Ascension and Pentacost
This Sunday, I'll sing Christos Anesti, the Easter song, for the last time this year. In the Greek Orthodox tradition, it's Ascension Sunday; in the Western tradition, Pentacost.
You probably remember this part of the story: Jesus dies, the earth shakes, some rich guy offers to provide a new grave for his body, which is carefully guarded. A bunch of faithful women discover that his body is not there and hear the angel explain that he’s risen, as he said he would. They are overjoyed or full of fear, depending on which version you read, but either way, they run off and tell others, who tell others, who tell others, and the church, as we know it, with all of its flaws, is born.
And that's where the story of Jesus' life on earth would end it wasn’t for the Book of Acts (and the tail end of a couple of the Gospels). After the Resurrection, Jesus returns to walk among his followers, who sometimes recognize him and sometimes don’t? He finally ascends to heaven “for real” 40 days later in front of their eyes? Then, the 120 followers who have been hiding out decide to cast lots to replace Judas? (I always feel sorry for the guy who didn’t get chosen—I mean, why was it so important to have 12, or, for that matter, that they all be men?).
If the Ascension story wasn’t weird enough, there’s Pentecost, which is even more farfetched—the Holy Spirit comes down, everyone speaks ecstatically in tongues, and Peter tells off the mean people who think they’re all drunk, explaining that they’re actually filled with a spirit non-believers will never understand.
Already, lines are being drawn between who matters and who doesn’t, who gets left out and who gets let in. Already, Jesus’ message of inclusiveness seems to have been forgotten. Yeah, yeah, I get it—they were hiding out for a reason. They really were in danger—I mean, he’d just been crucified. Still, I can’t help but feel it’s odd that the same method used to split up Jesus’ clothes among the soldiers after he was stripped for a whipping was used to determine who would replace Judas as the 12th Disciple.
But more than anything else, I think my writer-self is just bothered by the way the Ascension and Pentecost mess with what would otherwise be a beautiful and neatly tied up story of Jesus’ birth, life, and Resurrection.
But I suppose that’s the whole point. No one’s life story reflects a perfect narrative arc. I talked about this with my Creative Nonfiction students this semester. So many of them were confused about where to end their pieces—a challenge for any creative piece, but especially challenging for autobiographical work. Of course it’s important to reflect the messiness of life, but the piece can’t be such a big mess that it has no center. Storytelling is, after all, about making meaning out of experience, either actually, when using the material of our own lives, or figuratively, when using the material of our shared humanity.
I come from a tradition that believes the Bible to be the word of God. God, like a divine lot-thrower, made sure that, out of all the versions that were written down, the right versions got into the book. God also inspired the writers to put down what they knew, to tell the story in the best way.
As a literate and thinking person, I can’t actually believe this; there is simply no way to discount how the Bible was actually put together, and the historical and political reasons certain versions were chosen over others. Not to mention that if God had really controlled the writing and putting together of the Bible, why do we have four vastly different versions of Jesus’ life? Yes, each writer had a different perspective or way of understanding Jesus, but even aside from those personal differences, the fact remains that even basic facts about what happened when, what Jesus said and didn’t say, conflict. To say that those who hunger and thirst will be blessed is vastly different than saying that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be blessed—and yet, the Sermon on the Mount, one of my favorite set of verses in the Bible, is completely different depending on which version you read. I don’t get how the Evangelicals—or the Greek Orthodox, for that matter, so I don’t pick on any one group--can’t see this. It’s so incredibly obvious, even on a first read.
In his final portfolio reflection, one of my students wrote that he continued to be bothered by the fact that I’d told my students it was OK to lie in their creative nonfiction pieces. That’s not exactly how I put it, but essentially, he’s right. I don’t believe it’s OK to completely alter what happened when writing nonfiction, but if you need to combine minor characters, or write a dialogue even though you don’t remember the exact words that were said—if doing so will make the story better, and make the reader’s experience of reading better—then I believe it’s OK. Good writing requires details that even the most observant person, even the best listener, won’t get right. The alternative, to me, would be to never write anything autobiographical at all or to write really boring, summarized pieces that didn’t read like—well, like good writing.
