Ground rules
Commentary
Object:
This past summer I was treated to viewing one of those baseball donnybrooks in
which managers and players are freely tossed out of the game. It came on a play that you
would not think should be the cause of such consternation: a home run over the
centerfield wall. It seems things were a bit complicated in this minor league park. In
order for it to be a home run, the ball had to clear a yellow line where the flat level of an
outdoor restaurant met the wall of the ballpark. This was all made a lot more difficult by
the fact that one umpire called it a home run only to have the head umpire call it all back.
It also struck me as interesting that the dispute broke out even though the umpires and
managers met at the beginning to go over the ground rules of the game and of the
grounds of this particular park. The game only went on after several ejections and it was
evident to all concerned that things would not proceed until all sides agreed at least that
the head umpire's ruling was final, which is also one of the ground rules of the game.
As I wondered how it was that we were devoting so much time to this hiatus from the game it dawned on me how like the church was this minor league donnybrook. The rules bear repeating, things do not come back into balance until we recognize who really is in charge, and you never know when a knock-down-drag-out will occur. They will occur; they are likely to occur over something that no one has anticipated. There is nothing that can override the above facts of the game. Like life, baseball is so heavily nuanced that no one can anticipate all the possibilities ahead, knowing the rules will not prove sufficient to cover all eventualities and you will be on your own until order is restored.
In a very real sense, that is how Jesus leaves his disciples following the resurrection. Even before he departs, the disciples have their questions, "So when they had come together, they asked him, 'Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?' " They have their questions but soon they will not have their Jesus to give them direct answers.
The narration of the ascension in the book of Acts focuses on the future mission of the church, while the narration in Luke focuses more on the basis of that mission as found in scripture. In both cases, Jesus is laying the groundwork for when the ground rules come into question.
Paul certainly had his share of disputes and claims and counterclaims in the churches that he wrote and visited. The early church had its share of hardnosed moments. It is very clear that the apostles must function in the new context of having no final arbiter of their disputes. Jesus will leave them in the context of having to work out much on their own. The passage in the letter to the Ephesians, chosen as part of today's lectionary reading, seeks to identify the Jesus who is above every interpretation of the ground rules. No single interpretation can be identified with him. To do so would be like saying that one side or the other in the dispute over the home run had an exclusive franchise on the meaning of baseball. As absurd as that is, how often do various sides in church disputes go after each other, reading each other out of the Christian community?
The texts invite us to consider the ground rules by which we are playing the "game" in our disputes and conflicts. Whom do we expect to restore order? Or do we believe that we have arrived at a uniformity of understanding that will result in such conformity that it will not be necessary for there to be community guided by the Holy Spirit?
Acts 1:1-11
For Luke, it is essential to wait for the Holy Sprit in the life of the church. While it is the key for Luke, it often seems to be relegated to a quick prayer over meetings that include perfunctory references to the idea that we will not act until we understand that what is to be done is pleasing to both us and the Holy Spirit. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. "This," he said, "is what you have heard from me...."
How we understand the work of the Holy Sprit determines what we are waiting for. Do we wait for an ecstatic experience; will the sign of the Spirit's presence be the establishment of a consensus, or will we understand the Spirit's presence to be manifested when everyone is happy and in their comfort zone, or when no one rests easy with things as they are? I suspect that the answer is, "Yes." Each of these expresses some of what the Spirit brings us. Paul puts it this way in the first letter to the Corinthians, "Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit. To another is given gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses."
There are times when the church should be about waiting. Those occasions come in light of the absence of the physical presence as the church waits for him to be present through the gift of the Holy Spirit. How do we know that we should be waiting? I suspect that we should be waiting on the Spirit when it becomes clear in the life of a church that people are neither free nor challenged to exercise their gifts. This is a major block to the flow of the Spirit. The lesson from Acts says that the apostles are to be engaged in mission, "But 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 ends of the earth." It is time to wait in the Spirit if we have become disengaged from the world and our role in it. A church that is floundering in mission or is frustrating the gifts of its members has blocked the Spirit.
