Anxiously, I opened the embossed envelope;

but eager anticipation soon gave way to despondency.

It was my first rejection letter from a publisher.

Mind you, I was six.

I had written and illustrated a small children’s book…

which dad had encouraged me to send to a publisher.

In hindsight, now, I just cringe.

Leaving aside the childishness of the drawings…

the haphazard, immature handwriting… 

and the innocence and one dimensionality of the text…

the story that I had written was about the Red Coats––

eighteenth century British soldiers involved in the American Revolution.

However, I had portrayed them as the heroes and the victors…

because I knew nothing about the war…

and red was, at the time, my favourite colour.

I only discovered my mistake when I took it to school and showed it to my teacher.

It’s embarrassing, really, looking back at it.

But, at the time, I thought that it was brilliant––

borne out of naivety and childish simplicity…

borne out of limited experience and learning…

borne out of a particular understanding of the world.

 

Perhaps, in many ways… 

our story, this morning, from Acts is a bit like that.

Let’s be honest––

reading it in this day and age it’s more than a little embarrassing:

the ‘risen’ Christ is magically whisked ‘up’ to heaven.

There are so many problems with this story, on so many levels!

To begin with, of course, there are problems with the worldview underpinning it.

The whole story is predicated on a primitive and pre-scientific cosmology––

with a world of the dead below…

the flat earth, supported by pillars… 

and heaven above…

so that Christ is, in effect, simply being translocated to a different place.

None of that makes any sense today––

given what we know about the world.

But if we put aside that primitive underpinning––

if we take the reading here as mythic… 

and we try to discern a truth behind that myth–– 

what do we get?

 

Modern scholarly attempts to discern some “truth”… 

out of the Ascension myth… 

usually go something like this: 

the Ascension symbolises that our humanity has been taken up into God. 

More than that, it symbolises that Christ has been raised to rule with God…

that he’s no longer just some local guru, but a universal saviour. 

The Ascension is trying to affirm that the Jesus who was experienced as a real, flesh-and-blood person;

and who was, in some way, experienced as alive after he had died;

is no longer present as he was…

and yet, is present more than he was…

and in a different way.

The Ascension myth is trying to affirm that Jesus Christ is present everywhere…

to everyone…

in every time and place.

And yet, if we’re honest, that still reflects a primitive worldview. 

It’s a bit like saying that Christ has now gone up a high mountain so that he can see everything. 

It was an attempt to make sense of their experience––within the confines of their particular worldview.

It was an attempt to affirm the universality of Christ––

not only that he was experienced as present in every place and time…

but that his presence could be experienced by people everywhere.

But does that not, in many respects, still reflect a primitive worldview?

Is that, in the end, any better?

Is there anything that we can reconstruct from the wreckage of the Ascension?

 

Perhaps. 

I think that there’s something interesting going on… 

in the exchange between the risen Christ and his disciples in our story:

“When the apostles had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’” 

According to the author, the disciples are still dwelling in the past.

They have failed to grasp the truly radical implications of Jesus’ life…

and death…

and resurrection.

They’re still stuck with a notion or a conception of God as a national deity;

fostering a narrow sense of ethnic and religious tribalism.

They can’t see past their particular hopes and dreams—

namely, that the Romans would be thrown out of their country;

that the kingdom of Israel would be restored;

that everything would be put right with the world;

and that the glory days would be upon them once more.

In response, the author has the risen Christ brush aside their question…

and seek to redirect their focus.

His concern is not Israel, but much broader.

He promises them the gift of the Spirit––

the living presence of God within…

to renew them…

to re-energise them…

and to reorient them––

so that they would be 

“My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judaea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”.

This is not a narrow, insular, backward looking agenda.

This is not a return to the way that things were.

This is something entirely new.

And it is something that they, themselves, will have to do.

There’s no room for passivity here.

There’s no point looking back.

There’s no sense that, whatever happens, it will be simply… 

magically… 

divinely accomplished.

Looking ahead to Pentecost––

to the empowering of the Spirit and the birth of the Church––

the promise and the challenge here…

is that the fulfilment of God’s purposes and the continuation of Jesus’ ministry…

is their responsibility.

 

In that sense, nothing has changed…

even if we––

the broader Church––

haven’t always recognised it.

Christendom––

and the privileged position that the Church was in…

in relation to society in the past––

may have lulled us into a false sense of security.

But all the societal upheavals of the last five or so decades has shattered that.

In response, many churches have shifted focus.

Denominational leaders have encouraged us to become ‘missional’;

to devote a great deal of time and energy in trying to reverse the trends;

to increase our numbers;

to ensure our survival.

And yet, as the German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, reminds us: 

“The church is her true self only when she exists for humanity”.

 

The church is not called to be a monument or a memorial.

The church is not called to be a social club… 

nor even a spiritual club.

The church is not called to exponential growth…

nor to a beautifully balanced budget.

The church is not even called to ensure its own survival.

Rather…

the church is called to continue the ministry of Christ in the world––

loving…

forgiving…

healing…

welcoming…

and speaking truth to power.

It’s only in doing that that we continue to be Church…

and to fulfil the point of the Ascension story.