The texts that become the focus for your preaching this week will depend in large part in how (and if) your congregation celebrates the Ascension. Some churches will commemorate this festival on its designated day, May 25. Others will take the "moveable feast" option and celebrate it on Sunday, rather than continue the Easter progression. Some may even choose to ignore the festival, particularly if the preacher has dedicated a series of sermons to the Johannine texts... Read more...

The texts that become the focus for your preaching this week will depend in large part in how (and if) your congregation celebrates the Ascension. Some churches will commemorate this festival on its designated day, May 25. Others will take the "moveable feast" option and celebrate it on Sunday, rather than continue the Easter progression. Some may even choose to ignore the festival, particularly if the preacher has dedicated a series of sermons to the Johannine texts. And less liturgically minded pastors may default to the Ascension texts as an opportunity to break away from John! Complicating matters further for some U.S. congregations is the fact that this is also Memorial Day weekend, and many may feel an obligation to acknowledge this national holiday in some fashion, particularly where the effects of the Iraq War have been most keenly felt.

A friend with nominal church education asked me recently, "What's the difference between the Resurrection and the Ascension?" Such a question should not be particularly surprising, given that pastors and theologians have often elided the Ascension in their recounting of the Jesus story, and that this event appears only in Luke's Gospel. Indeed, as Brandon Scott's commentary on the Ascension Day texts shows, these lections present complicated issues for preachers to tackle. How one preaches on the Ascension will depend in large part on the questions about Jesus that are alive in the congregation here and now.

Parishioners who have seen the new movie The Da Vinci Code may well have many fresh questions about the scriptures and what we know about the life of Jesus. As Beverly Roberts Gaventa has written, "The Ascension may offer the right opportunity for direct talk about the indirectness of much scriptural language." This is an ideal time to follow in the example of Jesus that Luke recounts, to "open minds to understand the scriptures."

Those who choose to follow the regular Easter sequence will find themselves once again confronted with texts from Acts, 1 John, and the Fourth Gospel, but many preachers will likely be relieved to see that they speak in quite different terms from the recent pericopes. The Acts text, focused on the selection of Matthias to complete the Twelve after the death of Judas Iscariot, is another opportunity to discuss the Gospel of Judas, as well as a good preparatory text for Pentecost.

The Johannine texts reflect more on the faith and unity of the community. As the Sunday morning make-up of the congregation appears more scattered over the summer, this is a good reminder of the Christian community's ongoing unity and its witness to the world. And for those who must acknowledge the occasion of Memorial Day, both Jesus' prayer of protection in the Easter Gospel and the joyful reminder of the Resurrection in the Ascension Gospel may provide comfort and hope to those whose loss of a loved one in war may be all too recent.