In the passage from Acts when the disciples have gathered, a question arises among them. So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" The apostles, with an understandable curiosity that is still part of the Christian experience, want to know just where they are in the unfolding plan of God. Such curiosity is often a frustration to the Spirit and a sign that folks need to wait on the fullness of time when it is appropriate for such matters to be revealed. "He replied, 'It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.' " Needless to say there has been much theological effort thrown into the effort to determine at just what point we are in God's unfolding intention for the world. Yet, such a preoccupation is a frustration to the Spirit. A congregation so invested needs to sit down and reflect on the work of the Spirit in its midst. We are to be obedient to what God intends while not fully capable of understanding unfolding details of the plan of God.
The Acts passage warns against being transfixed by staring at the place where Jesus once was. It reminds me somewhat of any congregation that has been through a church fire. Often congregants will come for days immediately following the fire to the stare at the place where the steeple was, pondering whether the hole in the sky or in their souls will ever be filled again. The angels that appear push the apostles to move beyond staring off into the sky to the realization that Jesus will return again.
Many congregations in the mainline tradition seem to be staring off into the place where Jesus and they once were after the spiritual fire that many of them had experienced in previous years. The promise is that after the fire, Jesus will return. He may not return in the manner that we had previously experienced, as if his work was more to restore the past than lead us into the future. However, he will return with the same redemptive intention, "This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven." If you find yourself staring off into heaven, it is time to gather and wait on the Spirit who has more in store.
Ephesians 1:15-23
The letter reflects a close relationship between the writer and the people. "I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers." These are clearly folks with whom the letter writer has a close relationship and a deep affection. Sometimes it is very hard to pray for those with whom we are the closest. We are often afraid that as they grow and develop that for one reason or the other we will lose the close relationship. A spirit of wisdom and knowledge may leave those who are closest to us in disagreement with us or ahead us of us in a way that they do not need us.
So what then should we pray for those who are particularly close to us? "I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him." We do get very close to each other in church life and sometimes too close as we experience each others' foibles and are tempted to take each other for granted. Praying for each other becomes essential as the community of faith waits for the return of Jesus. It is one of the ground rules for Paul as he reminds his readers in several of his letters that he is praying for them. "I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers" (Ephesians 1:15-16).
The readers of the letter to the Ephesians, by virtue of the example of the letter writer, are clearly urged to keep one another in their prayers. However, the reader is urged to offer a specific prayer. The author prays for the Ephesians that they be given a spirit of wisdom and revelation as they come to know Jesus. The prayer asks for a spirit that will give wisdom over human affairs as it anticipates the revelation of things that are hidden. Despite the nearly 2,000 years that have passed since the writing of this letter many churches find that, as they await the return of Jesus, they are in about the same place as were the Ephesians. As the "emerging church" comes into view what will be the practical consequences for "old first" mainline on the town square? How will the emerging church affect the use, renovation, or location of the church building? What will be the implications for church structure and organization? What will be the impact on those who were born into one form of church and who will now live out their days in a church context far different from the one they were born into?
Wisdom and revelation go hand in hand. One of the ground rules is to never separate the two. Without being attuned to the things that God is revealing, much of what we do in church feels like a desperate scheme to save ourselves from declining numbers and resources. On the other hand, there is nothing worse than the leader of the new wave of things who has no appreciation in human terms of what they are proposing.
When these two are held together, "... that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints." But separate the two and things are either hopelessly boring or depressingly impractical.
The Ephesians are reminded that if the spirit of wisdom and revelation are held together they will understand the result as being the working of the immeasurable power of God. The holding together of these two dimensions has carried the church up until now and will carry it into the immeasurable future until Christ returns.
Luke 24:44-53
Once again, Jesus directs his disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait until they are "clothed with power from on high." No doubt we are a bit uncomfortable with what appears to be a senseless repetition of the scene recounted in the book of Acts. It certainly does not meet our standard for effective writing. Of course, by this standard much of scripture does not meet the standard of effective writing. Time and time again we are walked through the same territory as the stories are retold with different emphasis and through different voices.
