Acts 1-12
September 29, 2002
(The Ascension)
Coventry
A Longing Goodbye
When
I was a child, my very favorite person in the whole world was my maternal
grandmother. We lived in Worcester,
Massachusetts, and my grandparents lived in Illinois. Now I was a child a long time ago, in the
Middle Ages. Jet planes were not in commercial use yet, and people simply
didn’t fly around the country then the way they do today. In the old days, long distance telephone
calls were very expensive, and little kids didn’t talk on the telephone, even
to grandparents. As a matter of fact,
most people didn’t even drive as far as Illinois for their vacations. And, of course, e-mail hadn’t even been
dreamed of. So when my grandparents came
to visit every few years, it was a BIG DEAL and a very special treat. Rules were relaxed, and I basked in my grandmother’s
love and patience.
When the week was over, after the suitcases were all
packed and the car was loaded, we all went out to the car together and hugged
and kissed and cried our goodbyes, and promised to write. Then, finally, the car backed out of the
driveway and we followed along, waving madly calling “GOOD BYE! GOODBYE!”
The car accelerated down the road and my parents and brother went back
into the house. But I stayed out in the
street waving and calling out, “Good bye! Good bye!” The car went to the end of the street and
disappeared around the corner.
And I remember still standing in the empty street,
tears streaming down my face, waving to the emptiness, still saying ,”Good
Bye...Good
Bye...Good Bye.” Did you
ever have someone like that? Someone who
loved you so well that you never wanted to say goodbye?
In retrospect, I realize I wasn’t saying “Good bye”
at all. I was saying, DON’T GO!!!”
* * *
In this morning’s scripture reading from the book of
Acts, the disciples come together and talk with Jesus one last time. He has said he’s leaving, and they are filled
with memories of their time with him - how he taught them things no one else
ever had, how he trusted them even when they weren’t trustworthy. They remember
the times he’d partied with them and joined them for meals........How he loved
them.........And then, as they watched, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him
out of their sight. And they were standing there, gazing into heaven. They were reaching after him, mute with
sorrow, gazing into heaven..... I think
we can imagine how the disciples were feeling that day in Jerusalem, that day
when Jesus left forever.
Then with a typical Biblical twist, while the
disciples are looking toward heaven, aching with grief, two men in white robes
stood by them. Well, we know that when
men in white robes show up in the New Testament, we’re talking about
angels. Now when the angels show up, I
always think some great and holy mystery is about to be revealed. After all, angels are messengers from God,
and they don’t deal in mundane gossip. I think of the angels who ministered to
Jesus during his 40 days in the desert, and I imagine angels to be caring. But these angels are strictly business. Without so much as a sympathetic murmur, the
angels scold the disciples, “Why do you stand there looking into heaven? That’s not where you’re going to find
Jesus.” The disciples sigh. These grown
men who are fishermen and carpenters and tax men, strong men, REAL men: they don’t dare look at one another lest they
burst into tears. Silently, they turn and head back into the city, hardly able
to see where they are walking, hardly caring.
* * *
I
recently read a book by Douglas Coupland.
He writes about his experience as a member of Generation X: his book is
called, interestingly, Life After God.
The title caught my attention because I remember the Cover of Time
magazine, many years ago, proclaiming that God was dead. I have two children of Generation X, one at
the very beginning and one at the very end, and I wondered what things look
like from their perspective. I’d like to
share some excerpts from Coupland’s book:
As
suburban children, we floated at night in swimming pools the temperature of
blood; pools the color of Earth as seen from outer space. (M)y friends and me–hip-chick Stacy with her
long yellow hair and Malibu Barbie body; Mark, our silent strongman; Kristy,
our omni-freckled joke machine; voice-of-reason Julie, with her “statistically
average” body; honey-bronze ski bum Dana, with his ... suspiciously large
amounts of cash; and Todd, the prude....We would float...–pretending to be
embryos, pretending to be fetuses–all of us silent save for the hum of the pool
filter. Our minds would be blank and our
eyes closed as we floated in the warm waters, the distinction between our
bodies and brains reduced to nothing–bathed in chlorine and lit by pure blue
lights installed underneath diving boards.
