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H o m i l y G r i t s The Seventh Sunday of Easter: The Sunday after Ascension Day Year B - May 28, 2006 - O God, the King of glory, you have exalted your only Son Jesus Christ with great triumph to your kingdom in heaven: Do not leave us comfortless, but send us your Holy Spirit to strengthen us, and exalt us to that place where our Savior Christ has gone before; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. ¶ Book of Common Prayer Lectionary: Acts 1:15-26 His bishoprick let another take. [episcopé] or Exodus 28:1-4, 9-10, 29-30 You shall make holy garments, for glory and for beauty Psalm 68:1-20 or 47 Exsurgat Deus - Let God arise, and let God's enemies be scattered 1 John 5:9-15 Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. or Acts 1:15-26 as above John 17:11b-19 They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. ____________________________________________________________________________ After a retreat for college students I once helped to tidy up the room where we had met. . Amongst the paper cups and snack wrappers left behind was a T-shirt with a slogan on it. Everything we really want to say to others nowadays can be printed to order on a T-shirt, and this one was no great shock amongst college students. It read simply, in small letters, across the back, "It's better on top". But when I lifted it up to call for its owner to come rescue it, I was at least surprised to see a pretty young woman raise her hand and come forward to claim it. "I'll bet you thought it was my boyfriend's" she saucily said. And I'm sure I did think so. The traditional and inherited ideas of role playing, of who is to be "on top", came to us > from a patriarchal system which always puts someone on top, and someone on the bottom. There's no mistaking it, that where there's a game, there's got to be a winner; where there's a struggle, there's got to be a victor and a loser. The Feast of the Ascension of our Lord is a way of saying liturgically that after Jesus' own battle with oppression, after his struggle for our liberation, Jesus apparently claims the sweat shirt emblazoned, "It's better on top." Or, to sing it more acceptably, "The head that once was crowned with thorns is crowned with glory now, a royal diadem adorns the mighty victor's brow." We suppose that a patriarchal religion cannot help but use such images as Top and Bottom. Although in the Qur'an we find instead a horror that Jesus the Messiah could have suffered a defeat so disgraceful as the cross, and so Surah 3:55, wherein God addresses him: "O Jesus, I am causing you to die and will exalt you to Myself" is interpreted to mean that God rescued him > from this death on the cross and exalted him to heaven by a short circuit. Jesus thus, in his inner will, remains faithful unto death, but the Christian idea that the Cross was also "God's act", within "God's permissive will", is disallowed. The Cross is instead solely Man's act, and happens with Jesus' faithful and willing assent, but it is not God's act nor within His permissive will. For Christians, the Rescue takes place after the murder, but for Muslims God rescues Jesus before they can murder him, and allows him instead an honorable death and exaltation. Surah 4: 157-159 says: "They denied the truth and uttered a monstrous falsehood against Mary. They declared, 'We have put to death the Messiah Jesus the son of Mary, the apostle of Allah'. They did not kill him, nor did they crucify him, but they thought they did.' Those that disagreed about him were in doubt concerning his death, for what they knew about it was sheer conjecture; they were not sure that they had slain him. Allah lifted him up to His presence; He is mighty and wise." (1) So in the Qur'an the Exaltation happens anyway, and with a death, but without the crucifixion. Being vindicated, too, even in Qur'an, means coming out on top. Our religions agree on that. As Joe Kennedy told all his sons, "If the United States is going to have a President, then you'd damn well better be the President." "President" has now become a name for the Empire's top man over Church and State. And till now it has always been MISTER President. But the Ascension analogy at the end of Eastertide is wrongly read if we go from the vindication of Jesus to the triumphalism of the Church, to the outrage of a clergy-dominated Church, like an ayatollah-dominated Ummah (for Islam has no distinction of clergy and laity), and to the sexism of a Church dominated by patriarchal symbols, the classism of a Church dominated by wealth and worldly power. The Ascension then becomes a co-opting of all that Jesus was and is, to shore up a pyramidal class system, with God (always a Patriarch) at the top, Jesus as his "right hand man", his C.E.O., followed down the ladder by Pope, bishops, archdeacons, monsignori, prothonotaries, canons to the ordinary, minor canons, deans, rectors, curates, vestrymen, chief pastors, associate pastors, assistant pastors, --all the way down to the little girl acolyte, second in shift to the little boy acolyte. The better use of the analogy of Ascension, of going up to a Throne, is not that of a promotion within a triumphalist system, but instead the celebration of Jesus' vindication by God, over such a system. The earliest creedal testimony to this is that God raised Jesus, not that Jesus raised himself, like an autogyro, and flew away like