OK, so here’s your dorky fact about your pastor tidbit for the day. I was the astronomy club president in high school. My high school was one of only two with working planetariums in the state of California, so we did have pretty cool stuff as an astronomy club, but it was still not exactly a position of great status in the complex social system that is high school. I ran for the position hoping I would get to learn how to run the planetarium. Unfortunately, as soon as I was elected our faculty advisor left for maternity leave, so my responsibilities instead consisted of organizing snacks for our one and only “star party”, which consisted of me, two of my friends, and the super creepy science nerd kid, along with our fill-in advisor, the other science teacher, trying and failing to locate anything in his ancient telescope amid the ambient light of the town surround the old junior high soccer field. Alas, president of the astronomy club was not exactly a shining moment of my high school achievements. But even today, I find space fascinating. Not just because of the science involved, but because of the questions of faith that the study of our universe provoke. A few months ago in Bible study I shared an article I’d read about a Jesuit priest who is a cosmologist at the Vatican observatory. He told a story about being in the lab one day and suddenly finding proof that a theory he’d posited about the nature of black holes was true. “I am one of maybe five people in the world who care about this data,” he said. “So when the proof of it flashed across my screen, it felt like a little gift from God. Like God was saying to me, great work on learning about my creation, as a reward, I’m going to reveal a little more of myself to you.”
Like this Jesuit priest, I’ve never seen science and religion as contradictory. In fact, I’ve seen them as complementary, each answering questions the other cannot. Theology teaches me the depth of God’s majesty, shows me the why of God’s creative works. Science helps me marvel in the ever-increasing complexity of God’s handiwork. The more I learn about some aspect of God’s creation, the vast expanse of the universe, the complex interworkings of a human cell, the balance of genetic diversity, the more in awe I find myself of the God who not only created the world out of nothing, but who did it with such precision that we can research it, that we can study it. I see God’s handiwork in the meticulous order of creation.
I actually find it a little strange, and funny in a sad sort of way, that science and religion have become so adversarial because science started because of religion. People began studying science as a way to come to a deeper understanding of God by learning about the world God created. Early astronomers fixed telescopes to the sky in hopes of getting a glimpse of Jesus who ascended into heaven. But as telescopes became more and more advanced, as we could see further and further into the universe, as we can even send astronauts into space, somehow, for some people, the fact that we never found Jesus in space became proof that Jesus did not exist.
I see this as a failure of imagination, not on the part of the people who find themselves questioning, but by the church. Throughout history, the church has seen scientific discovery as a threat to power and have silenced voices that might make us question our firmly held convictions and think more deeply about the nature of God. From the excommunication of people like Galileo and Copernicus, to the modern uproar of what can and cannot be taught in public school science curriculums, I think we as the church have stifled wonder, and in doing so have stifled God.
But as our texts for this Ascension Day remind us, God will not be stifled. We read the texts a bit out of order this morning, reading Luke before Acts. Luke and Acts are part of a two volume set, Luke telling us about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ while he was on the earth, and Acts telling of how the Holy Spirit powered and directed the followers of Jesus to move from being disciples, students under a master, to apostles, those who are sent to share all they have experienced.
In the text from Luke, we already start to see this expansion occurring. The reading started, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you.” But wait, you might say, what does Jesus mean by “that I spoke while I was still with you.” He is, after all, with them, in the flesh in these post resurrection appearances. That is what we proclaim when we speak of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. He is with them, and yet in some ways, he is already gone, because his work has been completed. The death and resurrection of Jesus was the single central task of his ministry. Everything he did, and in fact everything that had happened in all of human history led to that one moment. All that God was, is, and will be was revealed in the love and the power and the glory Christ manifested in dying on the cross. Salvation is complete; God’s glory is at hand. And then, because the disciples who are now apostle still didn’t quite get it, Jesus opened the scriptures to them. I love that detail because I think it draws attention to just how much faith comes to us from God. Faith is not something we muster up on our own, so that God will bless us. But faith, and her sassy sister doubt, are gifts from God to draw us closer into relationship. And when Jesus opened the scripture to them, he did not just explain the past, he described for them the future. “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day,” past, “and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem,” future.
But even though they are now apostles, they still don’t quite get this whole description of the future. In Acts we read they asked Jesus, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” Again, they’re stuck on this limited earthly power. Jesus is offering them the universe, but all they can see is Jerusalem. So in that not quite answering the question way that Jesus has, he told them, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” We lose the nuance in English, but the word “power” here, is not the political power they are asking about. This is power in the sense of having new capabilities that allow them to accomplish tasks that would have before been impossible to them. In community organizing terms, this is the power to act. It is power with rather than power over. Think about it this way. What if there’s a task the church needs done, and I know how to do it and you don’t. Let’s use a really simple example, like cleaning the bathrooms. For some reason, let’s assume you’ve never in your life cleaned a bathroom before, but it needs doing and you are the person to do it. Now, we could sit in my office, and I could order you to clean the bathroom. I could even explain the whole process to you, tell you where all the cleaning supplies are, maybe even draw you a map of the closet. And you could do it, because I told you to, and you would do an ok job. But what if instead of ordering you, I showed you. I worked alongside of you, I helped you get the supplies, explained what they did as we used them, I answered questions as we went along. The bathroom would get cleaned a lot faster, right, and a lot better, and you’d do a better job next time and could even teach someone else. That is the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus had taught the disciples what to do, and now he was sending them with the Holy Spirit, who would show them, coach them, guide, and direct them, so that they could be witnesses to the glory of God.
And then Jesus ascended into heaven in a cloud of glory, and the apostles stood gazing up at the place where he had gone, and then comes what is quite possibly my very favorite line of scripture. Suddenly two men in white robes appeared beside them and asked, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” I find the men’s question in some ways the most unnecessary question imaginable. A person has just ascended into heaven on a cloud. If you saw this happen, I’m willing to bet you too might spend a bit of time gaping at awe into space. I know I would. But in another way, the men’s question makes a lot of sense. Because it serves to draw the apostles from focusing on Jesus in a spatial sense to understanding his ascension in a cosmic sense. The disciples are not going to see Jesus by staring up into the sky. Even the most powerful telescope humanity will ever create will not give us the power to look beyond the reaches of the cosmos to where God dwells. God’s glory is too expansive for that. The two men redirect the apostles attention to the world where they will see Jesus, in the Holy Spirit who sends them out to be witnesses to God’s presence in their lives.
So, it’s Mothers Day today. And to build on this idea of the expansiveness of God in all of creation, we’re going to break away from the carnation tradition a little bit. We are still passing out plants, but this one is a live plant. And when you get your plant, you can do a couple different things with it. You can keep it, plant it in a pot or in your yard, care for it, tend it, watch it grow. Marvel in it, learn about it, watch it grow. Let it encourage and remind you to marvel, wonder, and learn about God’s good creation. You can give it away to someone. Jesus told the apostles they were to spread the message of God’s love to all nations, you could use this plant to spread the message of God’s love. Give it to a mother, yours or someone else’s, someone who has mothered you, someone who you’ve seen mother others. And let’s not get too caught up in gender-specifics here either, if Jesus can describe himself as a mothering hen, then mothering traits certainly do not need to be confined to any one gender. Whatever you choose to do with your plant, may it remind you that we cannot find God by looking too narrowly in any one direction. The promise of the Ascension is that Jesus Christ dwells above us not in a spatial sense, but in a spiritual one. As we read in Revelation a few weeks ago, Christ is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. We see God in the vast expanse of the universe and in the hug of a friend. Because Christ is the highest, Christ is as close are our breath. Thanks be to God, who in dwelling above us, dwells with us. Amen.
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