A Homily – Feast of the Ascension, A Holy Day of Obligation (Year C)

First Reading – Acts 1:1-11 ©

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 46(47):2-3,6-9

Second Reading - Ephesians 1:17-23©

Gospel Acclamation – Matthew 28:19,20

The Gospel According to Luke – 24:46-53 ©

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

 Place yourself into the mindset of the disciples, and following them the authors of the Book of Acts, men and women who cling to the notion of Jesus came to establish a messianic kingdom in Israel. Jesus directs their attention away from Jerusalem to the broader world, a world beyond Palestine and the power of empires…then he left. The disciples taught that they and all of his other followers, that everyone who witnessed the event were filled with a pro-found hope in the expectation of his return…they possessed the vanity of a psalmist.

 Know this.

 It is right to praise God, the creator of the Universe, but it is not right to assume that God favors one people over another, and that God makes one nation the subject of another, that God puts any people under God’s feet, or under the feet of another…the disciples were not given the authority to rule the world, and because they never had it they did not pass it on to those who inherited their work….the church today does not possess it either.

 God, the true God, the God of love and mercy, the God of Jesus shuns war and abhors violence. The Christian God is not king; Jesus imagined God as a understanding parent and a caring friend who mourns for Jacob, is saddened by Israel and grieves for the church.

 Nevertheless, do as the psalmist asks and sing praises to the divine and give thanks for the grace we receive. Praise God, but do not look for God to be seated on a throne in the palace of a walled city; look for God in the garden, find God’s spirit in the face of your neighbor.

 Be mindful.

 If the armies of the world truly belonged to God, God would disband them in an instant, and send all of the soldiers home to their families.

 Remember the life of Jesus, and God; whom he called abba…meaning papa.

 Is God glorious?

 Indeed, God is the creator of the universe, and yet in God’s view the most exalted place to be is in relationship to us, each one of us as children of the divine.

 Therefore, we pray that each and every one of us comes to the full knowledge of God, to love the wayward among us as a parent loves their child.

 There is hope in the knowledge of God, and the hopes we have for ourselves, the hopes we have for those we love are to be extended to everyone, even those we do not love…this is the way.

 If you think that God has promised riches and glories, as the inheritance of the saints, bear in mind that the first will be last and the last will be first, and that spiritual riches are not counted in gold and silver and precious things.

 Understand this.

 There are good intentions in these words from the apostle, but poor execution; God and Jesus are not merely above all other powers in the world. The divine is beyond all such conventions.

 Know this:

 Matthew says that the “Great Commission” grants authority to the group of disciples that survived Jesus’ arrest and execution…this is a piece of propaganda.

 It is likely that the event itself never happened, but the authors of Matthew’s Gospel, writing over one hundred years after Jesus was killed, thought it necessary to establish their authority to speak and act in Jesus’ name (exclusively) into the sacred text.

 This is a con…predicated on a fabricated narrative, which is a problem

 Besides this little detail of foolishness, the message itself is reasonable; it articulates the basic mission of the church, to turn all-people of all-nations into followers of the way, into seekers of justice and servants of truth, people who care for the stranger, the widow and the orphan.

 Consider the Gospel reading for the day:

 It is mythology and metaphor…the message here is not “see, how it is written,” as if these events had been foretold, but see here what I am writing in his name, that Jesus, the anointed one of God (the Christ), has begun the ministry of repentance, which began with his cousin John and is now to spread from Jerusalem to every nation. It is a command: to preach the good news, the forgiveness of sins, the liberation of the captive and the salvation of all people.

 Jesus then encourages his followers to stay in Jerusalem until the time is right, to increase in number and grow in strength…then he was gone. 

First Reading – Acts 1:1-11 ©

Jesus Was Lifted Up While They Looked On

In my earlier work, Theophilus, I dealt with everything Jesus had done and taught from the beginning until the day he gave his instructions to the apostles he had chosen through the Holy Spirit, and was taken up to heaven. He had shown himself alive to them after his Passion by many demonstrations: for forty days he had continued to appear to them and tell them about the kingdom of God. When he had been at table with them, he had told them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for what the Father had promised. ‘It is’ he had said ‘what you have heard me speak about: John baptised with water but you, not many days from now, will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.’

  Now having met together, they asked him, ‘Lord, has the time come? Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He replied, ‘It is not for you to know times or dates that the Father has decided by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be my witnesses not only in Jerusalem but throughout Judaea and Samaria, and indeed to the ends of the earth.’

  As he said this he was lifted up while they looked on, and a cloud took him from their sight. They were still staring into the sky when suddenly two men in white were standing near them and they said, ‘Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky? Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven, this same Jesus will come back in the same way as you have seen him go there.’

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 46(47):2-3,6-9

The Lord is King

Cry to God with shouts of joy.

All nations, clap your hands;

  cry out to God in exultation,

for the Lord, the Most High, is greatly to be feared,

  and King over all the earth.

He has made whole peoples our subjects,

  put nations beneath our feet.

He has chosen our inheritance for us,

  the pride of Jacob, whom he loved.

God ascends amid rejoicing,

  the Lord goes up with trumpet blast.

Sing to God, sing praise.

  Sing to our king, sing praise.

God is king over the whole earth:

  sing to him with all your skill.

God reigns over the nations;

  God sits on his holy throne.

The nobles of the peoples join together

  with the people of the God of Abraham,

for to God belong the armies of the earth;

  he is high above all things.

 

Second Reading - Ephesians 1:17-23 ©

Brothers and sisters:

May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give you a Spirit of wisdom and revelation resulting in knowledge of him.

May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call, what are the riches of glory in his inheritance among the holy ones, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power for us who believe, in accord with the exercise of his great might:

which he worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens, far above every principality, authority, power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come.

And he put all things beneath his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church,

which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.

 

Gospel Acclamation – Matthew 28:19,20

Alleluia, alleluia!

Go, make disciples of all the nations.

I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Luke – 24:46-53

He Withdrew From Them and Was Carried Up Into Heaven

Jesus said to his disciples:

  ‘You see how it is written that the Christ would suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that, in his name, repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses to this.

  ‘And now I am sending down to you what the Father has promised. Stay in the city then, until you are clothed with the power from on high.’

  Then he took them out as far as the outskirts of Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. Now as he blessed them, he withdrew from them and was carried up to heaven. They worshipped him and then went back to Jerusalem full of joy; and they were continually in the Temple praising God.

 

A Homily – Feast of the Ascension, A Holy Day of Obligation (Year C)