An Epistle of Ascension

2 Samuel 6:1-5; 12b -19; Ephesians 2:3-14; Mark 6:14-29

One of the interests I have is our space program. So you can imagine how it is at the parsonage as we unpack and at the same time try to keep up with the Mars Landing. I find it interesting to see the little Rover move around Mars, sniffing and touching the rocks, especially lately when it tried to climb the rock – Yogi. Then, of course, there is the panorama view of the Mars surface with the rocks and twin peaks with their red color. But, not only is the Mars event going on that interests me, but there is also the happenings with the Mir station. I was struck dumb when the Mir station had its collision. Imagine being on a space station, up above the earth, looking down on this beautiful blue planet of ours. Just think of all the everyday things we take for granted that the astronauts have to relearn to do up there. I mean, there isn't much gravity up there. How do you brush your teeth? I mean, keeping the toothpaste on the brush – or just rinsing our mouth out? What about trying to write a letter to a friend: How do you get the ink to the tip of the pen or even get ink on the paper? Everything must have to be nailed down, self-contained and sealed tight or it will simply drift away. Ordinary chores that we do every day must be a challenge – even keeping your body in one place from drifting. So, I can't help but think that even our world of gravity should not be taken for granted.

As I read the Epistle lesson for this week from Ephesians I noticed how lofty it is, yet it speaks to our condition, today. We live in a fast moving world. Family structures and securities have broken down. Economic boundaries seem to expand indefinitely from the platinum credit card set to the Internet and the world wide web in which you can now make purchases. Yet, we have contracted tighter controls on food stamps and political avenues sem often at an impasse.

Ethical standards topple at the first breath of discomfort or at the first sign of personal cost. We are living in a world in which not everything is buttoned down, secure and in place. Its like living on the Mir Station with no gravity – things are beginning to float away from us. Events in life float this way and that way and it is harder for the average person to keep up or keep things together.

One of the most dangerous moments for astronauts is when they step outside the shuttle to do a space walk. On Mir they may have to do that in order to fix the station. When they step out not only will they be in zero gravity, but they will be in the midst of unlimited space. If the tether breaks they will drift away without anything to told them back.

Compare that with the normal, typical life that we live on our planet, today! When we step out on our own, without God to anchor us we can drift away in the open space of our culture. There is little morality in our culture and we can run into despair and meaninglessness.

We can see this in the hate groups forming in our country. A television program I watched the other night had a special on hate groups that hate Jews and African Americans. These groups pledge their allegiance to the white race and to murdering those persons different from them. Civil rights lawyers are even targets, since they espouse views different from the militias. There are gang wars in which allegiance to the gang is sometimes proven by the murder of a rival gang member.

We have city budgets that give big tax breaks to owners of professional sports teams, yet we close shelters and cripple funds for the poor and homeless.

Last year Hollywood chose to cite as defender of our most cherished constitutional rights none other than Larry Flynt, the publisher of the pornographic Hustler Magazine.

But, it is not our mission as the church to sit on the sidelines and complain about the thinning of the moral air or to watch silently as the TV plays before us the day to day drama of life in America or around the world. We are not to sit and simply watch or read about the brothers and sisters drifting away in a culture without grounding. We as the church are called upon by God to become involved in the world, showing the world that in Christ there is a groundedness and a gravity that souls require for life.

If we really are Christians then we believe that for the human soul to thrive we need God breathed into us. We must continually claim Christ as our Savior and live Christ-centered lives and seek to be Spirit-driven in our daily tasks. We believe that by Christ we can have a life that is balanced with love and care for others. We believe that we can make a difference in the moral affairs of this world. It is only through the grace of God that men and women can be saved from floating around in this world without connectedness. To be morally adrift, to be in the position of not knowing God, is to be lost.

The Epistle lesson for today has this pall of gravity. It is known as a hymn of ascension. The glorious language in that scripture reflects the spiritual joy and excitement that the writer feels at relating what he has discovered about the heavenly places and how it relates to his life and connectedness to God. And, certainly, it is God's intention for all of us to become his adopted children, to be connected to God, through the work of Jesus Christ. It is God's intention that we once again stand before the divine as "holy and blameless" as a result of the sacrifice Christ made on the cross. It is God's plan that in love we are all chosen by God in Christ to be accepted and acceptable. Our adoption rests on God's good pleasure, God's grace, which God gives as a gift to us.

