As most of you know, I spent all of my elementary school years here in the Lehigh Valley as a student at Cetronia Elementary School in the Parkland School District over in Allentown. But during the summer between 6th and 7th grade, my family moved from Allentown to Atlanta, Georgia. For my parents, it was a bit of a homecoming in terms of the region if not the city, since they had grown up in Alabama and lived all of their adult life in the South until we came to Allentown.
But for me, it felt like going to live on a different planet. The 
population of Atlanta was more than 15 times the size of Allentown, for starters, but the really disorienting part was school: I would guess my elementary school had around 250 students across six grades; my middle school in Atlanta had 1500 students in just three. Plus everyone else in that middle school was in their second year of middle school, but at the time I moved from Allentown, Parkland School District was still on the junior high system, so my sixth grade had been in elementary school.
So I was learning for the first time about things like lockers, having different teachers in different rooms for each subjects, and buzzers to start and end classes that only gave you ten minutes to get from one end of the vast building to the other and no directions on how to do it, when everyone else had gotten orientations and a year’s practice to do so. It was a rough transition, and I was pretty overwhelmed for awhile.
But nothing was more overwhelming than when my seventh grade social studies teacher announced that we were being assigned to groups to do our seventh grade social studies projects. Now, when she announced that, I had no idea what she meant, and the handout she gave us to guide us was of very little help. I remember it saying something about a thesis statement and primary sources and a display board, but I didn’t know what any of that meant.
“Just ask Ms. Thomas to help you understand,” my mother told me, trying to encourage me when I admitted to being lost at sea about how to do this project that would essentially determine my grade for the year. “Oh, you don’t ask Ms. Thomas questions,” I explained to my mom, who was shocked at my reply. “Any good teacher is happy to answer questions,” she said; “not Ms. Thomas,” I assured her, and we were both right.
Any even competent teacher, much less a good one, should welcome questions from students as an opportunity for engagement, but Ms. Thomas was an epically bad teacher, and she seemed to view questions as an insult to her teaching abilities, a sign of our innate stupidity, or both. Well, at least I’ve got a group to work with, I thought to myself, they’ve been here for a year, they’ll know what to do; that’s the point of being in a group, to share the load and play to each other’s strengths.
Oh, to be so young and naïve again… Now, before you judge me, remember that this was my first experience ever with a group project in school. I mean, there had been group exercises in elementary school, but those only lasted for a lesson; this was a project that was supposed to be done collaboratively over several months and be presented both in class and potentially in the Social Studies Fair. It was a true group project. Now, do you remember group projects at the middle and high school level?
As the old joke goes, “When I die, I want the people I did group projects with to bury me, so they can let me down one last time.” Group projects are supposed to teach communication, collaboration, and mutual responsibility and accountability. What they actually teach you is more or less the same thing that you learn from watching a zombie apocalypse movie: trust no one; you’re better off alone; everyone else is either a threat or a drain on your limited resources; and the only person who’s going to save you is yourself.
OK, maybe that’s a little strong, but you know what I mean. Basically, the members of any group project break down into some combination of the following archetypes: there’s the person who ignores all the calls and meetings and only shows up for the presentation; the person who you wish only showed up for the presentation because their ideas are so bad; the person who says they’re going to help, volunteers to do things, and doesn’t deliver; the person who tries to act as the leader by assigning all the work to other people; and the person who actually does 99% of the actual work on the project. Naturally, my social studies group project didn’t have the person who tried to act like the leader, but we had all the other ones, and unfortunately I ended up as the person who did all the work, which meant that we got a C- because I didn’t even know what I was doing.
As I was reading this story of Jesus’ ascension into heaven earlier this week, it struck me that what he’s really doing is assigning the disciples the world’s biggest group project. It starts off with Jesus telling the disciples not to leave Jerusalem, where they have been gathered since Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Instead, they are to wait there for “the promise of the Father,” the text says, which he then explains: “‘This,’ he said, ‘is what you have heard from me. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’”
The disciples seem to basically ignore that promise, though, instead asking, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” Here they are, on the other side of Easter, still misunderstanding what Jesus has come to do, repeating the old dreams about driving out the Roman Empire and reestablishing the kingdom of Israel. In a weird sort of way, it’s a declaration of faith, because that is an essentially impossible task, but if Jesus was able to come back from the dead, then sort of anything is on the table at this point, they figure. But it is not what Jesus has come to do.