In this context, Jesus says to the disciples, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you -- that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." Jesus is the extension of the witness of the Hebrew Testament. No doubt, there were times for the early church when the waters did not part and it seemed that they were so far from the promised land that it was hard to believe that they were living out God's intention, which was rooted in the Hebrew story. As they faced the interim time between the ascension and Jesus' return it must have seemed hard to believe that. I suspect as we live in the interim time it is hard to believe it when the church seems so weak and vulnerable. Part of Jesus' teaching is to remind the disciples that he, too, has gone through a time of weakness and vulnerability, "Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, 'Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day.' "
The Holy Sprit is bestowed on those who must live through this time. The end product, as it were, is that the disciples can bless God even in the time of Jesus' absence. Living in this time, we must come to terms with what the Spirit promotes and pushes for as well as what it does not provide for. A sermonic illustration from my context literally as an interim pastor puts it this way, "I have known a class of people over the years that never seems to be able to settle on a church. They always seem to be searching for the perfect church where 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, everyone agrees on everything and there is perpetual conflict-free harmony. Such an approach leads to a few years here and a few years there. Always something seems to come up that sets them off church hunting once again: the church paints the bathroom the wrong color, the youth group does something wrong, or they pick the wrong minister." I suspect that these are people who are really drowning because they have stood on what they think is the safety of the shore rather than plunging right into the waters of life. Taking the plunge means choosing to make stumbling blocks the stepping-stones. If you are searching for the perfect church, you certainly would have never found it in the Bible. Just read Paul's letters. The question to be asked if looking for a church is, "Does this congregation turn its stumbling blocks (and every congregation has them) into building blocks?" Do the stumbles get turned into prayer, into more open and honest conversation, into the ability to laugh at your self among others? The Holy Sprit will not provide a perfect church but can turn the imperfections to the glory of God and the blessing of its members. No wonder the disciples were continually in the temple praising God.
Application
It is an irony of biblical proportions that Jesus' ascension into heaven results in the establishment of some ground rules as we await his return. There are times when the church must wait on the Spirit. During the interim time, the church must hold together the spirit of wisdom and revelation, and the church must be open to what the Holy Spirit pushes and promotes as it lives with what the Spirit will not provide. I believe that this is true for all churches whatever their denominational background or history for we are dealing here with the one who is "far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church" (Ephesians 1:21-22).
I recall that the official rules of major league baseball say that the game shall commence when the umpire shall yell play. Not ball but play. I rather suspect that we lose our playfulness when we do not know or are not ready to go along with the basic ground rules.
Alternative Application
Luke 24:44-53. One cannot read these texts without having some apocalyptic gestalt. However, much of the misery of the Christian faith has come about as the result of various theories of the end time that not only say that Jesus will return but that predict his every movement. In some ways, the hole in the sky where Jesus was is filled for some by the certainty they believe they have found in their own apocalyptic scheme. Many who have been wounded or put off by such schemes resolve to lay aside any notion of Jesus' return.
This might be the Sunday to give a survey of the various apocalyptic options and their implications. I suspect that one of the strengths of the mainline experience may not be that it has either given lip service to the end time or sought to completely lay it aside. Can we do this and remain faithful in any sense to Luke's understanding as well as the vision of the Christian scripture?
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 47
Reading this psalm, one can almost hear the hip-hop beat. "Clap your hands all you people! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!" Is everyone ready? It's time to dance! It's that deep, loud, bass rhythm that sets off the car alarms as the car cruises down your block. It's that almost primal urge to simply move to the rhythms of joy and wonder. This has the makings of a praise party. It is a time where God's people gather to revel in the sheer joy of claiming their heritage as God's own.
This is worship on a profound level. When the restraints are dropped and the heart is opened to God's transforming power, it is indeed time to clap the hands. When we shed the narrowness of our own viewpoints and embrace the sacred vision of God, the time has come to dance.
Yes, this is worship that is deep. It is an intimate and holy connection. But if it stops here it's only a party. If it doesn't go further than this, it sputters out and tires as surely as the dancers will in half an hour or so.
