One of my favorite videos on YouTube is an experiment by the group called SoulPancake.  They asked six pairs of individuals, in various stages of relationship (from total strangers to a couple who has been married 55 years) to sit in two chairs facing one another, and without speaking, look into one another’s eyes for four minutes.  Four whole minutes.  Imagine four minutes of silent looking into each other’s eyes.  At first the couples seem a bit uncomfortable – initially unsettled by the forced silence, but ultimately jarred by what they quickly realize is deep intimacy.  Slowly over the four minutes the couples settle in, their faces transforming from discomfort to curiosity to deep connection.  You can almost see the sparks of love emerging in their eyes, tension draining from their bodies, and invariable smiles of appreciation spreading across their faces.[i]

When Willie James Jennings writes about the ascension of Jesus, one his primary concerns is that in focusing on the heavens, where Jesus ascends, the disciples will forget to focus on one another, on the stranger in need of witness, and on the presence of God.  Jennings worries that the disciples are looking “into the heavens concerned by absence rather than looking forward to see presence.”[ii]  The text from the Acts of the Apostles tells us of the last earthly day of Jesus’ post-resurrection life.  Jesus gives the disciples a commission and is lifted up into the clouds and whisked away.  The text tells us the disciples do exactly what you might imagine – they stand there, staring at the heavens, staring at the ascended Jesus.  I imagine that standing and staring had several iterations:  there was likely the stunned awe of the moment; there may have been some not wanting to leave for fear of missing what might happen next; there may be some immediate second guessing about what this all means; there may be some Peter-esque desire to preserve the sacred location of the profound moment; there may be a sense deep grief, or conversely a sense of profound joy.  Whatever those disciples are doing, they are not at all doing they are supposed to do.  Hence the men in white robes asking their very basic question, “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”

This past week the clergy of the Diocese gathered for our spring clergy day.  The speaker for the day was The Rev. Canon Stephanie Spellers, talking about her new book, Church Tomorrow? What the ‘Nones’ and ‘Dones’ Teach Us About the Future of Faith.  Spellers spent the first part of her book and our clergy day talking about the numbers related not just to church decline across denominations and generations, but also the decline of civic membership in general.  Just as church membership has declined, so has membership in all membership-based groups, from the golf club, to service organizations, to fraternal organizations.  But what Spellers ultimately concludes is that we are not to get lost, standing and staring at the data.  Even given the grim data about behavioral changes, the Spirit is inviting us into being the Church on the move, meeting people where they are.

What Spellers sees now, and the men in white robes saw then, is there is danger in looking up in the heavens into absence as opposed to looking forward to presence.  Alan Hirsch tells us, “the biggest blockage to the next experience of God is often the last experience of God, because we get locked into it.”[iii]  [repeat]  What those men in white knew was that if the disciples stood there lost in themselves or even in the ascended Jesus, they would never get their next experience of God – they would get so locked into the mountaintop experience of Jesus’ ascension, that they would never make their way to the next experience of God – in their case, the great gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

That is our invitation today.  As we look at the changing nature of social engagement, as we wonder about the how or when we will ever emerge from the great divisions in our country, and even as we dream about what is next for Hickory Neck, a great whispering is happening nearby, saying “why are you standing looking up toward heaven?”  Our invitation instead is to resist letting our next experience of God be our last experience of God.  Our invitation is to gather in in prayer and community, as Jesus instructed the disciples, knowing that the Holy Spirit will do a new thing in all of us.  Our invitation is to walk down the mountain of the ascension and into the valley of witnessing the gospel of Jesus, looking forward not only for the presence of God, but taking time to gaze deeply into the eyes and lives of others.[iv]  This season of unrest and discontent in our time is not a time to be marked by absence, but instead is a time looking forward to see presence.  We can only see that presence if we pull our eyes from heaven and gaze into the sacred we find in one another.  The next experience of God promises to be greater still than our last experience of God.  I can’t wait to hear all about your next experience.  Amen.

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[i] Georgia Koch, “How To Connect With Anyone,” SoulPancake, February 12, 2015, as found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xm-T3HCa618 on May 15, 2026.

[ii] Willie James Jennings, Acts:  Belief:  A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 19-20.

[iii] Alan Hirsch and Rob Kelly, Metanoia: How God Radically Transforms People, Churches, and Organizations From the Inside Out (Cody, Wyoming:  100 Movements Publishing, 2023).

[iv] John S. McClure, “Homiletical Perspective,” Feasting on the Word, Yr. A, Vol. 2 (Louisville:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 525.