The Mayberry Preacher

OPEN THE DOOR, SOMEONE KEEPS KNOCKING!

Revelation 3: 14-22
Steve Lindsley
February 5, 2012

The sanctuary of First Presbyterian Church in Lexington, NC has lots of the same things that our sanctuary does – pews, windows, a pulpit, an organ.  But at the same time, it’s very different from ours.  Reflecting the typical mid-20th century sanctuary style in which it was built, it’s shaped like a large rectangle set on its skinny end, with a center aisle running down the middle.  At the front there’s a pulpit on the right and a lectern – a “mini-pulpit,” as some call it – on the left. The choir sits behind each, and the communion table is dead center at the very back.

Now there’s a main entrance to the sanctuary, off the street and the church parking lot that leads into the narthex. But the door that gets the greatest use on Sunday mornings is one at the right front of the sanctuary, not far away from the pulpit.  This one leads out to the main hallway, the church offices, the Educational wing, and the Fellowship Hall.  So, naturally, this is the door that most people enter through before worship as they come from Sunday school classes and such.

Over time, all that use started to take a toll.  After years and years of opening and closing, the latch inside the door had weakened to point where it wouldn’t always stay closed.  It would open randomly, day and night, making a slight “clicking” sound as it did.  You can imagine the odd and humorous scene this created when it happened during the worship life of the church!

It’s Pentecost Sunday, and during the pinnacle of the minister’s sermon on the power of the Holy Spirit as it blew into that room where the disciples were gathered, the side door of the sanctuary opens.  The Holy Spirit has entered!  It’s a funeral service, and in the middle of a homily which went on and on about the deceased – a very humble and unassuming man who would’ve never wanted any of that – the side door opens.  Mr. Brown must’ve come back to put an end to the rambling!  It’s the Christmas pageant, and as the angel Gabriel is sharing the good news with Mary, the door opens. And everyone wonders: did a real angel just grace them with its presence?

I had forgotten all about that door, until last August, when I was back at the church to participate in the ordination service of a good friend.  We were laying hands on Sydne, and deep into the prayer of ordination – you guessed it – that door opened! 

At the reception afterwards, I asked one of my former church members – Lexington’s version of our Mike Branch, actually – I asked him why the door had never been fixed.  He told me that they tried many years before to fix it, but the door handle and lock unit were no longer in production, and there was no good way to put a new one on there without destroying the door.  So they just left it as it was.  And maybe that’s all for the best, you know? That self-opening door had become part of the church’s lore, their collective story.  Besides, doors were meant to be opened! 

If only the church in our scripture reading would’ve felt the same.  You know, it’s always a bit of a challenge to read anything out of Revelation, because there’s all this deep symbolism and metaphor going on.  But in the second and third chapters we are greeted with this vision that John of Patmos experiences – a vision of letters, or prophetic messages if you will, shared with seven churches in the Mediterranean.  It’s almost like they’re getting graded for their work in ministry.  Some of the grades were high, reflecting a job well done.  Others were lower grades for things they’d done wrong, or left undone.

The poorest rating is reserved for the last of these churches – the one in the wealthy Asia Minor city of Laodicea.  And it’s interesting – because it’s not their affluence that’s the problem.  It’s not that they’re doing anything horrible or wrong.  The reason this church receives a message of condemnation is because they were “lukewarm.”  Not cold or hot, as the scripture says, but just lukewarm.  In fact, the one speaking here says they really wish they were either cold or hot instead.  Because being lukewarm is like ending a soccer game or hockey match in a tie.  It’s almost worse than a loss – it is the absence of any definitiveness.

That church in Laodicea was lukewarm.  Stale.  Stagnant.  They weren’t on either side of the proverbial fence; they were putting on a clinic on how to straddle that thing.  When it came to being a witness of Christ to the world, they weren’t doing a stellar job, nor were they doing a terrible job.  They were doing something worse – they just didn’t seem to care.

Now there are many things that can bring a church down.  A pastor or church leader can have some huge scandal revealed.  Dissention and disunity can wedge itself in and tear a church apart.  A congregation can be confused or unclear as to what its mission and vision, its purpose in the world, is.  Members can treat the church and staff with a “country-club” mentality, where the church is viewed as nothing more than a provider of goods and services.  All of those can spell trouble for a church.

But it is hard for me to imagine anything more devastating to a church than being lukewarm.  Apathy – from the minister, from the staff, from the members – apathy can flat-out suck the life out of a church.  I was trying to find some powerful, insightful quote on this when I googled the words “church” and “apathy” this past week.  Who would’ve thought I’d find a website for “The Church Of Apathy!”  I found “Reverend Bob’s” message on the home page quite insightful:     

The Church of Apathy won't help you do anything. We’re not trying to help you become more focused, motivated or confident.  We’re not qualified to do so, and furthermore, we couldn't care less. If you're deluded enough to think your life could be made meaningful if only you found the right church, that’s fine; but please understand, this isn’t that church. Be sure to bookmark this site, so you can return again and again. Millions of visitors begin their day by spending 15-30 minutes here and report that it helps them resign themselves to the pointless drudgery the remaining twenty-three and a half hours is certain to bring. (from www.chuurchofapathy.com)

Inspiring.  I’m not entirely sure if this is a joke or not, but I wonder if this is what that church in Laodicea looked like, had they had websites back then. Because make no mistake, that church was an apathetic, lukewarm bunch – and there was perhaps no greater evidence of this than what we find in verse 20, where Jesus is standing at the door knocking, but they refused to answer the door.  Jesus is right outside, and they weren’t letting him in.

Now I don’t know about you, but I’m one of those persons who has a hard time not opening a door when someone’s knocking on it.  When the doorbell rings, I’ve got to answer it.  When the phone rings, I have to pick it up.  I can’t just ignore an email in my inbox, a Facebook message or text. 

And yet here is Jesus, knocking at this church’s door, trying to get in.  He’s knocking and knocking and knocking, and no one is answering.  And the thing is, Jesus isn’t going to open the door himself.  That’s not his style.  Jesus needs the community of faith inside to open the door themselves and welcome him in.  He needs the church to accept his presence in their midst – not because it’s something they have to do, but because it’s something they choose to do.  But no one in this church is letting Jesus in.  No one.  Because they’re lukewarm and apathetic.  Because they just don’t care.
   
Listen!  I’m standing at the door, knocking.  Hello! 

And why does Jesus want to get in?

If you open the door, he says,
I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me. 

You know, I find it kind of odd that, of all the things Jesus wants, of all the things Jesus could engage in once that door is opened, I find it odd that he wants to have dinner.  Sit down at a table and have a meal with us.  No healings, no preaching or teaching, no massive miracles.  What’s so special about gathering around the table and eating? 

Could it be that Jesus is being not just a “Door-Knocker” here in the third chapter of Revelation, but a “Party-Bringer” as well?  Check out this thought offered up by one pastor and writer:

There is Jesus! He has in his hand a giant tray of goodies that he's bought at Whole Foods Market, or Fresh Market, or any place you'd like to name -- as long as the food is outrageously expensive and fabulously good. So when he finally appears in your house, having made short work of all the closed doors in your life, make no mistake about what he'll say. He won't say, "What have you got for supper?" or "Why don't  you get us something to drink?" He'll say, "Have some caviar!  Have a quail egg! Have the flourless, double-chocolate cake!" He'll say, "Take, eat!" – not "Fetch!"  He'll say "Have!” – not "Get!"  And he'll say "Enjoy!” – because all his gifts are now yours. (adapted from Robert Farrar Capon, The Foolishness of Preaching: Proclaiming the Gospel Against the Wisdom of the World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 118-119, 125-126)

Don’t you see?  Jesus wasn’t knocking at the door of that church in Laodicea because he wanted to call them out on their apathy. Jesus wasn’t being the pesky neighbor incessantly ringing the doorbell because he couldn’t wait to tell them how lukewarm they were.  Jesus is constantly knocking at our door – persistently, unceasingly, faithfully – because the one thing that Jesus wants most is to sit around the table with each one of us and enjoy a good meal.  To dine with us, party with us, celebrate God’s goodness with us.

And you know why he wants to do that?  Because when we finally open that door and let Jesus in; when we finally sit down at the table Jesus has prepared for us over and over and over again, it becomes very, very hard to continue being lukewarm. It’s near impossible to be apathetic when you’re sitting at the table, eating with Jesus.  When we are met face to face with just how much Jesus loves us, how much he gave up for us, and how magnificent and extraordinary this kingdom he’s coming to build on earth with us really is, we cannot help but care.  And great things happen when the church starts caring about being the church.

Which is why I think we ought to be more like that rickety old church door that would always open on its own, in the middle of worship, reminding the people who it is that’s trying to get inside to be with them.  Or, better yet, the slogan for Welcome Swiss Hotels: Where Doors Open Before You Even Knock.  Jesus is knocking at the door.  Let’s let him in! Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

THERE GOES GOD, MAKING EVERYTHING SO NEW!

Isaiah 65: 17-25, Revelation 21: 1-6
Steve Lindsley
August 28, 2011
Rally Day Sunday

Oftentimes, “new” is nothing more than a tag line; a sales pitch to stand out in the crowd and garner attention; when in fact nothing is really “new” at all.  The “Under New Management” sign hanging over the restaurant entrance doesn’t change the fact that the food is still average and the service still sub-par.  The front cover of the football team’s program proudly proclaims, “A New Season!,” but halfway through the schedule and six losses later, it sure looks an awful lot like the previous one.

