2023.05.21 | When Will Thy Kingdom Come?
“When?”
Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, California
Ascension Sunday
May 21, 2023
Acts 1:6−14 (NRSV)
Today we join Christians around the world in celebrating the Ascension of Christ. This occasion is not a major festival on the Protestant calendar, but it is in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions, because the Ascension of Christ is the final of six major milestones in the earthly life of Christ. The six include the following:
birth in Bethlehem
baptism by John in the Jordan River
transfiguration on a mountain outside of Jerusalem
crucifixion on Calvary
resurrection on Easter morning, and
ascension into heaven
If you have ever toured one of the great Christian cathedrals in the world, or if you’ve been inside of a Roman Catholic shrine or an Orthodox Church in the United States, you have likely seen these six events depicted in the altars, iconography, sculptures, statues, and stained glass windows found in these venues.
Similarly, if you have read the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, then you have read these stories in their many and varied forms, and you may have noticed that not all of these milestones are covered in every gospel or described in the same way.
For example, there is no Ascension story in Mathew or John, or in the shorter version of Mark’s gospel. But Christ’s Ascension is featured prominently in the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.
Interestingly, even though scholars generally agree that Luke and Acts were authored by the same person--or at least they emerged from the same faith community--the two versions of Christ’s ascension found in Luke and Acts disagree about when the ascension took place.
Luke describes the ascension as taking place on Resurrection Day, while Acts describes Christ’s Ascension as taking place forty days after the Resurrection and ten days before Pentecost.
In addition, Luke's Ascension story takes place in Bethany, while Acts places it on Mount Olivet, a half mile from the City of Jerusalem.
These differences in how the Gospels handle the ascension have contributed to much confusion and many debates about whether the physical ascension of Christ into heaven was an historical event, or a literary device used to settle a theological debate.
II
For those who may be wondering where I stand on the Doctrine of the Ascension, I’ll explain that my faith is not dependent on the bodily resurrection or ascension of Christ. The more pressing question for me--like Jesus’ first followers--is the “When?” question.
Like his first followers, I want to know, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?"
We don’t ask this question casually. We have an urgent need to know. Is the time now, or later? If later, when?!
According to Luke and Acts, the apostles were traumatized by the crucifixion, and desperately wanted to know what would happen next. Would they be taken captive and crucified like Jesus? Would the trumpets sound and the dead raised? Would the mighty fall and the peasants rule? Would Christ depart this earthly plane and take them with him? Or would Christ be gathered up to God, and abandon to this earthly realm?
When? Lord. When?
The stakes were high. The questions were--and are--too numerous to mention.
Folks need answers.
Lord, “Is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" If not now, when?
Christ’s first followers did not know what the future held. They did not feel equipped to navigate uncharted territory. They wanted to know the work plan, the deliverables, and the benchmarks. But much to their dismay, the risen Christ did not provide a direct answer to their direct question.
Instead, Jesus simply replied: "It is not for you to know the times or periods that [God] has set...” (Acts 1:7) You are just going to have to trust the process, and trust me.
The Holy Spirit will guide and empower you, so that you may be my witnesses in our nation’s capital, and in the South, and the North where your cousins had migrated, and even to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:8)
Then Jesus led the apostles from the Royal City to the wilds of Olivet, where he ascended into heaven, and the Apostles were entrusted to be the real presence of the living God, regardless of whether they felt prepared or equippedto fullfill their calling.
