St. John the Evangelist Church Podcast

Homily for Ascension- "Together We Rise"

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There is a sign on the front of Robb Elementary School, “Together we rise.” Ordinary, uplifting, students and teachers must have passed by it hundreds of times coming in and out of school. This week it stands for the Ascension. Ascension means “together we rise.”

In completion of his mission, the gospels witness how Jesus travelled up to Jerusalem where he was lifted up on a cross before he was raised up from the dead. He raises his hands and blesses the Apostles, before he is lifted up to the heavenly sanctuary, the altar on high at the right hand of God. As any Jewish listener of the day would understand, to be “lifted up” was the language of making an offering to God.

The Gospel and our reading from the Letter to the Hebrews presents the Ascension as a new covenant liturgy of the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, the once yearly ritual purification of the Temple and the People of Israel from sin. As prescribed in the Book of Leviticus, first, Israel’s High Priest would offer an animal sacrifice before all the People gathered outside of the temple. Next, the high priest would ascend the temple steps in a cloud of incense, enter the temple, and pass through a curtain veil into the Holy of Holies, the inner room, to sprinkle the sacrificial blood onto what’s called the “mercy seat” in atonement for their sins. Finally, the priest would return once more to the People greeted with shouts of joy announcing forgiveness.

The Paschal mystery, Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension, form one continuous liturgy of forgiveness and reconciliation, where Jesus serves as both the sacrifice and the great high priest. At the Cross, Christ offers himself as the sacrificial offering. Risen from the dead, Christ the eternal High Priest blesses the apostles and is taken up in a cloud, ascending into a temple not made by hands, but a sanctuary in heaven to present the sacrificial offering to God, his own blood shed for our sins. Finally, we hear that he will return, come down to us announcing his time of salvation and judgment.

The Ascension reveals what a true act of worship looks like, in a word, true sacrifice. True worship is not an argument over traditional or contemporary hymns, English or Latin prayers. True worship is measure by the quality of the sacrifice we offer of ourselves. In the heavenly sanctuary, Christ intercedes for us not by offering his “thoughts and prayers,” but his own self, body and spirit. This kind of worship has the power to transform every aspect of our lives. Together we rise. That is what the Ascension is all about.

True worship of God is lifting up our hearts, our selves, as a sacrificial offering to God as an act of participation in Christ’s eternal offering of himself before the Father in heaven in atonement for our sins and of the whole world. The remedy to gun violence will take true sacrifice, sacrificial love. Until then, until our worship rises to the challenge before us, we will be left with only a copy of the real thing. Fake, phony worship looks like the lives of children sacrificed on that altar of the right to own a semi-automatic assault rifle.

Whenever an organization or individual uses the “existence of evil” as an argument in favor of arming more teachers, pastors, or asserts gun control makes one “less free,” I feel as if I am reading a page out of The Screwtape Letters (C.S. Lewis). What else could Satan’s solution to gun violence be than more guns?

Jesus “did not carry a gun. He carried a cross” (Claiborne/Martin, “Beating Guns”). In this way only did Christ disarm the power of evil and sin. If more guns means more peace, more freedom, then Caesar was right, and Christ died for nothing. The Cross was the single greatest gun-buyback program in history.

The Ascension is the beginning of the Church on mission. The disciples may have been left looking up to heaven, but they soon got to work here on earth. And so, along with our hearts, let’s lift up our minds and voices.

To offer our thoughts and prayers only counts if by that we mean we offer hope and solutions. Let’s lift up our brains to the task at hand. We have the spiritual, material, and theological resources to make a difference; we just have to want to.

“For many years, the USCCB has supported a number of reasonable measures to address the problem of gun violence. These include:

• A total ban on assault weapons, which the USCCB supported when the ban passed in 1994 and when Congress failed to renew it in 2004. [If you own an assault weapon, turn it in to a buyback program. If assault weapons are your hobby, find a new hobby.]

• Measures that control the sale and use of firearms, such as universal background checks for all gun purchases;

• Limitations on civilian access to high-capacity weapons and ammunition magazines;

• A federal law to criminalize gun trafficking

• Improved access to and increased resources for mental health care and earlier interventions

• Regulations and limitations on the purchasing of handguns;

• Measures that make guns safer, such as locks that prevent children and anyone other than the owner from using the gun without permission and supervision; and

• An honest assessment of the toll of violent images and experiences which inundate people, particularly our youth.

These are statistically-proven policies that have stopped gun deaths in other countries. I would add, and this is just me, let’s make a grade “F” rating from the N.R.A. the standard for the Catholic vote. Do not support politicians who receive endorsements from the NRA or money from their Political Victory Fund. Those politicians aren't on the ballot? Lift them up. Let’s decide to raise them.

We cannot lift our hands in worship unless and until we first put down our weapons.

Lift up your heart.

Lift up your voice.

Lift up your hands.

Let us offer to God, the almighty Father, a true, acceptable, and living sacrifice.

Together we rise.