Seventh Sunday
After Easter
Annual General Meeting
May 4, 2008
Acts 1:6-14
I Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11
John 17:1-11
Have you ever wondered how others see you? I suppose it’s a common enough thing to wonder. From time to time, every one of us becomes worried about the impression we make on others. The desire to see ourselves as others see us is particularly noticeable when our life is undergoing great change. Perhaps we are looking for a new job, or trying to find a partner to share our life. When facing up to difficult decisions, or just trying to come to terms with the daily stresses and strains that life invariably throws our way, we feel that we would benefit from being able to see ourselves as if from outside.
Of course, such a thing is impossible. No one person can see us clearly. We are a jumble of all sorts of qualities and all sorts of motives, so much so that we are often strangers to ourselves. An ability to see ourselves as others see us may in fact be undesirable. Other people’s opinions of us are not necessarily correct – even (or perhaps especially) when that other person is blinded by love. In a culture dominated by image and appearances, we probably spend far too much time thinking about the impression we make on others, and we are far too easily fooled by the impression that they are trying to make on us.
What we are able to see depends entirely on where we are standing. It also depends very largely on what we want to see. You will often hear people say “Get some perspective!” or: “This has helped me to gain a new perspective on life.” Those expressions are often used by people who have mistaken unimportant things for what is really important; by people who have lost track of their priorities. If we move our position slightly, or if we become aware that we are looking for all the wrong things, we will suddenly be able to see what has hitherto been invisible to us – even though it was in plain sight when we were unable to see it. Perhaps that is the closest we will be able to get to seeing ourselves as others see us.
This Sunday, we are celebrating the Ascension of Jesus into heaven. It is also the Sunday of our Annual General Meeting. It is a happy coincidence, because Ascension Sunday is all about our perspective on the world and on things heavenly. You can see that clearly from the story of the Ascension in the book of Acts. Jesus ascends into heaven in the presence of his disciples. He disappears from their sight, and then two angels dressed in white appear and make this declaration: “Men of Galilee! Why are you standing here looking up into heaven?” The angels declare that the disciples are busy looking in the wrong direction. If they carried on looking only up to heaven, they would have been incapable of seeing the risen Christ present by the power of the Holy Spirit in their own hearts and in the church.
Luke (the author of the Book of Acts) has already given us a
clue to the fact that the disciples are looking in the wrong direction. The last question they ask Jesus is the
following: “Lord, is it at this time
that you will restore the Kingdom to
The message for us at Saint Esprit is clear. During our Annual General Meeting, we will be asking ourselves the question: What direction are we looking in? Do we see the Holy Spirit at work in each and every member of our parish? Our church is blessed with a wonderful congregation of very varied talents. As we begin another year, let us make a promise to each other that we will do all we can to help each other reflect more faithfully our risen and ascended savior, Jesus Christ.
The Revd. Nigel Massey