“Down
Below on ‘Up’ Sunday”
Acts 1:1-11
Psalm
148
First Presbyterian
I
want to begin by telling you today that though I have been immensely happy
serving as the pastor of this congregation for the past fourteen years, I have
for some time desired to be a part of a larger congregation… a congregation
with a history even more extensive than this one…a congregation with greater
diversity… a congregation whose incredible story holds the key to planetary
well-being and world peace. I have
been wooed by such a congregation, my heart has been captured, and I have
accepted an invitation to take my place within it.
It is the cosmic congregation described in Psalm 148:
“Praise
God from the heavens…praise God you sun and moon and shining stars…praise
God from the earth…praise God you sea monsters and all deeps, fire and hail,
snow and frost, stormy wind…praise God you mountains and all hills, fruit
trees and cedars, wild animals and cattle, creeping things and flying
birds…praise God you rulers on earth…praise God you young men and women
alike, old and young together…”
Now that is a big
congregation, and diverse!
Across the years I have come to
believe that no religion at all is better than religion that is too small.
The psalmist’s religion is big and large and expansive because he knows
that the praise of God’s people in worship cannot be isolated from the world,
indeed the universe, outside of the sanctuary.
All of life is one because God is one.
All of life is interconnected. We
need all of it, every creature, every quark, every question.
Many religions are too small
because they are too anthropocentric, too human-centered.
And, since religions tend to be tribal in nature, they often enter into
competition with other religions in a quest for superiority and exclusive claims
to God and salvation. It is well and
good for us to embrace our Christian story because, for us Christians, Jesus is
the window through which we quintessentially see God and God’s ways in the
world. But it does not follow that
we need to claim that Christianity is the only true and valid window.
God is so much bigger than that.
I have been revisiting a video
recently entitled The Great Story and, in it, there is a breathtaking
sequence in which myriads of different species are flashed successively onto the
screen. Thomas Berry, the famous
priest, cosmologist, and geologian whose nephew, Jim Berry, is the president of
“Why
are there so many different things in the world?
Because,” he answers, “the divine could not image itself forth in any
one being, so there came into being a great diversity of things so that the
perfection lacking to one would be supplied by the others and the whole universe
together would participate in it and manifest the divine more fully than any
single being. Things cannot be
envisaged simply in their isolated selves because nothing is itself without
everything else. That is why in the
great story of the universe, it has taken fourteen billion years to have us
here.”
Cannot something similar be said
of the religions of the world? “The
divine could not be imaged in any one religion, so there came into being a great
diversity of religions so that the perfection lacking to one would be supplied
by the others and all religions together would participate in and manifest the
divine more than any single religion.”
And can it not also be said of
the world’s many nations and peoples? “The
divine could not image itself forth in any one people, so there came into being
a great diversity of peoples so that the perfection lacking to one would be
supplied by the others and all the peoples together would participate in and
manifest the divine more than any single people.
Nations cannot be envisaged simply in their isolated selves because no
nation is itself without every other nation.
No people can be itself without all other peoples.”
We need a large, inclusive,
“great” story if we are going to live in health and harmony on this planet.
We need a Psalm 148 story and if the church cannot be both a harbinger
and herald of that story, then maybe it has outlived its usefulness.
We need a story these days as big as the universe.
The primary issue no longer can be whether or not the
The praise that God desires is the praise of the whole creation living symphonically…every creature, people, religion, nation contributing its parts and gifts to one magnificent score. Jesus did not say, “Defeat your enemies” but “love your enemies.” And “love your neighbor as yourself.” Why? Because we need each other. Berry again: “Nothing can be envisaged simply in its isolated self because nothing is itself without everything else.” Our day and time can no longer tolerate a Neanderthal approach to life in our global village. Creative thinking, imaginative consensus building, and inspiring speech simply must, to use Harry Emerson Fosdick’s phrase, replace and cure “our warring madness.”
The church’s liturgical
calendar calls today Ascension Sunday. We
can come up with some pretty comical images if we take the scripture literally
as it describes Jesus, after his several resurrection appearances to his
disciples and others, ascending into the clouds.
Picturing Jesus rocketing up into space to the tune of “Up, Up, and
Away” is not what the biblical writers had in mind.
What they meant to describe, symbolically, is the elevation, the lifting
up, the ascension of the Spirit of the Cosmic Christ as the pattern for our
living on earth, and that the Spirit that shines so brightly for Christians in
Jesus, is coterminous, co-existent, consonant, congruent, and contemporaneous
with God’s Spirit. Down below on
“up Sunday,” we are meant to see that Jesus embodied the manner of life and
living that is near to the heart of God. And
so we are to go and live likewise.
At its best, the church is to
live on earth as the body of Christ. In
the words of our denomination’s Book of Order, we are to exhibit
the
When
I think about the extent to which we are able to do that, I am moved by the
continuing presence and provision of those who have come before us in this
congregation. There is a great cloud
of members of our First Presbyterian family through the years who have wanted to
be an ongoing part of this church’s ministry even after their deaths and so
made gifts to our church’s endowment to make that possible.
Fully one-quarter of the budget of our church today is funded by the
great cloud of First Pres witnesses who came before us.
And not only did they bequeath us the beautiful facilities we enjoy
today, but they continue to maintain them and to keep them up.
Not a single dollar of the money we give week by week to the church is
used on our buildings. And the
generosity of the cloud also makes it possible for us to engage in a wider
program and mission outreach than otherwise would be possible.
Imagine for a moment or two
those who have sat in these pews in which we now are sitting, who came into this
room in all sorts of seasons of their lives as we do in ours, who heard the
gospel proclaimed in this place, who sang the hymns, who sought to salt this
community with their love and generosity and to bring the light of God’s hope
to shine on it, and who made gifts to help us to be the church long after
they have traded earth for heaven. Let
us for a few moments now be still and breathe in their presence with
thanksgiving.
(Silence)
Of course, the Session and I
hope that there are those among our present membership who will make bequests to
the church’s endowment so as to perpetuate our presence and to strengthen the
ministry of this church through all the years to come.
I know that some of you have done that already and future generations
will be as grateful to you as we are to those who came before us.
But the Session would like to make it possible for all of us, no matter
our means, to be a part of funding our church’s future and so has designated
this week and next as Endowment Sundays, inviting every member to contribute
with gifts large and small to the church’s endowment.
In the church’s newsletter that you received this week, there is an
envelope included for this purpose and we shall receive this special offering
next Sunday.
On Ascension Sunday, then, we
commit ourselves again to living “up” to the mighty call that God has made
on our lives, to be through this church a part of the Psalm 148 congregation
that knows that all of life is one, and so cares for all with both compassion
and generosity, now and forever.
Amen.
© Copyright 2008 First Presbyterian Church