Words for Witnesses

Acts 1:1-11 and Luke 24:4-53

by Jim Westmoreland

One of the crises of the early church was the lingering question: Would God come back and deliver his followers and restore the kingdom of Israel? Jesus reminded them that the time of his coming did not matter. It was not for them to know.

The book of Acts ends with the great word, “unhindered.” The apostle Paul was a prisoner in Rome, and Luke wrote, “He lived there for two whole years at his own expense and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.” This God whom we worship and serve is not confined to earth.

The account of Jesus’ Ascension in the first chapter of Acts reminds us that truly God is ruler of heaven and earth. Those first disciples stood there squinting and open-mouthed. They did not understand as they gazed into the heavens.

Two men, presumably angels, came and spoke to them. They were to turn their gaze from heaven to earth. They were to return to jobs and families they had left, to a world that still did not believe. There would be many hindrances to their witness and work, but God would break down every barrier and leap over every wall until the kingdoms of this world would become the kingdoms of the Christ. Even after all these years the vision of an unhindered gospel is largely unfinished. The world waits for the beginning of the Summer Olympics in China this year, a closed society, like many in our world, that still does not all the unhindered preaching of the Gospel. 3Ascension reminds us that the church's task is to return to the world to be witnesses of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, devoting ourselves to prayer and to the doors that God will still open in their time. God will give us the words to be His witnesses.

The book of Acts is a book of transitions. Today's sermon deals with one of those great transitions. It began, as most events in scripture and in life, months before the event. Jesus had been warning his followers for months that he would leave them, but he had reassured them," I will not leave you orphans." In John 17 we have his farewell prayer where he prayed for his beloved disciples. It reminds me of that sad scene in the play, Godspell, when Jesus came to their last meeting together. He moved from disciple to disciple, almost in slow motion, saying good-bye. It was a somber moment. There were tears, and hugs, and heartbreak. He told his followers to return to Jerusalem and wait for the Spirit. They obeyed. And it was in an upper room that he came to them for a last time. They knew this was the moment they had all dreaded. They crowded into those last hard moments everything they could.

They asked him important questions. Things like: "When will you restore the kingdom of Israel?" He said: "It is not for you to know the time nor the period." He continued: "But you will receive power and this is the promise of Pentecost." And after those words he left them standing there looking up. As Jesus left the earth he moved upward into the heavens until he was out of sight. And they stood there, feeling abandoned, looking up into the clouds. They squinted, wondered, and were sad, and turned away more than a little afraid.

And this is where our sermon begins. For what happens next is a major shift a change of focus. It was a whole new way of looking at things, which is a good definition of conversion. The church likened this experience to Jesus' healing of the blind man's eyes. When Jesus touched the man's sightless eyes he could see but only faintly. He said that people looked like trees. And Jesus touched his eyes a second time and the man who had been blind began to see clearly. He saw faces beautiful faces birds, colors, flowers, the blue sky. This change of focus that Acts records says that the disciples' newly opened eyes saw things they had never seen before. Both people and churches go through transitions, and as we progress, we begin to see things in new ways that we have not seen before.

In a time of transition, Jesus was going away, everything was changing. Luke says he left them with keys that would, in time, unlock the closed doors of their lives. These keys open the doors to our lives as well.

The first key was a shift from heaven to earth. After Jesus left and made his way into the heavens those confused believers just stood there silent and gaping. And two angels came saying: "Why do you stand here looking up?" They had been instructed to return to Jerusalem. And there, in an upper room, surrounded by people as ordinary as you and me, the Spirit came. But that is a sermon for Pentecost.

The angels pointed the way: "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?" (Acts 1:11a). It wasn't heaven they were to turn to. Jesus' followers were to turn toward the earth and the reality of every day. So they left that hillside and traveled a Sabbath day's journey to their destination, not at all sure what it meant. But they took their hazy instructions and looked for a particular winding street which would lead, in time, to a house and stairs and an upper room.

The church in every age has had difficulty following those directions. We know that church met in the Upper Room, but is our church grounded in the Upper Room where they met and prayed and sought the power from on high? There is a real surge of interest in spirituality today. People are hungry for something besides malls, money, competition, and rat races. And so we turn to racks of books, conferences, gurus, and whatever it is that might touch the deep yearnings of our lives. But Acts warns that if this spirituality is not rooted in the world of everyday, it won't work. It will be just another burden in an over-committed calendar.

