The Ascension, Church, and the Sin of Nationalism

[A reading of Luke 24:36–53 and Acts 1:1–14]

It’s the week of the feast of the ascension. That means that Jesus decided he didn’t need to go into the office anymore and is now working from home (Laughter. Anyone? Anyone? I’ll let myself out). I wish I could take credit for the joke, but I just read it. The ascension is marked in Luke and in Acts. It’s no coincidence. Acts and Luke have the same author. Acts is merely Luke part 2. The Spirit Strikes Back. In the Luke passage, Jesus affirms the Easter story foretold in the prophets. He emphasizes the need for the change of heart and life.

On this foundation, this gospel of changed hearts and lives needs to be preached to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. We’ll come back to this. Then, we need to wait for the Holy Spirit, we’ll also come back to this. After they watch him ascend, despite his departure, they are full of joy. Think about that. You watch your friend, mentor, and teacher leave this world, and remain joyful. There is something we can learn from this.

In Acts, before we dig into the text itself, there’s something to note about this story, which begins at the end of Luke. Much of this is based on the commentary by theologian Willie Jennings, formerly of Duke, now of Yale. He notes:

The deepest reality of life in the Spirit depicted in the book of Acts is that the disciples of Jesus rarely, if ever, go where they want to go or to whom they would want to go.

This is something we need to come to grips with. By we, I mean Christians by and large, especially in America. I know I do. We love our comfort, but this story is not about comfort. Growth happens when we move beyond our comfort zones. Theologian Justo Gonzalez says this about the book of Acts, that it is:

a call to Christians to be open to the action of the Spirit, not only leading them to confront values and practices in society that may need to be subverted, but perhaps even leading them to subvert or question practices and values within the church itself.

The Book of Acts is the beginning of the church and it shows how the apostles interact with the world around them and shows us how to do church. Summarizing Gonzalez, this shows us how to be the church in the world, and what aspects of the church might need critique. Now lets get to the text.

The 1st four verses summarize the days after the resurrection when Jesus was still around before he ascended. Jennings notes that what can be seen throughout the gospel stories through Acts, and that is the idea of our faith being hands-on. This lines up with Gonzalez saying that the Christians need to be open to the, and this is the keyword, action of the Spirit. This is not an idea to ponder and then believe based on what know in our head. We need to constantly get our hands dirty.

Jennings puts it like this [partially paraphrased]: Jesus presents to his disciples a way through the fear of death by simply touching him. Disciples must touch and be touched. The church in the west has been so scared of this to the point that our worship seems to be hermetically sealed off from the world. Stained glass, as beautiful as it is, was instituted in the church as a form of separation from the outside world. This is backward from this mission.

It is important to note a few things about touch. (1)It goes beyond the literal meaning. We can emotionally touch others. (2)The word touch can have negative connotations among people who have been victims of abuse. Or perhaps people struggling with a perverted form of touch. (3), we are in a temporary season where the best way to emotionally touch some individuals is to not physically touch, but it is important that the pandemic cannot render us afraid of physical contact in the future. (4) Going along with the first point, yes I am saying we need to when we’re not in a pandemic, hug, shake, lay on hands etc, but touch is also a metaphor for the church touching the outside world. We touch the outside world by acts of service, by preaching truth and kindness, by addressing and rebuking injustice and perversion in the world. We touch the world by being a manifestation of Jesus and the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.

Now, continuing on with the texts, in both cases, Jesus tells them to wait for the Spirit. This is what we all hate. I need you to wait. Wait for the virus to go away. Wait for a vaccine. Wait for the Spirit. Wait for your test results. Wait to see if the house closes. Jesus tells them to wait. Now, we as readers know, that Pentecost, the first action of the Spirit in this post-ascension world is around the corner, but they do not know how long it will be.

After telling them to wait for their new baptism, the baptism of the Spirit, they ask him question that shows that we humans still do not get it. They ask what Jennings calls the nationalistic question. I say we humans because we are all guilty of this in some form. They ask Jesus: “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?” Their Jewish expectation was that the Messiah would be a military hero, George Washington, who would defeat the tyrannical lords, and then would lead their new nation, or revamped nation of Israel, into a future free from tyranny.

