Sermons

A New City

John Wilkinson                                 Third Presbyterian Church  May 9, 2004                                    Revelation 21:1-6

We thank you, gracious God. Even from our mothers’ arms you have led us on the way with countless gifts of love. We thank you for those who gave us birth, for those who nurtured us on the way and those who yet share their love with us. Endue in all of us, in every relationship, the faithfulness of a mother who would never abandon her nursing child, even as you would never abandon us. And now open your word unto us, and illumine us with your grace and hope. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

There is a revolution going on in the book publishing world that the book publishing world, the broader media and popular culture are not sure exactly what to do with. Some of you may be aware of it. Some of you may even be consumers in this particular revolution.

It is called the “Left Behind” series, a series of 12 books that have sold over 40 million copies. Ten more children’s books have sold an additional 10 million copies, with magazines, calendars and other product merchandising. Several movies have been made from the books – they typically do not play in mainstream movie theaters; they typically do outdraw mainstream movies, all of which may seem to indicate the need to re-visit just what “mainstream” is these days.

I have a confession to make – as much as I seek to be aware of such things, and as much as I have been aware of this growing phenomenon, I have not read any of the “Left Behind” books. I should. I will. I do not think they will be my cup of tea, about which we shall talk in a moment.

Nonetheless, if we are to be truly multi-cultural, if we are truly to bridge the many gaps that exist in our world, if we are to be truly faithful to the Christ who prays that we “all may be one,” then I need to crack open a “Left Behind” book and see what on earth, or more precisely, what on heaven and earth, is going on.

What is going on is serious, important, and perhaps an invitation to us, even if that invitation will be to something that is unfamiliar, and with which we may hold profound disagreements.

Because what will happen when I crack open that first book is that I will read about something called “The Rapture,” when many of us will be lifted bodily to be with God, and many more of us will be “left behind” to fight a cosmic battle with the forces of evil.

This is not a new kind of literature; it is simply a new delivery system of a centuries old idea, benefited by impressive marketing and a clear shift in cultural, religious and political sensibilities.

The story flows from a line of thinking originated in the middle nineteenth century by a former Anglican priest named John Nelson Darby. It is called “premillennial dispensationalism.” Darby and many Darbyites to follow believed, and believe yet, that the Bible contains a schedule for the events that will lead up to the end of time, the conclusion of world history.

“Dispensational” comes from the belief that there will be seven eras, or “dispensations.” Seven is a key number in all this, by the way. “Premillennial” means that much will happen before Jesus returns to earth, the rapture.

The “Left Behind” series taps into a stream of American religious history in new ways, but not always so new. If you are from around these parts, you know that this region, called by Charles Finney the “burned over district” because of the Holy Spirit’s perceived movement during the revivals of the 1820s and 1830s, has witnessed its share of millennial activity.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormons, had their start just down the road in Palmyra. William Miller believed fervently that the Second Coming was eminent; he even chose a date, 1844. His followers, the Millerites, eventually grew into the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

Now why does any of this matter? For us, perhaps, it is more than interesting local history that we all should know a little better, or an awareness of current events. These theological interpretations – and I do not use the term “interpretation” pejoratively, by the way – these interpretations matter to us. They are about important things, and they grow out of a critical conversation, not simply about how we approach the Bible and what we believe the Bible says, but about how we will live our lives of faith, how our faith will matter in our own lives and in the life of the world precisely because of what the Bible says. And it is more than a little helpful for us to know of this conversation in order that we may explore our own thinking, thinking that makes a difference in the way that we live in the world.

A seminary professor commended me, and therefore commended us, for taking on the Book of Revelation in the month of May, for that is what we are doing. It is the most neglected and most misunderstood book in all of the Bible, she said. That’s the connection, by the way, to the “Left Behind” series, to the history of religion in upstate New York, in some ways to the deep rift within contemporary Christianity itself. The Book of Revelation.

We have shied away from the discussion – perhaps it has seemed too inaccessible to us, perhaps too far beyond the pale of our experience or understanding. Apocalypse, eschatology, the second coming are, at the very least, unfamiliar topics, and perhaps a bit off-putting to us.

And yet this thinking has impacted our culture, our religion, our global politics. It still does – as any conversation about the current State of Israel will quickly remind you.

I am not sure how I would have reacted had Finney stared me down and called me to account some 170 years ago. Or had the Millerites caught me in their sphere of influence.

Religious experience is a mystery. Our response to the sacred is often indescribable. We Presbyterians, God’s “frozen people,” are not the most emotional or experiential. And yet these movements have included Presbyterians from the very beginning. They have responded to some deep human need, some intense longing about time and the future.

So I am not sure how I would have responded. Yet I know that I, and we, have a need to wrestle with this stuff on some fundamental level. It is an important part of the story.

I am equally unsure how I would have responded had I been part of that earliest church, the post-Easter community. What we need to remember is that they gathered in fear and anxiety, the community waiting every day, every day, for Jesus’ return.

“Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again,” the ancient communion liturgy affirms. I want to affirm that as well, but I am not so sure I want to affirm a bloody, violent cosmic battle as a prelude to Jesus making everything new again.

The earliest church gathered around the expectation of Jesus’ return, and this complex, perplexing book called Revelation came into being with that expectation. We would not be faithful to our tradition if we were to ignore it. But even more importantly, our faith would not be as vital, as true, without an encounter with the very important message of Revelation.

It is a complex vision that one named John had, somewhere in the last 20 years of the first century. In the two weeks that will follow this one, we will spend a bit more time on the details, because the details will matter. This is a vision for the church and the world. It is also a vision for seven particular churches. Perhaps we learned their names as kids, or even attended a church named after one of the seven. Ephesus. Smyrna. Pergamum. Thyatira. Sardis. Philadelphia. Laodicea.

John’s vision, to be sure, is quite concerned about how things are. To be sure, John’s vision is terrifying and never simple. Seven lamp stands. Seven seals on seven scrolls. Seven bowls. Ordeals. Plagues. Warfare. Beasts. Death, and lots of it.

We have read John’s vision in many ways over the centuries. We have allegorized it, saying that he really did not mean what he meant, but was symbolizing something else. We have also done the opposite of allegorizing; that is, we have taken this writing quite literally, interpreting every world event as one sign or the other, reading the tea leaves of every war, every global event, as a clue in some cosmic code designed to demonstrate God’s secret workings, whether Hitler or Stalin or FDR or the United Nations or the pope. Perhaps even Ross and Rachel’s love life could be a sign of the end times to some.

Surely John was symbolizing something, something that the seven churches would have understood. Something that the church some 2000 years later still might understand. I do believe that we are called to interpret the signs of the times and to do something. But I also believe that the signs of the times are not all that difficult to interpret, that we choose to tangle ourselves up in allegory in order to avoid the crystal clarity of what is happening in the world and what we are called to do.

Johns’ vision of the church in the world is not mysterious or elusive. He shares it with us in beautiful, poetic language. “They will hunger no more and thirst no more. And God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

If that is God’s hope for the world, then why cannot that be the church’s agenda for its life right now?

Biblical scholars are shedding some new light on this question: was John concerned that the persecution of the churches might lead to their downfall or was something else at work, a concern that the churches were too acclimated to their culture and thus unable to respond to real human need all around them. That’s an issue as current as this morning’s paper, is it not?

That’s a question we need to be asking ourselves constantly and continually. How are we to live in the world? How are we to live, each of us, as people of faith planted where we are? How are we to live as the church? How are we to use our resources to change the world, to transform the lives of people in need, to provide sustenance and support? How are we to advocate for change, make a difference in systems that are unjust for those with the least?

These are not new questions. They are Revelation questions. And we have so worried ourselves about issues of timing because we have sought to avoid the clear carrion call to transform the world right here and right now.

We worry about time. Remember Y2K? And yet Jesus told his followers not to worry about time. That’s God’s business. We live each day as if the days will never end, and we live each day as if they could end in the next instant. We live each day to God, for God, not some terrifying distant moment, but this moment. We do not cross our fingers and hope that some day, some far off and distant day, that God’s holy city will simply happen. We work for it now, brick by brick, home by home, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood, love by love, hope by hope, justice by justice.

Our tendency is to look to the far-off horizon. Our mandate is to live in the city God has given us, to form and reform and transform it into that new city, where all God’s children will have a home, food, clothing – physical and spiritual. Where all God’s children will have their bodies and spirits tended to from the abundance of resources that is surely all around us. Where we will welcome all those whom God has already welcomed rather than fight and fuss about who we would rather keep out. Where our children are happy and healthy and our oldest ones will be cherished. Where our reliance on things and appearances will pass away, replaced by a reliance on relationships, a reliance on trust and hope, a reliance that God provides all that we need in the faces and lives of those dear to us. Where we will study war no more. Where we will study war no more.

The vision is all around us. God is more clever than cleverness could ever be understood, to be sure, but God is also clear, perhaps more clear that we ever might choose. We are not to be pawns in service of a puppet-master God, simply acting out a complex, secret drama. We are God’s children, given gifts to build this new city in our hearts and homes and church and world – in the world and for the world, and for all the generations to follow.

This is an alternative vision and it is eschatological. Here now and yet-to-be. Like disciples, we wait for Jesus. Like John of Patmos, we look from our prison windows. We look around to discern the signs of the times and envision how things may be. And with the most faithful of our forbears, we do what they did. We work as we wait. The saints and prophets who went before us knew that. Our foremothers whom we remember so dearly on this day knew that.

This is not passive or anxious or superstitious waiting. It is building the new city, the holy city, now. Because we can. Because God is with us. And God makes all things new. Amen.