There are some important things in life where you have to do what doesn’t feel right. Dieting is a good example. We are supposed to control our weight, but just as soon as we do, our bodies set up a such a complaint that you would think we are killing ourselves.
My son has just taken a job as a truck driver of tractor trailers. He called the other night about 2 hours south of Seattle, excited as anything. He had gotten the rig over the Continental Divide even though he kept downshifting until he wasn’t sure there were any gears left.
He said, the only thing I am still having trouble with Ron, is backing the truck into the bays at the stores for delivery. You have to steer in the opposite direction from the way that you want the back end of the trailer to turn. It feels wrong to do it right. What a great statement about life. There are so many moments that it feels wrong to do it right. One of the grand reasons to go to church is to get support from others as we do what feels wrong – because its right.
Do you struggle with that feeling? Today is Ascension Sunday when we remember that Jesus was taken up from the disciples and disappeared behind a cloud. Their feelings were confused as they tried to decide what to do next. Within a couple of minutes they were joined by a couple of angelic visitors. And that will God’s word of encouragement to us in this hour of worship today.
The disciples are expecting that Jesus will get rid of Roman rule, now that he is resurrected. Resurrection from the dead is the greatest miracle you can imagine. What about your life would change if you knew you could not die? Life would be much more intense. Teens would drive at 120 miles an hour, since the only loss would be the family car in a wreck. Christians would go on more mission trips. So the disciples are ready for Jesus to go into overdrive. And what’s more, they are prepared to follow him. The people who were scattered in fear on the day of crucifixion are ready to get the Romans out.
So they could not have been less prepared for what they were supposed to do. The real plan is that the Holy Spirit will empower them to change the world and Jesus will not take the direct role they expect. He rises into the sky and the disciples simply keep staring upwards. Their idea of a people revolution against the Romans is so much what they all clearly expect and not at all what Jesus is thinking.
They are challenged by the angels to do what feels wrong. Use the power of the Holy Spirit and get involved with the redemption of the planet. “Why do you stand looking up at heaven?” The heart of this passage is that we have work to do here in this lifetime, in this precious and unrepeatable moment and life and in this beautiful world. Our calling as Christians is to heal and transform the world – this world. It has been said that there are some people who are “so heavenly minded that they are of no earthly good.”
The task of Christians now is just what the disciples faced. We must witness to the powers and principalities about the least, the last, and the lost, and we must witness to the least, the last, and the lost.
In the United States, the Black church is the best example of witnessing to the powers and principalities. Until recently, the church was the voice of civil rights. Even now, Rev. Sharpton and Rev. Jackson are able to bring change partly because they are connected to the church.
I have included an example in the program this morning where a Christian leader looks at the Bible and applies it to the Social Security debate. This is what Christians need to be about. Jesus’ final words to the disciples illuminate the “ this-worldly” nature of salvation. God’s purpose is not to abandon the earth, but to restore humanity to where we were before sin entered the planet. If God cared enough to die for us, doesn’t it make sense that we should put in some time each week to try to restore our world too?
If you really want to give your mother a gift, write a letter this week to the president and to your senators. This issue is being decided now. If you save social security payments so that your mother can count on security in retirement, I can’t think of a bigger Mother’s Day gift.
I was shocked by the article that you have. We hear so much news from angry people who want to sway us. I never imagined that welfare payments are not that high. Our society is not going broke taking care of people who don’t want to work. Welfare is smaller than the payments to orphans from social security. And we have made a country where the poverty rate of elderly people dropped from the shame of the last century to 10%.
If you want to know why God has blessed America, it is for laws and programs such as this one which try to uphold God’s character and change society for the better. I like this article, because it does not just speak generally, it points you to the Scriptures that make the case. Let’s celebrate Mother’s Day today by going to our computers this afternoon and writing to the President and Senators a clear word of what God wants for the elderly.
And then we need to speak to the least, the last, and the lost. The generation that we are losing is the under 20 age group. Generation Y is already known as the secularizing generation. They see a world gripped by crisis and churches too busy majoring on the minors to care. It is no accident that we will close a major United Methodist Church in New York City in June, the one closest to NYU in Washington Square.
While you and I cannot change a generation, you and I can testify to young people in our building. We can speak to those in our community. It starts with a great children and youth program at church. But the real moment comes when you set a goal for yourself to be a friend. The power of personal testimony is incredible. When you say to someone who is going through tough times at school, God helped me in my own life – it does not matter whether you are 18 or 80. There is a special power to human testimony.
The disciples receive so much at that point that feels wrong to do right that they return to the city and devote themselves to prayer. What a nice reaction. That leads to Pentecost and the power of the Holy Spirit in a new way in their lives. And many years later the Roman emperor, Constantine, would convert to Christianity. They did change their world.
