Today is a welcome change because it has been a week of clouds – and rain; it feels like we have hardly seen the blue sky at all. Which is, I suppose, liturgically appropriate since this past Thursday was Ascension Day, when the church around the world remembers that 40 days after his resurrection, Jesus disappeared into a cloud.

Self-proclaimed Mennonite anarchist, Mark Van Steenwyk wrote this about Ascension day this week –

…to many, Ascension signifies the day that Jesus said, “I’m going to the corner store for cigarettes” but never returned…

I’ve always associated smoking with issues of abandonment. My mom left because of cigarettes (through death) but I’ve actually known someone who was abandoned the conventional way – by a father who stepped out to buy cigarettes and never returned. http://mailchi.mp/c86d4c20e3dc/a-monday-meditation-from-cpi-resistance-2728013 https://www.propheticimagination.org

While some may associate Ascension with abandonment, Ascension Day is intended to remind us that the body is no longer a limitation; Jesus is now in all times and in all places, time and space are no longer prohibitive. Jesus is with us, all the time and everywhere.

Clouds are a wonder. As a child, I spent hours looking out the window during long car trips. Clouds were like Rorschach blots: “I see someone sitting on the beach. What does that cloud look like to you?” I loved to imagine jumping on the big, puffy clouds. What a disappointment to find out that driving through fog (and there was a lot of that growing up in Oregon) means you are in a cloud. Fog is not soft and fluffy; it is mysterious and confusing.

Clouds can also be frightening and foreboding; we learn to read the clouds. Golden yellow clouds might mean rain. Run for cover when you see black clouds. Head for the basement when the clouds are greenish.

We can also read clouds in the biblical tradition; they are a symbol of the holy. The rainbow appears in the cloud to Noah. The people of Israel are led out of Egypt and through the wilderness by the pillar of clouds. Moses goes to the top of Mount Sinai and is engulfed in the clouds with God. Moses, Elijah and Jesus are all engulfed in a cloud when Jesus is transfigured before the disciples. The Glory of God is in the cloud. What better way to illustrate that God is nebulous. We can’t quite see God clearly; God is all around but not graspable, present but always veiled.

It’s been 40 days since the disciples realized that Jesus is not in the grave. During those 40 days, he has “appeared alive to the apostles – confirmed through many convincing proofs” as the writer of Acts says. Of course 40 days cues us into another biblical symbol, that this is a journey, a wilderness, a transformative time.

At the end of this passage in Acts the disciples are named and we notice there are only eleven. Ah yes, missing is Judas. We are also told that the disciples are accompanied by “some of the women who followed Jesus, his mother, Mary, and some of Jesus’ siblings.” Sounds like part of the transformation of 40 days is that the inner circle is growing.

Though 40 days signals transformation, we see that the disciples are still a bit stuck in an old way of thinking. “Is it time, Rabbi? Are you going to restore sovereignty to Israel?” Do it, let’s see how you are going to rescue us from this miserable life under the Romans and the hard-nosed religious leaders. Overthrow the oppressors. You can do this, you said you would.

Jesus tells them one more time that they have missed the point. He has said it before but he patiently tells them again “It is not for you to know the times or dates that Abba God has decided. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, through out Judea and Samaria, (the land you know) and even to the ends of the earth.” (the land you do not know.)

As if on cue, Jesus disappears in a cloud. You can just see the disciples standing there, on top of the mountain, looking up in the sky. Suddenly there are two messengers in white standing there with them. Are these the same two that Luke tells us were in dazzling clothes at the resurrection? Or are they Moses and Elijah that appeared with Jesus on top of the mountain at the transfiguration?

Who they are is probably less important than the message they bring. “Jesus, who has been taken from you – this same Jesus will return, in the same way you watched him go into heaven.” Does that mean Jesus will return on a cloud? Or just in a mysterious way? Or suddenly? Or inexplicably?

What is there to do but go back to what they know and keep waiting. It is a short walk back to Jerusalem, so short it is permitted on the Sabbath. So they go back to the room where they have been hanging out.

Luke and Acts are written by the same author, book 1 and book 2.  Both include an account of the ascension but for some reason the story is not quite the same in Luke as it is in Acts. In Luke, it sounds like Jesus goes up into the heavens soon after his resurrection and there are no messengers in white. … While he is blessing them, he withdraws from them and is carried up into heaven. The disciples worship him, and return to Jerusalem with great joy; and they are continually in the temple blessing God.

