Carried Away

By Rev. Gusti Linnea Newquist


Ascension Sunday

Acts 1:1-11
Luke 24:44-53


And they were continually in the temple blessing God. Even as Jesus really was leaving them. For good this time. And they really would now have to figure out how to do their ministry without him.

In the Protestant Church we forget this, I have found. Just as we forget that Easter is a season and not just a Sunday. That, according to the Book of Acts—which tradition says is the second book in a two volume narrative by the author of Luke’s Gospel—the risen Christ appears to the disciples for a full forty days after the resurrection, and not just that one that has an Easter bunny attached to it.

For forty days, the risen Christ teaches and heals a community that has been truly plunged into crisis after the chaos of the crucifixion. For forty days he binds that beloved community back together again around a common vision and values and a clear set of priorities. To the point that when he finally does leave them—for real this time—they are so carried away with the blessing of God and of one another, and they are so carried away with his promise that the Holy Spirit will come and guide them in his absence, that they barely even notice he has gone.

Forty days is, of course, in biblical numerology simply a number that signifies completion. It means the risen Christ takes as long as it takes to get the job done. The ancient Hebrews, we recall, wander in the wilderness for forty years before entering the land of promise and plenty. Jesus spends forty days in the desert in preparation for his own ministry of proclaiming the kingdom in the face of Roman occupation. And here the risen Christ spends another forty days among his closest companions to re-form them as an Easter community that bears witness to the power of God to make good from even the worst a community can endure. And to move on.

The forty days of the season of Easter simply means that they—and we—take the time they need to get ready for what is coming next. To let go of the life to which we can no longer return in order to embrace the life that is yet to come. Which is exactly what a period of interim ministry is all about. Which is exactly what we have been doing together here at Madison Square. Which has been about trusting the healing grace of God in the midst of crisis. Letting go of what can no longer be the life of this community. And preparing to embrace the life that is yet to come.

The good news is that the “blessing” is truly upon us! Here we are on “Ascension Sunday” celebrating in our Scriptures that the risen Christ—who surely ministered among this community even two thousand years later through a time of crisis that now seems so very long ago—is flying away to that home on God’s celestial shore. With a promise that the Holy Spirit will come and guide us in his absence.

The healing is complete. And the disciples who love him so very much are blessing him. As he is blessing them. And they are rushing back to downtown Jerusalem with great joy. And they are continually in the temple blessing God . . .

. . . just as we are continually coming home here to Madison Square Presbyterian Church, to bless God and to be blessed by God over and over and over again. Because throughout this symbolic forty days of interim ministry we have spent so far together in the healing grace of the risen Christ, what we have found is that this congregation really is “the home for worship, nurture, education and social justice in downtown San Antonio” . . . “grounded in the core values of inclusion and diversity, while bearing witness to the unconditional love of God.”

And there really is “no place like home.”

Your Transition Steering Committee—having labored for what I am sure has felt more like forty years than just four months—has discerned with your guidance the next steps for Madison Square’s mission: unveiling today a clear vision for this congregation to rally around, with a common set of convictions and creative challenges, with common-sense priorities for mission and ministry, and a final request for you to offer one more piece of feedback on pastoral priorities in the months and years to come.

And Ascension Sunday is the perfect time to get carried away with it all!

I heartily endorse the fruits of their labor and hope you will find your own hopes and dreams for Madison Square articulated here. The Transition Steering Committee is blessing God and God is blessing us as they bring this report to you for your feedback and approval.

And while I do not wish to “steal their thunder” in the report they will share with you at the end of this service of worship, I do want to offer two key reflections that I hope will help place this report in the context of the “interim period” we have been engaged in together.

The first reflection is simply to remind us how we got here and to clarify where I expect we will continue to go in the remainder of our time together as your Pastor Nominating Committee begins seeking an installed pastor. When I arrived among you, nearly nine months ago, I saw a community of faith that, like those earliest disciples, had survived a series of losses and crises more painful than any congregation should ever have to endure. And in the Spirit of the risen Christ, I wanted to help you thrive again, to trust again, to live in joy again. What we have accomplished together in these past nine months is truly a testament to the power of the risen Christ to heal the world. I am astounded beyond words that “we have come this far by faith.”

Much of the interim journey has been “behind the scenes,” particularly with stabilizing the administrative foundation at Madison Square. Engaging in what I would lovingly call some basic “Spring Cleaning” that will allow your new pastor to come into an environment that has let go of the old and is moving toward embracing the new. The other piece of the interim journey so far has been the much more public “season of self-assessment” we have engaged in together for the past several months, culminating in the report that is before you today. The good news is that on the whole, Madison Square is incredibly united around a common set of values and commitments and hopes for the future. While those values and commitments and hopes might be expressed somewhat differently across the congregation, the truth is you are remarkably clear about who you are and who you want to be.

The more challenging news is that is that it will be extremely important for Madison Square to be honest about your size and the expectations you have for yourselves and for your coming installed pastor in relationship to your size. The common refrain we heard throughout the Focus Group process was the desire to increase programming and mission outreach here at Madison Square. There is a sense that Madison Square used to “do” more, for adults, for children, for mission, and that it is important to get back to doing those things. Or to get “forward” to doing even more things that have never been done before!

This is a valid and desirable and achievable hope for the future. My caution, though, is to remember that “slow and steady” really does win the race. And to be honest about your current capacity for growth in programming and outreach. The worshiping community at Madison Square has stabilized in the past nine months to include approximately 115 people. Every one of those one hundred fifteen people is FABULOUS!!!! And I mean FABULOUS!!!

But 115 people will get burned out if you expect of yourselves the same kind of programming that normally accompanies a worshiping community of 150 people. So it will be important in the months ahead to clarify the highest programming priorities and to build on the base of the fabulous community that is currently present, and give thanks to God for the great many gifts of programming and mission outreach that are already at work here at Madison Square.

Of course the other great desire coming out of the Focus Groups is to increase membership. And this, too, is a valid and desirable and achievable hope for the future. But here again it will be extremely important to stay grounded in the vision of Madison Square as a community of faith seeking to offer a “home to the home-less” (in all of the ways a person might be home-less), rather than to fall into the mentality of a small business seeking growth for its own profit or gain. I will say more about this when the time comes for the Transition Team to present its report. Let me just say here that even Jesus did not ask his disciples to become a worldwide phenomenon in the year after his Ascension. What he did was offer them hope, help them heal, bind them together, promise them the gift of the Spirit, and trust them to follow where the Spirit led.

This, in the end, is what God is really asking of Madison Square. Your mission, as has already been expressed long before you entered the so-called “interim period” is “in all things, to seek and be receptive to the guidance of the Spirit of God.” To be clear about who you are and what you want, yes. But always and finally to trust the Spirit to lead you to where you never thought you could go. That is what your Transition Team has done. That is what your Focus Groups have done. That is what we will all do together, as we continue this amazing interim journey we are on. And the Spirit is coming next Sunday!

Until then, the vision is before you. The values and commitments and creative tensions are before you. The priorities of the congregation and our immediate tasks in the coming year are before you. And you are now invited to respond.

And I hope you, too, will get “carried away” by the grace of it all.

May we be grateful for the blessing . . .

Amen.