A Good Summer Psalm

Text:  Psalm 13:1-6

Theme:  "A Good Summer Psalm"

3rd Sunday after Pentecost

June 29, 2014

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

¹ How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
² How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

³ Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
⁴ and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

⁵ But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.
⁶ I will sing the Lord’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.

In Las Vegas high-rise hotels, the thirteenth floor is missing.   You can't have the thirteenth floor!  Thirteen is thought to be an unlucky number -- and if there's any place where one would hope to be lucky, it would be Las Vegas.  Vegas, of course, is where they gamble -- among other things to do. 

Some would say life itself is a gamble; it's high-risk and high-reward! You never know what any old day will bring, so you best give whatever day you have the best you've got.   There is a school of thought -- an ancient one, really -- which essentially says that we need to go all in.  Don't bother with all that fiddle-faddle about heaven or hell or such touchy subjects like justice or peace.    The God question is really beside the point.  If there is a god at all, then he, she, or it is busy with other fish to fry.  If God was involved with life as we know it, he/she/it is not anymore.   What matters most is that you're having your best life now -- with all the finest skin creams and a Pepsodent smile!  Epicurus, though dead, is yet alive, and Americans are nothing if not Epicurean.   Live life to the full, or, as they say, "eat, drink, and be merry."  While you're at it, do stay away from anything with the number thirteen!  That's bad luck, don't you know?

I didn't pick Psalm number thirteen.  The people that put together the lectionary did.  If you have bad luck today, blame them.  But wait.  I could have avoided Psalm 13, so I guess I deserve partial blame if today's not your lucky day.    But Psalm 13, out of all the readings scheduled for today, seemed to speak the loudest to me.  "Preach me," it seemed to say.

Fortunately, Psalm 13 has nothing to do with luck or the lack of luck.  It has everything to do with faith.  The anonymous psalmist prays:  "But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.  I will sing the Lord's praise, for he has been good to me."  Another translation puts it this way:  "The Lord has dealt bountifully with me."  The psalmist does not prepare to roll the dice.  Instead, the writer is ready to start a gratitude list.  Write down all the ways the Lord has dealt bountifully with me.

This week might be a good one to start that practice.  There was, last week, an article I read -- chock full of statistics -- which made the case that America is becoming a plutocracy.  In other words, we're being ruled by the rich.  While we do whatever we do on any given day, the dissolution of the middle class is picking up speed at an alarming rate.   Meanwhile, in Denton, seemingly oblivious to all of this, we're all being careful not to send text messages while we drive.  Frenchy still bustles around town in his bright orange, Nissan Frontier pick-up.  Gas prices can be lower if you use your Kroger points.  In the little cocoon of daily life, we are, at times, unaware of the larger picture.

A little over a week ago, the Presbyterian Church (USA) met in General Assembly.  They gathered in Detroit.  The theme was "Abound in Hope."  There were overtures, resolutions, discussions, votes rendered, authoritative interpretations given, and decisions made.  Hot topics were the definition of marriage and how the denomination's endowment fund is spent.  Churches were urged to create "gun free" zones.  In the aftermath (as is the case with every general assembly or national church body convention I've ever read about or had anything to do with), there was mixed reaction.  Some were repulsed by the actions taken; others, however, rejoiced. 

There's no word on whether the author of Psalm 13 attended anything like a general assembly.  But there is word on where his trust rested and where his faith was put -- and it wasn't in a general assembly or a national church convention.  "I trust in your UNFAILING LOVE," says the psalmist to God.  "My heart rejoices in YOUR SALVATION."

God's love and God's salvation!  By the way, that love and salvation got dished out in a tiny little Nebraska town a week ago last Sunday.  I speak of the community of Pilger.  You see, while PCUSA commissioners were gathering in Detroit, parts of that town got wiped out by a tornado -- including the Lutheran church. 

But there, on that Sunday following the storm, standing amid the rubble, stood their pastor.  He wore his gown; the green stole was around his neck.  And in the outdoors which used to be the indoors, he distributed the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.  Some were dressed up while other were in shorts, t-shirts, and flip-flops. What they wore didn't matter.  What did matter was that they were on the receiving end of the means of grace.  Nothing -- including tornados or general assemblies -- can stop the Gospel! 

