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"Rise Up"
Acts 1:1-11
(This meditation was preceded by a dramatic reading of 7 Trumpets for the Dead by John Medieros)
A Meditation by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley
May 27, 2001 (Ascension Day)
University Baptist Church
Minneapolis, MN
We have heard and experienced the seven trumpets of the dead.
We remember on this Memorial Day, not only those who have died on military battlefields, from Pearl Harobor, to France, To Germany, to Japan, to Iraq, to Central America and Africa, but those who live and die on the battlefields of oppression and distrust and hurt.
We remember those excluded from families, from society, from organized religion because of who they are and who they love.
We remember the heartache. The pain.
And we lift up a memorial to it all.
Sometimes it feels like blowing the seven trumpets, opening the seven seals pouring the seven bowls. Just like in the book of Revelation, calling to remembrance all of this can make all hell break loose. It can shake us to the core. It can make chaos out of the order of our lives—or at least expose the chaos that already exists. But it is holy work to name this hurt. For in Revelation, nothing good happens until all seven of the trumpets blow. All of the injustice and pain need to be exposed before the new Jerusalem arrives.
What we are doing is calling attention to our desires for justice by naming the hurt that exists.
We are calling the Spirits to remember the pain for which we seek healing.
We gather together to sing, pray and reflect so that we might be able to commit to a new way of life.
But a memorial does not have to be the end of the story. In fact, it can be a beginning. It can mark a time when we have named that silence, that longing, that place of bleakness and abyss. Only when we can name it and memorialize it, can we move on. Only when we let the trumpets blow and experience the cathartic agony of grief, are we ready to experience a hope built up in the vacuum of our pain. From that empty whole in our lives, we have fertile soil in which to grow something new.
Oddly, today is what the church calendar calls Ascension Day.
What a fitting combination with Memorial Day.
We have heard the Ascension Day scripture earlier in the service.
The biblical story contends that the resurrected Jesus stuck around presumably with the disciples for a period of time (40 days to be exact) which ended with his ascension into heaven. Next week, on Pentecost, we are enabled to take that next step when the Holy Spirit "comes down" or descends from heaven and rests upon our shoulders and sets our tongues on fire. I wonder why Pentecost was never termed as descension day. But the fact is, that the ascension leaves a hole in our lives, and in the lives of the disciples. The trumpets have blown on Ascension day, Jesus is gone up to heaven and the people are left on earth to pick up the pieces.
It’s no wonder the people sat there staring at the sky. They look at the sky wondering, "now what do we do?" That’s when two messengers, not unlike the messengers at the open tomb, said "why are you looking up?" It is another way of saying, "Why do you seek the living amongst the dead?" "Bring your eyes back down to earth, where people are in need and look at them with new eyes. Hear them with new ears. Touch them with increasing sensitivity. And the Spirit of the one who has gone before you will strengthen and enliven you.
This church has a heritage of not wanting to simply be a Sunday morning club which specializes in the old classics. We are looking for ways to be ahead of our time. This church is about rising up, remembering that Jesus has ascended and is above all of the worldly rulers, has put even life itself in its proper perspective and calls us to be about doing the work of making community rise up where only despair and fear existed. The trumpets have been blown and there is now new community to be experienced. The church is to be new or at least renewed because of our awareness of the hole left by the ascension. And we are then called to connect with one another with a new power, not looking up for a savior, but looking out to thy kin-dom some on earth as it is in heaven.
Our community is not just Jerusalem, if we can infer from Jesus' commissioning in Acts 1 that he is talking about our immediate church family, but with Judea--the other churches and like-minded believers who have suffered a similar fate, who have a similar distrust of denominations and systems of domination. With Samaria--those who would have nothing to do with a church per se, but who might need services and community which the church could make happen. And of course to the end of the earth--this is about speaking the truth to power, making our church a witness against injustice and for community.
So now that the trumpets have blown, we can rise up.
What arises out of our lives is the most important aspect of Ascension Day and Memorial Day.
Rise up out of the doldrums of fear.
Rise up from the places of despair which keep people in the closet in a self-imposed silence. The trumpets have blown and the people here are ready to place something hopeful in the echoing silence that follows.
Rise up and let your voice be heard in the streets and in the places of domination and power so that the city knows that we are about community.
Rise up and know that you are loved by this community for who you are, with no expectations of you other than that you live into your unique calling from God. When others have forsaken you, your church family will not.
Rise up, likewise and be with your church family members in their joy and in their sorrow. Rise up, empowered by this church to do your individual ministries supported by our thoughts and prayers.
Rise up and know that you do not rise up alone; for Jesus Christ has arisen and causes us all to rise up and make something new out of ourselves. Jesus has ascended and calls us to make community with Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth.
Amen.