a featherless pterodactyl. The Qur'an in its way is thus a testimony to this Act of God in exalting the Messiah and is thus a Win/Win gospel, and not a Win/Lose tale. It is the everlasting vindication of Jesus' life of humble service and of friendship--solidarity unto death--which is held up and to be proclaimed in Eastertide. What we humans, of whatever religion, have to show the universe as it unrolls, is Jesus, our brother Human Being In a churchfull of Black, or Gay and Lesbian, Latin American or any working class people, one may safely assume that some of the group have also been in a court-room; somewhere besides the Bench. . The word "court-room" comes from the fact that the King or Queen of England moved about the realm in a circuit with the royal court, to hear and decide local disputes. There is always one important chair in a court room, and it as close to a throne as most of us may ever get to see, outside our own bathrooms, where another type of chair is slanged as "throne," for the important office it has. The rubrics of the current Roman Catholic ritual say that the priest's chair at the eucharist must be one that "avoids all appearance of a throne" and that isn't directed at plumbing. The judge's chair in a court room remains a surrogate throne, and everyone is bidden to stand when Judge enters in robe (and wigs, in England and her cultural colonies) and ascends the Seat from which justice is dispensed. The analogy that is to be held before us on Ascension Day is the aspect of Eastertide that we elevate today: Jesus goes up to the bench to preside at the trial of human history. He becomes thereby the Lord, that is to say, the Judge of human history. In the Ascension, Jesus escapes > from history--from what humanity did to him--so that history, and humanity, may not escape from him. He has put on the robes of Judge, as the ancient Church put it, the robes of Emperor, he is now the carpenter and teacher become Pantokrator. From now on it is his life, his life-style, that sits in judgment of us all, and his teaching and healing that are available to everyone for new life. Even the Church of Rome and the Church of Constantinople have admitted the history of their discrimination against women, 'though not so far as to change their ways and admit women to the fullness of ministry. The first reading from Exodus comes from a long time ago: Yahweh says to Moses: "Get your brother and his sons to serve me as priests." This post-exilic text, written long after an entrenched Aaronic priesthood had found several other priesthoods "invalid", as Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and some Anglicans still like to do, this after-the-fact fabricated story even describes the fabric and cut of the vestments and church hats and jewelry to be worn by the clergy, and outlines the patriarchal order in which the names of the tribes of Israel are to be etched in the jewels worn by the priests when they go to work. We see it in the homily which Peter preaches in the Acts: the early church's record of what it claimed went on in the Ten Days between the Ascension Day and Pentecost: Ten Days That Shook the World, we might call them. John Reed used that title for his book about the Russian Revolution, when the Bolsheviks stole the Revolution and changed its direction towards Leninism and inevitably Stalinism, betraying both Karl Marx and socialism. Something similar happened in the days between Ascension and Pentecost. Luke tells us the way by which a successor was chosen to replace "Judas" the traitor. The rules for the choosing are given: it must be someone who has been with the Jesus Movement from the time of John the Baptist until the present time, that is, one who has witnessed the Resurrection. Now in spite of the fact that he's talking to about 120 people (enough to legally organize a town) and that Paul says in one place I Cor 15.6) that about five hundred people had witnessed the Resurrection, perhaps they didn't fulfill the first requirement, that they'd been around from the Baptist's time. Well, we know that there had been a lot of women around: Luke tells us they had come up with Jesus from Galilee, had financially supported the movement since its beginning. We know that the first Apostles of the resurrection were women: "Now when Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene,." Mark tells us. "She went out and told those who had been with him." Something happened then, and the Jesus revolution was betrayed early on. The boys-in-charge arrangement of Moses & Aaron, with their hereditary priesthood, with the names of the males engraved on the jewels of the breastplates, had slipped back reorganized and extended. Jesus chose Mary as his first Apostle, one who indeed was not believed by the males, who had deserted him (except for John his beloved who stayed with the women at the Cross.) It's a long way from Mary Magdalene as First Witness at the Tomb to Peter as First Pope in Rome. It's probably closer to three hundred years of struggle in the life of the post-apostolic church before women are again given subordination, whereas Jesus had given them ordination. Our lectionary tells it all however in one short reading from the Acts of the Apostles: "Ten Days That Stole a Revolution." The Acts tells us that Judas betrayed the revolution, although his gnostic gospel claims not so, and Acts also tells us how the male apostles stole the revolution, from