With Open Minds
Luke 24:44-53, Acts 1:1-11
Rev. Randy Quinn
According to Luke, Jesus
made several appearances after Easter before ascending into heaven 40
days later (Acts 1:3). We’re celebrating Ascension Sunday because
it’s been 40 days since Easter. (For those who do the math, Ascension
Day was actually on Thursday of this week.) And next week is
Pentecost, when we will mark the 50th Day since Easter –
the end of a “week of weeks,” or as the Hebrew holiday is often
called, the Festival of Weeks.
But Luke chooses to both
close his Gospel and to open his sequel with the story of the
Ascension. And that has been puzzling me all week. Why this story?
Why end the Gospel here? And why repeat the story in the opening
chapter of his next book?
So I went back to
re-read the beginning of Luke. And I found it curious that the first
story he tells is the story of Zechariah entering the temple to pray (Lk.
1:5-13). You remember that story, right? – an angel visits him and
tells him that he will have a son and he is to name him John, the man
we know as John the Baptist.
That means Luke ends the
story where it began – in the temple. In fact, Luke mentions the
temple more often than any of the other Gospel writers! We end at the
same place. It all looks the same, but everything has changed in the
intervening three or four years.
Time has a way of doing
that doesn’t it? But we don’t normally notice the effects of time
unless we step back and reflect, until we open our eyes to see the
larger story unfolding. We do that with birthday celebrations and
class reunions – especially those that end with a “zero.”
But sometimes it isn’t
the passage of time that changes our perspective as much as it is the
addition of new information, new data, or new evidence. It’s like we
receive the final piece of a puzzle and it suddenly makes sense.
Fictional “whodunits,” as well as real life investigators, spend their
time looking for these lost pieces of information that open our minds
to see the picture more clearly.
I stayed up late too
many nights this week because I was engrossed in a book that kept
unveiling new pieces of information. I wanted to know how the story
would end; I wanted to know how the pieces of the puzzle finally give
insight to the actions of the characters in the story.
I was looking for that
last piece of insight.
How many of you are
familiar with the TED Conferences? TED, (which is an acronym for
Technology, Entertainment, and Design), is an invitation-only event
for key leaders in business, science, and academia. They invite
speakers from a wide range of expertise to provoke thoughts and
discussions. The TED conferences began in 1984; and many of the
presentations are now posted on the internet for a wider audience to
enjoy.
This past March, one of
their speakers was Kathryn Schulz, who talked about the power and
importance of being wrong.
She is a self-proclaimed “wrong-ologist.” She begins her talk by
telling of a road trip she and her friend took when she was in
college. She was a city person who was traveling across the country
for the first time. At one point she asked her friend about the signs
with Chinese characters on them.
She felt foolish
asking the question after she found out what it was – but at the time,
she thought she was right.
Thinking you are right
when you are shown to be wrong, she says, leads to an emotional
quandary that often keeps us from learning the truth, unless we begin
to value the idea that we might be wrong.
The Disciples, like
their contemporaries, had been hoping for a King to restore the throne
of David. They had been hoping God would send someone to conquer the
Romans and claim their rightful place in history. They based their
hope on the scriptures they read each week, stories of promises God
had made to the people of Israel for hundreds, if not thousands of
years. They went to the temple and prayed for a redeemer to come and
fulfill their hopes and dreams.
Like Kathryn Schulz,
they thought they were right.
When Jesus first
appeared, many of his followers thought he was the man God had sent to
fulfill the scripture. They followed him into Jerusalem on Palm
Sunday, expecting a confrontation with Rome. But the week ended in
his death. To them, it was a failed dream. Even when Jesus returned
from the dead, they weren’t sure what that meant because he didn’t
come brandishing his sword and beheading Pilate.
It was contrary to what
they had been hoping for; and it was contradictory to the way they had
read the scriptures. So, many of them refused to believe the story
was true. (It’s interesting how often we discount the evidence rather
than change our mind about things when the last piece of data is
revealed.)
They didn’t want to
admit they were wrong because they were so certain they had been
right. But then, Luke tells us, Jesus opened their minds (Lk.
24:45). He showed them other scriptures, passages they had overlooked
before. He put a different road sign out for them; he used a
different map of the future and invited them to see something they had
missed before.
40 days ago we were
celebrating Easter. And 40 days before that, we were telling the
story of the Transfiguration (Lk. 9:28-36). These two stories, the
transfiguration and ascension, serve like book-ends or mile-markers on
either side of Easter, giving us a time and a place to reflect on the
meaning of Easter and finding an appropriate response.
In the earlier story,
Moses and Elijah speak to Jesus (Lk. 9:30). Now Jesus tells us that
Moses and Elijah will speak to us through the pages of scripture (Lk.
24:44). When we read the scriptures with Easter eyes, we will see
that the resurrection was a fulfillment of God’s plan.
And in response to this
new understanding of scripture, Luke tells us that the people return
to the temple to bless God (Lk. 24:53). They go back to the beginning
of the story – only now they are changed. They no longer pray for an
overthrow of the Roman oppressors, but instead pray for renewed
hearts, hearts filled with joy. They wait for power to fall on them
so they can proclaim the story of salvation to the world.
The Book of Acts, by the
way, doesn’t end in Jerusalem, where it begins. Instead, Luke ends
the story in Rome, where we find Paul “proclaiming the kingdom of God
and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without
hindrance” (Acts 28:31).
The story has indeed
changed. So has Paul. So has Peter.
They thought they were
right. It turns out they only saw part of the picture. They had to
repent; they had to change the way they understood both the scriptures
and their lives in order to live as faithful followers of Jesus.
And that got me to
wondering. When do I think I have it right? Could it be that I’m
only seeing part of the picture, too? Of what things do I need to
repent?
Repentance is a word we
use to talk about turning around or changing our lives. It’s often
used as if it were a one-time expression. I was walking south; now
I’m walking north. I have repented. We often refer to repentance in
the context of wrongdoing; rarely do we think in terms of wrong
thinking.
But repentance is really
a mindset that allows us to see the sin in our lives and change – not
once but continually. It is to see the places where we have acted
wrongly and find new ways to act. It is also to see the times when we
have spoken what we thought was true and learned it was not.
Repentance is to stand back and read the scriptures with open minds
about what God might be saying today rather than relying on what we’ve
always thought God was saying in the past.
It’s a scary way to
live. But that’s what it means to be an Easter people.
It’s like the bumper
sticker I read decades ago that said, “Brains are like umbrellas.
They work better when they’re open.”
[Take umbrella off the
altar and open it.]
I know there is a
tension that exists between listening to the voice of God in times of
change and standing firm when change is proposed. We like to think
we’re right, so we don’t need to change our minds. But the Disciples
thought they were right, too. Throughout the scriptures, there are
stories of people who thought they were right – so they refused to
listen to the voice of God.
In my daily Bible
reading this week, I read again how the people of Israel refused to
listen to Jeremiah when he told them to stay in Jerusalem (Jer.
43:2). They fled to Egypt because they thought Jeremiah was wrong.
In much the same way, Peter didn’t want to welcome Gentiles into the
community of faith, but God helped him see how he was wrong (Acts
10:34). The church was also reluctant to let Paul be involved in
evangelism, but Barnabas helped them see what God was doing (Acts
13:2).
Not all change is good,
not all change is right. But if we close our minds – [close umbrella]
– God may not be able to speak to us or influence our actions.
Jesus ascends into
heaven. He leaves us with the scriptures that are to be read under
the guidance of the Holy Spirit. My prayer is that our interpretation
of those scriptures as well as our actions and our activities may
always bring glory to God. Amen
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