Ours was a life lived in paradise, and thus it
rendered any discussion of transcendental ideas pointless. Politics, we supposed, existed elsewhere in a
televised non-paradise; death was something similar to recycling. Life was charmed but without politics or
religion. It was the life of the
children of children of the pioneers–life after God--a life of earthly
salvation on the edge of heaven...I think there was a trade-off somewhere along
the line. I think the price we paid for
our golden life was an inability to fully believe in love; instead we gained an
irony that scorched everything it touched.
And I wonder if this irony is the price we paid for the loss of God.
Then Coupland adds something that reached so deeply
inside of me I held my breath. He says:
Some
facts about me: I think I am a broken person...Sometimes I look back into my
life and am surprised at the lack of kind things I have done. Sometimes I just feel that there must be
another road that am be walked...Now—here is my secret: I tell it to you with
the openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that
you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God–that I am sick
and can no longer make it alone. I need
God to help me because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be
kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem
beyond being able to love.[1]
* *
*
Me as a little girl gazing down the empty
street. The disciples gazing into the
empty heaven. Douglas Coupland gazing
into the emptiness of his own soul. What
does this passage say to our longing, to our emptiness? When I first read the passage, I “heard” the
angels chastising the disciples: “Men of Galilee, why do you stand there
looking into heaven?” As if they ought
to be doing something better with their time - spreading the good news, though
God knows losing Jesus was hardly good news, or feeding the poor, though God
knows they hadn’t yet learned how to multiply fishes and loaves, or healing the
sick, though they themselves were sick with grief.
* *
*
A few years ago when I was working with the
confirmation class, I was dismayed to discover the depth of the teens’ belief
that the world is so filled with pain and trouble–with war and starvation and
fear and burglary and alcoholism and drug addiction and murder and kidnaping
and natural catastrophes–the trouble in the world so overwhelming that they believed there is no hope, that
there is nothing one person, or even a whole church can do that will make a
difference in the world. It occurs to me
that they are a generation that was brought up starting their day in school
with a moment of silence instead of a prayer, a generation brought up with
television technology that brings not just the news of war and reports of
personal devastation, but actual life footage of children dying of starvation,
of bombs blowing people to bits, of families standing frozen in shock as they
look at the wreckage of their homes following a storm or flood. Our kids live in a world where it is all too
easy to believe that even God doesn’t have a chance. Even God can’t begin to make a difference in
our world.
Sometimes - sometimes I know how they feel. Sometimes I myself am so overwhelmed by the
bad news that I lose sight of the good news.
Don’t you feel that way sometimes?
Do you ever watch the news onTV at night and wonder what is happening to
our world? To our planet? To our
neighborhood? But the nightly news is
LESS THAN HALF THE NEWS. All the horror
we see on television is only a SMALL part of what’s going on in our world. There are billions of people - Christians,
Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists - believers of all kinds who donate money, clothing,
and time to help those who are suffering.
Believers lift their hearts to the Almighty and pray trillions of
prayers every day. If there are millions
of robberies, there are an infinite number of free gifts given between friends
and strangers, from a smile or a quarter put in an expired parking meter to a
life given in mission or in heroic effort.
Heifer Project saves hundreds of families--one chicken at a time. Project Hope heals the sick–one pill at a
time. Americares feeds the starving--one
bowl of rice at a time.
So it occurs to me that maybe the angels in the
passage this morning were not telling the disciples that they should not
look up to heaven. Maybe the angels were
encouraging them to keep their eyes turned upward. They need to look to heaven to remember there
is one who WILL help them Maybe the
angels were saying, “Remember WHY you are gazing into heaven.” The disciples, having just lost Jesus, need
to look into heaven to remember that loss is not all there is. That hidden in the clouds there is One who is
all knowing, all powerful, and always–ALWAYS–present and working with us, and
in us to spread the Good News, feed the hungry, and heal the sick. Hidden in
the clouds is One who comes to us with love and forgiveness, with guidance and
strength, with wisdom and tenderness.
When we feel empty or broken, when we feel overwhelmed by the demands of
a sick child or a financial crisis, when we feel hurt by betrayal or a broken
dream, the angels remind us: Look up! Look into the heavens! Because it is in
the heavens that we will find–not just more than half the news. We will find the Good news. And when we look up, we will discover that
the Good news is the only news there is.
The Good News is the ONLY news there is. AMEN