Sometimes, “new” means something is different; something is not what it was before.  It’s that lingering smell of fresh paint when you walk into your home for the very first time.  It’s the way the sun casts its rays on a brand new day in a manner it never had before, and never will again.  It’s every single time a baby is born and a totally unique life enters the world.

And then there are times when “new” doesn’t just mean something is different, but something has changed.  What’s old is gone, forever.  This is the kind of “new” that’s talked about in our two scriptures today – two different passages, two different audiences, but a very similar message.

It’s a “new” that the writer of Isaiah wrote frequently about; a former resident of the city of Jerusalem and later a captive in Babylon.  For a generation or so, the people longed for something new, longed for something to change.  They had lost so much when they were forced to leave their beloved city Jerusalem and live in Babylonian captivity.  And yet with Isaiah’s words, the people are put on notice: something is changing.

That same message would resurface some 700 years later, located this time not in an Old Testament prophet but in Jesus of Nazareth.  It wasn’t easy following this man.  Rome was the new world power, ruling over the faithful without mercy.  The Jews and early Christians were one of dozens of nations oppressed by this empire.  As before, the city of Jerusalem fell, leaving God’s people homeless.  And yet with Jesus’ words that came to John of Patmos in a vision, the people are put on notice again: something is changing. 

It is tempting, especially for us here on this Rally Day Sunday as we’re beginning new things in this church, it’s tempting to read these two passages and ask ourselves: so what’s new?  That’s the obvious question, isn’t it?  But you know, I wonder – I wonder if the better question to ask is not “what’s new” but “how” – how those Babylonian captives and first-century Christians grabbed a hold of it?  How they were not only able to believe in the ridiculous, outlandish hope of God’s “newness,” but live into it?  No one would’ve faulted them if they decided to throw in the towel and call it a day, as the saying goes.  So how did they stand there in the midst of all their suffering, surrounded by all that “old” stuff, and dare to proclaim “all things new?” 

Because that’s not how you and I typically respond, is it?  When we get the “same old same old;” when those old familiar powers come crashing into our lives, we often tell ourselves there’s nothing we can do.  We might even convince ourselves of the greatest lie – that this is the way God wants it.  We let the powers of Rome and Babylon dictate not only what we do but, more devastatingly, who we become.

It would’ve been easy, for instance, for Oskar Schindler to have rationalized that using his position to save Jews from the Holocaust wouldn’t amount to much – not to mention putting himself in extreme danger.  It would’ve been easy for Jackie Robertson to prematurely hang up his major league baseball cap because the racial slurs hurled in his direction at every bat simply weren’t worth being the first African American to play the game.  It would’ve been easy for Rosa Parks to heed the bus driver’s demand and relinquish her seat to the white man standing there.  Just as it’s easier for you and me to go with the flow, not create any waves, because to suffer in silence seems the safer option over sharing our heart.

So where exactly do people find this hope for God’s newness?  Where do we find it?

You know, I look at the images in both our readings today – pretty unorthodox stuff.  They do more than just communicate a message – they announce a reality that goes beyond words.  The prophet Isaiah paints this scandalous picture of the wolf and the lamb feeding together, and the lion eating straw like the ox.  That’s just not in their nature to do things like that, is it?  The writer of Revelation dares to portray a time when God wipes away every tear from our eyes, death and mourning and crying and pain will be no more.  Is it even possible these days to turn on the evening news or flip through the newspaper and not be confronted with such things?

There is something deeply evocative that Isaiah and John are trying to tell us; something that goes beyond simple “inspirational reading.”  Like Oskar and Jackie and Rosa, they declare loud and clear: something has changed.  Not just “different,” but changed. Something is brand spankin’ new in this old world of ours; and we’ve got a term for that new world.  We call it the kingdom of God.

Now you and I have talked about this kingdom before – that when Jesus and others speak of it, it’s not just heaven they’re talking about.  It’s not some far-off reality in the distant future.  In fact, both scriptures today are pretty clear that it’s this life they’re referring to – an earth where God comes down to us, not where we are “taken up” to God.  When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God, he was speaking to the possibilities that exist when we as God’s people follow Christ and live lives that reflect that following – even and especially when it’s not easy.  Even when we must contend with our own Babylons and Romes.  Oddly enough, it’s then when the kingdom of God is most obvious.

And you know what?  This isn’t some “pie-in-the-sky” theology here.  This isn’t a crutch designed to provide a sense of comfort to the downtrodden at the end of their rope.  This is real.  This is what Isaiah and the writer of Revelation had in mind when, in the midst of their loss, their suffering, their hopelessness, they put pen to paper and with broad strokes painted pictures of God’s kingdom.   For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the prophet says, the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.  The old is gone – there goes God, making everything so new!

That last sentence, by the way, is not mine.  It was spoken by someone else; by Margaret.  Margaret was a member at my former church in Lexington.  I always get a little nervous sharing stories about church members in sermons – I don’t want you thinking that our relationship as pastor and parishioner is solely about extracting potential sermon illustrations.  But I did ask Margaret’s permission to one day share this story.

Margaret died about a year before I left that church and came here.  There was a blizzard on the day of her funeral; one the meteorologist actually got right.  The other pastor and I tried to encourage the out-of-town family to consider postponing the service a day, because we knew, as much as everyone in the church loved Margaret, that there would be a lot of disappointed folks who simply couldn’t make it.  But her family was from Minnesota and didn’t understand how we Southerners react to a foot of the white stuff, much less a few inches.

At so at the graveside, standing there underneath the tent with swirling snow blanketing my robe, I told my story of Margaret.  It had happened just a few weeks before when I had gone to see her at her home.  She was ill, very ill; and even she acknowledged that, as she would always put it, my time is coming quick.  You didn’t argue with Margaret when she said this.  You couldn’t. 

The truth was, Margaret was in terrible shape.  She had lost nearly all of her eyesight years before; I remember the way she sang hymns in church with her eyes closed because she knew them all by heart.  Her hearing was fading, too.  It had been nearly a year since she was able to walk on her own, and she only got up when she absolutely needed to – always with help.  In recent months she’d lost her appetite and the simple pleasure of enjoying food.  It almost seemed like some kind of cruel joke that the cancer in her body, the cancer that would eventually kill her, had to take a back seat to everything else.  So you didn’t try to convince Margaret otherwise when she’d say “her time was coming quick,” because you both knew it was true.

It didn’t seem fair, Margaret having to suffer like that.  It just didn’t.  That’s what everyone thought, whether they said it or not.  One time I made the mistake of saying it in front of her, right to her face; a moment when that “pastoral façade” we clergy sometimes try to wear simply broke down. Margaret’s response was swift: compassionate and firm.  You better start reading that Bible of yours, Margaret gently scolded me, looking right at me with her blind eyes.  God’s got a new heaven and a new earth for us.  There won’t be any more death, Steve!  There won’t be any more crying or pain.  The old is gone – There goes God, making everything so new!

I shared that story at her graveside, shivering uncontrollably in the blizzard.  I shared it even as I couldn’t feel my feet standing on that frozen earth; an earth Margaret said God would be making new.  I shared that story, and as I did I found that the chill of the day wasn’t as chilly anymore.  The old is gone – there goes God, making everything so new!  When you hear that coming from a blind, deaf, bed-bound, emaciated, cancer-ridden child of God, it’s hard to stay cold for very long. 

Because if someone like Margaret could experience God making all things new, then imagine what God can do among us!  Imagine what God has in store for this church – this body of believers and Christ-followers.  You know, it’s typical at this time of year, on this Rally Day Sunday, that we mark the beginning of one or two new activities in the life of the church.  But this year, newness abounds!  We have a new Director of Music and a new organist, and with them a revitalized ministry of music that includes not just gifted staff but the musical gifts of this congregation – gifts that were put to use last week in our member-led music Sunday; gifts that will be put to use when children and youth choirs begin later this church year.  We have a concentrated effort in our midst to continue becoming a “missional church” with our first-ever church-wide Habitat build.  That’s exciting and important stuff, folks!  Next Sunday we’ll experience a different kind of Christian education and nurture through the intergenerational fellowship ministry we’re calling The Gathering.  You’ve already heard a little bit about it this morning, and you will not want to miss this next week.  And later this year, all of us will take part in a new way of committing ourselves to the future of God’s church, with what’s being called Consecration Sunday.

Now please understand, friends: these are more than just “new church programs” (I’ve never liked using that word in the church, anyway!)  It’s not just that something’s “different.”  These ministries are evidence of the fact that, as the people of God, as followers of the One who is doing a new thing in our midst, something has changed.  The signs are all around us.  They’re found wherever God’s people stand together and put their faith into action, one step at a time, one tear at a time, one hope-filled moment at a time. 

And so may our lives as people of faith never fail to radiate God’s newness in and all around us.  Even in the darkest of places, there is hope.  There is always hope.  Thanks be to God, AMEN.

REVISITING REVELATION: YOU DON'T HAVE TO WAIT FOR IT!

