No Earthly Good

Today is The Ascension of the Lord, a feast day I was totally unaware of for much of my life.  (I barely knew about Advent and Lent as a child in a small, Southern, Presbyterian church.)  The reading from Acts for this day naturally features Jesus' ascension into heaven.  This occurs after he has instructed the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit.  When that happened, they would be his witnesses to all the earth.

And then Jesus elevators up into the clouds, leaving the disciples standing there, staring up at the sky.  I can only imagine that their mouths were hanging open and they looked incredibly stunned and confused.  In my imagination this must have gone on for a long time.  That explains the appearance of "two men in white robes."  These men or angels presumably show up both to end the heavenly gawking and to let the reader know something important.  They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

As a Southerner, I am rather fond of the comedy routines of the now deceased Jerry Clower.  If you're not Southern he is an acquired taste, but his stories of rural life in Mississippi are hilarious.  He was also a Southern Baptist who was very serious about his faith, a faith was also quite nuanced and exhibited a great deal of self-reflection.

I know Clower from his recordings, but I have a book of his that was given to me, a gift from my brother if I recall.  The book is a mix of his stories along with reflections and thoughts.  In one chapter, he recalls being taken to task by fellow Baptists for working in a nightclub that served alcohol. (That it was for an AA Convention had apparently escaped them.)  The title of the chapter is "Some People are so Heavenly Minded, They Ain't No Earthly Good."

I think Clower's title might be a very loose paraphrase of what the men in white robes tell those disciples staring up at the sky.  Jesus will return when he returns, they say.  In the meantime, your work is here, on earth.

One of the great failings of the Christian Church was losing sight of this.  All too often, we have acted like the work of the Church was getting people to heaven (or at least failed to correct this idea).  But Jesus says nothing of the sort to his followers.  They are to be his witnesses, to continue his work so that all the world experiences his healing and hope, his call to a new way of life, his dream of a world where God's will is done. 

Followers of Jesus, why do you dream of heaven?  You have earthly good you are called to do.

Click to learn more about the Daily Lectionary as well as the Revised Common Lectionary readings for Sundays and feast days such as today.