Sermon - Up, up and Away

Why is up better than down?

Why do we seek to climb the ladder? To elevate our station? Go up in the world? Aim high? Reach for the stars? To get above ourselves?

Why is the most important part of a building – the penthouse suite or the boss's office – at the top, not at the bottom holding everything up?

Why if a record has gone from number 5 to number 1 has it gone up in the charts even though its number has gone down?

When things are going well they are on the up, compared to when we are feeling down. Our spirits are lifted, when they are not weighing heavily. Our hearts sink, until something makes us jump for joy.

Why is up good?

Why is down bad?

Why is higher culture good and low culture bad? Is upper class better than lower class?

If not, why do we prefer to say 'working class' not 'underclass'?

He is high-minded. She has high standards. She is up right. She is an up-standing citizen.

But that was a low trick. Don't be underhand. I wouldn't stoop to that. That would be beneath me. That would be a low thing to do.

Do you want to be top dog or under dog? Over achieve or under perform?

Do you want to be king of the hill, top of the list, head of the heap, in old New York, New York?

We wake up. We're up already. He rises early in the morning.

But he fell asleep. He dropped off. He sank into a coma during the Vicar's sermon.

He's at the peak of health. He rose from the dead. He's in top shape.

But he fell ill. He's sinking fast. He came down with the flu. His health is declining. He dropped dead.

For the ancient world, the earth was the centre of everything. And the earth was bad, and under the earth was worse. Low down and dirty. Fallen from grace.

The heavens above were perfect. A higher plane. Praise to the Holiest in the Height.

This is what got Galileo into so much trouble.

We may not share the ancients world view. We may know that beyond the clouds is not a perfect world, but a vast darkness, strewn with stars, and maybe worlds, like ours. As perfect and as imperfect, as low down and as exalted as ours. We may know in our minds that we should not stand gazing up into heaven – for heaven is not 'up there'. And yet it seems that our hearts, and our language, can still find meaning in the picture of the ascension. Still yearn to go up. Up there where the air is rarefied, and we'll just glide, starry eyed – lets fly, lets fly away.

And we can still learn from ancient wisdom (if not from the lyrics of Frank Sinatra). The earliest church believed that the ascension was just as important as Christmas and Easter – the incarnation and the resurrection – because it was the ascension that brought the whole to completeness. It was all one act of God. If one part was missing, there would be no sense to the whole.

They said 'He became what we are, that we might become what he is.'

'He became what we are, that we might become what he is.'

For them, the ascension was far more than Jesus 'going up to heaven'. It was not an individual act. It was a sign of God raising the whole creation up – uniting the underworld, our world and the heavens above. It was the Lord 'lifting us up where we belong'. Raising our humanity into his divinity.

So what's up? Cheer up. Chin up. Straighten up. Stand up, Stand up for Jesus.

Lift up your hearts, set your minds on higher things.

Because things are brightening up, livening up, on the up, looking up.

Be under no illusions, you may feel downtrodden, overlooked but underpaid
but you will come out on top, be upwardly mobile, reach new heights.

Because he became what we are that we might become what he is.

If Christmas is God stooping down, sending down to earth from heaven, with the lowest and the least then Ascension is God taking the depths of our lives into the heights of His. Raising our humanity into his divinity, It is his cleaning up, picking up, filling up, summing up,

And I hope that this has cleared things up.

Amen.