Shining Beacons of Light

Shining Beacons of Light

Sunday, June 2, 2019

On Crossing (and Breaking Down) Borders: A Sermon Following the Ascension


Anyone who travels internationally know what it is to cross borders. When I lived in Toronto I was always anxious returning, after a visit to the US. I had a study visa that granted entry, but you never know. The border guards were usually surprised when I stood at the desk and handed them my US passport. They’d ask my business in Canada and my usual response was “I live here,” leading them to study the visa, ask some more questions—because it was granted for an unusually long period (6 years)but then eventually they’d stamp it, and I’d be let back in. As a white person with considerable privilege, I am rarely subjected to deeper questioning because of my racial identity, as countless others are.  

Our border crossings are nothing compared to what people around the world encounter as they seek new lives and safe homes. Many die as they make their journeys over water or land—they drown in leaky rafts, suffocate in transport vehicles, or even are shot as they try to leave one country and enter a new one. Upon arrival in new lands refugees and asylum seekers often are forced to live in prisons and detention centers as their cases are investigated. Sometimes, we’ve learned, children are separated from parents—perhaps never to be reunited. Border crossings can be occasions of joy and hope, or of fear and trepidation, and sometimes all of these at once.

This week, on Thursday, Christians around the world observed a border crossing of sorts on the Feast of the Ascension—when, it is believed, the risen Christ ascended into heaven, to take his place at the right hand of God. In a sermon a few weeks ago I suggested that in the earliest Christian belief the Easter resurrection and the ascension were more closely related, perhaps even unified. These earliest Christians believed that in the resurrection Jesus was raised and exalted to the heart of God. So, when Jesus appears to his friends on Easter day and following, he returns from God’s heart to confirm that he is not dead, and that in the resurrection God had unleashed a new power into the world: the power of life.

Over time those appearances were less frequent, leading Luke to tell the story of the Ascension in the Acts of the Apostles. But it’s not inconsistent with the earlier view, at least not necessarily. It may be that the Ascension essentially represents the final time that Jesus appeared among his friends in that way, closing that chapter of the resurrection story, while simultaneously beginning a new one—helping his friends to get on the with work of being his disciples; helping them to spiritually grow up; to be, really and truly, the risen and living Body of Christ.

It is there that we seemed to have struggled. Too often, we have come to believe that God is far away, even out of the way, rather than in our midst. How else could we abide by so much violence and chaos in our country and across the world? Another mass shooting in Virginia, leaving 12 dead. Children at the U.S. border kept in cages. People across the world targeted for their faith or race or sexuality. Would we allow such, if we believed that God were still here among us? Would we turn away from the cries of the poor, hungry, and oppressed if we believed that God was among us? If we believed that God lives among and in those on the margins?

Rather than going away, when Jesus ascended he crossed the border between humanity and divinity. In fact, he broke down the border between God and us—such that it no longer exists, at least not as it did before. While in the short span of his life Jesus was, we believe, the earthly dwelling place of God—teaching, healing, reconciling and inspiring—that dwelling now is us. He is not gone. He is alive and present in us and through us—still teaching, still healing and reconciling, still inspiring, in and through all who are baptized into his life. His life is our life. Our life is his life. He is not gone. He is here. Or, he can be.

This is a heavy calling. If we are to make Christ present, it requires that we live like Christ. That we love like Christ. And most especially, it requires that we cross borders like Christ—the borders of exclusion and discrimination, the borders that seek to divide color, gender, sexuality, language, economic status, religion, or national origin. It requires that we cross them. And then tear them down. Just as Germans of the 1980s tore down the Berlin Wall, piece by piece, reshaping their nation and the world.

As the Body of Christ, we likewise are called to reshape our nation and our world—tearing down walls and borders, drawing people closer and closer to God’s heart, and in the process defeating the powers of sin, and evil, and death. In other words, we are called to live resurrection. We are called to be resurrection. Not in a misty, other worldly way. But in a real way, in a human way, in a broken and bruised and crucified, and yet living way.

I believe Jesus left his friends’ sight so that they could live the resurrection life themselves. So that they could cross and overcome the boundaries of life and death. So that they could realize that who he was, is also who they (and we) are—God’s presence living and undefeated presence and power in and for the world. A power through which the borders and divisions of the old world—borders that exclude and promote death through guns, war, and hatred—are transcended, dismantled, and destroyed. As they are torn down, new and abundant life will flourish—the life and the power of God, unleashed in and for us and for the whole world.

Jesus said: “As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” 

The life of resurrection. The life of God. The Life of us. May we find it so. With God, may we make it so.

© The Rev. Matthew P. Cadwell, PhD

1 comment:

  1. I thank you for this message. You have provided so much food for action.

    ReplyDelete