“‘Come to the edge.’
‘We can’t. We’re afraid.’
‘Come to the edge.’
‘We can’t. We will fall.’
‘Come to the edge.’
And they came.
And he pushed them. And they flew.”
We’ve got an edge when reading the gospels. We know how it turns out in the end. We know that there is pain and there is death, but in the narrative it all works out with this seemingly-easy thing called a resurrection that effortlessly rolls off our tongues on Sunday morning as we sip our coffee and have a church donut.
Resurrection is hard though. So hard that only God gets to do it. And we who have faith hope for a day when God will do this for us and for the rest of creation.
But for an ignorant disciple stuck in a gospel story, resurrection is beyond the imagination. We, the readers, know that Jesus is preparing them for a vocation beyond anything dreamt of in their small villages in Palestine. He reminds them over and over again that God loves them, that God is with them, that the Kingdom of Heaven is within their own grasp. He warns them of difficult times to come, he gives them tools to preach and teach and heal, he prays and weeps for them while washing their feet. And in the story, the disciples cannot possibly understand what’s in store, even when Jesus tells them point blank.
I remember trying to swim. I sucked at it. My father would wade into the pool and ask me to jump in his arms, as I froze to my spot. He said he’d catch me. He gave me the water temperature. He promised he’d be with me in the deep end. I wanted to believe him, but I had no clue what it might mean to have nothing beneath my feet when I took that leap. Yes, he caught me. The first time. The second time, he took a step backward so I would stretch my abilities. And suddenly the water was over my head as I heard my father yell, “Swim! Swim to me!”
That day I did not swim well. I did not swim at all, really. Flailing was more like it. But gradually, and with professional assistance at the YWCA, I learned not only to swim, but to rescue as well. I’d like the story to end with my dad teaching me how to swim, but that’s not the case. He did teach me an important lesson though: Drowning is not an option.
This Sunday at Pentecost , we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit and the birthday of the church (Acts 2:1-21). In the story, Jesus’ disciples, men and women, went through hell and back during the previous weeks. What Jesus told them would happen in his death and resurrection, did happen; and on that day they gathered in the same upper room from Passover last, without him. Like the Passover, they gathered again to celebrate another Jewish holiday, Shavuot, commemorating the gift of the Torah to the Israelites on Mt. Sinai. Jesus’ absence must have hung in the air like a shroud, as they went through with the holiday, thanking God for the gift of the law, when the fulfillment of the law had gone back to be with God. And looking over the horizon of a very empty expanse, I’m certain they wondered what they were to do next, with no Jesus and no direction.
Giving up was not an option. They met. They prayed together. They celebrated together. As one of my favorite authors, Annie Lamott says, “Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up..” This is the story of how our church begins: with a bunch of confused, well-meaning, people who just kept doing their best and waiting for something for which they had not a clue. Then suddenly there was a wind and fire and words in their mouths and the expanse wasn’t so empty when the Spirit pushed them and they filled the sky in flight.
At each stage in my life when I’ve been looking for direction from God, I know that I’m standing on a cliff – or at least near one as I wander around trying not to look down. I hate heights. I mean, what is to keep me from flinging myself off into the abyss, except me? And I’m certainly not to be trusted with that kind of responsibility. But all God is asking from us is to come to the edge. See the possibility that lies before you – not in the emptiness, but in the vastness of the opportunity. God wants our imaginations filled to brimming with ideas never before dreamed so that we can fly and live resurrection! That is our direction. That is our vocation, not just as individuals, but as a church. It is scary and we are confused and flawed and not well trained. But I can assure you that when we are pushed, just like disciples, we’ll discover wings we never knew we had.
