Choose Life!
Ascension Sunday Sermon
Preached May 30, 1992 at Bethlehem Covenant Church, Minneapolis. This was David’s final sermon as Teaching Minister at Bethlehem — Ed.
Today, in the church year, we celebrate the Ascension of Jesus, which comes 40 days after the Resurrection. Ascension means to go up, and it has to do with that time when Jesus went up into the heavens while the disciples and others stood around on a hillside and watched.
In one sense, the ascension of Jesus is about a returning. For Jesus, it is a return to the place from which he originally came — from the right hand of God. What a return that must be!
From another perspective, however, from the perspective of the disciples who watch Jesus ascend into the heavens, it is also about a leaving and even, perhaps, a feeling of being left. Because in this Ascension there is both a return and a leaving, there is joy, but there is also sadness and, I suspect, not a little anxiety in those who were left behind.
This is true of all leavings. The story of the ascension of Jesus is not the only story of leaving that we have. There are many examples of returns and leavings throughout the biblical story. One in particular occurs at the end of the life of Moses, and it is recorded for us in the closing chapters of Deuteronomy. I would like to explore this leaving as a way of drawing closer to the mystery of this Ascension Sunday.
Let us first remember that Moses had been with the people ever since their liberation from slavery in Egypt. For 40 years he had been with them. He had been their teacher, the one who brought to them the Torah of God, who heard their complaints and mediated their disputes. He had been with them all through those long years of wandering in the wilderness and now had brought them even to this point of crossing into the promised land, when he heard the news that he was not to go farther. He was not to cross over with them. And, I suspect, when this news finally settled over the people, they were anxious and uneasy. Perhaps as anxious and uneasy as Moses was when he heard the news, “No farther; it’s time to leave.” They were anxious because this work seemed to be unfinished, because there was still an awful lot left to do, because there was still more to learn and discuss, because there was so much growing left for these wanderers in becoming the people of God.
In other words, this was not an opportune time for Moses to leave; but we do not always control leavings. They happen to us sometimes. Knowing this, Moses is compelled to address the anxiety that he can feel within the people. In his most impassioned rhetoric, he speaks directly to this anxiety, this fear. They are his last words to them, and they remain my own favorite words in the whole of the Bible.
Hear now the Word of God delivered to us from moshe Rebeinu, Moses, our teacher:
Surely this commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for you, nor is it far away. It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?” Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us, and get it for us so that we may hear it and observe it?” No, the word is very near to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart for you to observe.
See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, and walking in God’s ways, and observing God’s commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to possess. But if you turn away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. And so I call today heaven and earth to witness to you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; choose life, so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God and obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. (Deuteronomy 30:11-20)
All leaving creates anxiety. When we are left, we must ask the question: What will become of me now? What will become of us now? This happens when people we love leave us, when we change jobs, when organizations change personnel, and even throughout the normal process of separation and leaving within the family system. Each time we cannot help but ask the question: What now? So attached do we become to each other, so dependent do we become upon each other, that, sometimes, in the face of another’s leaving, we are not even sure if we are going to be able to keep going! Part of the fear is that there doesn’t seem to be anything left inside at all!
Moses deals directly with this anxiety by expressing confidence in the people. What they need for the adventure ahead is already within them. They don’t need him for this; he is not indispensable. They do not need to hire another to ascend to heaven and bring back new revelation, nor do they have to send someone across the sea to fetch a greater wisdom from another civilization. NO! says Moses, it is already in you, it is in your heart and in your mouth; it lies within your ability to know what leads to life and what leads to death. It is in you. In you is the capacity to choose life or to choose death. Therefore, choose life and live! Upon this capacity everything else depends!
In fact, to express this confidence in the people is the essential difference between leaving and abandonment. When we are abandoned, we feel helpless, powerless, vulnerable, and without inner resource; but leaving expresses confidence in who we are and what we are able to do. We experience the fear and anxiety, but we are not dominated by it!
On one level, as Karl and Erik have grown through the years, we (as parents) feel increasingly free to leave them alone. This leaving is an expression of our confidence in them, that they have within them what they already need to face unforeseen situations.
I have come to understand through the years that all of teaching assumes this confidence in others and, indeed, builds upon it. Otherwise learning cannot take place. We all know what it is like to sit with a teacher who doesn’t believe in us or in our capacity. The teacher then becomes the center, more important than what we are there to learn. When this happens, there is no longer delight in the discovery, because part of what is so wonderful about learning is making intimate contact with that deep confidence in our own life and growth and in our capacity to choose life.
The people of Israel may lack this confidence in the face of Moses’ leaving, but he reminds them that they do know what life is, and they do know what death is, and they can choose life.
However, so often this lack of confidence we see in them and also in ourselves betrays another piece of this truth — that we can be more afraid of life than we are of death. Living holds greater fear for us than even our dying. Death we know more about, so we choose death over life. We practice death; we watch it; we fill our imaginations with its images on T.V. and in our streets; we rush to it to solve our problems. And while it may frighten us, yet it is more familiar, it asks nothing more of us than that we sit and do nothing. How many times in the midst of the wilderness crossing does Israel cry out to return to Egypt where there is food and security? Never mind that it demands a return to slavery; it is safer and more predictable.
