Why did He have to leave?

This week we celebrate the Ascension, forty days after Easter, when Jesus, one day after his resurrection decides to fly up into the sky and say "One day I'll be back". And as much as we take it for granted as a thing that happened, it's even depicted in the stained glass window behind me..]I think that it is really fair, at the top of this sermon, to ask: hold on, wait, literally, where did Jesus go? and why did he leave? why did he have to leave? was there at least a gust of wind that lifted him off the ground or did he actually just levitate into the sky. There is a kind of famous painting by Salvador Dali called "Ascension" that is painted from the vantage point of right under the levitating Jesus, and centered and framed right in the middle of the painting are the soles of his feet.

But this occasion, this point in the story, signals a pivot to us- a shift in the larger church calendar, where we go from the season where a lot of stuff happens, to the season where not so much happens. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Ash Wednesday, Lent, Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and then... nothing. We tell the entire story of Jesus from birth to his trials to his ministry to his persecution to his death, then past death some more, and then, he leaves, and we have not so much story to tell anymore, except, the story of us, that we get to write ourselves.

Now,, it is a biiig big question: Why did he leave? Where did he go? Why did he have to go? And it's easy to answer the question either in theological lines that are soooo big that they don't help, like, well, because God said so. Or, well so that he could return again at a later time, or so that the Holy Spirit can be given to us as a gift and mediator and guide. Even in the passage from Acts, Jesus doesn't really explain what is about to happen to him except to say "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority." ... so... see ya!

It's so, so serious but I really cannot help but conceive of it all in kind of goofy terms, like, the way that sometimes in an office team building retreat, the manager will give their team a complex and poorly explained task and then leave the room for 20 minutes just to see what they'll do. Like I can imagine Jesus looking at the eleven apostles left and saying, like, "okay hey guys, so what I need you to do now is do everything that I just taught you how to do for like six months and I want you to call it The Church, and at some point the Holy Spirit is gonna come and help you okay bye!!!!" Or I think about it maybe the way that as a parent, at some point, the kids grow up enough that you can start to leave them home by themselves, or leave the older one to watch the younger ones, and I bet while you're gone, you're thinking........ I wonder what's happening back at home. Well, Jesus, a lot is happening back at home. We are really struggling with this team-building exercise aren't we.

Ascension is a pivot in the way that we tell this story. And I want to be really careful how I talk about this because I don't want you to hear me wrong. Jesus has been the central player in this liturgical storytelling from the first Sunday in December until this moment, we have been tracking his story closely and looking at HIM, how he lived, how he served, how he died, how he rose from the dead, he ascended, and now we are left to look at each other. What are we going to do with each other while he is away? What have we done with each other while he is away? This is the boring part of the story, this is the part of the story without a star, but it's a vital part of this story. Jesus told us to "go and do likewise" and for the next 33 weeks of this liturgical calendar, from the Ascension until Advent, now is that time to go and do likewise.

I feel like I've long joked, and there's this blip in my memory that is telling me that it was Fr. Will's influence, that the only thing we're learning how to do here at Church, is to not kill each other. And if all we did here was work really hard not to kill each other, we would be busy for the rest of our lives. Jesus spent most of his life, and even a part of his resurrected life teaching us how to be in community, how to not kill easy other, and for a while now, he's going to leave us to that task. And what a bit task it is. It is hard, hard work to be in community with one another, the people here in this room and they the people outside of this room, it's hard! There's so, so much to fight about, there's so much to disagree about, there's so much anger and hurt and gossip about so much, and we can scarcely even figure out what the right things are that justify anger, that legitimate feeling hurt, that make appropriate gossip if there's even such a thing.

But this building houses an effort and a community that is trying really hard to figure out how to do right by each other. It's not easy. We have this roadmap left to us by Jesus and our tradition, and we have a lot of people with really cool skills and passions that help shape and guide that work here.

And, at the end of the day, when you're looking across the table at somebody who hurt you, or who you hurt, or perhaps you hurt each other, it's the hardest thing in the world to manage. It would be easier if Jesus could give a monologue, or named conclusively which one of you is wrong, or waved a magic wand and magically make the other apologize.

When you're faced with somebody who has a material need- hunger, housing, care- that is bigger than you can provide, it is so overwhelming to feel as if you are pressed under the thumb of your desire to help, one that would crush your body, your wallet, your heart. It would be so much easier if Jesus opened up that House that has so, so many rooms, or passed around the self-multiplying basket of bread.

I couldn't really dare to speculate why he had to go, where he went, when he's coming back, but I do know that while Jesus is gone, we have been trusted to do the work that he gave us to do; we become the main players in this story. The task before us is to spend this green ordinary time, this summer and fall, tending this garden, and wondering what can grow up out of it. Amen.