the Jesus of Nazareth who was Jesus the Feminist, Jesus the Friend of all the Oppressed. It tells us how the leadership of the church changed from that of apostles, witnesses, prophets, to that of overseers and presbuteroi (old men) and cleros. The Urim and Thummin mentioned in Exodus as apparel of the high priest, and the lots cast by the brethren to chose a successor to Judas are alike in that they were ancient ways of making decisions. Choose alternatives, name them, and then cast dice to get a Yes or No. The ancients thought of it as a way of being fair and just. But it's playing with a stacked deck, for you limit options beforehand. The Greek word for the lots cast is cleros, > from which we get our word clergy. Jesus didn't choose any clergy, clergymen or clergywomen or clergymammals. He chose witnesses, and apostles, and named his disciples "friends". The church's various games of chance to choose leadership have been a messy way of avoiding the Resurrection Revolution. Even from the beginning there was however some understanding that leadership should be representative, and even Aaron's sons had to carry the names of all the tribes into the Holy Place, emblazoned on their sweatshirts. . The Church's ministry was from the beginning based on the community, a "base" of discipleship, of self-help, of self-government, and the 120 were the Town Meeting. It was not indeed hierarchical, and the twelve were to be founders of a revolutionary new community, directed by the immediate presence of the risen Jesus. Luke's story of Pentecost quotes the prophet Joel, "In the days to come I will pour out my spirit on all humankind: their sons and daughters shall prophesy. . . even on my slaves, men and women, in those days, I will pour out my Spirit." Jesus prayed that his flock would not be organized the way the world, the cosmos, is organized, against God, in pecking orders and ranks and files. The time between Ascension and Pentecost was the only epoch when the Church was without the guidance of Jesus himself or the guidance of the Spirit bestowed on the Church at Pentecost. It can stand for the time of the counter-revolution, when the all male cabal reasserted its hegemony over the church, dismissed the witness of Mary Magdalene and short-sheeted or short-shrifted the liberationist gospel of Jesus and Mary. Verses 12 to 14 of the first chapter of Acts precede the lection today, which begins at verse 15. The omitted verses tell of the Sabbath day's walk from Olivet to Jerusalem, of the return to the cenacle where the countryfolk lodged in Jerusalem: "All these joined in continuous prayer, together with several women, including Mary the Mother of Jesus, and with his brothers." Jesus'own Mother, along with the Magdalene, certainly fit the requirement of apostles: those who had been with Jesus > from the beginning and had been with him up to his vindication. But all of that was forgotten until our own era, when the Spirit moves powerfully again to pour out prophecy in women and men, to rebuke popes and prelates, to proclaim resurrection to disbelieving disciples and reluctant clergymales and a Church Recumbent. Pentecost is coming soon, and in this gospel Jesus says it's so we may have joy fulfilled in ourselves. the gospel is not grim, it is joyful, it is Gay. Joy is what is to be a mark of the Church--it is to be sure One, and Holy, and Catholic, and Apostolic, but none of that matters if it's not Joyfiul. "God has gone up with a merry noise" the Psalmist says. The Ascension is the everlasting vindication of the life and ministry of Jesus and of all the prophets of God, including the vindication of all the truth of God, everywhere, the exaltation of all that is redemptive everywhere in the galaxies, as Alice Meynell wrote, in "Christ in the Universe": (this is one of my favorite of all poems) With this ambiguous earth His dealings have ben told us. These abide: The signal to a maid, the human birth, The lesson, and the young Man crucified. But not a star of all The innumerable host of stars has heard How he administered this terrestrial ball, Our race has kept their entrusted Word. Of his earth-visiting feet None knows the secret, cherished, perilous, The terrible, shamefast, frightened, whispered, sweet Heart-shattering secret of His way with us. No planet knows that this Our wayside planet, carrying land and wave, Love and life multiplied, and pain and bliss, Bears, as chief treasure, one forsaken grave. Nor, in our little day May His devices with the heavens be guessed, His pilgrimage to thread the Milky Way, Or his bestowals there be manifest. But in the eternities, Doubtless we shall compare together, hear A million alien Gospels, in what guise He trod the Pleiades, the Lyre, the Bear. Oh, be prepared my soul! To read the inconceivable, to scan The million forms of God those stars unroll When, in our turn, we show to them a Man. (2) GRANT GALLUP Apartado RP-10 CASA AVE MARIA Managua, Nicaragua C.A. Tel. 011-505-2662165 grant73@turbonett.com.ni GRITS 4th series now on-line: http://newark.rutgers.edu/~lcrew/homilygrits (1) Jesus and the Muslim : An exploration. by Bishop Kenneth Cragg.Oxford: One World Press. 1985. and The Koran, translated with notes by N. J. Dawood, Penguin Books, first published 1956. (2) Prose and Poetry, Alice Meynell., Introduction by Vita. Sackville-West. London: Jonathan Cape 1947. ,
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