Did the writers of the Bible know that their words were going to be studied and prayed over and believed to be the word of God? I doubt it, but then, I also don’t believe Jesus had any real understanding that he was special (something that also does not coincide with my tradition’s view of Christianity). I think he was a brave, thoughtful guy who got in trouble with the people in power for speaking against them a little too often, for telling the truth. I believe he healed people, and spoke wisely and honestly, and loved deeply, and knew he would eventually die for what he said and did. Was he God’s one and only special son? I don’t know for sure, but I do believe his teachings are worth reading carefully and considering thoughtfully, and I do use them as the basis for my own spiritual practices.
But I also think that the telling of stories mucks up the truth as much as it preserves truth. We have to tell our stories to make sense of them, to make connections with others. But what we tell and what we lived are two vastly different things, and we can’t pretend that one is the same as the other. What I know about who I was at 10, 15, or 25 is different than what I experienced then and different than what I wrote in my journal soon after I’d lived the events of those periods in my life. That’s just how life, and recording life, work.
Some traditions tell us that the Church is the keeper of truth, and others tell us that the Church is ever-changing, based on the love and lives and actions of its members. I think the reality is somewhere in the middle. There are traditions worth keeping—the core messages Jesus meant to pass on, about love and inclusiveness and generosity and healing. There are changes worth making to traditions to meet the needs of an ever-changing world, but of course those needs remain, on some level, the same—there are still people who are left out, considered untouchable; there are still people who don’t have enough to eat and who are sick; there are still people who enjoy having power over others and people who are empowered by community and a desire for change.
In the end, the writer can only do so much. The reader will meet the writer only part way, will make sense of every story she reads in light of her own understanding and education and beliefs. And, a reader will read the same text at different times in her life and find different meanings. There is no such thing as objectivity; we all come to the page not as fully realized selves, but as selves that are ever changing.
But maybe that’s the point of the Ascension and the Pentecost stories. They tell us that the story doesn’t end after the Resurrection. They assure us that the boundary between the living and the dead is not as clear as we might have thought, that no story is ever completely over. This is a comfort to me in a way that the idea of heaven has never been. I believe for sure that people live on in those who are left to tell their stories, to pass on some essence of who they were. I don’t know if I believe in a heaven per se, but I do believe in legacies, in stories told, retold, and even mistold in ways that are far better and more meaningful than a simple recounting of what actually happened.
If I had to summarize what my religion is in five words or fewer: I believe in the power of stories. Oops, that’s seven, but that will have to do.
You probably remember this part of the story: Jesus dies, the earth shakes, some rich guy offers to provide a new grave for his body, which is carefully guarded. A bunch of faithful women discover that his body is not there and hear the angel explain that he’s risen, as he said he would. They are overjoyed or full of fear, depending on which version you read, but either way, they run off and tell others, who tell others, who tell others, and the church, as we know it, with all of its flaws, is born.
And that's where the story of Jesus' life on earth would end it wasn’t for the Book of Acts (and the tail end of a couple of the Gospels). After the Resurrection, Jesus returns to walk among his followers, who sometimes recognize him and sometimes don’t? He finally ascends to heaven “for real” 40 days later in front of their eyes? Then, the 120 followers who have been hiding out decide to cast lots to replace Judas? (I always feel sorry for the guy who didn’t get chosen—I mean, why was it so important to have 12, or, for that matter, that they all be men?).
If the Ascension story wasn’t weird enough, there’s Pentecost, which is even more farfetched—the Holy Spirit comes down, everyone speaks ecstatically in tongues, and Peter tells off the mean people who think they’re all drunk, explaining that they’re actually filled with a spirit non-believers will never understand.
Already, lines are being drawn between who matters and who doesn’t, who gets left out and who gets let in. Already, Jesus’ message of inclusiveness seems to have been forgotten. Yeah, yeah, I get it—they were hiding out for a reason. They really were in danger—I mean, he’d just been crucified. Still, I can’t help but feel it’s odd that the same method used to split up Jesus’ clothes among the soldiers after he was stripped for a whipping was used to determine who would replace Judas as the 12th Disciple.
But more than anything else, I think my writer-self is just bothered by the way the Ascension and Pentecost mess with what would otherwise be a beautiful and neatly tied up story of Jesus’ birth, life, and Resurrection.
But I suppose that’s the whole point. No one’s life story reflects a perfect narrative arc. I talked about this with my Creative Nonfiction students this semester. So many of them were confused about where to end their pieces—a challenge for any creative piece, but especially challenging for autobiographical work. Of course it’s important to reflect the messiness of life, but the piece can’t be such a big mess that it has no center. Storytelling is, after all, about making meaning out of experience, either actually, when using the material of our own lives, or figuratively, when using the material of our shared humanity.
