Goodbye is Hello

​Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Greenwood, Virginia
The Feast of the Ascension
 May 16, 2021
 
It is the middle of Act II in the musical, Hamilton.  They have won the war for independence, ratified the Constitution, and established the new American nation.  George Washington has been president for four years. Mr. Jefferson, his resigned as secretary of State is creating a rival party to Washington’s, and has announced that he will run for president.  Washington calls for Alexander Hamilton to help him write an important speech.
 
Hamilton is really excited.  He really does not like Jefferson and has sparred with him politically for years.  He believes he has been summoned to fire up his poison pen in opposition to Jefferson and his oppositional activity.  The scene changes abruptly when Washington tells him that he is not going to run for president again.  He wants Hamilton to write a speech, however it is not to be a scathing critique of Jefferson, it is to be a farewell speech for Washington.  Delivered and published in 1796, that address is brilliant, conciliatory, and deeply hopeful for the union.  It has some great theology of humility in there too.  Of course, in the musical, they sing it, and it is amazing.
 
The text explains that his decision is to assist this new form of government in transitioning leadership, rising above partisan disunity, and looking forward to unifying national interests.  The speech is so revered that in 1862, in a time of great disunity, it was read on February 22nd on the floor of U.S. Senate.  The speech has been read on that same day every year since then.  One would hope that our representative democracy could listen and channel Washington’s vision, his hope for the nation, and his personal humility before the larger purpose.  Alas, people are flawed and politics is messy.
 
In the musical, Hamilton asks “Why do you have to say goodbye?” Washington responds: “If I say goodbye, the nation learns to move on.  It outlives me when I’m gone.”
 
There are amazing parallels in our lessons for this Feast of the Ascension.  For weeks, we have been reading pieces of Jesus’ own farewell address to his disciples.  He has been raised from death, he has appeared to folks numerous times, and he sets the stage for Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit to work in and through all of us, as a constant, abiding, and eternal presence.  Not unlike Hamilton, the disciples are puzzled at why he needs to leave at all.  They want him to solve their political problems and establish an earthly kingdom with them at the helm, but this is not what Jesus comes to do.  He comes to assemble a group of witnesses to God’s power and help all of us transcend our own personal ambitions and machinations.  He is not forming a government; he is commissioning the Church as his living body.
 
With images of fire, wind, and water, he tells them to think bigger, wider, and far beyond what their limited imagination.  And then, as the story goes, he ascends into heaven.  His goodbye is a real adherence to the meaning of that word which is a mash up of the phrase: God be with you.  Properly seen, as God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one, his goodbye is also an empowering hello.  God remains, though not in Jesus’ physical form.  If we got wrapped up in the whole geometry of the Ascension, we are apt to get lost.  If we consider the essence of the Ascension, it is about living beyond the limited physical person of Jesus into deep unity and eternity, which is a big and mighty thing.
 
We are in an annual season of goodbyes.  Graduations are called commencements because they toward beginning again.  In our house, we have two graduating from academic programs and heading off to find and inhabit whatever comes next.  In our parish, we have lots and lots of families celebrating such milestones.  These events bring great joy, but they can be pretty scary rites of passage for all involved.  How we will manage new ways of independence and live into that new space creates tension.  Well-meaning folks are apt to ask the graduate what is next, but they are not always really sure.  Even if they have a plan, it is new, untested, and hovering in the not yet.  Just because the metaphorical U-Haul is packed, there is still a journey to be made.
 
In that, we have a kinship as Jesus’ disciples.  God may be working in us and nudging us in particular directions, but the destinations of life are always uncertain and, frequently, changing.  Contrary to what it may look like, Jesus’ Ascension is about showing us that we are not going it alone.  God is not a local God, limited to appearance in one time or space.  God is an everywhere God whose already wherever we are going.  Resurrection is not a static thing.  It is the dynamic movement of God in our lives.  It is not just a Jesus event.  It is an ongoing, all-creation happening.   
 
Right after Jesus goes into the clouds, the disciples are standing there dumbstruck looking toward the heavens.  Two angelic folks show up, clad in pure white, challenging them immediately. “Why do you stand there looking up toward heaven?”  It is a question they never answer, but the point is a good one for us to consider too.  If we seek God, a closer kinship with Jesus, and the power of the Holy Spirit in and around us, it might not be best to look beyond the horizons of an unknown heaven.  It might be best to look around to see and seek God.
 
As the Beatles sang: “You say goodbye, and I say hello.”  While we are in a season of goodbyes, we are in a particularly unique season of hellos too.  Extended families are beginning to gather again.  Masks are coming off.  People are starting to travel again.  The middle seats on airplanes are being occupied again.  Signs of new life are popping up as we move around more freely.  This does not come without change anxiety too.
 
Harkening back to Hamilton, we might see ourselves in some act or scene in life’s drama that is unresolved, but unfolding.  Whether it is well into Act II or early in Act I, we will need to say goodbye well and find ways to say hello again too, even as we hover in spaces that an ancient mystic called “the cloud of unknowing.”  In our first times, in our last times, and everything in between, Psalm 139 says it well: 


If I climb to the sky, you’re there!
 If I go underground, you’re there!
If I fly on morning’s wings
 to the far western horizon,
You find me in a minute--
You, God, are already there, waiting.
 
Travel safely. God is with you.  Always.  Every goodbye is a hello.  Amen.