You know, I have been in many places in my ministry. I started out as an assistant in a military church outside Andrews Air Force Base. I saw the look of shock and despair on the faces of the military people's faces during Watergate – the fall of innocence, the destruction of the belief that the Government was above all and could do no wrong. I spent two years on two little islands in the Chesapeake Bay with my husband. We watched the crabbers and fishermen struggle with the water to make a living. We saw the good harvests and we saw the tragedy when the Bay claimed the lives of two small boys who lost their oars and drifted out into the Bay overnight, causing them to freeze to death. We went to Iowa after our graduation from seminary in 1975. We went through the farm crisis in which many farmers lost their land, machinery, and homes. We went to sheriff's sales and spent time on the road lat in the evenings, taking farmers to the hospital to be admitted for stress and depression. There were times I spent in the bars, getting people out of there and home.

Paul and I have helped GM workers disrupted over walkouts and union haggling in which they were on strike for weeks. We have been close to those who lost their jobs in the process.

I spent a year in training as a chaplain resident at a hospital in Kalamazoo. I was assigned to the oncology unit, to two intensive care units, and the neo-natal unit where I often worked with the terminally ill – those with cancer, AIDS, and advanced kidney failure. I saw babies die and often had to share the news with the mothers and fathers.

Yet, through it all I have seen and experienced that it was those persons who were grounded in Jesus Christ who came through it all. There was a difference in their inner being – a peace in spite of the chaos about them. Yes, they were scared. Yes, they didn't want to go through what was happening to them. But, they knew, deep down, that God in Christ loved them and they were not alone. That is the message of the Epistle lesson for this morning. God in Christ is there with grace and love and acceptance for each of us, no matter what the situation we are in.

We are given three things through Christ: First, we are given God's great gifts through Jesus Christ. We receive redemption by the sacrifice of Christ's own blood. All the goodness, all the excitement, all the joy in life depends first on the centrality of our faith in Christ. Without that faith we are adrift in the world.

Secondly, we are freely given "the forgiveness of our sins" so that no guilt, no past events, can stand between us and our full acceptance as adopted children of God.

Thirdly, God bestows all wisdom and insight through which we get a glimpse of the mystery of God. This helps us understand the gift of salvation that God has designed for us and which will come true in each of our lives. And it is God's good pleasure to give this to us.

God's unifying plan is to bring everything under the headship of Christ. Knowing God means knowing the joy of not being alone and lost or adrift in this world.

The greatest lie that is perpetuated by those found floating adrift in this world is that they are "free" and that we who are anchored to God's solid rock of faith are "bound". Let me say here that freedom is not the ability to do as you want. Freedom is not some "if-it-feels-good-do- it" principle. After all, does the freedom to lie and cheat bring joy? Does the freedom never to establish a committed loving relationship bring joy? Does the freedom to get drunk and drugged out of your mind bring joy?

Living lives as adopted sons and daughters of God doesn't cramp our style or transform us into sour-faced people. When we love according to the groundedness of God's grace we are like little children, squirming with joy at the good pleasures we find and bring to God and that God can bring to us.

Our world, our cosmos, is not a black sea where human beings are to be adrift without some lifeline of guidance and hope. Ephesians I reminds us that God has a plan "to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth". God's plan brings all humanity, all creation, under the pull of God's love and grace. Instead of casting about wildly in the world or pretending that we live in a morality-free world in which we simply do the best we can, let us grasp onto the grace of God, freely offered, so that we may live to the praise of God's glory.

The pleasures of grace are yours and mine. But the pleasures don't come cheap. You have to give up living to please yourself and live a life that is pleasing to God. Whom do you want to please the most? John 5:30 reads, "I seek not to please myself, but him who sent me."

What's your governing goal? The groundedness of grace is the living of life so that it pleases God so that one day we will hear – not – "My soul takes no pleasure in anyone who shrinks back," but these words – "Well done, good and faithful servant – enter into the joy of your master." (Matt. 25:21)

Amen.