SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, May 24, 2020

Dear Friends in Christ –

Say, let’s check out the Crafts Fair in the park. Then let’s drop into the Second’s Please Tea Room for some of Sue’s Okra Soup, or Cathy’s Tomato Pie and the Pastor’s Sour Cream Apple Pie (now the Pastor’s daughter’s pie) and listen to a little Lime and the Coconuts' toe-tappin’, make-you-smile-and-want-to-singalong acoustic music. Oh wait –

This year is different: necessity, caution, care – COVID has altered the landscape. Our community and our country are emerging from a mandate – some more quickly than others – that has required us to stay home, keep distance, wear protective clothing and wait – wait until data shows that we are on the downside of the pandemic, that we are not a virulent threat to each other.

It’s no coincidence that our text this Sunday finds Jesus doing what he’s said all along he would do; he’s heading out, or up, or away. The descriptions vary, but the enfleshed, albeit resurrected, Jesus is leaving for a better view. No longer bound, as was his choice, by gravity and by spatial constraints, Jesus God is headed back to the celestial realm and leaves the disciples with tasks and promises.

This weekend inaugurates summer. We set aside a day to remember and honor those fallen in service to the nation. We also remember and celebrate the tens of thousands across the nation and around the world who have succumbed to a deadly plague, who have died to this world, but whom we know to live because of the Christ’s love.

Ascension Day is sometimes passed over in the Liturgical Year. It occurs on a Thursday and poses a challenge to comprehend. But this Sunday I want to tell you, the few who may not have heard, of my friend Lester who now resides in a different zip code. And we’ll think about Jesus’s order to the disciples to return to Jerusalem, to the upper room and… wait.

Tune in. Invite a friend to share some coffee and scripture. Let’s worship together.