At this point, it must be said that the psalmist is not some dreamy-eyed optimist -- like folks we see who always seem to be breezing through life all chipper and happy.  Whenever I see someone like that, I wonder what it is that really gnaws at them. 

No, the psalmist didn't bury his feelings or take them out with the trash.  Quite to the contrary, if you remember the first four verses, it's clear that he's upset.  The difference is that he's not keeping it to himself.  He's bringing it to the Lord.  Listen to it again:

¹ How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
    How long will you hide your face from me?
² How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
    and day after day have sorrow in my heart?
    How long will my enemy triumph over me?

³ Look on me and answer, Lord my God.
    Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death,
⁴ and my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
    and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

The psalmist, if I might borrow a popular phrase, is "sick and tired of being sick and tired."  He's angry.  He's frustrated.  And the finger of blame gets pointed at God, and all that anger and frustration is dumped on God! 

At least, God was there for the psalmist to dump on.  Others, including many moderns, reject God out of hand and then work mighty hard to convince themselves that they really are not feeling as bad as they are.  In other words, they practice the sad art of lying to themselves. 

Not the psalmist.  He throws all the crap at the Lord's doorstep. 

But then, inexplicably, he shifts gears.  Then, inexplicably, come verses five and six: 

⁵ But I trust in your unfailing love;
    my heart rejoices in your salvation.
⁶ I will sing the Lord’s praise,
    for he has been good to me.

Here's what, in the end, carried the day:  not his feelings, but his faith; not his circumstances, but His Lord; not his opinions, but his blessings. 

This is what the Gospel does for us:  it shifts our gears; inexplicably, it creates faith in divine love, and trust in God's salvation, and a people bent on praising the Lord no matter what -- because the Lord is good to them.

We see this Gospel most clearly in Jesus.  Speaking of Lord Jesus, there's this lovely little story making the rounds, and it goes like this: 

So, it seems “St. Peter and the Archangel Gabriel had a problem.  Peter was sorting people at the Pearly Gates letting some in and keeping others out, but Gabriel was finding more people in heaven than Peter was letting in.  They were befuddled.  Gabriel told Peter to keep working and he’d get to the bottom of this.  A few hours later he came back and told Peter not to worry; he’d figured it out.  ‘It’s Jesus.  He’s pulling people over the wall.’”

We are a people "pulled over the wall" by our crucified and risen Lord.  With the psalmist, we trust in and rejoice in such a Lord as this.

It really is a good, Summer psalm!

Amen.

The Blessings of the Blessing!

Text:  2 Corinthians 13:11-13

Theme:  "The Blessings of the Blessing!"

The Holy Trinity

June 15, 2014

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

Finally, brothers, good-by.  Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace.  And the God of love and peace will be with you.  Greet one another with a holy kiss.  All the saints send their greetings.  May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all this day -- and especially with the fathers among us. 

It's important to keep first things first, so the first thing to acknowledged  from the pulpit is that this is Holy Trinity Sunday.  It is a feast day on the calendar, and since it is a feast it calls for a celebration!  In our time together and in the rest of your day, I hope that it will be touched with celebratory moments! 

This particular feast, Holy Trinity, is unique in that it is the only celebration that focuses our spirits and minds on a teaching.  All the other feasts -- be them major feasts or minor feasts -- remind us of events or people.  But Holy Trinity is about a teaching -- a teaching about how God has been revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; a lesson, from the Scriptures, that God has been made known as our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Sanctifier.

The word "Trinity", while not a term of the Bible, is enormously helpful because it captures in one word what God's Word teaches about God.  Trinity is a compound word:  it comes from "Tri" (which means three) and "unity" (which means one).  So it's three in one and one in three, and one in three and three in one.  It's a not three gods, but one God in three persons. We sang it in the opening hymn:  "God in three persons -- blessed Trinity."   Is this good math?  Not really.  Is this a mystery?  That's better.  Absolutely!  It is a mystery.  But it is a mystery to confess, to acknowledge, to affirm.  Put it out there!  Keep putting it out there -- with gladness, with energy, with enthusiasm.  Don't use "Trinity" as some talking point in an argument.  Celebrate it as the blessing it is:  "May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ (the second person of the Trinity), the love of God (the first person of the Trinity) and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit (the third person of the Holy Trinity) be with you all"!