Would we not have a similar expectation? The kingdom of God is actually quite the opposite of American life. It’s quite the opposite of the life of pretty much every society everywhere throughout history. Even though these disciples have spent three years with Jesus, they still do not get it. Even though the church has existed for 2000 years, we still do not get it.

We keep asking ourselves in this pandemic, when can we go back to normal. This is the same kind of question. Maybe this is a wake-up call from God saying that normal is not what my kingdom is. Should we go back to the normal of most of our comforts being possible through exploited labor and an exploited environment? Should we go back to a normal of people so obsessed with career advancement that they ignore their family and their health? Should we go back to a normal that requires caffeine and antidepressants just to get through it? We are still asking the same question. Jennings views their question like this:

The disciples ask the nationalist question: When will we rule our land, and become self-determining, and if need be, impose our will on others? All this would, of course, be for the good of the world, they suppose.

This is actually quite in line with American thinking, is it not? Jennings continues.

A resurrected Jesus cannot stop such a request from being made, nor could he thwart nationalist desire. Nationalist desire has tempted Israel from the beginning and in fact tempts ALL PEOPLES.

It’s not just Israel, it’s not just Americans. It is a human problem. Jennings goes on:

The nationalism suggested here is not a historical nationalism bound to the anatomy of Israel, but the deeply human desire of EVERY people to control their destiny and shape the world into THEIR hoped-for eternal image.

We have now been denied the normalcy we have come to know. This has shown us that no matter how hard we try, we do not control our future, especially when others are involved. It’s never just about us individually. Jennings continues.

Nationalist desire easily creates a fantasy of resurrection and the fantasy of resurrection appeals to peoples, calling forth a triumphal vision of a nation that rises from death and is filled with conquerors and the powerful. Jesus, however, is not a SIGN of resurrection. HE IS ITS LORD. Resurrection will not define him. He will define resurrection’s meaning and resurrection’s purpose. It will not be used by these disciples as an ideological tool for statecraft. Nor will it constitute them the winner’s circle. Such ways of thinking resurrection turn Jesus into the greatest victor in an eternal competition and produces disciples who follow Jesus only because they worship power.

This is a serious gut-check. We must not co-opt Jesus and the church for our personal or national gain. We must surrender our whole selves to Jesus’ purposes, which at times will make us not look like a patriot, regardless of what country we call home.

The disciples ask Jesus this question, and this is how he responds: Jesus replied, “It isn’t for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. Rather, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

Jesus basically said to them, you have no idea what you’re asking. You are going to have to wait, but in the meantime, you’re going to do my work, starting locally, and branching out. He first said Jerusalem, where they were, then the region beyond, the region Jews despised, then the whole world. If Jesus was talking to American liberals, he would have said, spread my message, first in Portland, then rural Idaho in a county that loves Trump, then onward. Or conversely to the American conservative. You will start in New Meadows, then San Fransisco, you’ll have dinner with Nancy Pelosi, then on to the world. We are to start local, then on to the ends of the earth.

Jennings states this:

[God] seeks to place in each of us desire for those outside of us, outside our worlds of culture, clan, nation, tribe, faith, politics, class, and species . . . It is about a God whose weapon of choice is the divine desire placed in us by the Spirit . . . Such a life never asks people to forget their past or deny their present, but to step together into a future that will not yield to the given order of isolations, but yields to the Spirit that is poured out on all flesh.

No to nationalism, no to tribalism, no to our comfort.

We can hold on to aspects of our culture that are not in opposition to the kingdom. We can ski, and do whitewater, listen to country music at the brewery. We cannot continue to oppress workers for the comforts of others. We cannot view our culture as superior to that of others.

How did this passage end? In the Upper Room, preparing and waiting. They did not know when this baptism of the Spirit was going to come, but they waited in prayer and in continued preparation. We do not know when we can resume the normal events that are to our benefit, but we can take the time to prepare for what’s next. We can take the time to prepare for the birth of new expressions of the church, expressions rooted in the historic apostolic community, and to see how we can let the Spirit guide us through what is next.

Source for this post:

Willie Jennings - Acts; Belief, A Theological Commentary on the Bible