Resurrection Revolution Part 4--"Keep your Feet on the Ground and Keep Reaching for the Stars"

Our faith in the Living Christ calls us to live completely counter to the world as we know it. The Biblical stories of Jesus and his disciples after his resurrection give us a model for these ways that are counter-cultural and at times radical. In this 5-week series, we'll listen for God's call to disrupt the world with a Living Love. To truly live as resurrection people might even be a revolution. In this second episode, Rev. David discusses "Keep Your Feet on the Ground and Keep Reaching for the Stars." 

Transcript

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After the amazing music we have shared today, it may sound blasphemous, but growing up each Sunday, my sister and I would race out of church to our car to catch the end of the radio show America's Top 40. Hosted by Casey Casey. Now, long before streaming music in the internet, this was how you found out if a song was a hit and what was on the top spots and maybe what became number one. Most weeks my sister and I would only catch the top three, but if the preacher didn't drone on too long, we could get the top five. But you may remember that after revealing what song made the top spot each week, Casey Kayson would sign off with his signature line. Anyone remember? Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars. Yeah, I know it sounds silly, but this is what goes through my mind each time I read the story of Jesus' ascension into heaven. The story comes at the beginning of the book of Acts, which is just volume two to the Gospel of Luke. It has the same writer. Story picks up after the resurrection as the disciples have stayed in Jerusalem waiting for what's next. And it says that Jesus is teaching them how God will be sending the Holy Spirit and they will go around the world to share Jesus' message. And as he's talking, he's lifted up. Just like he starts floating up. And it says, a cloud took him out of their sight. And as they're standing there gazing up towards heaven, two angelic figures in white robes appear next to them, and they say, Why do you stand here looking up toward heaven? This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will come again the same way you saw him go into heaven. Their question of why they're looking towards heaven feels like a critique that the disciples are looking for Jesus in the wrong place, as if they should know better. This is a common theme for Luke. In fact, in Luke's telling of the resurrection, the disciples peer into the empty tomb and they see an angelic figure dressed in white who says, Why do you look for the living among the dead? But this time, after Jesus' ascension, it's as if they're asking, Why are you looking for Jesus up there in the heavens? Don't you remember all the things he taught you? That this God is not distant and separate from you. That God is with you. And through this gift of the Holy Spirit, God dwells within you. Sure, we strive toward heaven, but we will find God among us and even within us. I hear their question in that unmistakable voice of Casey Kasim: we reach for the stars, but we must keep our feet on the ground. Our Christian history has long talked about Jesus as if he's not here. Our Father who art in heaven. Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. It seems as though Jesus is somewhere else, and we're waiting for him to come back, or ready to go to him ourselves. And this image causes us to think of Jesus as a mystical spirit or phantom that we can't experience or know. But this gift of the Holy Spirit is that God is here. Wherever here is. God is not some limited being that only resides in one place, and if you aren't there, God is separated from you. When these angelic figures ask, why do you look for Jesus in the heavens? They're asking, why are you looking in some other place? Look around. God is here, among you and within you, even with your feet planted on the ground. In fact, Christ is most obvious in this world through the body of Christ, through the gathered people of God, making God's love come to life in this world. The body of Christ is not just some metaphor, it is a spiritual reality of who we are. Heather reminds us often when she offers the benediction: we are the hands and feet and heart of Christ. We are the body of Christ in this world. And this world should be able to see Christ through us. And our compassion for one another. And our work for justice. And our care for the most vulnerable. And our striving for peace, in our assurance of hope, and our hospitality for all, in our generosity. We are not God. But the world may see the presence of God in and through us, the body of Christ. In fact, the world doesn't need to hear more about Jesus. It needs to see Jesus being lived. This is where our resurrection revolution starts. When we live as the body of Christ, when love and justice and compassion and forgiveness and welcome and sacrifice come to life in us. This is what will change the whole world. In fact, I'm