This worship, this hand-clapping, foot-stomping, shouting out to God is the first step in truly faithful worship. Real worship leads the people out of the sanctuary and into lives of justice and hope. The prophets are clear in this area. Isaiah asks us in chapter 58 about the kind of "fasting" that God wants.
Amos writes,
I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
-- Amos 5:21-24
Yes, let's stomp our feet and shout for joy! Let's join this psalmist in praising God, but please, please, let it not simply stop there.
As I wondered how it was that we were devoting so much time to this hiatus from the game it dawned on me how like the church was this minor league donnybrook. The rules bear repeating, things do not come back into balance until we recognize who really is in charge, and you never know when a knock-down-drag-out will occur. They will occur; they are likely to occur over something that no one has anticipated. There is nothing that can override the above facts of the game. Like life, baseball is so heavily nuanced that no one can anticipate all the possibilities ahead, knowing the rules will not prove sufficient to cover all eventualities and you will be on your own until order is restored.
In a very real sense, that is how Jesus leaves his disciples following the resurrection. Even before he departs, the disciples have their questions, "So when they had come together, they asked him, 'Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?' " They have their questions but soon they will not have their Jesus to give them direct answers.
The narration of the ascension in the book of Acts focuses on the future mission of the church, while the narration in Luke focuses more on the basis of that mission as found in scripture. In both cases, Jesus is laying the groundwork for when the ground rules come into question.
Paul certainly had his share of disputes and claims and counterclaims in the churches that he wrote and visited. The early church had its share of hardnosed moments. It is very clear that the apostles must function in the new context of having no final arbiter of their disputes. Jesus will leave them in the context of having to work out much on their own. The passage in the letter to the Ephesians, chosen as part of today's lectionary reading, seeks to identify the Jesus who is above every interpretation of the ground rules. No single interpretation can be identified with him. To do so would be like saying that one side or the other in the dispute over the home run had an exclusive franchise on the meaning of baseball. As absurd as that is, how often do various sides in church disputes go after each other, reading each other out of the Christian community?
The texts invite us to consider the ground rules by which we are playing the "game" in our disputes and conflicts. Whom do we expect to restore order? Or do we believe that we have arrived at a uniformity of understanding that will result in such conformity that it will not be necessary for there to be community guided by the Holy Spirit?
Acts 1:1-11
For Luke, it is essential to wait for the Holy Sprit in the life of the church. While it is the key for Luke, it often seems to be relegated to a quick prayer over meetings that include perfunctory references to the idea that we will not act until we understand that what is to be done is pleasing to both us and the Holy Spirit. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. "This," he said, "is what you have heard from me...."
How we understand the work of the Holy Sprit determines what we are waiting for. Do we wait for an ecstatic experience; will the sign of the Spirit's presence be the establishment of a consensus, or will we understand the Spirit's presence to be manifested when everyone is happy and in their comfort zone, or when no one rests easy with things as they are? I suspect that the answer is, "Yes." Each of these expresses some of what the Spirit brings us. Paul puts it this way in the first letter to the Corinthians, "Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit. To another is given gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses."
There are times when the church should be about waiting. Those occasions come in light of the absence of the physical presence as the church waits for him to be present through the gift of the Holy Spirit. How do we know that we should be waiting? I suspect that we should be waiting on the Spirit when it becomes clear in the life of a church that people are neither free nor challenged to exercise their gifts. This is a major block to the flow of the Spirit. The lesson from Acts says that the apostles are to be engaged in mission, "But 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 ends of the earth." It is time to wait in the Spirit if we have become disengaged from the world and our role in it. A church that is floundering in mission or is frustrating the gifts of its members has blocked the Spirit.
In the passage from Acts when the disciples have gathered, a question arises among them. So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" The apostles, with an understandable curiosity that is still part of the Christian experience, want to know just where they are in the unfolding plan of God. Such curiosity is often a frustration to the Spirit and a sign that folks need to wait on the fullness of time when it is appropriate for such matters to be revealed. "He replied, 'It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.' " Needless to say there has been much theological effort thrown into the effort to determine at just what point we are in God's unfolding intention for the world. Yet, such a preoccupation is a frustration to the Spirit. A congregation so invested needs to sit down and reflect on the work of the Spirit in its midst. We are to be obedient to what God intends while not fully capable of understanding unfolding details of the plan of God.
The Acts passage warns against being transfixed by staring at the place where Jesus once was. It reminds me somewhat of any congregation that has been through a church fire. Often congregants will come for days immediately following the fire to the stare at the place where the steeple was, pondering whether the hole in the sky or in their souls will ever be filled again. The angels that appear push the apostles to move beyond staring off into the sky to the realization that Jesus will return again.
Many congregations in the mainline tradition seem to be staring off into the place where Jesus and they once were after the spiritual fire that many of them had experienced in previous years. The promise is that after the fire, Jesus will return. He may not return in the manner that we had previously experienced, as if his work was more to restore the past than lead us into the future. However, he will return with the same redemptive intention, "This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven." If you find yourself staring off into heaven, it is time to gather and wait on the Spirit who has more in store.
Ephesians 1:15-23
The letter reflects a close relationship between the writer and the people. "I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers." These are clearly folks with whom the letter writer has a close relationship and a deep affection. Sometimes it is very hard to pray for those with whom we are the closest. We are often afraid that as they grow and develop that for one reason or the other we will lose the close relationship. A spirit of wisdom and knowledge may leave those who are closest to us in disagreement with us or ahead us of us in a way that they do not need us.
So what then should we pray for those who are particularly close to us? "I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him." We do get very close to each other in church life and sometimes too close as we experience each others' foibles and are tempted to take each other for granted. Praying for each other becomes essential as the community of faith waits for the return of Jesus. It is one of the ground rules for Paul as he reminds his readers in several of his letters that he is praying for them. "I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers" (Ephesians 1:15-16).
The readers of the letter to the Ephesians, by virtue of the example of the letter writer, are clearly urged to keep one another in their prayers. However, the reader is urged to offer a specific prayer. The author prays for the Ephesians that they be given a spirit of wisdom and revelation as they come to know Jesus. The prayer asks for a spirit that will give wisdom over human affairs as it anticipates the revelation of things that are hidden. Despite the nearly 2,000 years that have passed since the writing of this letter many churches find that, as they await the return of Jesus, they are in about the same place as were the Ephesians. As the "emerging church" comes into view what will be the practical consequences for "old first" mainline on the town square? How will the emerging church affect the use, renovation, or location of the church building? What will be the implications for church structure and organization? What will be the impact on those who were born into one form of church and who will now live out their days in a church context far different from the one they were born into?
Wisdom and revelation go hand in hand. One of the ground rules is to never separate the two. Without being attuned to the things that God is revealing, much of what we do in church feels like a desperate scheme to save ourselves from declining numbers and resources. On the other hand, there is nothing worse than the leader of the new wave of things who has no appreciation in human terms of what they are proposing.
When these two are held together, "... that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints." But separate the two and things are either hopelessly boring or depressingly impractical.
The Ephesians are reminded that if the spirit of wisdom and revelation are held together they will understand the result as being the working of the immeasurable power of God. The holding together of these two dimensions has carried the church up until now and will carry it into the immeasurable future until Christ returns.
Luke 24:44-53
Once again, Jesus directs his disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait until they are "clothed with power from on high." No doubt we are a bit uncomfortable with what appears to be a senseless repetition of the scene recounted in the book of Acts. It certainly does not meet our standard for effective writing. Of course, by this standard much of scripture does not meet the standard of effective writing. Time and time again we are walked through the same territory as the stories are retold with different emphasis and through different voices.