Revelation 22: 12-14, 16-17, 20-21; 1 Corinthians 13: 1-8a, 12-13
Steve Lindsley
July 24, 2011

In light of some of the ominous things we’ve talked about in this sermon series on Revelation, which is concluding today, I thought I’d begin with a little joke. 

There once were three men who died and met St. Peter on the outskirts of heaven at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter looked at the first one and said, “Let’s see, according to the report I have on you, you’ve led an outstanding life. You’ve never been in trouble with the law, you haven’t committed any major sins, and your record is impeccable. You can go right on into heaven.” Peter opened the gates and the first man walked in.  

St. Peter picked up his report and looked at the second man, “Well, it says here that you’ve basically led a good life. However, you were involved in some mischief as a young man. But nothing major.  It’s a close call, but I think you’re okay to head in.”  The second man breathed a sigh of relief and quickly ran through the gates.

Peter then turned his attention to the third man, and made a face as he looked over the report.  “Hmm, you’ve led a very troubled life, haven’t you?  You cheated on a math test in middle school, you stole a car, you got into a fistfight with your neighbor, and for five years you failed to file a tax return. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to go to purgatory a while to repent.”

The third man lowered his head and started in that direction.  Then St. Peter stopped him. “Hey wait a minute,” he said, “what’s that you’re wearing?”  The man looked down at the Carolina Panthers logo emblazoned on his jacket. “So you’re a Panthers fan, eh?  And I see in your report that you went to Wake Forest, is that true?”  The man nodded his head. St. Peter said, “Well, then, you can get on back here.  You just walk on into heaven.  Forget purgatory – you’ve been there already!” 

It’s funny, of course – because it’s true!  It’s oh so true.  But I didn’t tell you this joke just to tell a joke – you probably gathered that.  I told it because of what struck me when I first heard it – and by the way, it was the Chicago Cubs originally.  Beyond poking fun at a lousy sports team, it reminds us of this obsession we humans – and particularly Christians – have with the afterlife.  Whether we “make the cut!”  Heaven and Hell.  And specifically: which one we’re going to.  Doesn’t this seem to be something that’s always in the deep recesses of our minds?

I mean, we’ve talked about an awful lot of things the past four weeks; things that may have been new to some of us.  Nike power versus Lamb power.  The River of Life and the Tree of Life.  What’s not in Revelation, and what really is left behind.  But when it’s all said and done, the driving force behind much of our thinking about this very last book in the Bible all boils down to this: we want to go to heaven when we die.  And we want to avoid “that other place.”  In fact, for some people it’s been drilled into their brain that this is the all-consuming task for good Christians and, really, the only concern of our life on earth. 

Now I’ll be honest with you: I’ve never been comfortable with that.  I believe God calls us to live faithfully in this world as much for what’s here and now as for the time that is to come.  And contrary to conventional understanding, Revelation really does have something to say about the here and now. Take, for instance, our verses today.  They are, in fact, the final verses of the book, and the entire Bible.  Our good friend John is putting the finishing touches on this elaborate vision where Jesus returns and the world is redeemed.  Except in this instance he is joined by Jesus himself, who speaks up and shares two things.

First, Jesus refers to himself as the “Alpha” and the “Omega,” which happen to be the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.  Today we’d say Jesus is the “A” and the “Z!”  What we’d really be saying, of course, is that Jesus is the beginning and the end of everything.  And second, Jesus tells John, over and over and over again, that he is coming.  In fact, the Greek verb for “come” is used six times in this passage.  The Spirit says come.  The bride says come.  Surely I am coming.  I am coming soon!  And John responds to this emphatic repetition with an appropriate proclamation: Come, Lord Jesus!

Indeed, come Lord Jesus!  You ever shared that sentiment before?  I had a friend growing up whose grandmother would always say that, he told me.  She’d be watching the news or reading the paper and he’d hear her say it softly, many times, usually preceded with a sigh: Come, Lord Jesus!
What about you?  When you hear about the gridlock in our nation’s capital, where people put political agendas ahead of the greater good, have you ever thought, “Come, Lord Jesus?”  When one more tsunami or earthquake devastates another country, especially a country that in some way has already been devastated enough, have you ever thought, “Come, Lord Jesus?”  When 93 people are murdered in shootings at a summer youth camp in Norway and in a bomb blast in downtown Oslo, all done by one man in the name of Jesus, when you hear something like that because it actually happened two days ago, do you think to yourself, “Come, Lord Jesus?”  It’s a prayer of intervention, of course.  But it’s also something else: it’s a prayer of hope. 

Still, we don’t always see that hope when we read Revelation.  We fall into the trap of thinking that this book is only concerned with what’s going to happen in the future, rather than what’s happening right now.  We become absorbed with prophecies and predictions rather than the realities of today.  Which is not hard to do, is it?  Because when we focus on what may happen at some point down the road, we conveniently sidestep all the problems going on right now.

And see, that’s where I have a problem.  Because if the essence of the Christian faith is all about prophetic know-how, if all we’re supposed to care about is getting off this third rock from the sun as soon as possible, then why is the Bible so thick??  Why is our Bible comprised of 66 books that talk about loving our neighbor and forgiving our enemies and clothing the naked and bearing our crosses and being good stewards of the environment?  Why do we have these stories about women and men of faith who followed God with their very lives, not always perfectly, but always making a difference?  And most of all, if being a Christian is only about going to heaven, then why do we read about a man sent by God to redeem the world – “for God so loved the world” – so that all people can know everlasting peace and grace and mercy?

More and more I’m realizing that too many folks have grown up with this skewed idea of Revelation, and a version of Christianity that at its very heart is rooted in fear.  So here’s the truth, people: Revelation is not some mysterious prophecy we’re supposed to figure out.  Revelation is less about predicting future events, than it is about painting a picture of God’s kingdom on earth, and – and this is important – and painting that picture in a way that affects our behavior today.  Real time.  And it does so not by scaring us into submission – which is what fear does – but by instilling in us the promise and hope of what’s to come.  And there’s only one thing that can do that; one thing that can carry us through the brokenness to yearn for what is already here and what is still yet to come.  And that, my friends, is love.

How crazy is that – seeing the book of Revelation as a book of love?!?  But I have to think that love is what the writer John was overwhelmed with as he set sail from the island of Patmos after this grand vision, heading back home.  Love is what led him to put pen to paper and dictate what he saw and heard – about a God who’s our “A” and our “Z;” a God who assures us time and time and time again that he is, in fact, coming.  Because of the love.

And the thing is, it’s not just any love, like the love that’s captured in a schmaltzy greeting card. It’s the kind of love that the apostle Paul writes about in his 13th chapter.  This love takes practice, takes intentionality, takes dedication.  It’s more than simply a feeling of the heart; it’s an act of the will.  It is not about trying to scare us into compliance or painting a future scenario where this world is destroyed in favor of a new one.  That’s not love.  It’s not about somehow convincing people of faith that to be strong in faith means being strong in the world.  That’s not love.   And it’s not about living our lives with little regard for the here and now, thinking only of what it can get us in the life to come.  That’s not love.

This is a love made for the body of Christ.  A love which reminds us that no one has all the answers; for while one day we will see face to face, now all we see is in a mirror dimly.  A love which points us to something other than the letter of the law: the spirit behind it; so that we don’t idolize anything other than the God we worship.  A love which transforms the individual and community so that our lives are ruled not by the whims and ways of a broken world but by a God who calls us into God's shalom.  And a love which pounds into our brains, so we never forget, that this love is always greater than fear; always greater than hate.

And that is why we don’t have to wait for the kingdom Revelation concludes with. We don’t have to wait for God’s love to move mightily through us and bring about everything we hope for.  That kingdom is a reality right here and right now! It is among us; God is among us; Love is among us.  And all we need to do is to choose to put that love into action.   

You know, I’ve been thinking all this past week about that song I sang for you last Sunday – that Larry Norman tune about people getting trampled and children dying and there being no time left because you’ve been left behind.  And I’ll be honest; I felt kind of bad about dumping that on you, and I didn’t want that to be the last song you heard in this sermon series.  So I set out this week to do something I don’t usually attempt, which is to write a tune with an impending deadline.  Doesn’t always work out.  But out of it came a song about the kind of love we’re given as a gift; to put into action and live faithfully and confidently in a broken, kingdom-desperate world:

I may speak with the tongues of the angels
I may give my all away
I may move the mountains with my belief
But if I don't have love - If I don't have love...
I can use my power for selfish gain
Living like I wanna live
I can die a martyr and a saint
But if I don't have love - If I don't have love...
I once couldn't see
Now I believe, I believe

In faith, hope
And the greatest of these is love
Faith, hope
And the greatest of these is love, greatest is love

When the world defines you by what you do
Love will show you whose you are
All a part of God's great family
This is why we love, this is why we love
Battles rage and lines are drawn in the sand
Cause we learn to live in fear
Love comes down with the promise of something new
It’s greater than the fear, love is greater than the fear
Sometimes we can't see
Lord help us believe, believe

In faith, hope
And the greatest of these is love
Faith, hope
And the greatest of these is love
Greatest is love

The kingdom is at hand, my friends.  Come, Lord Jesus!  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

REVISITING REVELATION: WHAT'S REALLY "LEFT BEHIND"

Revelation 21: 1-6
Steve Lindsley
July 17, 2011

When I was in high school, I wanted to be just like Mark Camacho. Mark was a student at NC State – but that’s not why I wanted to be like him.  Mark was tall and had a great mustache – but that’s not why I wanted to be like him.  The reason I wanted to be like Mark Camacho was because Mark helped out with our high school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes that met every Wednesday night.  Specifically, Mark played guitar and led music for us, which I thought was pretty cool and might be, you know, something I’d want to do someday.