not sure the world will change otherwise. So we, with our feet planted on the ground, must live as the body of Christ. Maybe you know the story of the man who lived a normal life, worked hard to earn a comfortable living, but he never messed with the bigger questions of life. He thought, as long as I'm comfortable and I treat people well, what else is new? But one day he was in a terrible car accident which landed him in the hospital. And this sparked a crisis of faith. He realized all the things he thought would protect him from hardship didn't. Money, education, status, power, nothing could save him from pain and struggle. And now he thought, what if something worse comes along? But as he lay in his hospital bed day after day, there was one nurse that brought a sense of ease every time she entered the room. She always looked tired with deep bags under her eye, but when she saw him, her face lit up with a bright smile, and she was genuinely glad to see him. She would assure him that he was doing well. She would hold his hand while she patiently explained his test results. Each day as she changed his dressings and checked his IV, she would hum a comforting tune. Something about that soft tune landed in his soul. And it stirred within him a longing he'd never felt before. A longing that there was something he needed to find. One day, after his favorite nurse slipped out of the room and pulled the door to, he said out loud, I need to find God. And so he turned on the TV in his hospital room and he scrolled to the religious station. And there he found charismatic preachers warning that he needed to give his life to God. But how could he if he hadn't seen God? He thought maybe they would reveal this God to him, but all they said was that if he wants answers, he needs to send a check first. And so he turned off the TV. Once out of the hospital, he thought maybe he'd try going to church in person. The more majestic, the better. He found a church with a tall steeple and gothic architecture and beautiful stained glass. And he sat in the back and he waited for God to show up, expecting God to descend from the buttressed rafters. But they just talked about their potluck suppers and their service day to clean up the neighborhood. And then they made everybody stand up and greet each other, which is his worst nightmare. And as he left, he mumbled, well, no God there. Maybe he needed to learn more, he thought. That church had mentioned something about a men's Bible study that met early in the morning each week, so maybe they could teach him where to find God. But when he got there, they just read books about justice and caring for the poor. Plus, they spent the first 15 minutes sharing prayer concerns and the last 10 minutes deciding where they were all going to meet for breakfast afterwards. Maybe Christianity is in his path, he thought. He thought he'd try something with less structure. So he bought a plane ticket to India to visit some of the Hindu temples. Surely he'd encounter God in those spiritual places with their intricate carvings and bright colors. But Calcutta was dirty and crowded. And the stench in the air burned his nose. Plus, he had to walk through crowds of the poorest people he'd ever seen before he could get to any of those temples. Can't see God there, he thought. On a whim, but maybe a little desperate, he asked AI where to find God. ChatGPT told him the most spiritual place in the world was an old abandoned monastery that sat at the highest point on a mountain in a far-off land. And it was a three days' hike to get there. And when he set out, the trail was lined with the most beautiful wildflowers and trees. And each night he would camp on a ridge looking over the mountains. And every morning there was a thick layer of fog over the valley. But there was no time to take it all in because he thought he couldn't wait to get to the monastery until he could finally see God. And once he arrived, it didn't feel spiritual. The monastery was just a dilapidated building still clinging to the side of the mountain. Defeated. He dropped his backpack and he looked up to the heavens and he yelled, Where in the world are you, God? Just then an angelic figure dressed in a white robe stood next to him and asked, Why do you stand there looking up towards the heaven? He was so shocked, he just stared blankly. And the angelic figure said, Didn't you hear God in the song your nurse was humming? And that longing had stirred in you? Did you not see God in the church? In the community gathered in love, sharing peace? Or in that Bible study when they prayed for each other's most tender needs? Or in their pursuit of justice? Did you not see God in the poor and forgotten people you stepped over in the streets of India? Did you not see God in the beauty of creation just outside your campsite? You've seen it all. The gritty, the dirty, the beautiful, the suffering, the compassion, the loving world. After all that, you still ask, where in the world are you? Maybe the answer is in the question. Where? In the world.