05/17/2012 ~ Ascension of the Lord ~ Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47 or Psalm 93; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53.
(Note: used Acts 1:1-14 which combines some of the Acts reading from the Ascension and some of the Acts reading for the 7th Sunday after Easter. Also used John 15:1-8 and some of that reading was assigned the previous week. This was done to match the Anthem.)
Look Busy!
“They {the two messengers dressed in dazzling, bright robes} asked, ‘You Galileans, why do you stand looking at the sky? Jesus has been taken from you. Jesus will return in the same way.’” — Acts 1:11.
Here’s a confession: I eat fast food too often. And so, I was standing in Burger King this week, waiting for my order of fast food when someone came to the counter and ordered fifty meals to go, fifty burgers to go.
I was glad about 2 things: first, I was glad I had placed my order before they did. And second, I was glad I did not have to shlep fifty Burger King meals someplace. After all, who goes into a fast food joint and places an order like that?
Oh. Yeah. I did. It was a long, long time ago. I was a Junior in High School. As most of you are aware, at that point in my life, I was living in New York City.
So, how many people do you know, besides me, who have walked into a New York City Greek style dinner— the kind of place Saturday Night Live parodied as a “Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger!” joint— how many people do you know, besides me, who have walked into a New York City Greek style dinner and ordered two hundred cups of coffee... to go? I think that would be me and only me you know whose done that. I walked into a Greek dinner and ordered two hundred cups of coffee... to go. [1] (Slight pause.)
But how? Why? (Slight pause.) As have mentioned before, I grew up Roman Catholic. There was and there perhaps there still is a common practice among Catholics called Communion Breakfasts.
What that means is a group of people with a common bond— some kind of club— this small group goes to Mass together. Going to Mass together: that’s the Communion part.
Then this group repairs someplace to have breakfast together— that’s the breakfast part. This breakfast is followed by a speaker. That’s the real reason this is done: the message part.
So, coming back to the Greek dinner part, the Catholic club at my public high school sponsored a Communion Breakfast. So early in the morning, some of us went to do the set up in the high school cafeteria.
There was a coffee maker in the cafeteria, so we figured coffee would not be a problem. But we suddenly realized not one of us knew how to run it.
That’s when the adult supervisor of the club stuck some cash in my hand and told me that right when the mass was ending I need to leave. I needed to run to the Greek restaurant down the street and I needed to order two hundred cups of coffee... to go. And I did— 200 cups of coffee to go. After all, what’s a breakfast without coffee? (Slight pause.)
The speakers at these breakfasts follow a script, a formula. They start with religious joke. Or two. If they had nothing particularly interesting or inventive to say, it would be three or four jokes.
And then they would end by encouraging us to be involved the work of the church. Again, that was the real reason for the gathering— encouragement to be involved the work of the church.
The jokes were often the same, breakfast, after breakfast, after breakfast. If you had attended only a couple of these functions you could probably repeat the lines right along with the speaker.
And social pressure said you were expected to laugh, even if you had heard the joke five times or five hundred times. It was the protocol. There was one joke, in particular— a shaggy dog style of joke— about the work of the church, which got told over and over and over again.
This it is. Father O’Malley, recently ordained and, therefore, assigned to officiate at the 7:00 a.m. Mass on a Sunday morning in the dead of winter at Saint Aloysius Church in Brooklyn, New York, faces the congregation and starts to say “the Lord be with you.” He suddenly realizes that coming down the center isle— in full glory— is Himself— the Christ. And Father O’Malley— he’s a newbie. He just doesn’t know what to do.
So he runs to the sacristy, picks up the phone and calls Monsignor Dolan in the rectory. “Monsignor Dolan— this is Father O’Malley. I’m over at the church celebrating Mass and I looked up and Himself is coming down the center isle in glory. What should I do?”
The monsignor puts Father O’Malley on hold and calls Bishop Flaherty. You know where this is going, don’t you? The Bishop puts the monsignor on hold and calls the Cardinal. The Cardinal puts the Bishop on hold and calls the Pope. The Cardinal tells the Pope that Himself is coming down the center isle at Saint Aloysius Church in Brooklyn, New York, and asks the Pope what should Father O’Malley do. And what does the Pope say? “Look busy!” (Slight pause.)