Mark let me help him lead music, and I learned a lot of songs from him; some of which I still play today when I lead music for a retreat or conference.  But there’s one song that, for the life of me, I wish we never had.  And it wasn’t until later that I realized that.  It’s a tune by a guy named Larry Norman – that name probably doesn’t mean much you, but back in the 70’s he was in many respects the father of contemporary Christian music.  Larry came from a fundamentalist bent, which explains a lot about a tune of his that Mark and I led at our FCA meetings.

It’s called I Wish We’d All Been Ready, and as best as I can tell it's Larry’s take of Revelation.  The song has to be one of the biggest disconnects ever between music and lyrics.  The tune itself is slow and soothing, all Kum-ba-Yah like; the kind of melody that causes you to put your arms around the person on either side of you and start swaying back and forth.  But the words – well, the words are something else entirely. The first verse goes like this:

Life was filled with guns and war,
And everyone got trampled on the floor,
I wish we'd all been ready
Children died, the days grew cold,
A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold,
I wish we'd all been ready
There’s no time to change your mind
The Son has come and you’ve been left behind

Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn’t it?  Check out the next verse; it gets better:

A man and wife asleep in bed,
She hears a noise and turns her head, he's gone,
I wish we'd all be ready,
Two men walking up a hill,
One disappears and one's left standing still,
I wish we'd all been ready,
There's no time to change your mind,
The Son has come and you've been left behind.

And we’d always go for the big finish:

You’ve been left behind
You’ve been left behind
You’ve been left.
 
All these years later, and you know, I’m still haunted by that song – and not the utterly depressing and hopeless message it conveys, but the fact that nearly every Wednesday night, I played a part in imposing that depressing and hopeless message onto a hundred or so of my fellow high school students and friends.  People who, for all I know, have grown up to be adults who actually believe it.

And maybe that’s one reason why I feel so strongly about the kinds of things we’ve been doing in this sermon series – getting all Toto-like and pulling back the curtain on the mystery of Revelation.  There is so much in this book that we do not see, and so much that’s not in there that we think is.  One of which is captured in the last verse of that song; that whole bit about a husband mysteriously disappearing and a fellow traveler vanishing from sight.  It’s talking, of course, about the Rapture. 

The Rapture is something that pops up in our consciousness and culture every now and then – whether it’s in a song by a guy named Larry, or a California preacher named Harold Camping, or a book series.  You remember the “Left Behind” books?  I actually read the first one – I had a young person in my church at the time who was reading it and had lots of questions.  And I’ll admit – it’s a captivating read.  Authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins are pretty decent writers. 

I’ll never forget that opening chapter – how airline pilot Rayford Steele, a self-professed agnostic, discovers much to his horror that dozens of passengers on his transcontinental flight have mysteriously vanished in mid-flight.  The only trace of them is their clothing neatly folded in a pile where they last sat or stood.  From there the story, recounted in a dozen books, launches into an epic battle between good and evil; good represented by the “Tribulation Force,” a self-appointed conglomerate of “left behind” believers who use souped-up Land Rovers and state-of-the-art artillery to fight the Antichrist and his minions.  It’s a decent little tale of good verses evil on a cosmic, universal scale.  But then again, so is Star Wars. 

If you recall our first sermon a few weeks ago, you’ll remember that the word “rapture” does not appear anywhere in the Book of Revelation – or the word “Antichrist,” for that matter.  But there are other things that are missing too: there’s no mention of people suddenly vanishing; no random piles of folded clothes laying around.  There’s no end of the world in Revelation – did you know that? It’s true!  And there’s certainly no souped-up Land Rovers or state-of-the-art artillery – lamb power, remember?  It may be a great read and all, but the whole Left Behind saga is not based in scripture.  It is 100% fiction.

The problem, though, is that this hasn’t stopped some from believing otherwise, either openly or sub-conciously.  Every once in a while in the New Testament class I teach at the community college, when we start studying Revelation, I’ll get a comment from a student along these lines: You know, Dr. Lindsley, reading Revelation is way too confusing.  And that’s why I’m so glad I’ve got the Left Behind books to help me understand it better!  Isn’t that kind of like going to the Grand Canyon and only looking at the postcards in the gift shop?  I’ve also heard some suggest that it’s not really all that necessary or important to be focused on environmental issues – things like reducing CO2 emmissions or recycling or protecting rain forests – since this world is going to end someday anyway, probably sooner than later, so why bother?  Besides, they go on to say, God is going to take us to a “new world.”

In fact, let’s take a closer look at that “new world,” shall we?  That’s something that’s actually in there; in our scripture reading today.  It’s near the end of John’s grand vision on the island Patmos, and evil has been vanquished forever.  The kingdom of God is truly at hand!  And John tells us about this “new heaven” and “new earth,” and a “new Jerusalem” that comes down from the clouds, and how God will dwell with us in this New Jerusalem – not as a distant relative way on the other side of town, but more like our next-door neighbor!

But here’s the thing about this “new earth” – it isn’t “new” as in “totally different;” like when you trade in your beat-up truck for a brand new Lexus.  This isn’t a “new earth” as in the old one no longer exists.  The actual Greek, in all three instances – new earth, new heaven, new Jerusalem – the actual Greek is literally rendered “re-newed” or “restored.”  So this is the same old earth, the same old heaven, the same old Jerusalem; except they’re not old anymore.  They’ve all been forever and wonderfully transformed from what they were – before “Fluffy” came along and opened that scroll with his awesome lamb power! 

And you know, I love the way that John reacts to all of this –  he says it’s like “a bride adorned for her husband.”  Guys, you remember what it was like standing at the front of the church on your wedding day, when that door in the back was flung open to reveal your wife-to-be in her wedding finest – you remember how that made you feel?  Your knees got all weak, your stomach knotted up, your heart started racing and your breath got all shallow; and you were totally oblivious to the goofy ear-to-ear grin that suddenly spread across your face and that everyone told you about later.  Your whole body was rejoicing in that “revelation!” 

That’s exactly what every one of us will feel when God’s kingdom on earth comes into our view.  We’ll be overwhelmed by joy; basking in the “lamb power” that moves us to become servants, disciples, fellowshippers of the risen Lord.  It’s what leads us to do whatever we can to help bring about that kingdom right here and now – in the way we live and in how we treat others, in how we care for God’s creation and how we work for things like justice and compassion and peace.  And it certainly informs our understanding of how all of this will happen, which is why I don’t sing Larry Norman’s song or read Left Behind books anymore.

Although I gotta confess – I will say that LaHaye and Jenkins were right about the whole “left behind” thing.  They were right!  They just got the “what” wrong.  Because there is something that does not make it into the new Jerusalem; something that is eternally banished and shut out from the city gates.  Just like John says:

Death will be no more;
Mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
For the old things have passed away.   

Those kinds of things are signs of the Nike power that used to call the shots.  But not any more!  Their place now is outside the city walls, never to enter again.  Never. Just imagine that!

In fact, seriously, imagine that.  Close your eyes, if you would, and picture yourself in this Renewed Jerusalem.  You walk over to the city walls and look down at what's on the outside looking in.  Look at what you see there.  Suffering and Persecution are down there, standing right next to Injustice and Inequality; and none of them can get in.  AIDS and Hunger are trying to find a back door, but they never will.  Cancer doesn’t stand a chance of making it into the city.  Partisanship and gridlock and egos – nope.  Depression and Anxiety are left out, as are Hate and Prejudice and Racism.  War – for the first time ever, Nike is on the losing end!   Even Death – the ultimate manifestation of Nike power – even Death can’t get in.  These are the things that are “left behind.”  You can open your eyes now.

I want you to hold on to that picture in your mind, okay?  Hold on to it when the world dishes out its “Nike-ness,” when you are afraid that you may be left behind.  Because if anything that picture of Revelation, painted for us in scripture, tells us that we do not have to be afraid anymore.  We can respond by pledging our allegiance to lamb power even when the world around us continues to pledge theirs to old Nike.  We can proclaim the inclusive nature of God’s kingdom as a place where all people can live in peace.  And most of all, we can declare an eternal hope – hope that renews, hope that sustains, hope that can make a difference in a sometimes hopeless world.

And I’ll tell you something – if that were a song, and it probably is, it’d be a song that we’d be more than proud to keep on singing.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

REVISITING REVELATION: NIKE MEETS.....FLUFFY??

Revelation 5: 1-6, 11-13
Steve Lindsley
July 10, 2011

I’ve enjoyed the conversations I’ve had with some of you over the past week about last Sunday’s sermon and this sermon series we’re revisiting on the book of Revelation.  What I’ve heard is that you appreciate the fact that it’s not all about death and destruction and doom, but there’s a lot of hope in there too.  You’ve expressed surprise that the words “antichrist” and “rapture” are nowhere to be found in the book.  You’ve mentioned that the river and tree of life in the 22nd chapter are powerful images letting us know that God is in charge and that God wants to restore and renew the world, not destroy it.