III
Poet June Jordan famously wrote in her Poem for South African Women, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” Her poem commemorated the 40,000 Black and Indian women and children who marched in Pretoria, South Africa on August 9, 1956 in protest of systemic racism and inequality in Apartheid. The poem reads as follows:
Poem for South African Women
Our own shadows disappear as the feet of thousands
by the tens of thousands pound the fallow land
into new dust that
rising like a marvelous pollen will be
fertile
even as the first woman whispering
imagination to the trees around her made
for righteous fruit
from such deliberate defense of life
as no other still
will claim inferior to any other safety
in the world
The whispers too they
intimate to the inmost ear of every spirit
now aroused they
carousing in ferocious affirmation
of all peaceable and loving amplitude
sound a certainly unbounded heat
from a baptismal smoke where yes
there will be fire
And the babies cease alarm as mothers
raising arms
and heart high as the stars so far unseen
nevertheless hurl into the universe
a moving force
irreversible as light years
traveling to the open
eye
And who will join this standing up
and the ones who stood without sweet company
will sing and sing
back into the mountains and
if necessary
even under the sea
we are the ones we have been waiting for
from Passion (1980) and from Directed by Desire. The Collected Poems of June Jordan.
Copyright 2005 by the June M. Jordan Literary Estate Trust
Jordan’s poignant words were set to music by Sweet Honey in the Rock, an African American Grammy Award-winning a capella ensemble. Alice Walker borrowed June Jordan’s phrase for the title of her own poetry collection that was published in 2007. And, former President Barack Obama paraphrased her words of wisdom in his speech delivered on Feb 5, 2008, after receiving the Democratic nomination for President of the United States.
The Easter narrative culminates in the Acts of the Apostles with Jesus explaining that we followers of him are the ones we’ve been waiting for, and that today is the day to restore the kin-dom of God on earth.
His message is just that simple, and just that challenging. It’s easy to psych ourselves out by doubting our power and denying our ability or authority to change the things that can be changed. But every once in a while, we get our acts together and show up like the modern day apostles that we are capable of being. A recent example follows.
IV
This past Friday was a special day in the Hayward area. Over 60 neighbors showed up on an undeveloped piece of land owned by the Hayward Unified School District for the groundbreaking of Transitional Age Youth Shelter called, “Hayward Village.”
This effort was launched in the spring of 2018 by “The South Alameda County Unaccompanied Immigrant Youth Collaborative”--aka “the Collaborative”--out of concern for the growing number of unaccompanied youth residing in our community and having a secure place to live.
The envisioned Hayward Village will serve up to 30 Transitional Age You, ages 18-24, including newcomers, youth who are aging out of foster care, and others who seek support through their “adulting” process.
Along the way, there have been scores of project delays for various reasons. Lesser people would have given up, but some of us did not. A cross-functioning team of advocates have persisted, because the needs and opportunities to serve and retain these promising young people in our community is so great.
In the end, the Hayward City Council and the HUSD Board of Trustees voted unanimously in sort of policy decisions that made possible the construction of the shelter on an underdeveloped portion of the SIAC owned by HUSD, adjacent to Glad Tidings Church of God in Christ in South Hayward.
In addition, public funding has come from every level of government, and private dollars are being raised by Covenant House California, the vendor who is overseeing the construction and implementation of the program at the site.
V
Bill Bedrossian, former CHCA President and CEO--now CEO of Covenant House International--opened the groundbreaking ceremony on Friday by describing the contrast between how the Hayward community has responded to the opportunity to build a TAY Shelter in our community compared with others.
Bill described our project as “a historic community collaboration amongst government representatives, faith community representatives, our business community, and, most importantly, young people,” and he said that Hayward Village is the first of their 35 sites of care to be received by a host community with open arms.
Sadly, despite the fact that Covenant House International is considered the “gold standard” in youth and young adult shelter care, the Berkeley community has run them out of town, while the Hayward community has rolled out the red carpet.
Bill shared that he and his staff have been reflecting on the significant contrast between the dififerences between the two cities, and as a result, he’s developed a new motto: "Don't be like Berkeley; be like Hayward!” or for short: “Be like Hayward!”
If the author of Acts were Bill’s communications officer, I’m pretty sure that they would paraphrase Acts 1:9-11 by saying: Stop staring at the heavens; go back into town and get to work! Be the Easter Jesus for others. Be the physical presence of the resurrected Christ.
Let’s take our cue from Acts 1:9-11. Let’s be the people who Jesus called us to be. Let’s be the physical presence of the risen Christ for others. Amen.