Sermon preached by Wally Frey

St. Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, Connecticut

The Feast of the Ascension (transferred) – May 4, 2008

 This past Thursday I was in Cambridge, MA to be part of retirement celebrations for Fredrica Thompsett – she is a distinguished teacher at the Episcopal Divinity School, a friend of St. Paul’s and will preach here later this spring. Anne Watkins, about to graduate from EDS, was also there. Anne said, “So you are the preacher this Sunday. Maybe you will say something about the Ascension”. My reply, “A bit”.

 Here is the bit – at Christmas we celebrate Emmanuel, translated as ‘God with Us’ – as we celebrate the Ascension it is ‘Us with God’. Through Jesus the human – all humanity is dignified. The Ascension is not some kind of Cape Kennedy launching event – it is a sign that, in Jesus our humanity is beloved and celebrated by the One who creates us in God’s image. I’ll ask you to keep that idea in mind because the remainder of these remarks is about three things. What are some of the implications of humanity beloved and celebrated by God? What are some of the implications of baptism? And ‘so what’ about these things?

 Humanity beloved and celebrated by God. That we, all of us, are created in God’s image and are meant for fullness of life. Human life is not about evil although; we all know that evil exists. Human life is about reconnecting and keeping connected to the glory and power of creation and The Creator. Human life is not about separating from one another, it is about seeking that elusive and seemingly impossible, unity that may be the only true way to peace. Paul, in one of his saner moments, writes that there is not male or female, slave of free but unity through God in Christ. We don’t, in my estimation, especially like that idea. We are big on dividing – there is male and female, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, Democrat and Republican, straight and gay, young and old. Indeed, there are these categories and endless more. The issue is that why are they basis for division rather than basis for listening and supporting one another across the divisions, giving emphasis to our common humanity, our common pain and our common joy? We live in an increasingly complex and diverse world. We face Limited resources being divided into smaller fractions as great nations, once primarily rural and agricultural, move to 21st century standards and 21st century desires. Unless we being to see this as a common problem, a problem of a common humanity, we and certainly our children and grandchildren are in for rough times. If we look at other human beings as people and lives celebrated and beloved of God, not simply as strange competitors for what we want – what would that look like in terms of how we live? If we truly sought dialogue and conversation across these divisions what might the world be like? Interesting questions worth consideration.

 I was baptized as a young person and remember the event. It was in a Methodist Church in suburban Cleveland, OH. Even though I have a memory of the time the implications of what it all meant flew over my head and I’m pretty sure, over the heads of my parents as well. It was, well, something, ‘one did’.

 And yet, Baptism is it! My friend Fredrica Thompsett writes, ‘You can’t get beyond baptism’. That is those who are ordained priest or bishop are not greater than, grander than, better than, holier than – all of us. Their ministry within the structure of the church is not greater than, grander than, better than, holier than – the ministry that you and I carry daily in our lives and in the world where we live.

 I want to be totally clear here – I enjoy reading as a lector and I am glad to be part of working with people to arrange flowers and serving on the vestry. But that is not my ‘ministry’. That is my church work. The work of the ordained clergy, especially that of priests and bishops, is their ministry. The work of most of us, the laity, is found in our daily life. It is in and with our families and our neighborhoods, it is in our jobs and how thoughtfully and ethically we do our work. It is how we treat the people we engage in the daily round of life. It is, in the words of baptism, how you and I ‘respect the dignity of every human being’. It is how we are Christ’s light in the world because we are the only people that can do God’s work – we are the hands and feet and voice of God in the here and now. Baptism is not about infants born evil and their need to be ‘saved’ – it is about the One we name a God calling us by name, telling us that we are beloved and honored by the One who creates all things.

 Baptism is not about achieving a Christian ‘unity’ by separation and division. There has been far too much effort expended in Christian communities on deciding who is OK and who is not OK, who can be allowed in and who should be kept out. In the waters of baptism all those divisions we like to establish – all those division are literally washed away. Baptism is about human freedom, about using the creative that is in each of us for life; it is about encouraging one another to use the talents, the gifts that we all possess for the purposes of creation – never for destruction.

 The Christian Century is a wonderful small magazine that covers religion around the world, and especially in this country. From time to time they pick up things from parish newsletters that reminds one why newsletters need editors and proof readers. I give you this one –Bertha Belch, a missionary from African, will be speaking tonight at Calvary Methodist Church. Come hear Berta Belch all the way from Africa”.

 We live in at a time in history where we are hearing noise from Africa, from Asia, from South America from around the world. It is, at least in part, a noise of other human beings seeking a better world for themselves and their children – it is people seeking justice and peace for their lives and their families. It can be a scary noise – or it can be a hopeful noise, depending on how we want to hear it.

 What are the implications of these things for Christian people in the first decade of the 21st century? If we see ourselves and those other human beings who are close to us or far away and different from us as part of us and, no matter who they are, as people created in God’s image and beloved and cared for by God that is one perspective.

 If we take at all seriously the fact that our Baptism asks us to ‘respect the dignity of every human being’ – if we, to quote my friend Fredrica, ‘wade deeply into the waters of Baptism’ coming to know that in God we need not fear life but embrace life, in God we and all humanity can know life that is rich, has amazing depth and is full of wonderful surprise, that in God we are joined together in a common human family – then we will know that the One who came among us, ‘God with us’ – is, even now, ‘with us’ and, in the image of Ascension, our humanity is dignified and honored through the humanity of Jesus and taken into the heart and Spirit of the One who makes all things new.