And one of you offered a particularly insightful observation: I’ve never thought of the Roman empire in a negative light before.  And we typically don’t, do we?  Today we recognize ancient Rome as a major contributor to modern society in culture and art and literature.  We have them to thank for the calendar we use and our form of government.  We think of amazing architecture and a modern road system – things that, thousands of years later, still bear their mark on us today. We think of Rome and we overwhelmingly see a model for modernization and human ingenuity.

But progress, as is sometimes the case, does not come without a price; and there’s this darker side to Roman civilization that the early Christians knew all too well.  It’s hard to see – unless we take time, as we talked about last week, to pull back that curtain; to “unveil” what was previously hidden from view.  And when we pull back the curtain on Rome, what we find is an empire who ruled its territory and the people completely and ruthlessly, showing no mercy and obliterating anything and anyone who stood in their way. 

Images of the horrors of Roman rule are found throughout the book of Revelation.  For example: you know those Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse we hear so much about?  Think about it – there’s the white horse that conquers, the red one that makes war, the black horse that unleashes famine, and the pale green horse of death.  Again, like so much in Revelation, the symbolism of these horses is far more important than whether they’re actual horses or not.  These horses are John’s way of describing the horrific and devastating consequences of those who dared to cross Roman rule – they were conquered, they were victims of unrelenting warfare, they suffered disease and famine because of that warfare, and then they died.

Citizens of the Roman empire were either patrons of the system or casualties of it; and there was no middle ground. The gap between the powerful and powerless was monumental.  Everything about the Roman empire focused on expanding that empire through unquestioned loyalty to the emperor.  One “had faith” in the emperor in the same way you and I have faith in God – and those who did not share this were either ostracized or persecuted.  To be part of the empire was to support a never-ending quest, on all fronts, to literally conquer the world.

In fact, this very word “conquer” comes into play big-time in our passage today.  John is painting this scene for us: a vision of God’s holy throne and a scroll that no one is worthy enough to open.  And this upsets John – because he knows that when this scroll is opened, it will cause God to leap into action and make all of the world’s wrongs right.  So he laments that no one is “powerful” enough to do this. 

But then John is comforted when he’s told that “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has already conquered, so that he can now open the scroll.”  This is a classic Jewish symbol of power – a Lion, and an offshoot of David, the great king of Israel lore.  So John is led to believe that this is the one strong enough and worthy enough of opening the scroll and doing what needs to be done.

Now before we go any further, let’s pull back a little bit more on that curtain – let’s pull I back on the word in this passage for “conquer.”  In Greek, the language that Revelation and the entire New Testament was originally written in, the word for “conquer” was Nike.  Spelled: N-I-K-E.  Which in our day and time we pronounce how…….?  Nike was the Roman goddess for Victory, and it probably wouldn’t surprise us to learn that she was symbolized by a little swoosh emblem; the same that adorns everything from our sneakers to an athlete’s apparel to about anything where the motto “Just Do It” applies.  In fact, “Just Do It” is a pretty good way of summarizing what Nike meant to the Roman world.  Nike wasn’t just celebrated, it was worshipped.  It was the motivating force behind the empire’s rule and the expansion of the empire.  It embodied the very heart and soul of the ancient world’s greatest power.

So the image John encounters here is a commanding one: a Lion, King David, Nike-like power – this is what is supposed to open the scroll, this is what should take on the Roman domination system and deal it a final death blow.  And it makes all sense in the world, doesn’t it – power verses power, might verses might, two boxers in the ring and the strongest one comes out on top! 

Because after all, that’s how we fight power, isn’t it?  We dish back more of the same.  If some nation has x-number of nuclear warheads, we make X-number too; and maybe a few more, you know, just in case.  Which leads them to do likewise.  If a public figure becomes the victim of harsh rhetoric in a political ad or newspaper column, they respond with the same vitriol, do they not?  Fighting fire with fire.  Nike versus Nike.  It’s what we’ve come to expect, and it’s what we typically get.

Except it isn’t what John gets, is it?  As John careens his neck to look around the throne to see this “power” he’s told will prevail, a power he understandingly expects to be all Nike-like, he sees something totally unexpected.  He sees a lamb.  A lamb, people!  And not just any lamb.  The actual word in Greek here suggests a very diminutive creature, the runt of the lamb litter.  And I really like the way one writer describes it: he calls it Fluffy.  Fluffy the little runt lamb.  Fluffy the lamb who, as we read on, is slain; slaughtered even. 

So what we have here in the fifth chapter of Revelation, my friends; what John of Patmos encounters in the midst of this grand vision, can be summarized as this: Nike meets Fluffy.  Nike meets Fluffy!  The classic symbol of victory and conquest; verses a slaughtered, helpless, minuscule runt of a lamb.  World power verses “lamb power.” 

Now let’s stop for a minute and let’s ask the obvious: what did those early Christians think of Fluffy?  Those who were ostracized, ignored, persecuted in a Nike-ruled world?  Was Fluffy really who they imagined having in their corner?  Did they believe the ways of nonviolence and grace and self-denial could ever make a difference in a world sold out to violence and heartlessness and selfishness?

Do we today? How can Fluffy ever be good enough when the world dishes out its “Nike-ness?”  How can “lamb power” make a difference in the on-going battle with terrorism?  How can “lamb power” help a middle-aged man fighting tooth-and-nail with his addictions?  How does “lamb power” matter to someone held captive by their painful past, and the demons that rage inside?

You know, one of the reasons I think it’s so hard for us to “get” Revelation as North American Christians is that, at heart, we’re conflicted.  On one hand we’re in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in the early Church who suffered at the hands of an oppressive empire.  But at the same time, we are part of today’s empire.  And we kind of merge the two together, don’t we?  I mean, we’ve been known to sing in the same worship service how Jesus is the “worthy lamb that was slain” and how we are “onward Christian soldiers marching as to war.”  If this “Fluffy” is really the symbol of hope that we, Christians of the 21st century, are supposed to be pledging our allegiance to, then we’ve got some explaining to do! 

When people of faith adopt the language and nuances of Nike power to encounter and act in the world, we lose a part of our collective soul.  Because while there’s a great difference between Nike and Fluffy, that difference has nothing to do with who is more powerful.  We do not serve Jesus by being more powerful; we serve Jesus by being more faithful.  Let me say that again: we do not serve Jesus by being more powerful; we serve him by being more faithful.  God’s kingdom on earth is not revealed because we force anything on anyone – God’s kingdom on earth comes about when we speak the truth in love. 

And this, my friends, is the fundamental difference between Nike and Fluffy; between the world’s power and the power of the lamb:

• Nike tells us that “the one who dies with the most toys wins.”  Fluffy tells us that our worth is not determined by what we own but by who we belong to.
• Nike tells us that strength and power and domination are what bind us together.  Fluffy dares to tell us that we are bound together by sacrificial love.
• Nike tells us that a person’s identity comes from their place in the world.  Fluffy tells us that a person’s identity comes from simply being a child of God.
• Nike suggests that “if you are not with us, you’re against us.”  Fluffy has the courage and faith to call into question who the “us” really is.
• And Nike, as we all know, tells us to “just do it.”  Just do it!  But Fluffy calls us to put aside our wants and desires, and focus on fulfilling God’s mission in the world.

You know, sometimes it helps to not just read about Nike verses Fluffy but to see it in action.  I see it every day; in a picture hanging on my office wall. I’ve shown it to you before.  The picture was taken on June 4th, 1989 near Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.  On that day, you recall, Chinese troops entered the square and killed tens of thousands of students who were peacefully protesting against their government for basic human rights and freedoms they were denied. 

The picture shows a row of Chinese tanks making their way to the square – you only see one or two, but there were a dozen or so in line that day.  And yet they are unable to move, these tanks; because of one man – a single man – who is standing in the way, defiant.  If you were to watch the video on YouTube, you’d see the lead tank move to the right to go around the man, and then you’d watch in shock as the man moved to block it.  There were a few moments of uncertain pause between Nike and Fluffy.  And then the tank would move back to the left, and the man would counter again.  And then, amazingly, you’d watch this man climb on top of the tank – on top of the tank! – and bang on the metal hatch as if to reason with the soldier inside that this is not right, that he doesn’t have to do this, that there really is a more excellent way….

That, my friends, is how Fluffy opens God’s scroll and unveils God’s kingdom on earth – lamb power at its diminutive finest!  What would our world look like, indeed, if we all truly followed the way of the lamb.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

REVISITING REVELATION: A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT

Revelation 22: 1-5, Ezekiel 47: 7-12
Steve Lindsley
July 3, 2011

Last week I had the pleasure, along with Pepper Mayes, of taking six of our middle schoolers to the Massanetta Middle School Conference.  In addition to having loads of fun with a fantastic group of kids, I also got to reconnect with some of my ministry colleagues who were there with groups of their own.  Kind of weird – years before we had attended these things as kids ourselves; and now we’re the “responsible adults.”  Funny the way life works!

Anyway, I was telling one of my friends that I was going to revisit a sermon series on Revelation that I preached a few years back.  I explained that recent events like Harold Camping’s prophecy about the world ending in May had spruned on an interesting debate in our culture about what the Bible really says about the end of the world.  I told her I felt the need to reignite that conversation with my church.  Kelly’s response was not very affirming: Good luck with that!  she exclaimed.  I could hear what she was also saying between the lines: Better you than me! 

