go to the tomb, which of course is empty. And the angel says, Do not be afraid he has been raised, go and tell the others and Mark ends. So they went out and fled from the tomb for terror and amazement had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid. The end. Now, Mark, scholar CHAD MYERS says that here at the end of Mark, we find ourselves like the women, not entirely understanding what resurrection means. But he says, if we have understood the story, Jesus’s story, we should be holding fast to what we do know that Jesus still goes before us, summoning us to the way of the cross. And He says that really is the hardest ending of all, because it’s not tragedy. And it’s not victory. But it is an unending challenge, to follow a new because it means that we must respond. Follow Jesus, tell the story, choose your own adventure.
Now Matthew has perhaps the most comforting ending of all of them, but also the one that has been greatly misused in the history of Christendom. We all know it as the Great Commission. Right? On the mountain again, Jesus commands the 11 Go and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded. You. know, we all know the bloody history of colonization that those verbs make disciples obey, and command have led to. So this week, again, I turned to the First Nations translation, which I think captures something closer to the true spirit of this commission, and in that our indigenous siblings translate the great commission this way. Now, I am sending you into all nations, to teach them, how to walk the road with me, teach them all the ways that I have instructed you to walk in. And then here’s finally the really comforting part. The very last line of the Gospel of Matthew, is this, Jesus says, and remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age, or until the New Age fully comes. So in Matthew, Not only is there no ascension, Jesus never leaves.
Instead, he promises to remain with us, always. Now today, we begin drawing our program year to a close. And we will be thanking everyone who helped make breakfast club and our Family Ministries possible. We will be blessing all those who are graduating, and praying for all who will soon be confirmed or received. We are on a cusp, as it were, we’re preparing for summer, anticipating the shift in energy that always accompanies that. And next week, we will thank and say farewell to the choir for the summer. And because it will be Pentecost we will ritually take the light of Christ from the Pascall candle and we will distribute it to everyone here. Because with Pentecost Don’s the promised age of the Spirit, when the flame of Heaven resides not only within Christ, but on and within every other believer. Which means it’s up to us. It’s up to each and every one of us To tell the story, to follow Jesus, to teach others how to walk in this path of love, and peace. So choose your own adventure in collaborating with God in fight, figuring out how you collaborate with God to create a world of peace, and justice and love.
I pray that you will be strengthened with the knowledge that Jesus has never left us that the Holy Spirit will always provide all that we need to be the hands and feet and heart and mind of Jesus to be the body of Christ in the world. Choose your adventure. Follow Jesus. Share the story. And may God bless all of us on our way.
Amen.