Look Up

Acts 1:6-14

It’s been forty days since the resurrection.

Long enough that it’s starting to seem normal to have the risen Jesus popping in, long enough that we’ve stopped being breathless with revelation and think we’ve really gotten it, this time, gotten all these things that Jesus was teaching about.

And Jesus has instructed us to wait right here for an immersion of the Holy Spirit, coming soon.

So it must mean that at last, it’s time for the thing we’ve been waiting for since we met Jesus.

Finally, finally, Jesus is going to restore God’s will to the workings of our world, and all the mess that people have made of things will be washed away and the world will work right, with real justice and real peace, an end to violence and fear, no more dead children, and a glorious abundance that will free everyone from anxiety and need.

Because that’s what the pouring out of God’s Spirit means, if you read the prophets, right?

So, gathered together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”

God is going to fix the world, now, finally, right?

Right?

“Not now,” says Jesus. “And you’re not going to know when. Instead, the Holy Spirit will empower you to tell my story, here and everywhere.”

(Oh, Jesus, really? I don’t need more work. It’s a holiday weekend!)

But before anyone quite has time to digest this, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And their eyes are drawn upward with him, watching, watching, fixed on the sky, even after he’s gone much too far for their sight.

They stand there, gazing up toward heaven,

stand looking up,

just looking,

in a way that invites comment from the messengers sent to remind them that Jesus will come again.

You know, we don’t look up a lot, at least once we’re as tall as we’re going to get.

More often, we look ahead; we look at what’s in front of us, we look where we are going.

When we need to change our perspective, we look around a bit, we look back sometimes,

but rarely UP,

straight up,

gazing toward heaven.

And where we look has an effect on what we know, what we think, what we expect, of others, of ourselves, of God.

Many years ago, trudging through wintry Chicago streets on my way to work, I heard an echo in my head of some recent sermon I’d heard or book I’d read, urging me to look up.  I don’t remember any more why the preacher or the author told me to do this. What I do remember is that I raised my head and eyes and discovered an incredible sense of space. The sky was full of layers of cloud and light that were nothing like the flat dull gray of a winter morning at ground level.

And that sense of space lingered when I turned my eyes back to the crowded, slushy streets. There was more light around the people walking toward me. The slushy sidewalk no longer seemed like a narrow and treacherous path, but like an open road – with room for mis-steps and detours.

It was odd, not at all what I’d expected, but something about looking up, about seeing that openness and unexpected light, made me more open, more generous all day: toward others, toward myself, toward the mundane challenges of everyday life: long lines, crowded trains, irritated (irritating!) coworkers, stubborn computers. It was as if the space I saw above me made more space in the crowded busyness of everyday life.

So that winter, I kept looking up.
I’d pause on my morning commute, or while running errands, and just look in an unusual direction: at clouds or icy blue, into snow flurries or sunshine, at the way that buildings and trees and infrastructure look different where they meet the sky than where they meet the solid earth, or in my ordinary line of sight.

And I kept feeling that sense of generous space, even indoors. Kept seeing my coworkers and fellow commuters and the physical world – cars and streets, desks and keyboards – with different eyes. Not all the time, but in little flashes of openness. I even discovered that I prayed a little differently, with more joy and thanksgiving, and a little less (just a little less) that my will be done.

But then I got out of the habit of looking up.

It rained for a while; I got busy with other things.

Gazing up requires stopping our forward progress for a moment, requires that we physically pause in making our own way, or let someone else drive. (Really let them drive, not that thing where I’m sort of not paying attention until I gasp and slam on an imaginary brake.
I bet we do that to God a lot, come to think of it.)

These days, I don’t look up very often.

We live in a world that wants us to drive, to keep moving forward, so I’m back to looking mostly ahead – driving, working, walking; in the grocery and in front of a computer, cleaning the kitchen or managing the commute.  I look around when I have a moment, and back when I need to. And I often look down when I’m walking, to avoid stepping on cat toys or sidewalk hazards.

And that’s where my attention goes. It goes where I look.

I pray for what’s in front of me: on the news, in conversation, in my email.

I ask God to fix the world as I see it: to smooth the things I’m likely to trip over, to make the world work right as I make my way through it, with justice and real peace, to heal what makes me cry right now, for freedom from fear and need. I pray, like the disciples after the resurrection, for Christ to restore God’s kingdom now, in the world in front of me: “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”

And Jesus, again, always, says, “No, not exactly. The Holy Spirit is about to empower you to be my witnesses, to tell my story, God’s story, about the healing and glorification of the world.

If the disciples were much like us, they didn’t feel ready to be witnesses; didn’t feel like they knew enough to tell God’s story, or were pretty sure no one around them really wanted to know.

But maybe that’s only how it looks if we are looking ahead at our own work, when we are staying in our lane; praying for the healing and salvation of what’s in front of us while God is doing something that just isn’t visible from this angle.

So even as Jesus says that to the disciples, even as he tells them he’s handing over the story to them, he is lifted up, pulling their attention heavenward, leaving them looking up to the sky. Looking up, into spaciousness, boundlessness, layers of cloud and light.

I don’t know if the world looked different to the disciples when they finally brought their eyes down, when they looked again at one another and at their road back in to Jerusalem; if they found a new sense of spaciousness in their everyday world, saw new light in those around them.

But I suspect that looking up is essential to prepare us for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, to create the spaciousness inside us for the Spirit to kindle with fire and joy.

Because looking up requires us to pause, to stop our self-determined forward progress; to let God drive. And once we stop – once we stop steering, even for a minute – we make it easy to become witnesses, to be the ones who see and describe God’s way. And instead of more work, we find we are invited on a glorious ride; an adventure, a delight.

So look up with me this week, will you?
Look up, as we wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit, soon.

Pause for a moment and look up,

look really up,

-->

and see.