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The Feast of the Ascension of our Lord, 05/05/2016
Sermon on Luke 24:44-53, by Samuel David Zumwalt
44 Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you-- that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." 50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 51 While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 53 and they were continually in the temple blessing God.
YOU ARE WITNESSES!
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The key requirement for the first apostles was that they had to be eye-and-ear witnesses of the life, suffering, death, and resurrection of the Son of God, Jesus the Messiah. They had to know God’s story before they could tell it. They had to know the depth of their own sin. They had to confess their complete failure to understand who Jesus was during His ministry and their failure to be faithful to Him in His last hour. They had to have witnessed the resurrected Jesus and have received forgiveness of sins in His name. In short, the apostles had to have seen and heard the truth about Jesus before they could indeed be witnesses of these things.
When the Risen Jesus was preparing to ascend in His resurrected body, He assembled His disciples to transform them from learners into apostles. Already in His earthly ministry, Jesus had sent them out in a sort of trial run to prepare them for the days ahead. But now it was graduation time – now it was time to be reminded of what they had learned and seen and heard! Now it was almost time for the disciples to become witnesses to Jesus – to call sinners to repentance and to preach the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name to all the world.
It was almost time to go, but the disciples still were not ready despite having been eye-and-ear witnesses of Jesus’ life, suffering, death, and resurrection. They needed to wait for the promise of the Father. They needed to wait into the city until they were clothed with power from on high. Without the Holy Spirit, even eye-and-ear witnesses could not be true apostles of God’s Son, Jesus the Messiah.
Then Jesus began to bless them and as he blessed them, he withdrew from them into heaven. Then the almost apostles worshipped Him and were filled with great joy. They went back to the city of Jerusalem and were constantly praising God in the Temple. They were eye and ear witnesses of all these things, but they weren’t yet ready to be apostles because they had not yet been clothed with power from on high – the Holy Spirit!
I take no joy in saying this. There are many people in the pastoral ministry today who don’t belong there. And the Church is worse off for it. Obviously pedophiles don’t belong in the holy ministry. Obviously people with other kinds of emotional or behavioral problems don’t belong in the holy ministry. Obviously people who don’t really believe the apostolic witness of the Church to God’s Son, Jesus the Messiah, don’t belong in the holy ministry, because they cannot give what they do not have!
But it’s worse than that. A great problem for Christ’s Church exists where a ministerial candidate views ordination to pastoral ministry as some kind of right or some kind of empowerment. You can be sure when ordination is viewed as a right or a vehicle for empowerment that persons with such a mindset will do great damage to the Church. The greater and less acknowledged problem is this kind of thinking has been nurtured and even encouraged by some seminary teachers and mentor pastors. You can be sure that what is lived, preached, and taught will be a kind of political activist agenda that is a caricature of the apostolic witness. Nevertheless, the gates of hell will never prevail.
My point is not to besmirch most seminary professors or most seminary graduates. There are many fine professors teaching in seminaries and many excellent new candidates for ministry. If I had a magic wand, I would reduce the number of all seminaries by at least half and would encourage a number of misfit professors and students to find other places to teach and to serve in the world. I would reduce church bureaucracies by over half, sell high dollar church headquarters, move offices to former seminary sites and underused church buildings, and encourage a number of current bishops to find other employment outside the Church. Christ’s Church needs massive reform from top to bottom. And I say that precisely because we are a long way from the type of apostolic mission that the Lord Jesus outlines in today’s Gospel lesson.
The problem with inadequate pastors and seminary professors begins long before they are studying or working in seminaries and churches. The problem is that in order to be a faithful witness to the life, suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus you have to be an eye-and-ear witness of His story. Now obviously we cannot get into a time machine and go back to the first century A.D. for a firsthand witness. But every Christian can and must be nurtured by the previous generation of eye-and-ear witnesses reaching back in an unbroken line to the first eye-and-ear witnesses.
Too often people who are new to church, or returning to church after many years away, get heavily involved in church to achieve some kind of healing after a traumatic event or to fill some kind of hole in the psyche after having wandered around through life. If these persons are curious or intellectually inquiring, they will attract the attention of pastors or other laypersons in leadership. Invariably, someone will say, “You know, you should think about going to seminary.” The idea grows in that person’s head and soon that person is certain seminary enrollment is what God wants. Wait and see!
Of course, it’s worse when the pastor or layperson encouraging a potential candidate for ministry has her or his own change agenda for the wider church and sees this person as one more protégé or one more compatriot-in-arms. Already at the outset, you have a person whose spiritual depth is minimal and whose understanding of the Christian faith is filtered through the perspective of a mentor. Books that are sub-Christian but intellectually challenging are often prescribed. If you want a few examples, just look through many of the new theological book catalogues. And, of course, seminaries are legendary for being spiritual wastelands – the new push in many places for spiritual formation notwithstanding.
