Why Do you Stand Look up? Luke 24 49-53, Acts 1:1-11 Ascension Day, May 28, 2003 The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi Besides being a trailblazer in the use of special effects, a distinguishing feature of the Star Wars movies was the fact that, unlike most serial movies, they were not released in chronological order. The first of the series that explained the origin of this futuristic world was released much later than the original movie. We experience such a reversed order today. While in reversed order, we heard two accounts written by the same author about the same incident: Jesus' ascension and the immediate few minutes afterwards. As we do each year during the 50 days of Easter and each Ascension Day, we focus on texts that help us transition: transition from Jesus' earthly existence to the passion, transition from the passion to the resurrection, transition from the resurrection to the ascension. And transition from the Ascension to the future. Having several of our parish youth recently graduate from high school and college, I realized the similarities we face in our life's transitions and those of the first apostles. First, all transitions involve preparation, followed by a time stepping out, a time of waiting to see what will happen. For most of us that time of stepping out and waiting is simultaneously exhilarating and stressing. For those of us who can remember our high school and college graduations, we may recall those emotions. As we graduated, we celebrated the symbol of maturity and independence as we also experienced pangs of anxiety as our parents drove away after moving us into our dorm room, or as we looked for and couldn't find employment or started our first day on the job. We had been prepared, and then it was time for departure - for taking that next step in life. And so, in our experience of our liturgical cycle, we are invited to share with the disciples in this angst of Jesus' earthly departure by holy waiting. As with the recent graduates, this time of waiting for God's dynamic future to unfold involves a measure of uncertainty and urgency. What makes it possible to bear is God's past faithfulness to Jesus and being in community. Waiting for God is a community project, an act of solidarity with friends. We come together to learn, to wait upon God, to pray for preparation to witness in Jesus' name by the Spirit's power. Through this we are empowered. That enabling power for which we wait is not doing nothing, nor is it something we can generate or make happen by our own efforts. It is a gift of God, in God's own time and in God's own way. When it comes, it enables us to storm the world with the message of the Gospel. But first we must wait. "Stay where you are. It will come to you." This is not the message we want to hear. We are people who are used to being on the move - going where we wish, hope, and desire to go. But, before you go into the world, you are invited to stay where you are, to come into the loving community of the Body of Christ. Not to do nothing, but to abide. Your are invited to stop looking up. It will come to you soon that it is all right here. When we have waited and have listened we are ready to share Christ with others in the same love in which he has shared himself with us. In waiting we have for a moment "been with God." Are you allowing yourself to be prepared? Are you giving up what needs to be given up? Do you gather on Sundays or at our Thursday healing services to be comforted or are you waiting to be transformed? Are you waiting to be guided into transforming the world? "Why do you stand looking into heaven?" ask two men dressed in white robes. Indeed, why do we stand looking into heaven? Why do we stand looking at that which we should release? And where should we be looking? We are not called to look for the Kingdom, to search the heavens for signs of its arrival, but to step into it here and now with all that we are, all that we say, and all that we do.