Now it's also Father's Day, 2014.  There's a story about fathers that lends itself quite well.  It will show us how the blessings of the blessing, the blessing of the Holy Trinity, works in peoples' lives. 

The story begins with one of our own members:  Louise Kraft.  Louise has a grandson by the name of Kelly.   She is justifiably proud of him. One of the reasons for this is that Kelly won the United States Amateur Golf Championship.   His early golf started right out here at North Lake driving range.  Then Kelly would go play at TWU's Pioneer Golf Course just down the street from us.  He'd be joined by the Vance boys.  Mike and Ladine Vance, the boys' parents, are regular guests with us here.  There are connections all over the place! When Kelly was attending SMU and playing on the golf team, he had a roommate by the name of Aaron. 

I cannot help but think that this is a very bittersweet Father's Day for this Aaron.  For, you see, Aaron is the son of this man:  Payne Stewart.  Fifteen years ago, on Father's Day, Payne Stewart made a putt on the 72nd and final hole of our national championship of golf:  the U.S. Open.  He clinched that victory with a fist pump. 

Then he turned to a young Phil Mickelson who happened to be carrying a pager.  You see, his wife, Amy, was going to give birth to their first child at any time.  Payne Stewart clasped Phil Mickelson's face and said:  "You're going to be a father."  It wasn't about golf; it wasn't about wins or losses; it wasn't about success in your fields, etc., and so forth.  Instead, it was:  "You're going to be a father."

I've hung around a few golf clubs and pro shops and locker rooms in my day, and I know the type.  Sometimes I am the type.  Payne was a super-talented golfer.  He had a natural athleticism.  In addition to that, he was kind of cocky.  You had to be  if you were going to wear the flashy apparel and the knickers that he would parade around in on the golf course.   Dress like that you better have the flashy game to go with it.  Payne did.   He  liked to smoke a cigarette now and then and throw back a few Budweisers with the boys. 

He grew up in Missouri and he had those "midwestern values", as they are called, instilled by his parents.  He'd probably say he was essentially a Christian man, but the faith didn't make all that much difference to him. There was a career to unfold, a future to build, and more golf tournaments to win.

Then he met a beautiful Australian girl named Tracey.  They were married.  That union brought two incredible young people into the world:  Chelsea Stewart (Payne's daughter) and, as I mentioned, Aaron Stewart (Payne's son). 

One of Payne's closest friends was a fellow professional golf by the name of Paul Azinger.  "Zinger", as he is called, also won a major:  the PGA Championship.  But Payne noticed that there was something different about Zinger.  He was a super-cool guy, but he was also serious about his faith.  Zinger led a Bible study for men on the PGA tour.  Payne started to hang around that and he even found himself starting to attend church in Orlando.

Then something happened.  Payne learned a powerful lesson that there is more to life than success and golf and career and making lots of money.  You see,  Paul Azinger, Payne's close friend, was diagnosed with cancer at the pinnacle of his career.  And it was how Azinger, a Christian man, dealt with that diagnosis and treatment that changed Payne. 

Payne came to appreciate three things more fully than he ever had before.  First, and before anything else, he was a child of God.  As the Scripture teaches, he was "fearfully and wonderfully made."  Second, his life was touched by the grace of Jesus Christ.  Whether his time on this earth was long or short, he knew where his ultimate destination would be.  Jesus Christ -- the second person of the Holy Trinity and the One who died and rose for him -- made that possible.  Third, he realized he was not alone.  He did not live to or for himself.  He embraced the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.  He gathered around himself fellow believers and friends that he could help and that could help him on this journey that we call life. He had the blessings of the blessing.  He had the love of God, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.  That's a powerful combination, wouldn't you say?

Then he died.  He died in October of 1999 -- some five months after winning the U.S. Open on Father's Day.  There was decompression on his plane.  It flew miles off course, and then it crashed in a South Dakota field when it ran out of fuel.