You will remember that Saul of Tarsus did not become an apostle immediately. Despite his high intellect, his excellent rabbinical training, and his classical education, Saul was not ready to be an apostle the moment he had a road to Damascus experience when he became an eye-and-ear witness of the Risen Christ. Saul had to be nurtured slowly in his new faith by other Christians before he ever went on his four missionary journeys. In short, St. Paul was not ready to be an apostle for some time. He had to wait until he was well versed in God’s story and until he was clothed with power from on high. If that was true for Paul, it’s still true for people with fewer gifts for ministry.
If Saul of Tarsus was not ready for apostolic mission, what makes us think that every bright inquirer active in a church is ready to go to seminary or, for that matter, to become a seminary professor (or, God forbid, a bishop or presiding bishop)? There is a great deal of difference between being a seminary professor and a professor of religion in a divinity school or university. Good seminary professors have a long history of having been nurtured in the faith of the previous generations of apostles. Bad seminary professors have bright minds and heavy change agendas. In short, they are not eye-and-ear witnesses of the apostolic faith and they have not waited until they were clothed with power from on high. That’s how the church gets spiritually inadequate pastors and bishops, spiritually inadequate mentors, and spiritually inadequate professors!
By now you may be worn out from my take on what’s wrong with the Church. My intent is not to make you weary or even to stoke your anger. Rather it is, first of all, a cautionary tale about who you encourage to attend seminary. And secondly it is a reminder to you that intellectual acumen or even an inquiring mind is not the best indicator of fitness for ministry. There were any number of well-placed Nazis that were both brilliant and inquiring. One, Dr. Joseph Mengele, was a fit instrument for the demonic. Please remember the same can be true of a pastor or a seminary professor. The greater point of today’s sermon is that you don’t have to be a pastor or a seminary professor to be in the long line of apostolic witnesses. In fact, most of the great eye-and-ear witnesses of previous generations did not have a seminary education and never were ordained to the pastoral ministry.
I think of a story told me many years ago by a then middle-aged pastor. He had been raised in a non-religious Jewish home and was converted to Christianity during his college years. A pastor encouraged him to go to seminary probably much too soon in his spiritual journey. Soon enough the young pastor was out in a first parish. Shortly and to his credit, he recognized how young he was in the Christian faith and how utterly unprepared he was for the apostolic ministry. But by God’s grace he discovered very soon that there was this one wise old farmer whose walk with the Lord was close and of many decades. The man had been raised by similar strong stock of devout Christians in a long line reaching back many generations. The old man would take his young pastor fishing, and the young pastor would ask, “Tell me the story.” And the old man would tell him the old, old story of Jesus and His love.
I don’t know if you had a parent, a Sunday school teacher, or a relative like the old man in that parish. I hope so. God knows we need more disciples and not church members. We need more apostles especially among the laity and not pastors who want to be social workers and not seminary professors who remake Jesus in their own image.
If our congregation is going to be a suitable community of apostolic witnesses, we need more parents and grandparents who are eye-and-ear witnesses of the Lord’s life, suffering, death, and resurrection. If our congregation is going to be a suitable community of apostolic witnesses, we need more teachers and leaders who are eye-and- ear witnesses of the Lord’s life, suffering, death, and resurrection. If our congregation is going to be a suitable community of apostolic witnesses, we need to be waiting with great expectation to be clothed from on high with the promise of the Father – the Holy Spirit
You can pray daily, worship weekly, read the Bible, serve at and beyond our congregation, be in relationship to encourage spiritual growth in others, and give generously of God’s time, talent, and treasure [from Michael Foss’ Power Surge]. You can do all those things in such a superficial way that you don’t listen to the eye-and-ear witness of the apostles that have gone before you. You can do all those things in such a busy and obligatory way that you never stop and wait expectantly to be clothed with power from on high. In short, you can go through the motions as so many church members do, not really listen, not really learn, and never wait expectantly to be clothed with power from on high. And the Church suffers and those with Christ suffer more!
If you feel bad, if you feel that you have failed, if you are sorry now for all that you have missed for so long – that’s a good thing. You are in good company with Jesus’ closest friends and even with Paul of Tarsus. Do you repent of your sins? Do you admit even now you deserve nothing but eternal damnation? This is true of each one of us!
God’s Son Jesus became human for you and me. He died the death we can’t die on the cross to destroy the power of our impending death. He broke the bonds of the evil one and crushed hell underfoot through His life, suffering, death, and resurrection. The Good News of Jesus Christ is that we have forgiveness in His name. That is the Visible Promise given in the washing of Holy Baptism and in the bread and wine of the Holy Eucharist. Dip your hands in the water today. Taste the promise in bread and wine!
Listen and learn, dear ones, to the previous generations of eye-and-ear witnesses. Wait to be clothed with power from on high. The Lord Jesus needs disciples that can become apostles. He needs people to whom He can say even today: “You are witnesses!” The Father is still pouring out His promise from on high. The Holy Spirit still needs a few good men and women to turn the Church and the world upside down preaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name! May each of us be a person who listens and learns – who waits and who tells the old, old story to the broken world that God loves more than His own life!
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Bemerkung:
www.societyholytrinity.org