I come from a tradition that believes the Bible to be the word of God. God, like a divine lot-thrower, made sure that, out of all the versions that were written down, the right versions got into the book. God also inspired the writers to put down what they knew, to tell the story in the best way.
As a literate and thinking person, I can’t actually believe this; there is simply no way to discount how the Bible was actually put together, and the historical and political reasons certain versions were chosen over others. Not to mention that if God had really controlled the writing and putting together of the Bible, why do we have four vastly different versions of Jesus’ life? Yes, each writer had a different perspective or way of understanding Jesus, but even aside from those personal differences, the fact remains that even basic facts about what happened when, what Jesus said and didn’t say, conflict. To say that those who hunger and thirst will be blessed is vastly different than saying that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be blessed—and yet, the Sermon on the Mount, one of my favorite set of verses in the Bible, is completely different depending on which version you read. I don’t get how the Evangelicals—or the Greek Orthodox, for that matter, so I don’t pick on any one group--can’t see this. It’s so incredibly obvious, even on a first read.
In his final portfolio reflection, one of my students wrote that he continued to be bothered by the fact that I’d told my students it was OK to lie in their creative nonfiction pieces. That’s not exactly how I put it, but essentially, he’s right. I don’t believe it’s OK to completely alter what happened when writing nonfiction, but if you need to combine minor characters, or write a dialogue even though you don’t remember the exact words that were said—if doing so will make the story better, and make the reader’s experience of reading better—then I believe it’s OK. Good writing requires details that even the most observant person, even the best listener, won’t get right. The alternative, to me, would be to never write anything autobiographical at all or to write really boring, summarized pieces that didn’t read like—well, like good writing.
Did the writers of the Bible know that their words were going to be studied and prayed over and believed to be the word of God? I doubt it, but then, I also don’t believe Jesus had any real understanding that he was special (something that also does not coincide with my tradition’s view of Christianity). I think he was a brave, thoughtful guy who got in trouble with the people in power for speaking against them a little too often, for telling the truth. I believe he healed people, and spoke wisely and honestly, and loved deeply, and knew he would eventually die for what he said and did. Was he God’s one and only special son? I don’t know for sure, but I do believe his teachings are worth reading carefully and considering thoughtfully, and I do use them as the basis for my own spiritual practices.
But I also think that the telling of stories mucks up the truth as much as it preserves truth. We have to tell our stories to make sense of them, to make connections with others. But what we tell and what we lived are two vastly different things, and we can’t pretend that one is the same as the other. What I know about who I was at 10, 15, or 25 is different than what I experienced then and different than what I wrote in my journal soon after I’d lived the events of those periods in my life. That’s just how life, and recording life, work.
Some traditions tell us that the Church is the keeper of truth, and others tell us that the Church is ever-changing, based on the love and lives and actions of its members. I think the reality is somewhere in the middle. There are traditions worth keeping—the core messages Jesus meant to pass on, about love and inclusiveness and generosity and healing. There are changes worth making to traditions to meet the needs of an ever-changing world, but of course those needs remain, on some level, the same—there are still people who are left out, considered untouchable; there are still people who don’t have enough to eat and who are sick; there are still people who enjoy having power over others and people who are empowered by community and a desire for change.
In the end, the writer can only do so much. The reader will meet the writer only part way, will make sense of every story she reads in light of her own understanding and education and beliefs. And, a reader will read the same text at different times in her life and find different meanings. There is no such thing as objectivity; we all come to the page not as fully realized selves, but as selves that are ever changing.
But maybe that’s the point of the Ascension and the Pentecost stories. They tell us that the story doesn’t end after the Resurrection. They assure us that the boundary between the living and the dead is not as clear as we might have thought, that no story is ever completely over. This is a comfort to me in a way that the idea of heaven has never been. I believe for sure that people live on in those who are left to tell their stories, to pass on some essence of who they were. I don’t know if I believe in a heaven per se, but I do believe in legacies, in stories told, retold, and even mistold in ways that are far better and more meaningful than a simple recounting of what actually happened.
If I had to summarize what my religion is in five words or fewer: I believe in the power of stories. Oops, that’s seven, but that will have to do.
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