Stay In the City
Acts 1:1-11; Luke 24:44-531

May 12, 2002

Would it really shock you to know that I have never seen “Gone With the Wind”? No accident either; I have no plans to see it any time soon. This has nothing to do with today’s scripture! But my favorite movie, “Lawrence of Arabia”, does. Kinda.

Lawrence has befriended a Bedouin tribesman and warrior, and one must assume that the dialogue actually takes place in Arabic. There is a clash of cultures between the Arab and the Englishman: it has to do with the possible.

Lawrence suggests a challenging venture and the Bedouin dismisses it as impossible. “So it is written, so it is done,” he declares piously on more than one occasion until this time Lawrence has had enough. I don’t remember his precise words (haven’t seen the film for a few years), but it was close to “Nonsense! It is not written. And it is not done.” He proceeds to lead them across the desert to attack the port at Aqabah, and show them that their lives had not been written out in longhand yet.

For we Children of the Book - Jews, Christians, Muslims, what is written is important, and not to be discarded. In the very last words of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus lays heavily upon this written basis of our faith.

“So it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day.” Jesus showed the disciples that late Easter evening that it had been written - even if no one had been able to read and comprehend it - and now they knew that it had been done. Our scriptures are not just written, they live. If all they are are ink spots on parchment, they are no longer our scriptures, just dead words.

Today is the end of Easter, the day of Ascension when Jesus left our company. The written account is unusual because of its literary location. The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles are both written by the same author, Luke as he is usually referred to. At the beginning of both books, the author addresses his words to a certain Theophilus, perhaps a friend and patron, who helped Luke get the books transcribed and published.

We heard read today the very last words of the Gospel and the very first words of Acts - on facing pages of a double book. They describe the same event, the Ascension of Jesus, but they do so a little differently. It seems that in retelling the story over and over again, Luke finds a different way to say it the second time around. So it was written.

Jesus has appeared to the inner circle of disciples, makes sure they understand in the scriptures what they have missed all along, and tells them to stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high. And then he was gone, withdrawing from them and being carried up into heaven, apparently that very same Easter night.

The version in Acts summarizes all that had happened, but notes that Jesus hung out with his disciples for 40 days before being lifted up. Luke evidently had problem with time in his stories.

Likewise, Jesus ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father - which would be the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, only 10 days away. Better than waiting 50 days as in the Gospel.

Most of us would hold to the impression that the gifts of God, here the coming of the Spirit, does not pay attention to a timetable. The Spirit blows where it will and when it wills. You do not need to wait for the Spirit to come upon and inspire you to something greater. The Spirit has a tendency to catch you off guard and tear you out of your normal pattern. “It is not for you to know the times or periods,” responds Jesus to the disciples’ anxious inquiries. We don’t wait for the Spirit. It lies in wait for us.

Yet, we are expected to stay in the city and wait for that which we shouldn’t have to wait. No flight to the suburbs, escaping the unpleasant in the downtown; and perhaps we do have to endure living in the interim, in the in between, when we do not know how long the future will be.

Waiting does not mean doing nothing. The disciples were given a commission to witness to what they had seen and experienced. They were to demonstrate to others what the Good News is all about. They were to be witnesses, which implies you talk to people outside of your family circle. You demonstrate exactly what it is you believe in and what shape it should take living in the real world.

The disciples had been huddling together behind closed doors, meeting secretly for fear of the Romans and the religious leadership of Jerusalem. No more of that. We are not a secret society. And they were to do all of this in the city, the Holy City and den of iniquity, depending upon your perspective. The use of metaphor for this divine command has not been approved for rural Saskatchewan.

This has been quite a ride for the disciples. Recruited and attracted by this most charismatic of human beings, they have abandoned everything and walked with him all over Galilee and Judea, seeing him healing and teaching, challenging and defeating the powers-that-be. The disciples themselves found themselves healing and casting out demons. Then just when they thought the kingdom of heaven was going to be established, just when it looked like a real revolution was going to displace the hated Romans, it all collapsed. Reality, brutal reality, set in and in a few breaths, Jesus was snuffed, cruelly broken on a cross. On the third day the unthinkable had happened and Jesus was raised from the dead, conquering the forces of death itself. Too much for their frightened and shell-shocked brains. Talk about cognitive dissonance.

The conclusion comes in one of those dreamy fade-aways as Jesus is lifted up into heaven. Everybody is smiling, believing, yet in disbelief that this is happening in their world.

The medium, however, is the message. When an ancient king was enthroned, he was elevated onto his throne in order to exercise power over the kingdom. Jesus is being elevated onto the throne of heaven to rule with God over all the earth. Jesus is not disappearing into obscurity, but shares in the rule and purposes of God in the world through the church. And now we see why Luke repeats this story.

At the end of the Gospel, the Ascension is a dreamy fade-away, a Hollywood conclusion. But in Acts it is just the beginning. While the disciples are standing there looking up in wonder, two angels approach them and say, “What are you guys doing, standing here gawking into the sky? Get back into the city like he told you and get to work. The Spirit will come when it will, but you have got to be witnesses in the city where people are.”

The Book of Acts is an unchained, unfinished melody. At its last chapter, Paul is in prison with threats of execution in the air, but it just ends with no conclusion. That is because the Book is still open, it is still being written, and you and I are its subjects.

We are staying in the city, right in its heart, where its problems are evident. We are living in between the times, and so often we do feel uninspired. But the Spirit does and will come again, not always when we want it to come, I must add. That is no excuse for us to stand around gawking into the cloudy sky looking for someone to rescue us. We have been ordered to stay in the city and be witnesses of what we have seen and experienced, and do God’s purposes among all whom we meet.

The story, I must point out, in the continuing Acts of the Apostles which you and I are involved in acting out, has not ended.

Preached by Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan