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Scripture: Acts 1:6-14 Common English Bible (CEB).
6 As a result, those who had gathered together asked Jesus, “Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now?”
7 Jesus replied, “It isn’t for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 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.”
9 After Jesus said these things, as they were watching, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. 10 While he was going away and as they were staring toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood next to them. 11 They said, “Galileans, why are you standing here, looking toward heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way that you saw him go into heaven.”
12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, which is near Jerusalem—a sabbath day’s journey away. 13 When they entered the city, they went to the upstairs room where they were staying. Peter, John, James, and Andrew; Philip and Thomas; Bartholomew and Matthew; James, Alphaeus’ son; Simon the zealot; and Judas, James’ son— 14 all were united in their devotion to prayer, along with some women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
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One of the first assignments Dr. Earl Babbie gave us in Sociology 101 was to go out among people and do something that went against society’s norms. Something that challenged behavior that was customary. (He also specified that it had to be something that was lawful and would not get us in trouble with the campus police.) While we were doing that anti-social thing, we were to observe the reactions of the people around us. We all came back with stories about people looking at us funny, or moving away from us, or asking why we were doing whatever it was. One of the most popular was to stand in an elevator facing the back. That tends to make people really uncomfortable. They will stand as far away from you as possible. The student who walked around campus picking up trash was asked if he was being punished for some infraction by having to do this. (That was sad!) One student stood in the middle of the Sunken Lawn looking up. It wasn’t long before she had gathered a crowd of other people, also looking up, trying to figure out what she was looking at. A blimp? A plane? Superman? Given our close proximity to Disneyland, it really could have been almost anything. Not to mention our film school. Much strange behavior on campus could be directly attributed to film and theater students. But she was just looking up, acting outside of the norm, to see what would happen. All of us reported some kind of reaction. No one’s anti-social behavior went unnoticed.
The disciples were looking up into the sky at the spot where they had last seen Jesus before he disappeared into the cloud. To a bystander, they were doing this for no apparent reason. They did not have planes or blimps or Disneyland to explain their behavior. Two men in white robes suddenly appeared, asking why they were looking up. Kind of like, “Ok folks, show’s over. Nothing to see here. Move along.” And so they went back to Jerusalem to wait, as Jesus had directed them. Verse 4 tells us that “While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father.” So, having been brought back to earth as it were by these two messengers from God, they went back to Jerusalem, which really wasn’t far from where they were. We are told the Mount of Olives is a Sabbath day’s journey from Jerusalem, or a little under half a mile. A Sabbath day’s journey is the distance Jews were permitted to travel on the Sabbath, as under the Law of Moses travel was considered work. (Exodus 16:27-30). So, close.
So the disciples went back to Jerusalem to wait. They waited in the upper room where they had been staying. And while they waited, they were united in their devotion to prayer - and selected a twelfth disciple, as we discussed last Sunday. You know, I was kind of fascinated by the idea that all of the people named in this passage - eleven disciples, Mary, the mother of Jesus and other women, and Jesus’ brothers - all of them were gathered in an upper room in someone’s house. The houses in Judea and Galilee, in all of Palestine, were quite small by our standards. The roof often doubled as a room, an upper room if you will, a place to gather, eat, even bathe. I was thinking that had to be a pretty big room (or roof) for there to be space for everyone. And then I remembered that we are kind of spoiled by having of lots of space to live in. Whether we live alone, or with a partner or some roommates, or even in a house where three generations live together, we still have a lot more space than many very poor people around the world and even in this country, who might live with three generations in a room or two. The Navajo, for example. Immigrant families such as the Haitian community in Florida. The very poor, including African American and LatinX families in our cities. The one bedroom house next door to where I was living in Fort Pierce, Florida, had at least ten people living there. (And yes, that was against the law, but it was what they could afford, and no one was going to turn them in.) This reality is the primary reason that Covid19 is hitting those communities so hard in our country.
Anyway, the disciples gathered in that space to wait, devoting themselves to prayer. Luke tells us that during this time they were continually in the temple blessing God. (Luke 24:53) They had a lot to wrap their minds around and to pray about while they waited. Jesus, who they had known as a perfectly normal human man, had died, come back from death, and then rose up into the sky before their very eyes - transformed and transfigured, human and divine. They had witnessed impossible things. Jesus had told them they were to be his witnesses - they were to preach the kingdom of God as he did - in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And they had seen what happened to Jesus when he preached these things. They had seen what resulted from his speaking out against the status quo, against the powerful. They knew that they would be challenging the norms of their entire society, going against what everybody else thought and did. Carrying the Good News would make them targets of the establishment just as Jesus had been, just as all the prophets of old had been. The disciples would take on the role of those who historically brought God’s Word to the people - the Word that comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.
It won’t be long before the Holy Spirit comes to them in wind and flame. It won’t be long before they start performing wonders, and healings. It won’t be long before things they preach and teach get the attention of the priests and the Levites - and not in a good way. It won’t be long before Steven becomes the first martyr. It won’t be long before persecution begins, because the powerful do not like it when the powerless speak against them. But they will continue to preach the Good News, to bring freedom to the captive, and healing to the sick at heart. They will go out into their communities to feed the hungry.
In the years to come, both and Peter and Paul will caution the believers to adhere to the laws of the land, (except the ones about worshipping the emperor, of course) to submit to the authority of the established government. And indeed, Jesus himself did nothing to threaten Roman authority. There was that whole “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” thing when the question of paying taxes came up. The things Jesus and his followers preached did, however, threaten the religious authorities of their day. How often did Jesus challenge the religious lawyers, the Pharisees and Sadducees, to pay more attention to the spirit of the Law than the letter of the Law. If someone is ill on the Sabbath, don’t wait until the next day if it is in your power to heal them now. If someone is caught in adultery, let the sinless among you cast the first stone - don’t judge lest you be judged. If people are hungry on the Sabbath, let them be fed. Don’t let the letter of the Law prevent you from loving your neighbor, from reaching out to help the person in need, from doing everything in your power to make life better for the other, even the person you dislike or disagree with. The entirety of the law and the words of the prophets, Jesus said, hang on two commandments: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39)
The disciples praying and waiting in that upper room do not know what lies ahead for them, precisely. But they do know that the road forward will be filled with challenges. We are in a similar situation. We do not know what lies ahead for us, precisely. We know that we have choices to consider and decisions to make. We may want to do what “everybody else” is doing. We may be anxious to return to as close a semblance of what it used to be like as possible. We may be filled with concern for the vulnerable among us. As we go forward, let us do what the disciples did. Look to the ascended Jesus, who now sits at God’s right hand, that we may do as he would have us do. Devote ourselves to prayer and to blessing God. And follow the Law of love, to love God with all our being, and to love the neighbor as we love ourselves.
Amen.
(note: The stained glass window pictured is in my office at First Christian Church in Selma, CA)
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