Ascension Day
"until the day in which he was taken up, he spoke of the things, pertaining to the kingdom..." Acts 1.3
So the man rushes to stop this forlorn figure from throwing himself off Blackfriars Bridge.
'Why are you killing yourself?'
'I've nothing to live for!'
'Don't you believe in God?'
'Yes I do.'
'What a coincidence - so do I! Are you a Jew or a Christian?'
'A Christian.'
'What a coincidence - so am I! Are you a Protestant or a Catholic?'
'A Protestant.'
'What a coincidence - so am I! Anglican or Baptist?'
'Baptist.'
'What a coincidence - so am I! Strict & Particular or General?'
'Strict & Particular.'
'What a coincidence - so am I! Premillennial or Amillennial?'
'Premillennial.'
'What a coincidence - so am I! Partial Rapture or full Rapture?'
'Partial Rapture.'
'Die heretic!'
Christians disagree and fall out about nearly anything and everything. Although to be fair, this could be said about any group of people who hold strong religious, political or philosophical views.
It is part of the process by which fallible human beings come to hold some common group identity. A key part of this process is the way in which we handle the differences, and the degree to which we demand conformity. Like cliffs, the real dangers come at the edges.
The history of Christianity over 2000 years, running parallel to the development of the modern democracy, has demonstrated a growing degree of inclusiveness in handling differences, and a lessening concentration on exclusiveness.
Fundamentalists regard this as the rottenness at the heart of liberal Christianity. They think that General Synod will soon be including the Devil in the Holy Trinity so as not to make the Satanists feel excluded.
Thoroughgoing liberals interpret any demand for conformity as an affront to the great god of individual freedom.
There will always be these either/or people, who operate rather like computers. I sit at my keyboard sometimes and with my mathematical background I think, all this is done with the two numbers 0 & 1; or more simply, with 'off' and 'on'. There is an electric current, or there is not. The computer knows nothing of nuances; there are no middle positions; there is no New Labour in the CPU.
The scourge of good theology has often been this cybernetic polarity; the simple either/or which is rarely illuminating, but can at least serve to point us towards the both/and; the media via for which true Anglicanism is both famous and famously mocked.
At the Ascension of our Lord, the disciples fell into two opposing errors:
The Political Error: "Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" (v.6)
Calvin comments scathingly on this enquiry from the disciples: "there are as many errors in this question as words." (And there are 12 words!)
The disciples still thought, after these three years and all the events of Easter, and Christ's teaching during the past 40 days about the kingdom, that he was to establish an earthly Utopia, with himself as Messiah King.
But if anything, the exact opposite was true. Christ came to show the futility of any notions of rule by absolute authority and power. Power always corrupts.
So as long as human nature is flawed - that is until the end of the cosmos - there will be the need for some form of democracy. Democracy, like the police force, only exists because of human sin.
Democracy is the political way in which we recognise the limits and weaknesses of all human institutions, whether in society or in the church. There can be no Theocracy. Jesus did not stay - he left. And the Pope is but a man, fallible like the rest of us.
Frustrating and imperfect as they are, synods and councils are the safest way forward.
For since Christ has ascended, there can be no heaven on earth. Humanity is not perfectible. Nature and human nature will always be 'red in tooth and claw'.
The Pietist Error - "why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" (v.11)
There are those who are so disillusioned with the Big Bad World, and so daunted by its challenges, that they would rather stand gazing into heaven, hoping for a glimpse of the heavenly Jesus, hoping he will come back to establish an earthly kingdom.
They call people to devotion at the expense of action. They look to the 'then', and endure the 'now' - what 'has to be'..
Like the Calvinist who fell down stairs, got up and said 'well that's got that over with!'
Or in our own tradition, sometimes like the early Gnostics, they make heaven so spiritual and earth so carnal, that it ceases to matter how they live here on earth - for only the spiritual counts. Eat, drink and be merry because all the really important stuff is the other side of death.
Whichever way - excessive piety or careless indulgence - it is not the way of Christ. Since he has ascended, there is a better way.
It is the way of the Spirit. The way of the kingdom. The disciples were sent to wait for the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost he is to give them heavenly power for earthly responsibility.
I was reading that little booklet today by Canon Donald Gray about Percy Dearmer (British Museum Religion) - you can tell I have 101 unpalatable tasks to do when I'm reduced to reading tracts about Percy Dearmer.
He was a great Anglo-Catholic activist at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Like FD Maurice, he was one of the rare High Church left-wingers. We remember him most for his hymns such as 'Jesus good above all others', or translations such as 'He who would valiant be...'.
And I was struck by this sentence about Dearmer: "At Oxford the art master's son began to realise that there were social, political and religious implications behind his natural instinct to celebrate beauty." (p.4)
Dearmer struggled to follow the media via between these two extremes - pious beauty and social action - the same root errors which plagued the disciples on the mount of ascension.
So he pursued God through the beauty of Anglo-Catholic liturgy - his Parson's Handbook was a guide for many twentieth century Catholics. And at the same time, he worked for social justice and to establish the kingdom of God on earth - he became a Canon of Westminster Abbey and set up a soup kitchen there.
Christ, our warrior-king, the priest-victim, returns into his own kingdom. He ascends triumphant, leading captivity captive, commanding us to wait with bated breath for the gift of the Spirit, who will save us from error, lead us into all truth and enable us to live on earth as citizens of the eternal kingdom.
We must be pious and political. We must attend to our prayers and attend to the needs of a broken world. Then we will follow our ascended Lord and his kingdom agenda.
"until the day in which he was taken up, he spoke of the things, pertaining to the kingdom..." Acts 1.3
