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Seventh Sunday in Easter, Year A
May 8, 2005
Christ Church, Covington
“You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to
the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
Last year, over 400,000 American tax returns were prepared by accountants
in India, work “outsourced” by American firms who were taking advantage of
the cheap and skilled Indian labor market. They are able to do so because
of the technology and investment that produced the fiber optic link
between far-flung parts of the world, the “work flow” and other compatible
software that makes this link useful, and the relentless need for business
to “globalize” in order to make a profit. That’s the way journalist Thomas
Friedman tells the story in his book, The World is Flat. The call you make
for technical support to your computer may be going to Bangalore; the
order you place in the drive through lane in Saint Louis for a hamburger
may be taken and processed by someone in Nebraska; your closest
collaborators on a project may be spread across the globe from Moscow to
Dubai.
These forces and others are what have made the world “flat”: a place where
people are able to collaborate in new ways and on a global scale,
overcoming barriers and crossing borders. In The New Yorker cartoon by
Steiner, one dog says to the other, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re
a dog”: or living in India, Poland, or China, for that matter. For
Friedman, it’s not just about knowledge and productivity, but about the
unleashing of human imagination and creativity on a global scale.
Well, that’s Friedman, framing the issue in terms of the imagination.
Convenient, because it brings us to yet another imaginative exercise in
global-ism. Long before fiber optics and the internet, or anything else,
Jesus invited his disciples to think in global terms. “You will be my
witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the
earth” (Acts 1:8). Jesus is right there, up front, asking the disciples to
expand their minds to include not just the little corner of the earth
they’re familiar with, but also the big world outside. They’re going to
overcome barriers and cross borders, as well, using the Pax Romana and its
roads and waterways as their vehicle for reaching the ends of the earth.
The Church is going to be their work platform, and prayer their Internet.
People are going to be brought together by the Gospel. It was true for
them, and it’s true for us. Christianity is a global phenomenon, a
collaborative adventure of worldwide scope, which none of us in our
parochialism can afford to forget.
Let’s take this just a little further, because part of the story is also
beyond our world. We’ve got to be something more than simply global. Jesus
not only sends the disciples out to the ends of the earth, but he himself
goes beyond all borders and barriers by ascending into heaven. He goes to
that place which is beyond human experience, and beyond our imagination,
to prepare a place for us. Human destiny is not at the ends of the earth,
but at the right hand of God’s throne. Jesus is the first to arrive,
pointing the human race forward by grace to a calling which is beyond our
own capacity, a great collaborative venture with God.
Jesus’ death and resurrection, and ascension into heaven, is a marker
which reminds us of the real limits of human potential. What is God
calling you to? Friedman talks about imagination, in strictly global
terms; but Christianity talks about imagination with an even broader
prospective. Then again, it’s not our imagination that is our limit, but
God’s grace, and that has no limit. Yet we will have to use our
imagination in order to imagine those things that God has prepared for us
and to which he calls us. Again, what is God calling you to? I bet it goes
beyond your own purely human capabilities, and even beyond your
imagination. There is challenge and promise here in God’s call. But when
we respond, and discover the ability to follow through, we’re conscious of
God’s guiding and empowering presence. We’re involved in his work, to the
ends of the earth, with a promise that goes far, far beyond them.
The Rev’d John Bauerschmidt is Rector of Christ Church, Covington.
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