And, you know, I guess that’s to be expected, don’t you think?  It’s interesting how we interact with the last book of the Bible: we don’t talk about Revelation as much as we talk around it.  We know it’s there and maybe we can quote a verse or two, but when it comes to really understanding what it says, we do one of two things.  We either ignore it all together, due to lack of interest or fear.  Or we put an awful lot of trust in what other people say about it.

Everyone remembers the most recent example with Harold Camping, a pastor out in California, who created quite a firestorm when he predicted that the world was going to end this past May.  But he certainly wasn’t the first.  Back in 1992, a pastor in South Korea, Reverend Lee Kim, predicted that the Rapture was going to take place on October 28th. Twenty thousand Koreans in South Korea, Los Angeles and New York City took the prediction seriously.  In an eerie nod to Camping, hundreds quit jobs and left their families to prepare for their trip to heaven. Rim’s church paid for costly ads in the Los Angeles and New York Times, urging readers to prepare for their journey through the skies – which, as we all know, has not come to pass yet.

You probably know about the Left Behind book series, a fictional account supposedly based on Revelation.  For those hungering for something after the 16 books, there’s an accompanying website, www.leftbehind.com, which offers up-to-date analysis of world events and their relation to the second coming of Christ, based on the collective interpretation of authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.  It does come with a price – literally.  $19.95, to be exact, which gives you membership in its “prophecy club” and grants you “preferred access” to special sections of the website not available to the average internet surfer. Because when it comes to knowing important stuff like what the Bible says about the end times, only those who can afford to pay should get to know!

Things like this are the reason my job as pastor is never boring, often challenging; and why I’ve chosen to revisit this sermon series, updating it to 2011.  Because while predictions come and go, whether they’re from Harold Camping or someone else, one thing hasn’t changed: and that is our tendency over the past 2000 years to focus on what we think is in Revelation, rather than doing the hard work of actually finding out what is.  And perhaps most importantly, what isn’t. 

Case in point (and this is going to shock some of you): if I were to ask you to name two concepts that lie at the heart of Revelation, chances are you’d say the rapture and the antichrist, right?  But here’s the thing: neither one of those terms are found anywhere in Revelation!  An “antichrist” is mentioned a couple of times in 1 and 2 Peter; it’s the name the writer uses for someone who is promulgating incorrect doctrine in the early church.  Their teachings, in the writer’s opinion, were “against Christ” – anti-christ.  Now we, of course, have made it out to mean something else entirely – son of Satan ushering in the end of the world, and the arch nemesis in apocalyptic horror movies.  But if we are talking about what is in the Bible – the foundation of our faith and, second to Jesus himself, the revelation of God to the world – if we’re talking about the Bible, an antichrist was nothing more than a misguided teacher.

And as you’re digesting that, try this on for size:  “Rapture” was a concept developed not by an inspired writer of scripture but by an 18th-century Baptist preacher who randomly strung together verses out of the Old and New Testaments to create a cosmic calendar concluding with the world’s demise.   Now you can read the 22 chapters of Revelation as many times as you want, but no matter how many times you do, you will never find the word “rapture” in there.  It’s a simple fact!

So why do we make such a big deal about these things?  Why do we talk about the Antichrist like we do, and why do we blindly accept the idea of Rapture as the gospel truth?  Sometimes it’s easier to believe what someone else tells us, rather than doing the hard work of finding out for ourselves.

If we’re going to find out what Revelation has to say to those of us trying to live faithfully in the 21st century, we have to dig deeper.  We have to embrace the mystery of Revelation.  It’s kind of like in The Wizard of Oz, you know, when Dorothy and the rest are standing in the heart of the Emerald Castle before the Great Wizard.  It’s a powerful and shocking and frightening scene – until Dorothy’s dog Toto grabs the green curtain in its teeth and pulls it to the side.  Remember that?  Remember how different things looked on the other side of the curtain compared to what they looked like in front of it?

That’s what you and I need to do when it comes to Revelation – we need to pull the curtain aside to see what’s really there.  In fact, that’s pretty much what the Greek word for “Revelation” means – to uncover or reveal; to pull aside the covering so that what was not previously known is made known. That’s what I hope you and I get to do over the next three weeks – to tug at that curtain a little bit each Sunday and move beyond our fear of the unknown, or what we’ve heard from others, so we can see something we haven’t seen before.

Like, for instance, a river.  In the very last chapter, there’s this river.  We kind of miss the river, don’t we?  We’re much more drawn to the bloodshed and war and death and famine in Revelation – which says something about us, doesn’t it?  But there it is – this river.  And we find ourselves alongside it; a river whose waters are “bright as crystal,” flowing from the very throne of God.  And that’s not the only thing we see – on either side of the river is the “tree of life.”  And what’s significant about this tree is that it bears fruit year-round; fruit which has the ability to “heal the nations.”  That’s some pretty amazing fruit!

Pull back the curtain a little more and we discover that this is not the first time we’ve happened upon this river – the Old Testament prophet Ezekiel mentioned it, and the trees, near the conclusion of his book:

On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food.  Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary.  Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.  Wherever the river goes, everything will live and be fresh.

You know what the great thing about Ezekiel’s river is?  It flows from the sanctuary – the sacred temple in Jerusalem.  Which is extraordinary, to say the least – because the people the prophet was speaking to had seen with their own eyes that very temple burned to the ground, as the Jewish people were taken from their homeland to live in Babylon. 

So Ezekiel’s prophecy is a vision – a vision of old things being made new.  And not just the temple!  Even the people are transformed through this river.  Healed of their past sufferings; renewed once again to serve and worship God.  Of course, it’s not a literal river or tree Ezekiel describes here.  It’s something more significant than that!  It’s a metaphor; a powerful metaphor for the restoration of God’s people as their time of exile comes to a close.  It is a commanding symbol and promise of hope when all hope seems lost.

That same river – liturgically speaking – flowed some 600 years into the future, all the way to a group of Christians in middle first-century Palestine who knew all too well about lost hope. Like their predecessors, they too had seen their holy city and temple burned to the ground – this time by the Roman Empire.  Over the years this new power persecuted those who professed faith in anyone other than the Emperor.  And it wasn’t always persecution in the classical sense: hangings on crosses and beheadings and all that nastiness.

To be a Christian in that day and time was about being a social outcast, a weirdo; unable to participate in the commerce of the day.  It meant sacrificing your social status, your financial well-being, your clout and your standing.  It meant not being able to buy in the marketplace because the only coins they used were ones with the emperor’s image on it, and you didn’t use those kind of coins.  Being a Christian back then meant loving your enemies in a world where enemies were either converted or destroyed.  It meant pledging your allegiance to a crucified carpenter in a world which daily sold out its soul to power and conquest and victory.  In some ways, that kind of persecution was worse than death.

And yet even in that world – especially in that world – a river continued to run through it.  God’s river.  A river of life, surrounded by trees of life; reminding the faithful that there is hope in a hopeless world, that healing can take place in a world torn asunder.  And a river whose flow never, ever stops – because things like grace and mercy and love are continuous, like a current that can’t be diverted, even when those things are sometimes hard to sense or see.

So today, you and I drink deep from the waters of Revelation’s river.  We eat heartily from the fruit of Revelation’s tree.  And we do this every time God’s people gather together in worship, every time a child is baptized, every time the bread and cup are laid out on this table.  We drink and eat from Revelation’s river and tree every time someone chooses to lay a grudge aside, every time a hungry person is fed, every time someone goes out of their way to do what they think Jesus would’ve done.  We embrace the truth of Revelation every time we put our trust and faith not in what others or our culture have to say, but in a God who never forgets God’s people, who brings the exiles back home, who promises all of us sanctuary and shelter and an eternal home.

This is the message Revelation speaks to us, if only we listen, if only we put aside our fears and pull back the curtain to see what’s really there: hope in a hopeless world.  I wonder what other things we’ll get to see!  Thanks be to God, AMEN.

TO EACH IS GIVEN: THE GIFT OF A NEW CITY

Revelation 21: 1-6; Isaiah 65: 17-25
Steve Lindsley
March 14, 2010

Nearly three years ago, it was a blustery spring morning  at Virginia Tech University.  What started out as any normal weekday morning on the college campus soon took a horrible turn, as the first shots were fired in what would become the worst shooting incident ever to take place on American soil.  Thirty-three people dead, a dozen or so injured, and millions around the world crying out in mourning.  The press, who descended on the campus like a hornet’s nest, would be camped out all day and night, covering the story 24-7 to satisfy a never-ending news cycle and human consumption of tragedy.  They talked with a student whose younger sister died, an English professor who tried to steer the future killer to counseling, a staff person holed up in a dorm room.

And then they interviewed a campus minister during the wee hours of the following morning.  He led a Christian fellowship group at the school.  He was bald and looked to be in his mid-30’s.  The reporter asked the standard entry questions: where were you when it happened, did you know any of the murdered.  And then she asked the question that had been on everyone's mind since the news first broke; the real question everyone wanted answered: what do you do with this as a person of faith?  How do you put this horrific event in a spiritual context?