Leonard Cohen, the folk singer, seemed to understand this when he sings, "There are cracks, cracks, in everything, that's how the light gets in." The great miracle is that the angel says you do not have to gaze into the heavens. Look closer. Look at the cracks in your life and world. This is where the light shines through.

The second key says we find light when we move from God to one another. Acts' Ascension story says if we want to see God we are to look around us. In the play Inherit the Wind, one of the characters says: "He got lost. He was looking for God too high up and too far away." We find God when we redirect our gaze to other people, and the world around us. This shift is significant. From there to here.

Anne Lamott tells in her book Traveling Mercies why she makes her son, Sam, go to church. She started going to St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in San Francisco early in her pregnancy as a single, expectant mother.

They reached out their arms and adopted her. They brought clothes and blankets for the new baby. They made her feel a part of the church. An older woman named Mary Williams always sat in the back and brought Anne baggies filled with dimes week after week.

Anne brought Sam to that church when he was five days old. Church folk stood in line and called him "our baby" and "my baby." People in that little church kept her going. They cared, reached out, prayed, and loved her and saw her through some hard days. She says Mary Williams still gives her bags of dimes even though she is doing much better financially. Anne says she gives them to homeless people. But she writes, "Why do I make Sam go to church when none of his other friends go? I make him go because somebody brings me dimes." For when Anne looked around her she saw the face of God.

A third key moves from us to them. The angel told the disciples to redirect their gaze. Look around you. Look beyond you. "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes over you and you will be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the world." Every age categorizes people into us and them. The great shift in Acts is when the church was forced to move out beyond themselves into the world of the outsider. They had to climb over the walls called Jerusalem and Judea and even cursed and despised Samaria. So the words of Jesus are true: We really do save our lives by losing our lives in some cause beyond ourselves.

The last key moves us from the general to the specific. The angel instructed those disciples to turn their gaze from the heavens to things closer at hand. That first specific would be a room in Jerusalem on a side street. That specific would push them out even further to Jerusalem the city, and to Judea their country, and even further toward Samaria.

God never calls us to generalities, but to specifics. This summons could be anything from quitting some destructive pattern of living, or letting go of some rage or hatred or grief that is strangling you. What one thing do you need to do?

Or better still, if you could write one word that describes what our church needs, what one word would you write? One word that is Specific, Positive, Simple and Direct. Could the word be money? The church certainly needs more of that. Or children? Most churches need more children. Maybe the word is commitment? Every church I know needs more folk who will give their lives in some specific commitment, who will do more than attend worship. What would you write?

A new pastor went to a church that was divided over what it needed to do. What was the he to do? He met with a groups of angry parishioners and listened to their concerns. He talked with those who had won the last vote. The church was clearly divided. Weeks later, in frustration, he preached on that Deuteronomy passage when the children of Israel had wandered in the wilderness far too long. His text was: "We have circled this mountain long enough it is time to move northward" (Deut 2:3). That Sunday he told the people, "We have been fair. We have listened. We have followed every procedure. I have done, as your new pastor, all I know to do. We cannot stay at this place of stalemate forever. It will cripple this church. It is time to move on." And the church did.

After that, he said that God opened a door. We adopted ten Vietnamese refugees. A real estate man made a house available. We brought in furniture from everywhere. Other churches pitched in. People gave money for clothing and groceries. We taught English and helped them with tasks like shopping and paying bills. It was hard and it was good. But what we did, without knowing it, was that we were changing our focus. And our little old problems were not as big as we thought they were. We turned our focus, and it changed a church. We were being church, a living witness in our words and deeds, and we were discovering that many small witnesses were better than planning and waiting for something big.

Two thousand years ago, the disciples were told to quit gazing into heaven and to be His witnesses. We, too, have a story to tell. It is about Jesus and how His love has changed our lives, giving us His Peace and a desire to love and serve others. What is your story about how Jesus has become real in your life? Tell about who Jesus is, what He has done for us, and what He has done for you. Those are words for witnesses. Amen.

Century Christian Church, May 3, 2008 - Sermon by Jim Westmoreland

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