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.  At first the couples are 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 curious to deep connection.  You can almost see the sparks of love emerging in their eyes, tension draining from their bodies, and invariably smiles of appreciation spreading across their mouths.[i] 

When Willie James Jennings writes about the ascension of Jesus, one his primary concerns is that in focusing on the heavens, where Jesus used to be, 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.  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?”

You and I are about to engage in the profound and infrequent journey of sabbatical.  The temptations in this time are many.  For either of us, we could easily see this as twelve weeks of frozen time – where we will each gaze upon God, and then simply pick up where we left off in August.  For either of us, we could be prepared to happily engage in sabbatical activities, absorbed in our own mountaintop experiences, forgetting the journey of the other.  For either of us, we could be guided by fear, burying our talent like in the parable in Matthew – just hoping not to risk doing sabbatical the “wrong way” instead of investing our talents to see what return we gain. 

But 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 stand on the precipice of sabbatical, maybe as we are still reveling in the memory of an outstanding parish-wide retreat this weekend, or wondering what sabbatical activities we want to try, or even feeling a bit of anxiety about what is next, a great whispering is happening nearby, “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 these next weeks in prayer and community, knowing that the Holy Spirit will do a new thing in all of us.  Our invitation is to walk down the mountain and into the valley of witnessing the gospel of Jesus, looking forward not only for the presence of God, but gazing deeply into the eyes of others.[iv]  This time of sabbatical is not a time to 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 20, 2023.

[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.