Among the items retrieved from the crash site were a couple of devotional books and  a black wrist bracelet.  It had four letters on it:  "W.W.J.D." "What would Jesus do?"

In Payne's life, we have a "snapshot" of how the teaching of the Holy Trinity settles in to life, settles into our lives.  We come to embrace and hold the truth that we are created by God, fearfully and wonderfully made by God, loved by God.  We look at what Jesus did when He offered his life for us all.  We discover that we are a part of that.  And we celebrate the we are not alone; we have the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

The blessings that come from the blessing:  this is what it's all about on this Father's Day and festival day -- the Feast of the Holy Trinity.

Amen.

The "Language" of the Spirit!

Text:  Acts 2:1-21

Theme:  "The 'Language' of The Spirit"

The Day of Pentecost

June 8, 2014

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. ² Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³ They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. ⁴ All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues^[a] as the Spirit enabled them.

⁵ Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. ⁶ When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. ⁷ Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸ Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? ⁹ Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,^[b] 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome ¹¹ (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” ¹² Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

¹³ Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”

¹⁴ Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. ¹⁵ These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! ¹⁶ No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

¹⁷ “‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams.
¹⁸ Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
    and they will prophesy.
¹⁹ I will show wonders in the heavens above
    and signs on the earth below,
    blood and fire and billows of smoke.
²⁰ The sun will be turned to darkness
    and the moon to blood
    before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
²¹ And everyone who calls
    on the name of the Lord will be saved.’^[c]

We are here for the Lord's Day Service.  Let me say the same thing in a different way:  we are here to call upon the name of the Lord.  It is the name that was worded and watered upon us at baptism:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  And "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved"; that comes straight from our text. 

I can't think of a better day -- the Day of Pentecost -- to be in church calling on the name of the Lord.  It was this day, fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus (Pentecost means "fifty), when our Lord made good on His promise:  "I will not leave you as orphans."  He sent His Holy Spirit, as He said He would. 

For those who like a little bit of drama to keep things interesting, the story of Pentecost delivers in a big way.   The Holy Spirit  blew in.  They were "all together" and "Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting." 

Red is the color of choice on the day of Pentecost.  Ministers have the red stole.  Altars, communion tables, and pulpits have red paraments.  Ah, the power of red!  It's the favorite color in Nebraska.  But, for our purposes today, it, Red,  is the color of blood.  "The life of the creature is in the blood," the Scriptures declare.  It is also the color of those tongues of fire that came to rest on those first Jesus followers. 

Wind and fire.  If that weren't enough drama, then came the speaking in other tongues, languages.  It wasn't that they were all multi-lingual.  I don't know about you, but I'm totally impressed with people who can speak fluently in a second language.  That's pretty amazing, pretty awesome.  But those first followers didn't have a Rosetta Stone course on DVD.  These plain, ordinary, every-day  followers of Jesus spoke in other tongues as "the Spirit enabled them."  Think of something you've done for God and God's people, something you never thought you would be able to do.  But you did it anyway.  Perhaps it wasn't YOUR ability at all.  It was the wind and the fire, the Holy Spirit, within you.  "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

A whole bunch of folks were there in Jerusalem for the Pentecost holiday -- which we also have come to know as the birthday of the holy catholic church.  They are listed, in the Bible, for our review:  Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia.  Egyptians and Libyans were there too.  And that's not to speak of the visitors from Rome.  And, lest we forget, there were the Cretans (those folks from the island of Crete) and the Arabs.  These were not imaginary people from imaginary lands; they weren't the product of fiction -- as in Game of Thrones.   They were all there; they were all very real, very factual.  Better yet, they all heard!

What did they hear?  They heard the wonders of God in their own language, we are told.  They were "amazed and perplexed," says the text.  Who wouldn't be?

Some folks from this multi-national group thought the first followers of Jesus were, for lack of a better phrase,  just plain drunk as all this drama took place.  Yep, that's it! That has to have been it.  What other explanation could there be?   They were sloshed; they were smashed; they were ripped; they were riding a pretty good buzz; they were falling down drunk, loaded, stoned out of their minds, you name it.  If Pentecost happened today, the police would be called in and a whole bunch of folks would be arrested for public intoxication!

