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Ascension Sunday 2013
12 May
Jack Hardaway

                        Transition

Cicadas.  They are on the way.  One of those rare mass hatchings of the 17 year cicada is about to happen.
I realize that most people don’t like cicadas; they are kind of scary looking.  Gill Powell told me I should talk about butter flies, as they are pretty looking.  But, ever since I was a young child I have been fascinated by cicadas.
One of my earliest memories is of sitting in the mud while my mother gardened and I pulled up this cicada nymph from out of the ground.
Soon after that there was a mass hatching and the shells were hanging all over the place, and the flying screaming adults were everywhere.  We called them Locusts. 
If hot summer sunlight had a sound it would sound like the massed chorus screaming chant of the cicada.
We had competitions to see who could gather the most shells.  We filled pillow cases with the empty crinkly husks.

They have an interesting life cycle, they are always changing.
The adult lays her eggs in a tree, when they hatch they fall to the ground and burrow down and feed on sap from roots.  They grow slowly for 2 to 17 years, and then they dig out, find some place to hang their shell, they then shed their shell and fly around screaming like banshees until they lay their eggs and it starts all over.

They are always changing, always transitioning, always becoming something new.
Change is the norm, whether it is a cicada, a community, a parish, a relationship, a person or the messiah.
Nothing ever really arrives or is finished; it is always about negotiating change and stepping out in hope into what comes next.
This past Thursday was Ascension Day, forty days after Easter.  We attend to that event today.
There is Christmas where God steps out into the incarnation.  There is Good Friday where Jesus steps out into death.  There is Easter where Jesus steps out into the life of resurrection.  There is ascension where Jesus ascends to the right hand of the father.  There is Pentecost where the Spirit steps out into our lives and then there is…and then…and…and…

The story of salvation is about the ongoing life of God negotiating change, entering our lives, and lifting us into communion with the dynamic vitality of the Trinity.

In Luke’s Gospel, after Jesus ascends, the disciples negotiate the change with great joy, blessing God.  They didn’t try to step back and recreate the hay day of Jesus ministry, they went forward as a community that reached out to what God was bringing next and they reached out to the world inviting all to know and share in the change that God is negotiating with a broken humanity.

We as a parish, we as families and individual can step out with the same hope and joy knowing that God is there.
Like the disciples we are challenged to always reach out, to invite, to know and to share in the Good News of God.
Butterflies, they are like Cicadas, they are always changing.
Where will the Gospel take us next?

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