Vicar’s sermon at Winston and Gainford 17.5.26

17.5.26 Acts 1.6-14
There comes a time in most teenagers’ lives when they realise that if they don’t make themselves a meal then they are not going to eat because mum and dad really did mean it when they said they were going to be out for the day…and the money they left on the kitchen table for son or daughter to head off to the shops to buy some food doesn’t automatically turn itself into cheese on toast or spaghetti bolognaise. This momentary inconvenience, arising from an unhealthy dependence, is usually overcome quite quickly. Because there also comes a time when most teenagers wish that their parents weren’t around in the house quite so much. ‘It’ll be fine’ they say, ‘I can look after myself. No, I won’t have anyone round for a party, why would you think that?’
You have heard any number of sermons about the Ascension of Jesus – the event we marked on Thursday. There are many lessons that these scriptures can teach us. ‘It’s not about Jesus going’ – would be one. It’s more about Him not being confined to just this time and this space: Now he can be in all times and all places. ‘Behold, I am with you to the end of the age.’
Or you could pull on the line of thought that reminds us that our humanity has now been raised into heaven. Jesus, the Christ, sits at the right hand of God – a place of power, of influence, He speaks for us, He paves a way into our Father’s presence, he intercedes for us. He is the great High Priest who knows us through and through and represents us before the Presence of God Himself.
All this is true. But my main thought this morning is much more mundane. It is simply to recognise that if He didn’t ‘go’, we would just sit around and just watch Him do everything. Why would we feel at all able to ‘step up’ and join Him in His work of reconciling the world to the Father, of bringing in the Kingdom of God if He were still here? ‘Ah, no!’ we’d say. ‘That’s His job. He’s the professional. I couldn’t possibly encroach on His role. I’m not capable. He would do it so much better than I.’
The Ascension is many things but one thing it surely is, is this. It is Jesus saying to us – ‘over to you, now.’ Which is flattering, isn’t it? The faith He places in us – ‘to be His witnesses…to the end of the earth.’ We might not feel up for the task – the missional equivalent of cheese on toast as opposed to a three-course dinner – but it’s not as if He doesn’t equip or support us. ‘You will receive power,’ he says, ‘when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.’ ‘I will send you another comforter’ – as John’s Gospel puts it.
Ascension-tide marks a time of transition or change in the Christian story (perhaps, by now we might have begun to realise that the one constant in this story is actually ‘change’, because it’s a story about Life and movement and energy and the work of God). And here I am alongside you today because Eileen and Brian, and your parish and your friends down the road in the other parishes of this group are all about to enter a time of transition.
How do our scriptures speak into this time of change this morning?
Well firstly we can express our appreciation of all that Eileen and Brian have brought to our parishes and the wider church (in the deanery, the Diocese, indeed further afield). But there comes a time to move on. For Jesus, this was at the Ascension. For the apostles, it is not quite yet, but they will leave Jerusalem eventually and go. When folk we have known and loved move away, we understandably feel uncertain as to what happens next…but the good news is that absence makes room for something new to come into being. I know that you know this.
You are holding your Annual meetings at the moment. And you know that as long as a position is full no one feels able to step forward to take it -churchwarden, treasurer? A vacancy opens up space for others to step up. Most leaders realise that they can’t do everything or be everywhere and the attempt to manage everything is doomed. So, ‘learned incompetence’ is a thing – purposely not doing everything. Not doing everything, creates stress but that stress, if shared, talked through and managed by God’s people can provide new ways of doing things, new opportunities, and see new ministries developed so that the work of the church can continue to thrive – perhaps in ways we might not have dreamed of yet. In a couple of weeks’ time you will enter a vacancy, a time to take stock, to reflect deeply about where you have come from, where the Lord has led you to and the direction of travel in the future. These are exciting things for Christian people to be doing.
And it is not as if Eileen won’t have left you the resources to grow in your discipleship. To come back to my initial analogy of a teenager making their own dinner – there is food in the fridge, and you know how to cook it. The development of lay ministries in your parishes whilst Eileen has been here must surely count as a major development. Some of those ministries are being carried out in more traditional roles – new faces on the PCC or managing finances, dealing with buildings. But other ministries (especially with your schools and families and Gather church) have grown greatly.
And, referring back to our NT reading: I know that Eileen has reminded you repeatedly that this work is God’s work, that prayer is essential, and that your greatest resource (promised by Jesus) is the gift of the Holy Spirit. We, the church of God, sometimes act as if we were just another organisation. We are…and we most definitely are not. Yes, you will need to submit your accounts. Yes, you will need to ensure that your Safeguarding is as it should be. Yes, your management of your resources needs to be consonant with your ’charitable aims’. But we are not just any organisation. We are a chosen people, a royal priesthood…called to declare the wonderful works of God. We are loved. We are ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven. We are clay jars through which the treasure of the gospel can shine. ‘Who’ we are and ‘How’ we are are deeply connected.
‘You will be my witnesses.’ We can witness well…or badly. People look at us. They see what we do and how we do it. They see how we welcome…or not. They see whether we walk the talk. We have a message – the disciples will go on to preach the crucified and risen Messiah of God and the coming of His Kingdom, a new way of being and living. And we have been shown how to embody the message and live in the Kingdom: Jesus’ example is set before us to show us how to bear witness: Recognising the dignity of all; Making room for those on the fringes of society; Care for the young, the sick, the old; Living out the graces of the beatitudes – humility, a thirst for justice and so on.
You will be my witnesses. So back to my initial thought. Jesus goes that we might join in the great work of God’s mission in the world. He goes because He trusts us enough to ‘get on’: to be His hands, His feet, to multiply His presence to the ends of the earth. Thank you, Eileen, for the gifts of leadership that you have brought to us and praise be to God who pours out His goodness upon us at Pentecost to catch us all up in His work of renewing the face of the earth.