And we watch, in the Gospel of John, the disciples sitting, huddled together in a room with locked doors following the resurrection, more afraid of life than of the possibility of death. More afraid of the empty tomb than of the political powers of Jewish or Roman authority. Life is fearsome and full, unpredictable and demanding. It does not leave us alone. It does not leave us unchanged. We cannot control life, but we can choose it and we can live it!!!
Recently, in a sermon preached at Plymouth Congregational Church, Dr. Christine Smith of United Seminary wondered about these disciples of Jesus huddled together in the locked room, more fearful of life than of death, and then reflected on the overwhelming emphasis we place on the season of Lent in the church year — the season of the suffering and death of Jesus. It is clearly of the greatest importance. We have special services, we bring in special speakers and reflect long and hard on pain and suffering, on the meaning of the cross. We mark our foreheads with ash at the beginning and confess continually our sin; our brokenness and pathology are ever before us. Then comes Easter and life — resurrected life. Following its initial announcement, it is as if we stop and go no farther. We seem more comfortable in our own pathology and in exploring what’s wrong with us than in exploring what this renewal of life is all about and what this empty tomb means for us.
D. H. Lawrence, who wrote not only great novels but also some remarkable theology, says the following:
It is the business of the Church to preach Christ born among people — which is Christmas, Christ crucified — which is Good Friday, and Christ risen — which is Easter. And after Easter, ’til November and All Saints, and ’til Annunciation, the year belongs to the risen Lord: that is all the full flowing summer and the autumn of wheat and fruit. All belong to Christ risen. But the churches insist on Christ crucified and rob us of the blossom and fruit of the year.
The resurrection is to life, not to death. Can I not then walk this earth in gladness being risen from sorrow? Is the flesh that was crucified become as poison to the crowds in the street, or is it a strong blossoming out of the earth’s humus?
From the beginning, when God first breathed his breath across the empty universe, the whole wondrous story has always been about life in creation and in us. Whether we stand with Israel on the banks of the Jordan, or with the disciples on the hillside, or in south Minneapolis, as Jesus ascends, it is about life and the confidence placed in us that we know what life is, that even now we can choose to live.
When did you last feel really alive? What was happening around you and within you? How do know the difference between life and death when you are at work or in school or in Church?
Life is all around us these days. It is full of juice and joy. It sends roots down even into my thick New Brighton clay and bursts forth in reds and blues, pinks and yellows. It flies through the air, back and forth, with grass and mud and bugs and seeds for nests and needy chicks. It sheds thick winter wool and lies content in the warm spring sunlight.
Creation leaps at the renewal of life, risking everything to taste its sweetness and energy, if only for a season. Not to live and burst forth is unthinkable, so deeply is the spirit of God in everything God has made!
Yet, as this drama of renewal unfolds around us, we humans sit so often in closed rooms and behind locked doors, even after we have heard the message that the tomb is empty, afraid of God knows what and convinced that we don’t really have what it takes anyway.
No! says Moses. This commandment is not too hard for you, neither is it far off; it is not in heaven, it is not beyond the sea. The word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it. Resurrection life is process, it is a turning, a striving, a stirring. It is a way of dreaming, a way of seeing, a way of dancing.
The Hasidic Rabbis argue, in fact, that life is not something that we can talk about; rather it is something best expressed in the dance. The music of life sings deep within us; it lifts our hearts, and our feet begin to dance. It is the dance of life.
Leonardo Boff, a priest from Brazil, describes in his theology of liberation:
Wherever, in mortal life, goodness triumphs over the instincts of hatred, wherever one heart opens to another, wherever a righteous attitude is built and room is created for God, there the resurrection dance has begun.
How then shall we enter into the new week that lies ahead if not as persons whose hearts are singing and whose feet are dancing, made alive by the surprise of resurrection of the one who in his leaving still remains present to us as Lord of the dance?
So, let us live in this confidence today — grow in this confidence that everything we need is already present to us even now as we take leave of each other. We look to a future that is not all that certain and planned out. Still, we leap forward in hope and promise. I am grateful for the dancing we have shared.
I close with a prayer I came across in a collection called Guerrillas of Grace.
Lord of such amazing surprises
as put a catch in my breath
and wings on my heart,
I praise you for this joy,
too great for words,
but not for tears and songs and sharing;
for this mercy
that blots out my betrayals
and bids me begin again,
to limp on,
to hop-skip-and-jump on,
to mend what is broken
in and around me,
and to forgive the breakers;
for this YES
to life and laughter,
to love and lovers,
and to my unwinding self;
for this kingdom
unleashed in me and I in it forever,
and no dead ends to growing,
to choices,
to chances,
to calls to be just;
no dead ends to living,
to making peace,
to dreaming dreams,
to being glad of heart;
for this resurrection madness
which is wiser than I
and in which I see
how great you are,
how full of grace.
Alleluia!