The Ascension is one of those stories from the Bible that isn’t simply strange but genuinely does not make any sense today. We hear it as Jesus pulling a Superman and flying up into the sky, suggesting not only that heaven is found in some sort of alien world or alternate dimension but that Jesus is somehow inherently different from us—more demigod than actual human.

Somewhere along the line…we who inherited the mantle of the Church lost touch with that loving, prophetic Spirit. We found it easier to establish rules and customs justifying the exclusion and even outright rejection of certain groups of people rather than walk in the discomfort of the Spirit’s voice. For centuries we clapped our hands over our ears and squeezed our eyes shut, doing everything we could to avoid God’s vision…

Over this and the past few Sundays you may have noticed the frequent repetition of one of John’s favorite words: “abide.” It’s been showing up in both our Gospel and Epistle readings for several weeks now. For me, the concept behind “abiding” has a kind of passive quality. It conjures up images of waiting for a bus or, more positively, settling into one’s home each evening.

In the modern world most of us have little or no context for what Jesus is talking about [in John 10]—not just the ins and outs of sheep husbandry, but even the immediate situation he’s facing in our passage. He isn’t making isolated statements while cuddling a newborn lamb or resting in a pasture. He’s addressing and trying to make sense of a very real and potentially dangerous experience.

This year our Gospel readings primarily come from the book of Mark. Mark, likely the first Gospel to take written form, tends to focus more on action and interaction than on narration, as we encountered this morning in his singular account of the resurrection. But what we read wasn’t just the resurrection—it actually appears to have been the original ending to the entire book…

The Bible traces these kinds of internal fights and rivalries—this tendency to blame and isolate from one another—all the way back to the beginning of humanity. What we see playing out today in attempts to set “genuine” Christians against undefined “false” ones or “real” Americans against our just-as-American neighbors is simply that original sin playing itself over and over again…

With thousands of years of history and theology to look back upon, it’s easy for us to recognize Jesus as prophet, priest, and king, but in the earliest days of Christianity—particularly before Rome destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem—that second title would have been questionable at best.

One thing we know for certain about the author of John’s Gospel is that they loved wordplay. The characters are constantly misinterpreting one another. It happened during the cleansing of the Temple in the previous chapter,[1] and it’s already occurred in this conversation between Jesus and a Judean elder named Nicodemus.

The Ten Commandments are pretty famous, to say the least. In Lent, Episcopal Churches have a tradition of opening their services with a recitation of them. They showed up as one of our Lectionary readings today. Religious or not, the general public even has regular arguments about whether or not they should appear in government buildings. But late last night, just before bed, I had a sudden thought: what if there aren’t actually Ten Commandments? What if we’ve been looking at them wrong for hundreds or even thousands of years?

It’s easy to look at the Bible as if it were a map, some sort of guide that shows us how to get to Disneyland or where to find a buried treasure. We start at Creation, take the exit for the Ten Commandments, turn right at the Beatitudes, trundle our way down the straight and narrow, make sure to avoid that oh-so-tempting turnoff for the byway to hell, and with enough time and luck, finally arrive at the Kingdom of Heaven…

Many ancient cultures expressed sorrow or repentance through the use of ashes. You’ll read about people throughout the Hebrew Bible who cover themselves with them—Job; Jeremiah; according to the book of Jonah, the entire city of Ninevah showed their collective repentance in that manner.

Today’s reading comes from the first half of [II Corinthians] and appears right after a discussion recognizing the “glory” of Moses’ teachings while emphasizing that Jesus’ life-giving Gospel appears even more glorious. He contrasts how after receiving the Torah, Moses had to cover his face to hide its radiance after standing in God’s presence. In Jesus, God’s glory is unveiled for all to see.

It isn’t part of our readings today, but our I Corinthians passage calls me back to the story of Cain and Abel from early in the book of Genesis. We still get caught up in sibling rivalry today, but it’s a problem that goes way back—all the way to the world’s first brothers.

…there is space for difference within the greater Church, for unity without uniformity, and there has been from the beginning. In fact, that’s the primary message of Paul’s letter to the Galatians! Those who wished to follow Christ in what’s now central Turkey weren’t required to adopt the common cultural practices of those first Christians living in Judea…

Jonah, better known from Sunday School than from the Revised Common Lectionary of Bible readings that we follow, is one of the Bible’s stranger books. In fact, passages from this particular Minor Prophet appear only twice in the course of our three-year cycle of Sunday readings—the 3rd week of Epiphany in Year B (aka today) and early autumn during Year A.

Modern American Christianity has developed a kind of weird, unspoken mythology regarding the idea of a “calling” that makes it a lot more complex—or at least more confusing—than it needs to be. Some treat it as a sort of vision quest, sometimes waiting for years to glimpse a supernatural indication that will reveal their life’s one, true purpose or else eventually assuming it’s something that only happens for other, more special people.

I wonder how often we might find that same reality reflected in our own lives today—how often we, even as Christians, reject or fight against the movement of the Holy Spirit as Christ continues to remake our world, restoring and revealing the full promise of the Reign of the Heavens.

Growing up, I remember one of our pastors having us sing “Joy to the World” in the middle of the summer, but it wasn’t because we were celebrating Christmas in July. “That isn’t a Christmas song,” he proclaimed, “that’s a Second Coming song!” And he wasn’t wrong.

Advent is a call to undo oppression—and not simply oppression but everything the Bible would call “sin,” all the trials and struggles life imposes on people. For those society has beaten down, Advent is an opportunity to reclaim the dignity inherent to them as true children of God. For those of us who may have forcibly imposed our will on others or inherited certain advantages from generations past, Advent is a time to recognize the mountains and hills on which we stand.

…people in the Bible wouldn’t necessarily think of sin as something someone does. It’s far broader than that. Nor is it as all-encompassing as being something a person inherently is—it’s far less static. In a more collective culture, sin isn’t something evidenced only through the action or inaction of an individual. Sin is more systemic, something that can happen to you, with or without any other person involved.