Sermon for June 1, 2025

Sermon for Ascension Day

I remember starting my pastoral internship with a lot of trepidation. I had moved to Toronto with Prema (we were recently married) to start at St. Philip’s Lutheran church. I was nervous. This was the start of real ministry. It would be a chance to put into action all the skills that we had acquired at seminary and stretch our muscles as bonafide pastors. But the notion of doing that was legitimately scary. I wasn’t ready. I needed more time at seminary. Yet there I was, living on the other side of the country in our largest urban setting with my new wife in tow. This had just gotten real!!

It took a while to get used to it. There were many meetings with my supervisor and a lot of direction given. But I slowly got my sea legs, and I was even able to perform many of those tasks on my own, taking the initiative and exploring what it meant to be a pastor.

Fast forward a year and a bit. Seminary was over. We had all graduated and were beginning to fan out into Western Canada. It was a melancholy time as we said goodbye to the community we had formed at seminary. But we were ready for our next challenge, i.e. our own church.

I was excited and so scared. I interviewed at Augustana, and they offered me a call. We moved back to Alberta, and I spent a month working for my parents. And then, on August 1st, I started. It was exhilarating on that first Sunday. But then the reality of the situation settled in. This was my call. This was real. And unlike my internship, which had felt so real, there was no back up. Ultimately, during any internship, the supervisor is answerable for the intern. There is an immense comfort in knowing that as an intern, I was not the final authority. The pastor had my back. I always had support.

But as I sat in my office at Augustana, the truth slowly dawned on me. There was no back up. I was it. If mistakes were made, I would have to answer for them. If there was conflict, I would have to deal with it. Even if things were going well, the life rhythm of the church was still my responsibility. This was no longer in any way theoretical. This was real. No more supervisors. No more seminary. I sat in my office, feeling completely overwhelmed.

I thought of how I felt then, and as I read the text today, I thought of how this must have felt to the disciples. They were saying goodbye to Jesus, which was hard enough. But now the ministry of Jesus, of which they had been a part, had been given to them. But Jesus was not going to be with them. Their support was gone. They were going to have to do this on their own.

If they were anything like me, they would have faced that future with a great deal of anxiety. I remember thinking that I could not possibly do this. What was I thinking? I wanted to turn tail and run. The disciples, being as perfectly human as they were, probably felt the same. How could they do this? If Jesus wasn’t going to be with them, or at least in the vicinity, then their efforts would be doomed to fail. How could they do this?

It is often said that those feelings that accompany a new endeavour, feelings of anxiety and trepidation, are natural. We need to give something new a chance and over time, we will feel more comfortable with it and begin to acclimate. As we do, our gifts and abilities, which were what propelled us to take on this new challenge, will come to the forefront and we will get into a flow and make said challenge our own. When that happens, we will begin to truly thrive in the new role.

That is the commonly held belief, and I think most of us have experienced it to one degree or another. But I would like to suggest a slightly different interpretation. I think that the anxiety and nervousness we feel are more than just “the jitters.” I think they speak to a fundamental truth. We aren’t good enough to do a lot of the things we do in this life. Those moments of anxiety are based on a recognition of the truth. The disciples were not good enough to do what Jesus was asking of them. They were not strong enough, or brave enough, or even smart enough. They were certainly not righteous enough. Nor was I when I started at Augustana. I had no right to sit in that office and preach God’s gospel. I don’t have that right now. I am just a broken and flawed human being. Who am I to do what I do? Who were the disciples? Who are any of us, to presume that we can serve God in any true and meaningful way?

The answer, of course, is that left on our own, each one of us would fail. Our ambition, or fear, or some other brokenness would stand in our way, and we would foul up whatever it was we were attempting to do. Relying on our own strength, our endeavors would be disasters, and we would break ourselves trying to do something we are incapable of doing.

But in the case of the disciples, we know that the story does not end here. We know that they are not left alone. We know that the Holy Spirit comes and stays with them and all people. Generations of people of faith have endeavored to do God’s will. They have only managed to do so only because the Holy Spirit was with them. When we manage to do good in this world, it is because the Spirit ignites in us the gifts and abilities that God created in us. I could not have been a pastor for almost 18 years if the Spirit was not with me. I would mucked things up a long time ago. The disciples would not have done what they did without the Spirit with them. You would not be able to do the good you do without the Spirit with you. All of us would ultimately have failed.

That is not a derogatory statement. It is a truthful one. And it is a hopeful one. When I am confronted by the reality of my own imperfections, I feel completely overwhelmed. I feel like I should go back to bed and hide there for the rest of my life. But when I can remember that the Spirit is with me and that the good I endeavor is possible because the Spirit is there beside me, then I feel like I can do what is being asked of me. I can go where God is guiding me, because God is right with me, every step of the way.

The disciples, by the end of our Gospel reading for today, haven’t quite realized this yet. But they will. And they will go on to change the world. Perhaps we forget this promise at times and think we have to go it alone. But when we are reminded of the truth of the Spirit in our lives, our sadness and anxiety can turn to thanksgiving. God is with us. The disciples will come to see that in next weeks reading. We discover it day in and day out. And every time we do, it can offer us the strength and peace we need to do what we must and go where God is calling us to go.

Amen