Homily ASCENSION SUNDAY May 12, 2024
In our second reading today, on the
Feast of the Ascension, we hear from St Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians. It starts off with Paul saying, “I, a prisoner
for the Lord, urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have
received, …” So, Paul is in
prison. Scripture scholars think that
Paul is writing this from prison in Rome, somewhere around 61 to 63 AD. Or CE for the more relevant. In any case, we know how Paul’s imprisonment
in Rome ended, by his being beheaded with a sword. Hence Paul holds a sword in his statue up
there. Therefore, this is near the end
of his life.
And what kind of life does Paul urge
the Ephesians, and also us, to live? He
says “I…urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received, with
all humility and gentleness, with patience, …”
Humility, gentleness, patience. Hmmm.
Doesn’t sound particularly Texan to me. But then again, humility, gentleness, patience
don’t sound particularly like New York values either. And frankly, it doesn’t sound an awful lot
like St Paul.
Maybe Paul mellowed towards the end
of his life.
Perhaps, but Paul’s great concern through this passage, and
through his Letter to the Ephesians and hence to us here today, is UNITY. Paul stresses humility, gentleness and
patience as “bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the
unity of the spirit through the bond of peace:
one body and one Spirit, … one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and
Father of all who is over all the through all and in all.“
This Pauline emphasis on UNITY is
very appropriate for today’s Feast of the Ascension. Because with the Ascension Christ is gone
from us in a particular and concrete way.
We could say Jesus is gone in His physical, though resurrected,
body. Therefore, we need to be Christ’s
Body in the world at work today.
Essential for our effectively being
the Body of Christ in the world here and now, is our UNITY. St. Paul stresses unity not simply for its
own sake, but so that we can truly be the Body of Christ in Austin and Texas in
2024. Only “with all humility and
gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to
preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace:” can we truly
be and act as the Body of Christ to people today.
Humility, gentleness and patience may
not be values stressed and encouraged by our society and culture. But humility, gentleness and patience are
necessary for us to truly be who we are called to be, the Body of Christ,
serving in His name.
Each of us has a particular and
unique call to serve as a Member of the Body of Christ. St. Paul tells us: “And he gave some as
apostles, others as prophets, others a evangelists, others as pastors and
teachers, to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry, for building up
the body of Christ, until we all attain
to the unity of faith and knowledge of the Son of God, …, to the extent of the
full stature of Christ.”
St Paul is stretching for language
here to speak of the ultimate goal of our being a Christian community. In calling for unity Paul is NOT calling for
uniformity, for all to be the same.
Quite the opposite. Paul sees
that we each have different, and complimentary, gifts. He says: “grace was given to each of us
according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”
None of us is the complete Body of
Christ, and every one of us has a unique piece of the whole. It is like a jig-saw puzzle: you cannot have
a picture if every piece is the same, and every piece is needed to see the true
picture. Likewise, every one of us has
a unique contribution to make to the Body of Christ, and every one of us is
necessary for the full functioning of the Body of Christ.
The virtues of humility, gentleness
and patience may not be popular and flashy and attention grabbing. But St Paul tells us they are necessary for
us to be the Body of Christ.
Jesus has ascended to the
heavens. He will come again. Meanwhile, we have the duty, and the privilege,
of being His Body, His presence in Texas today.
And this is Good News.
AMEN.
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