We Worship God Not an Emperor
Good morning, Church! It’s been six weeks since Easter day. Next Sunday is Pentecost. Between these celebratory feasts, we commemorate the Ascension of Christ Jesus, so familiar to us from the Nicene Creed: “He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.” And yet, and yet…we often treat the feast as if it were the neglected stepchild of the liturgical year. Frankly, that’s a theological tragedy, for without Jesus’s ascension the biblical story lacks closure.
Just like the disciples, we try to comprehend how this flesh-and-blood man who stands on the other side of death can return to provide a 40-day tutorial on the kingdom of God before being mysteriously consumed by a cloud and beamed heavenward. Talk about closure! When it’s all over, the disciples are left slack-jawed and gaping at an empty sky. Where in the cosmos did Jesus go? And what does his departure mean for the disciples, and for us?
Allow me to share some wisdom from a few theological heavyweights. The philosopher Stephen Davis puts it this way: “I do not believe that in the Ascension Jesus went up, kept going until he achieved escape velocity from the earth, and then kept moving until he got to heaven, as if heaven were located somewhere in space.” The Episcopal priest and writer Fleming Rutledge espouses a similar definition: “The meaning of Ascension Day is not that Jesus went up into the clouds as though a puppeteer on high had jerked a string. The meaning of Ascension Day is that Jesus the Son of God reigns and is enthroned over all things.” And the biblical scholar N.T. Wright says that, quote, “The early Christians, like their Jewish contemporaries, saw heaven and earth as the overlapping and interlocking spheres of God’s good creation, with the point being that heaven is the control room from which earth is run. To say that Jesus is now in heaven is to say that he is present with his people everywhere, no longer confined to one space-time location within earth, but certainly not absent.” End quote.
I like to think of the ascension of Jesus as a change of state rather than a change of location—he establishes his presence through his absence. In other words, Jesus went from being present in the realm of space and time to being present in the realm of eternity. Celebrating the moment when the Prince of Peace ascended to his throne in heaven is a theological affirmation—not a cosmological observation.
What I find curious and somewhat unsettling is the timing. We know that in his stead Jesus promised an advocate, comforter and helper to guide his followers to a new community. And we know that the bringer of Truth that he promises is none other than the differentiated third person of the Trinity—the one and only Holy Spirit. That’s great news, all of it. The thing is, she doesn’t arrive until next week. And a lot can happen in a week!
I am always interested in the time between the pendulum swings of a clock—the time between the “tick” and the “tock,” however infinitesimal and absurd that might seem. But that’s where we are now. The already, the not-yet. The in-between time that is not linear chronos time measured by seconds and minutes but Kairos—God’s time—when eternity intersects with human time. Kairos often signals a moment in history that calls for a decisive, trustworthy response of faith.
This is that time.
The book of Acts takes place in empire—the Roman Empire. This is not a fact we can ignore. The goal of the Roman Empire was to shape the world in its own image. This has always been the ambition of empire. A diversity of beliefs is allowed only as long as it is not a threat to the empire—and especially to the divinity of its emperor1.
In the sixth verse of our Acts reading, the disciples raise an understandable, but misguided question related to empire: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” You see, they want answers about their immediate future. They still imagine that Jesus is king for their particular moment. It’s understandable because they have witnessed Jesus’ power over death; how he overcame violence and how all power now resides in his hands. So why can’t he do something to remove the yoke from their necks?
The problem is that they’re asking a “nationalist” question: When will we rule our land? When will we become self-determining? When will we be able to impose our will and power on others, if that is what is needed? The nationalism suggested here is not a historical nationalism bound to the autonomy of Israel, but the deeply human desire of every people to control their destiny, to live in peace and prosperity. Jesus does possess the power, and the reign of biblical Israel will be restored—but not in the way the disciples are talking about.
The Acts of the Apostles is about a God whose weapon of choice is the divine desire placed in us by the Holy Spirit. This desire has the power to transcend centuries of animosity, hatred and segregation. It seeks to show the love that God holds for all peoples. It is a love that pierces borders and boundaries, that reaches into every clan, every tribe, every family. It is a love that cannot be owned or contained by any nation.
This is why Christian nationalism for us modern Christians is the first idolatry, because it places the worship of nation alongside—and even above—the worship of God. It conflates patriotism and faith. It seeks to bind God to our nation first and foremost, as if God is into “exclusivity,” or subject to American trademark law. It holds that one must be a patriotic American in order to be a good Christian—and, more insidiously, that only a devout Christian can be a good American. Recently, our political leaders have supercharged the link between patriotism and faith by invoking the imagery and iconography of holy wars and end-times—all to rally the American public to a war about which many are deeply skeptical.
This is just one reason why the administration’s prayer service, Rededicate 250, happening on our National Mall this very morning, is problematic. Its speakers do not reflect our nation’s diverse religious landscape, and by all appearances, the speaker line-up seeks to advance Christian nationalist doctrine over religious freedom. The lines between church and state are blurred here—we have to ask ourselves as Christians if we want our government determining how and what we should worship. This very notion flies in the face of our own mission: To be a House of Prayer for all people.
Friends, perhaps the most important reason why nationalism for us modern Christians is an idolatry, is that worshipping a nation almost always entails the worship of its leaders as well. This kind of zealotry can obscure simple theological truths—that our faith tradition holds that no human is infallible or worthy of worship. That no politician comes clothed in divine purpose and authority. And no politician’s political and legal trials can be compared to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Bible makes this clear: “You shall have no other Gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol (Exodus 20:2-3). This includes the prohibition of prostrating oneself before golden calves, whether they be statues or arches.
Many of us, like the disciples, wonder, “Is this the time when God will restore the kingdom to Israel?” What better time for God to come in glory and make the world whole and upright again? To reassert God’s love and care for the poor? To descend from the throne from which he rules the universe to forgive the unforgivable, fill hungry stomachs, confront the pretensions of the powerful, heal the sick, raise the dead, and lay down his life for the deserving and undeserving alike?
We also know at the depth of our very being, what it is like to live the in-between times—culturally, politically and personally—time in which our lives feel like a difficult passage from one world to the next. This is why Jesus’ answer, in this moment immediately before the Ascension, couldn’t be more cautionary. “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority” (Acts 1:7). What I hear Jesus saying to the disciples and by extension to us is, “You can’t know this because your perspective is too small. You will never be able to comprehend or predict the course of humanity.”
And when I think about how profoundly our understanding of time and space and the infinity of the cosmos has changed since Jesus spoke these words, I realize even more how infinitesimal our human experience is. But this is exactly why we are now called to a decisive response of faith. We must place our trust in God. And we must wait for the Holy Spirit to spread the body of Jesus over space and time, opening his life as a new home for the faith of Israel and for us. This is Pentecost, my friends.
And like the disciples, we are given a mission, “…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.”
Again, we are reminded that we are not left in an in-between world without spiritual power and purpose. This is the time to turn from ourselves toward others, living and ministering beyond ourselves in the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus returned in the flesh and stayed for 40 days to make sure we understood how to usher in God’s kingdom: we preach good news to the poor, and we pray for the release of captives, for the gift of sight to the blind, for no less than the saving of our souls. Amen.
1Willie James Jennings, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible ACTS, Westminster John Know Press, 2017, p. 5 This commentary was critical to developing the theological justification for the idolatry of nationalism.