And these words are from the work know as Luke/Acts in the section we call Acts: “They {the two messengers dressed in dazzling, bright robes} asked, ‘You Galileans, why do you stand looking at the sky? Jesus has been taken from you. Jesus will return in the same way.’” (Slight pause.)
If there is anything the church has excelled at for about two thousand years, it is our ability to look busy. The church universal, in its own way, has conquered empires, tended to the dissolution of others, built governments, tended to the dissolution of others, captured lands, built cathedrals, acted as a landlord and maintained incomparable organizational structures. The church has influenced, both for ill and for good, nearly every step of world history for those two thousand years.
And over time the church has been on every last side of every last issue of social progression and social regression you care to name. On a more local and modern basis, church people have crowded committees— inside and outside of churches— built local churches (as opposed to cathedrals), built local schools, hospitals and built up towns and cities. Yes, the church has looked very busy.
But should we look busy? Is looking busy the real job of the church? Is looking busy our job? Or is the church called to do more than looking busy.
Indeed, what is church about? Is church about looking busy? What is it to which we are called? Is it something other than looking busy? (Slight pause.)
In this passage it states what the disciples do after Jesus is no longer with them. (Quote): “With one mind, together, they devoted themselves to constant prayer.” (Slight pause.) Now, that’s an interesting way to look busy— the group, the church, with one mind devoted itself to prayer.
And, I think, that is what points us to the kind of busy we might embrace as a church. You see, I take this to mean the real work of the church, the work toward which the church always needs to be pointing, is the transformation of lives.
This is clear in the reading: we, the church, are called to transform lives first through prayer and discernment. But after that, how are lives transformed, after that prayer and discernment? Lives are transformed one person at a time.
Lives, you see, are transformed in the midst of progression and in the midst of regression. But progression and regression— those are movements. They sometimes take centuries to evolve. Put differently, we are called to think globally but to act locally— one on one on one on one.
And most of the time, lives are transformed in a much more subtle, quiet way. Lives are transformed between people, people interacting with one another on a personal level.
Lives and transformed with one on one interaction. And that is where true social justice lies— with one on one interaction. I need to be clear: social action, the pursuit of the justice God would have us seek, is necessary— meaning larger and larger groups.
But the basis of social justice work, its real core, is when lives are transformed by one person helping another person. Lives are transformed when one person says something meaningful to the other. Lives are transformed when one person offers of themselves to the other.
Perhaps, then, the real question for the church is this: are we bold enough to become that deeply involved with the lives of those around us, especially the poor, the oppressed, the outcast? Are we courageous enough to not just be busy. Are we courageous enough to be involved? (Slight pause.)
And yes, it can look good— very, very good— when we look busy. But we should not be concerned with looking good. We should be concerned with doing good.
In the end, lives are transformed only when each of us is and all of us are— with one mind, as this reading says— when each of us is and all of us are willing to undertake that project: doing good. And so, I think being church does not mean being busy.
Indeed, it is only when each of us and all of us are willing to take part in the transformation of lives that we really are and that we really become church. And the transformation of lives is something we can only do together, with each other— tugging on that yarn [1] — in community. Amen.
05/20/2012
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, New York
ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Choral Response and Benediction. This is an précis of what was said: “I once heard this said: ‘There are two things you can’t do alone. One is to be married. The other is to be a Christian.’ Unless we interact with one another, unless we support one another, unless we hold one another up, deeply interact with one another, it becomes hard to get to the point where lives are transformed.”
BENEDICTION: The work and the will of God is placed before us. Further, we are called to be faithful and seek to do God’s will and work. In so doing, may we love God so much, that we love nothing else too much. May we be so in awe of God, that we are in awe of no one else and nothing else. Amen.
[1] It does need to be noted that in the first half of this sermon there was a lot of laughter from the congregation because of the stories being told.
[2] At the Children’s Time the pastor unraveled a ball of yarn until everyone in the nave was holding on to it and asked everyone to pull on the string and to realize we were all attached. And we are not just attached by the yarn. We are attached by God.
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