Hear that? In Luke, the disciples go to the temple. In Acts, the disciples return to the room where they have been staying. Given that the story is told differently by the same author, maybe the details are not what is important. Maybe it is the disappearance that is important. Certainly it is one of those examples of why we can’t read the bible too literally.

Whether the disciples go back to the room or go to the temple, they are praying and worshipping. They are trying to find their way while they wait for whatever it is that comes next. They know something has to come next since Jesus told them to stay in Jerusalem and wait. Wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them. (It’s not that the Spirit was non-existent before this. Clearly the Spirit has been present from the beginning; what else was hovering over the waters at creation?)

They go back to prepare to be the witnesses Jesus said they would be. Do they wonder what they will witness to? The many healings they observed? Or the way a small amount of food can feed thousands? Or that people with lots of money and people with little all found new life in Jesus’ preaching? Or is it that even though Jesus was executed, and his body disappeared from the grave, they know him as resurrected, they experience his life among them. Is this what they are to witness to? Will anyone believe them?

Nicholas Lash writes: “The drama of the story of the early Church is the drama of a people who are no longer quite sure who they are… [Because] Christianity was founded upon the loss of a body, the body of Jesus Christ. And Christians remain, until the end of time, a people in search of a body; in search of the body of the risen Christ.” ~ Nicholas Lash, Seeing in the Dark

I am sure the early church did wonder how to move ahead without their leader, the embodied Christ. It might be that Acts paints too rosy a picture of how quickly other people came to understand Jesus as Messiah. But I don’t totally agree with Lash. It doesn’t take long for Paul to understand that Jesus’ followers become the body of Christ. Paul writes to the followers in Corinth that each of them is a part of the body that makes up Christ in the world. (I Cor. 12)

In the 16th century, the mystic Teresa of Avila makes it more individualistic:

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which Christ walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which Christ blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are the body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

I’ll admit that some of us still look for the body of the risen Christ. It is also true that we who gather are that body. I will also admit that Ascension looks like we have been abandoned by a parent that went to the corner store. But I choose to understand that we are not abandoned, we are accompanied – all the time, in every place. We are the body and we are not alone.

And because we are accompanied by this mysterious presence, as disciples, as witnesses, we are also to be accompaniment for others – who have been abandoned, by parents or family, by neglect or violence. For instance, here in this congregation, we are a home for LGBTQ people who have been abandoned by the church. Together we are the body of Christ.

We were recently contacted by our friends in Colombia from Sembrando Paz. One of their community leaders has been unjustly and falsely imprisoned for over three years. They are asking for our voices, for us to accompany them, as they try to find a way to free Jorge Montes. I will let you know when we find out how best we can speak up for Jorge. Together we are the body of Christ.

As a congregation, it is a privilege to worship in this beautiful building. We are finding new ways to share this space with people who seek to make a home in what is for them a new country. This summer we are exploring a partnership with the International Rescue Committee where for 8 weeks, refugee teenagers will come to classes and activities in our church building. We are also in conversation with Prince George’s Community College and the city of Hyattsville about holding classes that teach English through baking in our building. Together we are the body of Christ.

A pop-up small group that focused on Black Lives Matter recently concluded its meetings. At the last meeting, people in the group made commitments to find ways to be an accompanying presence to African Americans in the coming years – through relating to local police departments, or being present to people when they return from years in prison, or working with diversion programs to prevent teen imprisonment in the first place or simply by being present to their neighbors in book clubs and friendships. Together we are the body of Christ.

Each day we can make choices to accompany those who need to feel the Presence. This week in Portland, Oregon, three men stood with and intervened for two Muslim women who were being harassed and bullied on a commuter train. I don’t know if the three men were Christian though ironically the white supremacist screaming insults was named Christian. We might question whether the three acted wisely by confronting the out of control man but they did live accompaniment – in a way that we all hope we do not have to live out. They were a sign of the cloud of God’s presence in the world.

It is good to remember Ascension Day and the mysterious cloud of God’s presence. And it is good to step out of that cloud and live into the ways that now we are the body of Christ. I am grateful to choose accompaniment with you and among you. This strong, committed, body of Christ inspires me every day.

God give us each strength and courage to be the body of Christ in the world.