May 5, 2005, Hartford

Ascension
Celebration of the Ministry
of Greater Hartford Regional Ministry

          And now, may the words of my mouth, and the listening of our hearts, open us to your Presence and draw us into new life, O God of Creation. Amen.

What an occasion! What a gathering from near and far. Even as far away as the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  That's where I'm from. And let me tell you, I would have come any distance to be here this evening with you and with my twin.

Late last night, your Bishop Wilfrido picked me up at the airport, and he and Marling hosted me in their home. Today, all day, I've been given the grand tour, all over Hartford and East Hartford and Bolton, and just being in your space I can feel the grace and witness of your four congregations. I thank you for your hospitality and the honor of being asked to be a part of this gala celebration.

Tonight, I will spare you childhood stories of the Kelsey boys. Our mother and sister are here, if you want to ask them for details during the reception which follows. And I'll spare you stories from the House of Bishops - where Wilfrido and I have sat together in the same small group over several years. (He told me how to vote!) And where Tom Ely and I have conspired in many a late night game of cards (or maybe I shouldn't be saying that...) Well, in any case, I feel that, indirectly at least, I have many connections with you and the people you have known and who have served here with you and the people you have known and who have served here with you.

Yes, I will spare you those personal tattle-tales and turn instead to our scripture lessons and the themes of our gathering this Day of the Ascension and the Celebration of the Ministry you share.

Let's face it. So much about life is shaped by our perspective. Isn't that so? Consider one of my favorite stories told by Michael Battle at a recent meeting of the House of Bishops. It goes like this:

An elderly woman and her little grandson, whose face was sprinkled with bright freckles, spent a day at the zoo.  There were lots of children there, waiting in line to get their cheeks painted by a local artist who was decorating them with tiger paws.

“You've got so many freckles, there's no place to paint!” a girl in the line said to the little fella.

Embarrassed, the little boy dropped his head.  But his grandmother knelt down next to him.  “I love your freckles.  When I was a little girl I always wanted freckles,”  she said,  while tracing her fingers across the child's cheek.  “Freckles are beautiful.”

            The boy looked up, “Really?”

“Of course,” said the grandmother.  “Why, just name anything that's prettier than freckles.”

The little boy thought for a moment, peered intensely into his grandma's face, and softly whispered.  “Wrinkles.”

Now, do you see?

It's a matter of perspective.

Which voices are you listening to?

How do we see ourselves?

How do we see each other?

How do we embrace all of life; all of whatever we have been given?

How do we decide what to love about ourselves and one another?

And just consider how these things determine the choices we will make about what we will do with our lives?

The story about the Ascension of Jesus into heaven is another story about perspective. Let's face it, the imagery itself is a little bit of a stretch for our world view today. Okay, a lot of a stretch.

Living on this side of the Copernican Revolution, we know that the world isn't flat, that it isn't stationary, and that, what with finding ourselves on a spinning, rotating planet, it doesn't really make sense to talk about heaven “up there”, and the whole image of Jesus floating upwards like some kind of holy helium balloon just doesn't fit our way of understanding the universe.

But I guess maybe that's the whole point, if you stop to think about it. Maybe the whole point is that we need to step back and take a different perspective. Learn to play by different rules. Imagine something to be possible which we have always assumed was impossible.

Whose voices are we listening to?

The voice which Jesus brought into our midst was and is a voice which invites us to love with the indiscriminate tenderness of a grandma to her grandchild and a grandchild to his or her grandma.

Freckles and wrinkles and everything else about what makes us who we are, even those things we may not like about ourselves or that others may not like about us.

It's a matter of perspective. And with the Creator's perspective, which is the perspective which Jesus was remarkably able to help us glimpse, there are people we thought were unlovable who turn out to be precious. There are features of our lives we might learn to embrace. And what's more, the whole perspective of the way of the world got turned on its head by this Jesus - who shared with us God's own eye view of our planet.

This Jesus, who helped us envision a world in which all people live together in peace and harmony with all of creation; where all can contribute and the gifts of all are joyfully received, nurtured, and supported; where our diversity is celebrated in community, and every human being is recognized as having eternal significance. A world in which the meek and the poor will inherit the earth, and those who mourn will be comforted, and those who are hungry will be fed. The peacemakers will be called children of God. Those who sit in darkness will be brought into the light. The proud will be scattered in their conceit. The mighty will be cast down from their thrones and the lowly will be lifted up. Swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, and even those who die will continue on into new life.