In this context, Jesus says to the disciples, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you -- that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." Jesus is the extension of the witness of the Hebrew Testament. No doubt, there were times for the early church when the waters did not part and it seemed that they were so far from the promised land that it was hard to believe that they were living out God's intention, which was rooted in the Hebrew story. As they faced the interim time between the ascension and Jesus' return it must have seemed hard to believe that. I suspect as we live in the interim time it is hard to believe it when the church seems so weak and vulnerable. Part of Jesus' teaching is to remind the disciples that he, too, has gone through a time of weakness and vulnerability, "Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, 'Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day.' "
The Holy Sprit is bestowed on those who must live through this time. The end product, as it were, is that the disciples can bless God even in the time of Jesus' absence. Living in this time, we must come to terms with what the Spirit promotes and pushes for as well as what it does not provide for. A sermonic illustration from my context literally as an interim pastor puts it this way, "I have known a class of people over the years that never seems to be able to settle on a church. They always seem to be searching for the perfect church where 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, everyone agrees on everything and there is perpetual conflict-free harmony. Such an approach leads to a few years here and a few years there. Always something seems to come up that sets them off church hunting once again: the church paints the bathroom the wrong color, the youth group does something wrong, or they pick the wrong minister." I suspect that these are people who are really drowning because they have stood on what they think is the safety of the shore rather than plunging right into the waters of life. Taking the plunge means choosing to make stumbling blocks the stepping-stones. If you are searching for the perfect church, you certainly would have never found it in the Bible. Just read Paul's letters. The question to be asked if looking for a church is, "Does this congregation turn its stumbling blocks (and every congregation has them) into building blocks?" Do the stumbles get turned into prayer, into more open and honest conversation, into the ability to laugh at your self among others? The Holy Sprit will not provide a perfect church but can turn the imperfections to the glory of God and the blessing of its members. No wonder the disciples were continually in the temple praising God.
Application
It is an irony of biblical proportions that Jesus' ascension into heaven results in the establishment of some ground rules as we await his return. There are times when the church must wait on the Spirit. During the interim time, the church must hold together the spirit of wisdom and revelation, and the church must be open to what the Holy Spirit pushes and promotes as it lives with what the Spirit will not provide. I believe that this is true for all churches whatever their denominational background or history for we are dealing here with the one who is "far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church" (Ephesians 1:21-22).
I recall that the official rules of major league baseball say that the game shall commence when the umpire shall yell play. Not ball but play. I rather suspect that we lose our playfulness when we do not know or are not ready to go along with the basic ground rules.
Alternative Application
Luke 24:44-53. One cannot read these texts without having some apocalyptic gestalt. However, much of the misery of the Christian faith has come about as the result of various theories of the end time that not only say that Jesus will return but that predict his every movement. In some ways, the hole in the sky where Jesus was is filled for some by the certainty they believe they have found in their own apocalyptic scheme. Many who have been wounded or put off by such schemes resolve to lay aside any notion of Jesus' return.
This might be the Sunday to give a survey of the various apocalyptic options and their implications. I suspect that one of the strengths of the mainline experience may not be that it has either given lip service to the end time or sought to completely lay it aside. Can we do this and remain faithful in any sense to Luke's understanding as well as the vision of the Christian scripture?
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 47
Reading this psalm, one can almost hear the hip-hop beat. "Clap your hands all you people! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!" Is everyone ready? It's time to dance! It's that deep, loud, bass rhythm that sets off the car alarms as the car cruises down your block. It's that almost primal urge to simply move to the rhythms of joy and wonder. This has the makings of a praise party. It is a time where God's people gather to revel in the sheer joy of claiming their heritage as God's own.
This is worship on a profound level. When the restraints are dropped and the heart is opened to God's transforming power, it is indeed time to clap the hands. When we shed the narrowness of our own viewpoints and embrace the sacred vision of God, the time has come to dance.
Yes, this is worship that is deep. It is an intimate and holy connection. But if it stops here it's only a party. If it doesn't go further than this, it sputters out and tires as surely as the dancers will in half an hour or so.
This worship, this hand-clapping, foot-stomping, shouting out to God is the first step in truly faithful worship. Real worship leads the people out of the sanctuary and into lives of justice and hope. The prophets are clear in this area. Isaiah asks us in chapter 58 about the kind of "fasting" that God wants.
Amos writes,
I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
-- Amos 5:21-24
Yes, let's stomp our feet and shout for joy! Let's join this psalmist in praising God, but please, please, let it not simply stop there.