But no, says St. Peter.  "These people are not drunk, as you suppose; it's only nine in the morning!"

Other folks, not so quick to write off the first Christ followers as a bunch of slap-happy drunks, ask the sixty five million dollar question.  Actually, it's the best question of all -- the "catechetical"question, if you will:  "What does this mean?"

Again, Pentecost does not fail to amaze.  St. Peter delivers the first Christian sermon.  His Scriptural text is from Joel.  He says:  "In the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all people, says the Lord. ...And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

Everyone.  Who does that leave out?  No one.  For every one who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.  It is the language of the Holy Spirit.

Does it appear to be the language of this world today?  No.  Many do not want to be saved.  "Saved from what?  Saved from whom?" they ask.  "We've evolved; we've been enlightened. We live in the real world and not the fairy tale world with all its old myths about God, heaven and hell, Jesus, and all that other stuff.  Christianity has been tried and found wanting, and we've long since moved on."

Moved on to what?  Moved on to more gun violence in homes and campuses?  Moved on to more overcrowded prisons?  Moved on to more individual and national debt? Moving on to medicating and anesthetizing the problems of life?  Moved on to being worried sick about what the future will bring?  Moved on to living for self alone (because everybody else is)? 

There's this fascinating story in the Old Testament book of Genesis.  In the eleventh chapter we read that (and I quote) "The whole world had one language and a common speech."  Now, obviously, we don't have one language and a common speech in our day.  I don't know how many different languages there are, but there are quite a few.  Wouldn't it be neat if we all could speak in the same language?  We probably would have a better chance at understanding one another.

At any rate, these people hatch an idea, an idea that would enable them to move on!  They say (and, again, I quote), "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."

What does this mean?  (There's that question again.)  I'll venture this:  human nature, apart from God, will always try to make a name for itself.

What does God do?  Genesis says that God "comes down to see the tower."  Then God confused the language and scattered the people.  That's what happened to a people who sought only a name for themselves.  That's what God did to a self-centered people.  They began to babble in confusion.  That's why they called it the tower of Babel.   And they moved on.  Moved on to what?  More babbling and more confusion for the human race.

But then came that first Pentecost all those many years later.  There were all of those scattered people in Jerusalem with their many languages.  With the breath of wind and a tongue of fire, they hear the wonders of God in their own tongue.

It all starts to sink in.  Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord -- not on the name of the self, but on the name of the Lord -- will be saved.

It all comes back to Jesus who was put to death for our sins and raised for our justification.  Jesus says:  "I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."  Economies come and go.  Empires rise and fall. World wars are waged and won or lost.  But through it all there remains that church of Jesus Christ, that little flock of the Holy Spirit, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against.

No one is excluded.  For everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved.  It is message of Pentecost in our day.  It is the language of the Holy Spirit.  It is what our human spirit can truly revel in.   It is the joy of knowing that we are not orphans, but children of God -- with all the rights and privileges that come with it.     Have a festive, happy day knowing that the Spirit, God's Spirit, is with you and within you. 

Amen.

A Gaze Interrupted!

Text:  Acts 1:6-14

Theme:  "A Gaze Interrupted"

7th Sunday of Easter

June 1, 2014

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

+In the Name of Jesus+

⁶ Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

⁷ He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

⁹ After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

¹⁰ They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. ¹¹ “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

¹² Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the hill called the Mount of Olives, a Sabbath day’s walk^[a] from the city. ¹³ When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. ¹⁴ They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.

The newspapers of last Thursday made no mention of it -- and I checked them while grabbing lunch at Starbucks:  the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, USA Today, and the Record Chronicle.  As best I was able to detect, there was no comment offered on social media.  For all intents and purposes, the day -- which used to be a festival on the Christian calendar -- was off the radar screen.

I speak of the Ascension -- the feast of the Ascension of our Lord.  It marks the occasion, forty days after rising from death, that the Lord Jesus withdrew His bodily presence from earth.  They couldn't see Him anymore.   "He ascended into heaven," as we've confessed it for years in The Apostles' Creed. 