Even those who die will continue on into new life. Don't you see? Everything is different than we thought it was. What we thought was impossible turns out to be possible. The point of the story of the Ascension is that we can know that all of these things are true and possible because this sacred vision comes from a higher perspective than our own. Like looking down at the dance floor from the balcony, you see the individual steps and moves of the dancers, but you also see the overall patterns and flow of the whole crowd. And there's an overview, a bigger picture of our lives and our world than we can usually have, as we're negotiating ourselves through the daily steps and moves we make in the here and now.

There's an overview, a fuller perspective that shows us how we and the people around us are lovable and how there is hope - even promise, for the rest of the story of our lives and for all of creation. And, you see, this is the bigger picture which somehow, Jesus brought us. I mean, he must have a pretty good seat up there somewhere - a pretty good vantage point.

And, consider what different lives we would live if we and others around us could catch a glimpse of that fuller perspective.

Now, this evening, we are here to celebrate not only the Feast of the Ascension, but also the beginning of a new leg in the journey for this community of communities, this Greater Hartford Regional Ministry.

You've already got a good perspective, because you recognize that you are not just any Hartford Regional Ministry, you are the Greater Hartford Regional Ministry. That's pretty good. That's the right idea. Get that higher perspective...

But, seriously, I am sure that the fact that you in these congregations (All Saints, St. George's, St. James, St. John's) have lived in partnership with one another already for these several years just has to have brought you a wider perspective about yourselves and the ministry you share in this part of God's vineyard. And now, with this renewal in leadership, you have invited Steve and Javier to join your ministering community of communities. They will be learning from you: a new language (in one case at least) and a new perspective. They will be learning from you about how the Gospel is being shared and articulated and lived into, in the streets and highways and in the homes and in the hearts of the people of this Regional Ministry.

And you will be learning from them a thing or two, from the particular perspectives they will be bringing to share with you. And they will be learning from one another, along with Dana and Clinton and John and Walter, and the rest of the leadership team. What a marvelous and magnificent thing it is, when God brings new people into our midst, and old chemistry gets changed with new ingredients and suddenly new things can begin to bubble up.

That old story in the Second Book of Kings, about how the venerable prophet Elijah handed the mantle over to that young whipper snapper prophet wanna be, Elisha - really fits our circumstances this evening. We do have a change in leadership here - some new players at least (even as Amy, alas, is going off in new directions). But, of course, our circumstance is closer to what is described just after the story we heard read about the Ascension of Jesus.

In Second Kings, after Elijah went up into heaven, Elisha picked up the mantle, split the water in two, and walked off into the sunset, ready to keep on being the miracle-man-prophet for the people. But what happened after Jesus ascended into heaven? The disciples stood gawking up into the sky, until two men in white robes showed up and said, “What are you doing standing here, looking up into heaven? Get back to Jerusalem.” And they looked around and noticed that there wasn't any Messiah-wanna-be waiting to pick up the mantle.

It was up to them. Together. As a community. With their variety of gifts and variety of perspective. A collective wisdom, and shared encouragement a partnership waiting to grow and to go ahead into the future.

What are you doing here, gawking up into heaven? Get back to Jerusalem. There are people in the streets of your own community who are desperate to be accepted for who they are - freckles & wrinkles & all the rest. There are people who are lonely. People who are in pain. People who need a vision - a perspective for their lives and for our world which is life-giving and purpose-full. There are choices being made by our leaders which need to be questioned. God's vision and perspective about a peaceable kingdom that needs to be shared; and an honoring of all creation, and the loving of our neighbors as ourselves, and striving for justice and peace among all people, and respecting the dignity of every human being, indeed, transforming our citizenry into a just society.

These things, you see, are basic ingredients of the mission we are given to share. And it's up to us, together, to take up the mantle and to walk together not into the sunset, but back into Jerusalem, back out into the midst of our lives in our own communities.

Which voices are we listening to? How will we see ourselves? How will we see each other? How will we embrace all of life; all of whatever we have been given? How will we decide what to love about ourselves and one another and our world?

Don't you think? It's all a matter of perspective...