Man.  Talk about being put on the spot!  I don't know anything about this campus minister.  I can only assume he makes a meager salary, as most campus ministers do, and that he probably ranks pretty low in the university hierarchy.  I can only assume that two days before his life was consumed by fairly mundane things like planning out a Thursday night Bible study, or making reservations for the end-of-year lake trip, or counseling a senior on life after graduation.  And yet now he has suddenly been thrust onto the national and international stage, in effect speaking for the entire Christian faith, on a dilemma that even the most seasoned theologians have wrestled with for centuries; the greatest Biblical scholars unable to arrive at a definitive conclusion – because there isn't one.

What do you do with this as a person of faith, Mr. Campus Minister?  How do you put this in a spiritual context?

That is the question that keeps us up at night, that leaves us grasping for answers, that troubles us to the day we die. That's the question that disrupts the even flow of our carefully-crafted belief systems.  We have no problem putting good things in a spiritual context – it fits like a glove, it feels right.  But what do we do with earthquakes and tsunamis and mass shootings?  How do we explain it when someone dies before their time, leaving behind a wife and three young kids?  What do we do with these things as people of faith?  How do we put them in a spiritual context?

It is hard sometimes to find the “location” of our faith – meaning that “center,” that place from which everything else springs forth.  It has been said – and rightly so – that the story of the Bible begins in a garden and ends in a city. Genesis brings us to the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve and everything perfect until the first bite of that tempting apple.  Revelation leads us to a different place – a city; a renewed Jerusalem that descends down from the heavens to the earth below. 

It's an interesting location for the Bible to conclude, isn't it?  Because cities in general come with a lot of problems.  The more people you cram in them, the more issues you're going to have.  Resources can only go so far.  Local governments and municipalities can only do so much.  What makes the location of the Bible's climactic conclusion even more curious is that, at the time Revelation was written, the Roman armies had descended on Jerusalem and reduced it to flames – eerily similar to Babylon's devastation of the same city a mere 500 years before.  Why would the Bible's story finish here?  Wouldn't it make more sense to end where it began – in the garden before the fall?  Why a city?

I bring this question up because I'm wondering if this question and the earlier question about finding faith in unimaginable tragedies are intertwined in a very intimate way.  There's a reason for where the culmination of God's work in the world happens – and how it happens.  Thousands of years earlier, the prophet Isaiah painted a scandalous picture in the latter chapters of his book: a wolf and a lamb feeding together; a lion eating straw like an ox.  The writer of Revelation dares to announce a time when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, death and mourning and crying and pain will be no more.  All of this sounds strange to our city ears.

There is something deeply evocative in the images from these two books; something that takes on a life of its own and moves beyond just being “inspiring reading.”  They tell us unequivocally: something has changed.  Things aren’t the way they used to be. This is a radical shift from the way our world operates, because it's a commonly-accepted fact that wolves and lambs don’t hang out together.  Likewise, death and mourning are frequent companions in life.  So something has changed!  Something is new in this old world of ours, and we have an expression for a changed world.  We call it the kingdom of God.

Except it's different than the kingdom of God we typically think of.  Most people hear that phrase and automatically think “heaven” – in fact, we like to use the two interchangeably.  We hear someone say “kingdom of God” and we think of the afterlife, the place we go when we leave this earth.  We hear someone say “kingdom of God” and we think of a white stone palace in the sky glistening with gold, angels with wings bearing the souls of those who have long left this earth, fluttering about.

But that's not the kind of “kingdom of God” that Revelation talks about.  This is a city that has come down from the heavens.  This kingdom of God is earthbound, anchored in good ol' terra firma.  And in Isaiah's vision, it's not some mythical creatures living in peaceful harmony, but beasts of the earth on the earth.  And every bit of this marks the culmination of God's great work: an earth ruled not by the oppressive powers of the world but by the outlandish hope of God.  When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God, he was speaking about the possibilities that exist when we as God’s people follow Christ and live lives that reflect that following – even and especially when it is the hardest thing to do; even when we just don't know whether our faith is going to give us any answers or not.

Like when we come face-to-face with those troubling questions the campus minister had to answer at 6am in the morning.  On CNN live, nonetheless; the whole country watching.  This is not what he expected to be doing just a few days before.  This is not a burden he chose to bear.  The burden came to him; it came to all of us as the morning sun began to rise over the city of Blacksburg, VA.  The reporter asked, What do you do with this as a person of faith?  How do you put this horrific event in a spiritual context?  And you know how he answered her?  This is what he said:

This tragedy has brought home to all of us the fact that evil is real and is not some concept.  Evil came yesterday to Virginia Tech and sat down with us for a while.  But our understanding of faith, and what the Bible tells us, is that evil won’t sit here forever.  And that’s what will get us through times like this.  That’s what gives us the hope we so desperately need right now.

Evil won't sit here forever – I love that!  It's the voice of hope when all hope seems lost.  It's the voice of the one on the throne in Revelation as he looks out over the renewed city he had just created, straight from the heavens.  It's the voice of the prophet in the aftermath of Israel's most turbulent time, as he describes how even the animals will be at peace.  This is the hope we have as people of faith: that while the hardships we encounter, the unexplainable things, will certainly take place, they will not rule over us.  They won't sit with us forever.

And you know something?  This isn’t “pie-in-the-sky” theology.  This isn’t some quick fix that denies the seriousness of a broken world.  This empowers us to look beyond the current state of the city to see the kingdom that will soon arrive.  This is what Isaiah and the writer of Revelation had in mind when, in the midst of their loss, their suffering, their hopelessness, they put pen to paper and painted pictures of God’s great kingdom.   For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the prophet says, the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.  The old is gone – all things new. 

And we should never lose sight of the fact that all of this takes place in a city – a place where people gather together, live together, work together, play together.  A place where, by its very design, people depend on each another for fellowship and the necessities of life.  If the Biblical story begins in a garden with just two people, it has now come full circle to a beautiful renewed city, bustling with activity.

And what a gift – what a gift this city is!  It's a gift because it reminds us that God is forever with us, even in those dark times when we don't always feel him there.  I can't help but think back to another tragedy this country endured, when planes were flown into buildings and thousands of lives were lost on a September morning.  I remember the questions that emulated from that; good questions, serious questions: Where was God?  Where was God when those planes hit the Twin Towers, when thousands of people died?  And I remember hearing someone answer very sincerely and compassionately that God was, in fact, in those planes; God was in those towers.  It wasn't a flippant answer; it was an answer of deep faith.  It was a simple acknowledgment that God is with us wherever we go, even and especially in the unimaginable places.  As a good friend of mine once expressed in a moment of spiritual clarity, “Thanks be to God that God's presence with us does not depend on whether we always feel it or not.”

The new city is also a gift because it give us a real and living hope in the midst of hopelessness.  It was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, almost forty years ago in the height of the civil rights struggle, who wrote this in his book The Trumpet of Conscience: If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.  King recognized that it is a human need to grasp hold of something beyond ourselves; something outlandish and unordinary and real, no matter how out-of-reach it may seem.  This is what drove God's people to the city they loved; and this is what drove God to make that city new again.

Which leads us to the final gift of the city – an eternal reminder that God is always, always doing a new thing our midst.  The God we worship every Sunday and follow every day is not a stagnant God; not a God that is into maintaining the status quo.  Our God is a God who builds a world from nothing, frees a people from bondage, parts the water, fashions a new land.  Our God defeats Goliaths, sets saturated altars aflame, speaks in still silence, travels with us to foreign lands.  Our God is born in mangers, makes more wine for the wedding, turns over temple tables, rolls away gravestones.  Our God never ceases to move in and among us in ways we cannot possibly imagine, including the gift of a new city that will be our home forever. 

    The city is where we belong – it is God's gift to us.  So let's get busy bringing that city to fruition, shall we?  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

JESUS, AISLE 4

Luke 2: 41-52, Psalm 139: 1-10
Steve Lindsley
January 25, 2009

It happened a couple of years ago in the check-out line at the grocery store.  I was buying the usual milk and canned vegetables and other assorted items that find a home in the Lindsley’s fridge and pantry.  I can’t remember exactly when it happened as the young woman was scanning my items – perhaps between the grapes and orange juice – but she suddenly stopped what she was doing and looked upward.  My eyes followed hers to see nothing but a sequence of fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling.  I looked back at her face; it was quizzical, as if some thought process was running rampant inside her head and she couldn’t make sense of it.

She looked back at me, took in a breath and somewhat hesitantly asked: Did they just say, “Jesus, Aisle 4?”  I hadn’t noticed, but apparently just a few moments before some voice had made an announcement over the speakers.  You know, the mysterious voice that relays important messages like “Checkout 10 is now open” or “Assistance needed in meats.”  Apparently, according to the woman at the checkout, it had just said, “Jesus, Aisle 4.”

Jesus, Aisle 4.  You know, this is the kind of magical moment that ministers live for – an entry point into an obvious conversation of great spiritual depth!  I could have gone any way with it.  Yes ma'am, Jesus is on Aisle 4 – he's waiting for you.  Or He's on Aisle 4 and Aisle 5 – he's on every aisle; Jesus is everywhere!  Instead, I think I said something cheesy like I thought I recognized that guy in produce.  We laughed a little – emphasis on “little” – and proceeded back to the business at hand.  A few moments later I was wheeling a half-full grocery cart out to my car.