What was "trending" on Ascension Day this year was more fallout from the stabbings and shootings in California.  Mitigating that somewhat was word of the death of the poet, Maya Angelou.  Much was said,  positively, about her life and work -- and rightly so.  She was, for instance, invited to speak at a presidential inauguration.  In 1993, for Mr. Clinton's swearing in, she recited her poem On the Pulse of Morning.

Here's a snippet:

Here on the pulse of this new day 
You may have the grace to look up and out 
And into your sister's eyes, into 
Your brother's face, your country 
And say simply 
Very simply 
With hope 
Good morning.

"Grace to look up and out," she says.  The disciples of  the Lord -- the "twelve", as they've been called -- certainly experienced that grace of looking up, and it was not at an inauguration but at the ascension.  Luke reports that "They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going."

 Just minutes prior to this, they weren't gazing up at all.  With the death and resurrection of Jesus forty days or so in the rearview mirror, they had slipped back into political mode.  It's very easy to  do -- even in churchs. They had a question for him that was fraught with political significance.  "Lord, are you at this time going to overthrow Obamacare?" Whoops!  No, that wasn't it. (I was just trying to see if you were listening!)   It was this:  "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" Modern questions are similar:   "Lord, are you at this time going to bring America back from the brink of disaster?"  "Lord, at this time are you going to throw the nasty ones out of Washington and give the American workforce a living wage?" 

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  They were as political then as we are now -- and vice-versa.  They had -- and we have! -- "hotbutton" issues.  Then just as now, they sought to recruit Jesus and have Him endorse and do what THEY wanted done.

Jesus, as is His way, shifted their attention.  He didn't scratch where they itched.  He said:  "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority." 

Now -- wait for it! -- here comes the shift:  "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

That power, eventually, made it all the way to the new world, to America, to Texas, to Denton, to First Presbyterian Church.  We are here because of the Holy Spirit.  What we are to do is be a witness. 

While all of that was sinking in, He ascended into heaven.  They looked up to the sky;  they gazed intently upon him.  With eyes fixed on Jesus who was going up, up, and away, they didn't notice that two men dressed in white had joined them.  It sounds suspiciously angelic!

The men in white interrupted their gazing.  They had a question of their own:  "Men of Galilee, why do you stand here gazing into the sky?  This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way that you have seen him go."

After that, our reading reports, they returned to Jerusalem.  They didn't stay around for some conversation in the narthex before heading out for Sunday brunch.  They, together, went to the room at Jerusalem where they were staying.  And Luke says that they were "constantly in prayer." 

We did some of that constant praying yesterday at the presbytery meeting at First Presbyterian in Dallas.  We prayed for new inquirers and candidates to the ministry of Word and Sacrament. We prayed in thanksgiving for years of service rendered.  We prayed for those honorably retired. We prayed for the multitude of ways the church of Jesus Christ does its thing in our own day.  We prayed over the food we were about to receive -- and it was quite good:  a boxed lunch from Central Market.

Yes, those first disciples worshipped and prayed and waited. Then, added to all that, was the gift of the Holy Spirit and the power to witness to Jesus.  What you see emerging in the Book of Acts is a theological instagram, a snapshot of the church:  they worshipped, prayed, and, empowered by the Holy Spirit, they gave witness.  They didn't endorse candidates.   They shared, to the ends of the earth, that amazing grace.

As I mentioned earlier, the press didn't give Ascension Day any coverage.  But we've given  it coverage today. 

You may be wondering:  what's the moral of the story?  What is the benefit of the  Lord's ascension into heaven? What's the good stuff? Fortunately, our Heidelberg Catechism asks precisely that question.  More specifically, we read:  "What benefit do we receive from Christ's ascension into heaven?"

The catechism's answer goes like this: 

First, that he is our Advocate in the presence of his Father in heaven.  Second, that we have our flesh in heaven as a sure pledge that he, as the Head, will also take us, his members, up to Himself.  Third, that he sends His Spirit...by whose power we seek what is above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God, and not things on earth.

With all those benefits, it's a good thing their gazing into heaven was interrupted! They might still be straining their necks!

 "On Christ's ascension I now build the hope mine ascension," said the hymn-writer nearly four hundred years ago.   Why is there hope?  Because You've got a friend  -- and Advocate! -- in high places!

Amen.