Rather than try to explain all that again, Jesus essentially tells them not to worry about it, because that’s not their role regardless. “‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority,’” Jesus answers them. But then he goes on to explain what their role really is: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” That’s quite an assignment! And before they can ask any questions about it or how to go about doing it, Jesus checks out: “When he had said this,” Luke tells us, “as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.”
And the disciples just sort of stand there, getting “sunburned throats” as one of my friends likes to say, because they’re just staring up into the sky with their mouths hanging open. Partially, I’m sure, that was because of surprise and amazement: it’s not every day that you see your teacher lifted up into the heavens on a cloud. But I think at least part of it had to be the group project he gave them as homework right before he left: “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Now, there are a number of problems with that assignment. First, the vastness of it: Jesus gives them concentric circles of responsibility for being his witnesses, for proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ: first Jerusalem, where they are right now; then Judea and Samaria, the historic regions of ancient Israel; and then literally everywhere else, “to the ends of the earth,” which means far, far beyond Jewish lands to every corner of the Gentile world. That’s a gigantic assignment.
Second, they have no idea how to accomplish it, and nobody to ask: I mean, Ms. Thomas wasn’t much help, but she did at least stay in the classroom instead of flying away on a cloud! Third, in all of their group projects so far, Jesus was clearly the one who ended up doing 99% of the work (if not more). While Jesus was actually doing everything, the disciples were arguing over who gets to be the leader, or promising to do things and then not doing them, or just disappearing and only showing up when it was time for the presentation (looking at you, Peter, who denied he was even in the group three times while Jesus was being tried and tortured before his crucifixion, and doesn’t show up again until after Easter). What are they going to do now on this project they’ve been assigned, now that their group is made up solely of the people who let someone else do all the work?
That’s when the angels helpfully show up to remind them that Jesus, unlike Ms. Thomas, actually gave pretty clear and even reassuring instructions. “This is what you have heard from me,” Jesus says, emphasizing both what he’s about to say next and the fact that he’s already said it to them before: “you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” What we know that the disciples don’t is that he’s talking about the events of Pentecost, which we will consider next Sunday, but which is the fulfillment of this promise: the Holy Spirit pouring out over the disciples like a waterfall, filling them with God’s own power to preach and teach and heal, washing away their own confusion with the Spirit’s confidence, washing away their own ambivalence with the Spirit’s clear sense of purpose, washing away their fear with the Spirit’s boldness.
And when the Spirit comes, an amazing thing happens: all of these disciples who were the slackers and the posers and the mouth-breathers and the wallflowers for so long suddenly become courageous and compelling proclaimers of the gospel through word and action in their own right. Pentecost is the fulfillment of the promise Jesus makes here right before his ascension into heaven, and the rest of the book of Acts is the story of the disciples fulfilling Jesus’ group project for them: being his witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
The thing is, they did not suddenly all turn into the kid who does 99% of the work. It’s easy to make that mistake if you read through the book of Acts; the full title of the book is even “the Acts of the Apostles.” The word apostle means “a messenger who is sent out,” which is the perfect title for what Jesus assigns these disciples to be and what they become on and after Pentecost.
But, as many Biblical scholars have noted, what the book of Acts should really be called is, “The Acts of the Holy Spirit through the Apostles,” because throughout the book, starting on Pentecost, it is the Spirit that initiates, the Spirit that prods and pushes and occasionally knocks people over who still aren’t getting it, the Spirit that brings people together and sends them abroad, the Spirit that brings visions that open up the minds of the Apostles to truths and possibilities they could have never conceived of on their own as they go out to the ends of the earth.
You see, the gospel is, in fact, a group project: Jesus is very clear, before and after his crucifixion and resurrection, that Christian discipleship is never a solo project. During his earthly ministry, Jesus never sent the disciples out alone, but always in groups of at least two people. He promised that wherever two or more of us are gathered, he would be present with us. Here, just before his ascension, he tells the disciples, “Y’all” (or “youse,” take your pick) will be baptized with the Holy Spirit…Y’all will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
And by baptizing them and us with the Holy Spirit, he ensures that every group, no matter how big or small, has someone who can and will do 99% of the work. But unlike all those school projects, the Spirit doesn’t accomplish its work despite us, but through us. The blessing of the Christian church is not simply that we have one another, but that the Spirit moves and works with us and through us, to help us love one another and love our neighbors, to help us truly become together the Body of Christ in this world. And so as we go through this tumultuous, divided, polarized world, we can be Christ’s witnesses together, sharing the good news of Christ’s reconciling love through our words and actions, because in Christ we have received it and shared it ourselves.