The Good News Proclaimed
Preached by the Reverend Doctor Durrell Watkins at the
Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, May 24, 2009.
My great-aunt Gladys was at the cemetery one day, weeping at a graveside.
She kept saying over and over, “Why, why did you have to go? Why did you have
to go?” A priest is there and approaches my great-aunt, and says, “I’m sorry
ma’am, I don’t wish to intrude, but I can’t help but notice your intense
grief. For whom are you mourning?” And Aunt Gladys said, “my husband Arthur’s
first wife.”
Speaking of “going”, today’s readings from Acts and from Mark’s gospel
remind me of a song that my paternal grandmother used to sing (I don’t know
who wrote it). She was an elementary school teacher, and she someone knew that
my only hope of understanding science was for it to be presented in the form
of a performance. Make it a musical and I could get it, and so we’d have
science sing-a-longs.
Zoom a little zoom in a rocket
ship,
off we go on a trip!
Heading for the moon at a rocket clip
We’re going to zoom, zoom – rocket.
Zoom a little zoom, now we’ve
almost free,
from the Earth’s gravity.
Zooming to the moon at terrific speed
Because there is no friction.
Soon, we’ll see if the Moon is
made of green cheese ha, ha, ha, ha
Zoom we’re here at the moon
let’s see what the moon is like.
Today we see Jesus zooming a little zoom to the beyond. What are we to make
of that?
The most reliable manuscripts of Mark’s gospel end with chapter 16, verse
8. In that story, Jesus has been executed and women are coming to his grave to
perform a ritual, to say goodbye, to have some closure. The women find the
grave empty, except for a stranger who tells them why it’s empty, and the
story ends at verse 8 with these words, “the women went out and fled from the
tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.”
The story ends with the women, representing the wider community, going
forward to sort out their fears, to deal with their uncertainties, to live
with their unanswered questions, and to learn to trust the divine Presence
within them along the way. Perhaps what Ascension represents is implied, but
it is never spelled out.
This original ending suggests that Resurrection is something that is
experienced but not understood, not seen, not explained. People find an empty
tomb, and leave with questions and concerns, with fear and uncertainty. They
have to keep going, keep questioning, keep looking to make sense of it. And
that, to me, is a powerful ending… an open ending that we have to live into.
The story isn’t over because it becomes our story and we are still going
forward, still letting the story unfold through us.
It was too ambiguous for some, however, and long after Mark was written,
someone apparently added a longer ending meant to tie up loose ends. That
longer ending is what we heard today.
In the later edition that we heard today, the fear and uncertainty that
concludes the story at verse 8 are cleaned up. Rather than have people be
uncertain, anxious, and searching, this later editor changes the story to have
Jesus being found, and not just found but speaking very harshly against those
who have doubts. Perhaps the writer was annoyed with people in his or her
community who had doubts.
The later editor also adds that those who have strong faith will go on to
confront evil, to speak in powerful and prophetic ways, to survive the
venomous and poisonous attacks from their political and religious enemies;
and, perhaps most importantly, they will help others experience hope and
wholeness in their lives. And to be sure, faith is empowering, as is courage
and hope, and those who can summon those qualities are able to do amazing
things in their lives.
This longer, later ending is a much tighter, cleaner, neater, happy ending.
Do you like the ending provided by Mark in verse 8 where there are more
questions than answers and only the promise that as we keep going we’ll find
what we need; or do you prefer the ending we heard today that someone wrote
decades later and tacked onto Mark’s — an ending that encourages faith and
courage and promises that such tools can be used very effectively in our
lives? Luckily, we have the two versions to choose from and we can choose
whichever version speaks most personally to us today. Perhaps one is better
for us at one moment in time, and the other better at another moment. In any
case, it is the image of ascension that we find in the longer, later ending
that is our theme for today.
In Genesis 5.24 a fellow named Enoch just disappears. The story says simply
that Enoch walked with God, and at age 365 (perhaps a bit of an
embellishment), Enoch leaves this world without dying. He’s just taken away.
In the 2nd chapter of 2 Kings, Elijah, a prophet of God, is
whisked away in a whirlwind to the heavens. His disciple Elisha witnesses it,
and receives the anointing of the prophet’s spirit: a theme that is somewhat
repeated today and next week in the stories of Ascension and Pentecost.
In the Roman Catholic tradition, Mary, the Blessed Lady, is assumed bodily
into the heavens… like Enoch and Elijah, without going through the usual
process of dying.
In Greek mythology, the phoenix ascends from its own ashes to new life.
When Caesar Augustus died, his body was cremated on a funeral pyre, and as
his body burned, a Senator claimed to see Caesar’s spirit rising to the
heavens to reign among the stars.
The rising, soaring hero is an ancient and recurring archetype. It reminds
us that the hero is indestructible, because the hero is an inner Reality that
we can each access. We see the spirit of the hero in the life of Jesus or
Buddha or Martin Luther King, Jr. or Rosa Parks or Barbara Harris, but that
spirit isn’t limited to them. The rising, soaring hero is part of us.
Ascension reminds us that the heroic spirit rises from within and among us.
The Consciousness of Christ, the divine Nature, the heroic spirit of God’s
universal goodness is within each of us, and it is constantly rising to its
divine level raising us up as we focus on it and recognize its power and
presence in our lives.
The story of the Ascension comes from a time when the world was thought to
be flat and just above the imagined ceiling of the sky a heavenly realm was
thought to exist. Gravity was not yet understood, outer space had not been
explored, and entire continents remained unknown to the people who told this
story. The egg cell had not yet been discovered, so, according to our
understanding of biology, these ancients didn’t even really know where babies
come from. In light of the scientific discoveries that have been made since
this story was first told, it has to be more than a literal account of a
gravity-defying exit from a flat earth.
But viewed as a spiritual allegory, the truth of this story can be
discovered and rediscovered in every age, and even new truths can be
discovered as we ponder the possibilities.
Our story today suggests that the universal heroic spirit, the Christ in
us, is ascending to glorious heights of potential and possibility. As we allow
this story to become our story, we find that we are rising above our fears,
our mistakes, our regrets, our limitations. We are rising to new levels of
optimism, happiness, fulfillment, confidence, and peace.
As we confront injustice and oppression (or demons), as we learn to speak
in powerful, prophetic and radically inclusive ways (or new tongues), as we
learn that we can survive the venomous and poisonous attacks of fundamentalist
religion (or handling snakes), as we go about trying to offer hope and healing
to all who are wounded, discouraged or psychically depleted… we will find the
heroic energy that is within us, that is made in the divine image and that is
ever-living and infinitely loving is raising us up to the heights for which we
have been destined. As we access the hero within us, we ascend to our divine
potential and from there we are able to continue Sharing the Light with the
World.
This is the Good News. Amen.