I can’t recall the first time it happened to me, but I can remember insinuations of it here and there. There was the time I was allowed to cross the street by myself. Then there were those times when Little League coaches played me in a new position or put me in as a pinch hitter or to run the bases for someone else. There was that time the Scoutmaster asked me to lead a hike for my troop. Then, too, there was that fateful day, when my father let me borrow his car for the first time for a date, and I hit a patch of ice and rammed into a stone wall.

   All of them were times when I felt that someone trusted me. I wonder what it was like for you when someone else trusted you. Perhaps it was that first time you were allowed to stay home alone or those times you were asked to baby-sit for someone. Maybe it was in team sports or in a class project for school. Whatever it was, whenever someone trusted you, I’ll bet you may have felt some combination of exhilaration and the weight of responsibility as well.

   Trust is a delicate transaction between at least two parties, in which each one is willing to believe something about the other – at least, for example, that the person means what he says. But it’s even more complicated than that because there’s a deeper, a less obvious underlying transaction that goes on. Whenever trust takes place, someone’s giving it away -- without absolute assurance that the trust is warranted – and someone’s earning it – without absolute assurance that he’ll prove worthy of it and it won’t be taken away.

   As delicate as trust is, though, it’s the basis of almost every human interaction. It’s essential to relationships among peers, in school, families, teams, co-workers, neighbors and friends – among any people who have to depend upon each other. And it’s the basis of community.

   It may go without saying, but trust is the bottom line in the Church. The Church and people in my position always talk about the importance of trusting God – of trusting Jesus Christ – with our lives, day in and day out, and with our ultimate destiny.

   The thing that shocks me, though, is that the story of Jesus’ ascension in today’s reading from the Book of Acts, and the Feast of the Ascension that it commemorates, is all about God trusting us. We don’t often think in terms of God trusting us because we know how important it is for us to trust God. But that’s exactly what He’s done, and Jesus proved it when He ascended.

   There the apostles and many other disciples were – with their risen Lord. As He had done so often, He taught them about the Kingdom of God – the non-geographical rule of God in the lives of those who were willing to trust in Him and follow His leadership. Apparently they still didn’t completely understand what He was talking about, because their response was to ask if it was time for Jesus to restore the political sovereignty of Israel and make it into the absolute theocracy that they believed it was supposed to be. "Lord, is it time for you to restore the kingdom to Israel?" They asked, like so many kids on a long road trip with their parent saying, "Are we there yet?" Jesus’ reply was telling. He said, "It’s not for you to know the Father’s timing… But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses… to the ends of the earth." That’s just about the time Jesus left – the Ascension.

   Not to trivialize, but to dramatize it on this Mother’s Day, let me carry on the analogy I started. Like kids on the long road trip with mom, asking, "Are we there yet?" It’s as if Jesus said, "You don’t know the destination, but God does and He’ll let you know in good time. Meanwhile, you know the road – just keep on going, and by the way, this is where I get off." Then mom gets out of the car and leaves. It’s up to them, now. It seems like child abandonment when it’s put that way, doesn’t it. And I have no doubt that the apostles and the other disciples felt it -- abandoned and stunned. That’s why they stood there as the story from Acts tells it staring after Jesus with their mouths hanging open. To use another mom metaphor, they probably felt that Jesus had thrown them into the deep end of the pool, but He hadn’t. Like a mom who’d been painstakingly teaching her kids to swim, only to have them cling to her, Jesus spent 3 years or so teaching them how to swim. He’d led them out into the deep water and let go.

   That was trust. He trusted them. He trusted that they knew enough. He trusted that God’s Sprit could do the rest. And He trusted them to pick up where He left off – to carry on what He began. That’s trust – leaving it all up to them and believing that they, with the Spirit’s help, could handle it. That’s the trust that Jesus – that God – placed in them, and that’s the trust He places in us. One of the paradoxes of the life of Christian discipleship is this: The more we grasp that God trusts us with our Lord’s mission and personally stretch ourselves beyond our comfort zones to accomplish it, the more we’ll find that our trust in God deepens and grows. To wait for our own trust to grow before we set out to serve Christ’s mission the longer we’ll wait because that’s not the way trust grows. We learn to trust God by putting into practice God’s trust in us.

   In John’s Gospel, chapter 16, Jesus said, "It’s for your good that I go away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but when I go I will send Him to you." That’s how we, His followers, will do even greater things than Jesus did – with the help, guidance and empowerment of the Spirit of God. You see when Jesus was on earth He was limited. He simply couldn’t be in more than one place or among one group of people at a time. We can carry on His mission -- doing greater things than Jesus did, perhaps not in quality, but in quantity. We, His body now, can be in as many different places and among as many different people at once as there are Christians in the world. So Christ – God – trusts us to do what He did. He’s left it all up to us. And that’s real trust. God has chosen to limit Christ’s ongoing mission in this world to us and to those who share faith with us.

   This mission that we’ve been given is not an exercise in passivity – simply to take comfort in how loved by God we are and to remind ourselves of it. This mission is as active as can be – to do Christ’s work in the world because the fate of humanity depends upon it. He trusts us to do it. Does that exhilarate you? It’s meant to! Does it humble you with the weight of responsibility? It should! Are you afraid you’ll fail? Sure, and we surely will if we procrastinate shouldering the mission! But if we do shoulder it and make mistakes, He’ll trust us again, and again, and again – 70 times seven times. The risen and ascended Christ – God – has entrusted us with His mission. That involves doing what He did and saying what He said as we have the inkling to do so. Do you feel that you’re not up to it? You’re not! But that’s what the Spirit’s for – to make us able to do it. Are you concerned that you’ll look like the kinds of religious fanatics that annoy you so much? Well if we don’t shoulder the mission that’s been entrusted to us then the only ones who will are the ones who annoy us in the ways they do it.

   The simple truth is that Jesus has entrusted us with His mission – by word and deed to be His witnesses by carrying on what He began – either we’ll live up to it and be found trustworthy or we won’t. It’s up to us.