Why do you stand looking?

Scripture Lessons: Ephesians 1: 15-23 and Acts 1: 1-11 Sermon Title: “Why do you stand looking?” Preached on 5/8/16 I love what the angels say here: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” This question that they ask the disciples of Jesus who have just watched their Lord ascend into heaven reminds me of the saying that some Christians are so heavenly minded that they’re no earthly good. These disciples got caught looking, not up at Jesus, but up at the place where Jesus no longer was. Now that’s a common problem I believe, because all the time people are expecting things to be there that are gone. Hoping things to be like they used to be when they’re not. We have the problem of living in an ever changing world, but sometimes what makes the change even harder is pretending that everything is still the same. I remember well one-night driving to Charleston, SC. It was before the days of cell phones, so when the transmission went out the first thing I did after pulling over to the side of the interstate was I turned the car off and then turned it on again thinking that maybe it had fixed itself. Well, it didn’t. Next, I just sat in the car for a while. Stared at the dashboard for who knows how long, tried starting the car one more time before finally something told me that I had better get out and start walking. That’s what I did, and I walked for six miles. It wasn’t doing me any good pretending that nothing had changed because it had and pretending that nothing has changed when it has is something like wearing clothes that fit a body that we no longer have. And like a man in the suit that used to fit but now is too snug in all the wrong places, some of us are guilty of looking at a person who has changed, but still expect him to fit in the clothes he used to wear – we can’t see the person who is there now because we keep expecting to see the person who used to be there. Sometimes that’s what I do to my grandfather. He has dementia and he’s nearly deaf, but he still looks the same as he did before, he even smells the same as he did before, so sometimes I talk to him expecting him to be the person he was before even though my grandfather has changed. It’s hard to reconcile the reality of aging, so some children aren’t children anymore but they still act like their parents are the same people they have always been so when they need help moving they call daddy and when they go back home they expect mama to cook a big dinner even though daddy is feeble and mama is forgetful – and change can be awful but pretending that nothing has changed makes it even worse. These disciples got caught looking up at the place where Jesus no longer was, and there’s plenty to be sad about here, but sometimes getting stuck in denial can be even worse. Christians do that kind of thing to the Church. Someone new joins the church and we’re surprised that they come once a month or once a quarter, or a new year comes for Sunday School and it seems like this is going to be the year when things get back to normal, but what if the old normal is gone? The Church is changing. The Presbyterian Church as a denomination is changing. And if we only look for signs of Jesus in all the places where he used to be than we may not see him. “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” What are you doing looking up into the clouds? Just because Jesus used to be there doesn’t mean he’ll be there still. Now Scripture prepares us for this phenomenon. The prophet Elijah went out to stand on the mountain before the Lord at Horeb. There was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. In the book of 1st Kings it is important to know that God had been present in all three – wind, earthquake, and fire, but this time – “after the fire a sound of sheer silence.” If Elijah had only looked for God in the places God had been before he would have missed the place where God was appearing now. So what if we are looking up at the place where Jesus no longer is? If we are like the disciples, like the Men of Galilee, caught looking up toward heaven, will we not miss the place where Jesus is appearing now? It’s happened before, and it’s a dangerous thing. It can be the stuff of a crisis of faith. I have a friend, a pianist, and for him, for years, to feel God’s presence all he had to do was sit down at a piano. After a bad day, to gain a little dose of hope all he had to do was let his finger dance across the keys, so to no longer feel anything when he sat down on the bench caused a crisis in faith because he kept going back to the piano expecting to feel the way he used to feel, but the God who was in the wind became the God who was in the earthquake; the God who was in the earthquake became the God who was in fire; but to go back to the fire just because God had been there before wouldn’t have done Elijah any good because now God was in the silence. This friend of mine found God again, but the first thing he had to do was start looking somewhere beyond the piano. In the same way, to face again our life here on earth – the reality that cancer breaks down the human frame, that jobs get downsized and the plans we engineer in our heads hit roadblocks, the reality that there are more Presbyterian Churches on life support than there are churches growing – all and any of these new realities can bring me low because I keep on expecting to find Jesus in all the places I’ve seen him before and he’s just not always there – but does that mean he’s gone? Or does that mean I’m caught looking up toward heaven rather than trusting in the one who said, “I will be with you, even till the end of the age.” The Lord may not be where we saw him last – but that hardly means he’s gone. Hear again the rest of what the angels had to say: “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” That he ascends, this is the sign that he will return. And that reminds me of a story I was told this week. Mrs. Patty Ridley remembers being a young girl at home with her pregnant mother on their farm in Montana. You might not know that while Ms. Patty is so active and full of life, she has the memories of a person from another generation because she grew up in this remote area without electricity, phones, or doctors close by. In this particular memory Patty was young, her pregnant mother knew that the baby was coming but with her husband out in the pasture with the sheep she needed someone to drive her to the hospital but he wasn’t within shouting distance. There was no way to call him and Patty was too little to go fetch him so Patty’s grandmother was the one to go. Young Patty stood looking out the window as her grandmother walked down this six-mile driveway to find her daddy and she remembers her laboring mother saying, “Is she out of sight yet?” “Is she out of sight yet?” In this case, being out of sight was a good thing, because the farther out of sight she got the closer her father would be to coming home. And with Jesus, being out of sight is also a good thing, because as he rises into heaven he rises to rule over all the earth. We must be reminded from those words of our 1st Scripture Lesson from the book of Ephesians and see not with human sight, but with the eyes of our hearts enlightened. So don’t you see – yes he ascended into heaven – and the disciples just stood looking at the clouds – but consider this – what if the Apostle Paul is right in saying that our present sufferings are nothing compared to the glory that is to come? I am convinced that sometimes we can’t acknowledge what’s changed because to do so just hurts so bad. It’s so easy to pretend that it doesn’t hurt because the hurt hurts so bad. It’s so hard to admit that he’s gone, because without what was the world seems so empty. It’s not unlike so many in our culture, to be numb to the change is better than pain of acknowledging it, but if we fear present suffering are we not more masochists than Christians? Are we like the Israelites in the desert, afraid of turning back to Egypt but unwilling to step into the Promised Land? Are we Mrs. Habersham of Great Expectations, forever entombed in that wedding dress for the wedding that never happened? Are we like the child of C.S. Lewis’ imagination, choosing mud pies in the alley way, not yet ready to accept an invitation to the seashore? Something has changed. Or better yet, everything has changed and is changing, and the sooner we can acknowledge it the sooner we’ll be able to hear completely what those angels said: “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” And when he comes again, he shall be clothed in glory. Do not get caught staring up into heaven, for having ascended into heaven he is nearer now than before. Amen.