Before I get started, I want to assure you that I didn’t wear this hilarious shirt by accident, and I promise that I’ll explain it later.
I should also probably take a moment to acknowledge that it’s not, in fact, Ascension Sunday yet, even though we just read the story of Christ’s ascension a moment ago. Normally, the Church celebrates Christ’s Ascension into heaven forty days after Easter (following the timeline of the original events), and we’ve still got three weeks to go. But I figured that since I won’t be with you on June 1 and I’ve given our guest preachers carte blanche to preach on whatever they want, it was worth making sure that we touched on this important story at least once.
And if I’m being entirely honest, it also feels like an especially fitting scripture reading for today. At the risk of comparing myself too favorably to Jesus, I can only imagine that the experience of the disciples here must have been similar to the experience of a congregation watching their pastor prepare to leave on Sabbatical. Both events represent significant shifts in the community’s life; confusion, uncertainty, and even fear are all understandable reactions. Even if you’re NOT experiencing any of these emotions, it’s undeniable that the next three months will be very different from the past six years. Just as the Ascension was for the disciples, the three months that I’ll be on my Sabbatical will be a time of transition and adjustment for all of us: a time of switching gears.
Now, I never learned to drive stick shift, but I DID have a five-speed bike as a kid, so I do have some personal experience with what it’s like to switch gears. I primarily biked around my neighborhood, which was mostly paved and relatively level, but there was this one part of the road that was decidedly NOT level – which just happened to be the way to the local deli, where you could get tootsie rolls for two cents each. I swear, this hill must have been at a 45-degree angle or more (or at least that’s what my legs always told me). Of course, I would have preferred my bike ride to be straightforward and easy the whole way, but if I wanted to get those tootsie rolls, I didn’t have a choice – I HAD to switch gears to make it the rest of the way.
Jesus knew that if the Church were to have any hope of remaining relevant to a world whose very nature is to change, then it would have to be willing to change along with it – even though it would mean traveling uphill for a while. Life certainly would have been easier for the disciples if they’d been able to stay on level terrain and live their entire lives as students soaking up Christ’s wisdom. But it was imperative that they kept moving forward, and they couldn’t do that with the same habits and strategies they’d relied on up to that point. They needed to switch gears if they wanted to keep making progress in the task that Christ had left them. To reach the metaphorical tootsie rolls of God’s kindom, if you will. And it’s their willingness to do so that led to us being here as their spiritual descendants today.
We’re currently living through a time in history where the terrain is becoming increasingly steep and unpredictable for us as individuals, as citizens, and as Christians. There seem to be more uphill battles ahead of us than even terrain. Human beings tend to crave comfort, familiarity, and stability, so a lot of us are spending an awful lot of energy trying to approach these new hills – hills like personal uncertainty, national division, and declining church attendance – in the same gear that we’ve always used. We want to keep doing things the way we’ve always done them, relying on solutions that have worked in the past, and we hope that these challenges will somehow take care of themselves if we just stick to our guns. But maybe, instead of trying to climb these new hills in the same old gear, this is exactly the time that we should be switching gears, like the disciples, in order to meet these challenges head-on.
This, incidentally, is an important part of the reason for clergy sabbaticals. It’s not just about giving me the chance to rest and reset (although I’m certainly grateful for that opportunity). It’s also about having a built-in time for switching gears. We’ve been doing ministry together, you and I, for over six and a half years now. We’ve done a lot of good, but we’ve also fallen into rhythms and patterns that, while familiar and comfortable, might be standing in the way of our ability to meet the changing landscape around us. And that does a significant disservice to the gospel. So while the concept of switching gears in this way might be intimidating, it’s one of the best ways to find out whether the hills in front of us really are that steep – or if we’re just trying to climb them using the wrong tools.
If we want to make the most of this time, though, we can’t just approach it as a three-month-long holding pattern. The trick of switching gears is that you can’t stay “in between” gears for very long. You have to make the switch and engage the new gear fully – otherwise, your bike won’t work right, and you’ll be worse off than you were before. You have to concentrate on the terrain that you’re covering in the moment, not fixating on the past or the future, and commit to making the ride as successful as possible RIGHT THEN. We HAVE to engage the new gear decisively if we want the next three months to live up to their potential.
Although they ultimately wound up making the choice to engage, Jesus’ disciples TRIED to avoid it at first. Initially, they tried to skip ahead to Christ’s sovereign reign on earth, asking, “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom now?” but Jesus disabused them of that idea pretty quickly. Later, they tried to remain stuck in the past, staring fixedly at the place that they’d last seen Jesus, but some men in white robes quickly told them off for THAT. Eventually, they came to understand Jesus’ final words to them: “It’s not for you to know the times or the seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. RATHER, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses…to the end of the earth.” In other words – we’re doing something different now, so it’s time for you to step up and engage.
This realization probably made them pretty nervous, but thanks to the men in white robes, they knew that these new circumstances wouldn’t last indefinitely. No bike ride is uphill forever. Eventually, the terrain levels out and you can switch back out of the new gear. In three months, I’ll come back, and we’ll be able to return to business as usual – albeit, hopefully with plenty of good lessons learned and experiences to share. Similarly, at some unknown point in the future, Jesus will also come back, and humanity will once again be able to sit at his knee and learn from him. The unique challenges facing us in this moment will be past, and we’ll be back in the physical presence of our Lord and Savior.
While I’m off working on my own spiritual well-being, you shouldn’t be here staring at the door the whole time, waiting for me to come back – there’s work to be done! There’s your own spiritual growth to look after, of course, but also there are hungry people to feed, grieving people to comfort, lonely people to welcome, hurting people to love. There are needs to be met and messages to be shared. And although it may feel like the gears are grinding a little bit at first, I promise that before you know it, they’ll click into place, and you’ll be doing amazing ministry in the ways you couldn’t have imagined if I’d been around. But only if you’re willing to fully engage.
Alongside the joy we’ll undoubtedly feel at being together again in three months’ time, there’ll be the additional joy of sharing how each of us have used this time, how we’ve grown and learned and served and otherwise spent the summer. And if you imagine multiplying those same joys a billionfold, then you’ll start to be able to imagine what it will be like when Jesus returns, as he promised. But we can only experience that joy – that mutual pride in ourselves and in one another – if we’re willing to commit to switching our gears and engaging the work in the meantime.
So friends, beloved, kindred in Christ – let’s promise, here and now, that we WILL make the most of this time. That even in the face of discomfort and apprehension, we will be open to where the Spirit moves and how she calls us to change in these new circumstances. And that we won’t just LOOK busy – we’ll BE busy, for the sake of the gospel. I know it will all be strange and new, but scripture tells us that when God is involved, strange and new things often have the most wonderful results – even better, if you can believe it, than two-cent Tootsie Rolls. May it be so. Amen.
So friends, beloved, kindred in Christ – let’s promise, here and now, that we WILL make the most of this time. That even in the face of discomfort and apprehension, we will be open to where the Spirit moves and how she calls us to change in these new circumstances. And that we won’t just LOOK busy – we’ll BE busy, for the sake of the gospel. I know it will all be strange and new, but scripture tells us that when God is involved, strange and new things often have the most wonderful results – even better, if you can believe it, than two-cent Tootsie Rolls. May it be so. Amen.
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