But on the ride home I couldn’t let it go.  And I didn't know why.  It seemed silly; obviously she heard wrong.  I mean what, really, would be more ludicrous than to picture Jesus himself, the Son of God, strolling around in a grocery store?  You know, picking up the apples to see if they’re fresh or checking the fat content on a bag of  chips.  And that's when I realized that it wasn't really about whether we'd find him there or not.  What's important, and why I think I couldn’t shake this from my mind, is that the mere idea of it was ridiculous, that it caught both of us off-guard.  And, at the very least, it made us stop what we were doing and think.  Jesus in a grocery store.  That’s not where you find him. 

We do fall victim, don't we, to only looking for Jesus in the places where we expect him to be?  I imagine that's what his parents had been doing – looking for their son in the expected, usual places.  Problem was, he wasn’t there.  They had lost him, we are told.  The whole family – father, mother, son – had made their annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover.  You can let your imagination play for a little bit as to how many people this would entail – it had to be thousands upon thousands.  It was a huge crowd.  And at some point Jesus and his parents are separated.  Mary and Joseph finally realize this when they're a whole day’s journey from the city.  They had assumed, we read, that he was simply hanging out with other travelers, friends in their little entourage.  They start checking around and realize Jesus is nowhere to be found.  And it hits them, like a punch in the stomach, that their only son is lost and could be anywhere among the hundreds of thousands either still in this huge city or making their journeys back to countless hometowns.

I've heard my parents tell a story of something that happened when I was almost three.  It was during the couple of months that we I lived in a high-rise apartment in downtown Toronto; Dad was there on business.  We'd come in from, of all things, grocery shopping; and we made our way to the elevator that would take us to our floor.  When the elevator doors opened there was a moment of confusion, people going in, people coming out; and in the craziness of it all I stepped into the elevator but my parents did not. And the doors closed.

Now I figure I stood there gazing at the nifty flashing buttons over my head, assuming that the two pairs of legs on either side of me belonged to my parents.  But I really can’t remember, to be honest.  So instead I get my father’s version, which is noticeably different.  You can imagine how cold his blood went when, looking around, I wasn’t there.  Then he noticed the closed elevator doors, and put two and two together.  He tells me he instinctively ran around the corner to the stairwell and bolted up the stairs, wondering – as he was doing this – how he was going to find a two-and-a-half year old boy in a 20-story building.  As it happened, on the very next floor my dad ran out the door to the elevator lobby and found me there, standing with some newfound friends who had taken concern for me.

I have to think my parents, in the moments leading up to our reunion, could understand a little bit what Mary and Joseph were going through.  They had made the journey back to the city, one imagines, a lot faster than what it took for them to leave.  The Bible doesn’t say but I can picture the kinds of places they first looked for Jesus, places you’d expect to find a twelve-year old boy.  They checked out the burger joints.  No Jesus.  They looked in the video arcade.  He wasn’t there.  Excuse me, we’re looking for our son, he’s about this tall, dark eyes and hair, answers to the name “Jesus.”  Please, have you seen him, we’re desperate!

This went on, the Bible says, for three days.  Three whole days, can you imagine?  They looked everywhere and couldn’t find him – not a trace.  I figure they had all but given up hope when they headed to the temple – perhaps to make grim arrangements for a son presumed dead.  And there, in a corner of the great temple in Jerusalem, sits their son.  Talking to a group of rabbis, nonetheless.  One imagines they ran over and gave him the kind of hug my father gave me when he found me outside the elevator.  Overwhelming relief soon turned to anger.  You knew it was coming.  Mary says in no uncertain terms, Jesus, why have you done this?  We’ve been frantic for three days trying to find you!  We’ve been sick with worry!  Why?!

Jesus, however – and this is great! – Jesus doesn’t appear to be phased by the raging emotions of his parents.  It’s like a typical teenager – he doesn’t see what the fuss is all about.  I love this!  I just find it kind of neat that Jesus, as a teenager, would have the same disagreements and arguments with his parents that any teenager would!  So Jesus says, What’s the big deal?  Didn’t you know I’d be right here where I belong?   

See, in Jesus’ mind, he was right where he should've been.  Not the burger joints.  Not the arcade.  But the temple.  That’s not where we’d expect to find him, and it wasn’t where Mary and Joseph expected to find him either.  But that's where he was.

I love the fact that Luke includes this story, for a couple of reasons.  One, it's the only story we have in all four gospels of Jesus' childhood or youth  The others pretty much make the jump from an 8-day old infant to a 33-year old man.  It leaves a lot out, and we're left wondering what Jesus was like as a teenager.  And the answer, according to this story, is that in some respects Jesus was a whole lot like any twelve-year old kid.

But there's another reason why I want to thank Luke for putting this story here, and it has less to do with Jesus himself and more to do with us.  There’s no denying that Jesus is present in our lives – we profess him as Lord and Savior, we call out to him in prayer, we try as best we can to follow his example.  But if we’re honest with ourselves – truly honest – he is part of our lives only to a certain point.  We let him in at the appropriate intervals, like Sunday mornings and some other days – the times and places where it is “acceptable” to include him.  But other times we're hesitant to look for him much. 

You know what I mean?  I’m talking about those times and places where we feel less inclined to invoke his name, talk about “Jesus” kinds of things; and instead censor ourselves, use a different dialect, one that is safe lest we might offend others or embarrass ourselves.  Singing “How Great Thou Art” on Sunday morning feels perfectly natural, but you won’t find many people belting that hymn out while pumping gas at the gas station – and if you do, you turn away.  Praying a prayer of confession in worship is not only okay, it’s called for in our Presbyterian polity.  Sharing that same prayer in the context of a business meeting, however, would seem quite odd, to say the least.

It's interesting, isn't it, how we do this – struggling to live two lives: one a life where Jesus is ever present in our thoughts and words, and another where we tame our speech and behavior just enough so as not to give away our identity.  And all of this comes back to our assumptions, I think, about where we expect to find Jesus and where we don’t.  And right there lies the problem.  Because it is not about where we expect to find the man as much as it’s about where he finds us. 

Twelve-year old Jesus didn’t bat an eye when his parents came to him, crying hysterically.  Why were you searching for me, he says.  Is it possible, that their reunion might have come about sooner had they worried less about where they would find Jesus and focused more on where he would find them?

So we find ourselves in a grocery store buying groceries and a message supposedly comes over the PA – Jesus, Aisle 4.  And we think to ourselves, That’s crazy!  Well, perhaps it is – perhaps we wouldn’t find him there.  But it is possible – in fact it’s one of the core beliefs of our Reformed tradition – that Jesus finds us there.  We call it the Omnipresence of God.  And it claims that wherever we are, God is there also.  It’s what the psalmist talks about:

Where can I go from your spirit?  Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. 
You hem me in, behind and before….

God is there when we are aware of God’s presence, and when we're not.  When we’re awake, and when we’re asleep.  When we’re at church, and when we’re standing in the line at the grocery store.  Every moment of every day of our lives, God is there.  And why is this?  Because it is precisely where we are – in the grocery store, in our places of work, in our schools and at the bank.  In meetings and on vacations.  In prisons and in foreign lands.  God finds us – not the other way around.

It's funny, you know – we hear stories about people making a profession of faith; when they were “saved.”  And sometimes they use language like “I found God” or “I made a choice to let Jesus in my heart.”  But the truth of the matter is that the only thing they really found was a God who had already found them.  They didn't find Jesus any more than a newborn baby finds their parents.  Jesus finds us .  And all we do is simply respond.

I love the way Luke ends this story – Mary is left contemplating all of this,  “treasuring all these things in her heart.”  And we are left wondering exactly what “these things” are.  Was it that she and her husband had found Jesus?  Was it the deep warm love that only a mother can feel for her young as they move through life? 

Or might it have been that she finally came to understand the truth in this: that we are all sojourners in this life, like pages in a book breezing through chapter after chapter.  And at some point along the way we encounter Jesus.  We see him in our dreams and hear him in our prayers, we are moved by his healing presence.  And eventually we take that step and make the relationship permanent.  We live renewed lives and our faith grows each day.  And as the sun begins to set on us, we look back at all that was there and recall with great joy how we found Jesus and how he was all we expected him to be.
And I think it's then when we hear the still small voice within us saying, My child, I have and will always be with you.  But not because you sought me out and chose me.   No, because it is I who sought you out and chose you. 

When you look at it that way, hearing Jesus, Aisle 4 the speakers in a grocery store doesn’t seem all that unexpected, now does it?  Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

REVISITING REVELATION - WHAT'S REALLY "LEFT BEHIND"

Revelation 21: 1-6
Steve Lindsley
July 21, 2008

You know, I find it kind of neat and, dare I say, providential how little things have seemed to pop up at just the right time throughout this Revelation sermon series.  I was hanging out earlier this week with my friend Jerry Chapman.  Jerry, as you may know, is the youth minister at Central Methodist and a fellow “Mayberry musician.”  He’d been gone for a few weeks to do some recording, so we were catching up.

Jerry, being the giving guy that he is, almost always passes along some CDs of music he’s been listening to recently; and the CD he gave me this week took me on a trip down memory lane.  The guy’s name is Larry Norman, and I vaguely remember him.  He was perhaps the very first contemporary Christian rock artist back in the early 70’s.  And while I never really listened to him much, there was one song on the CD that I knew quite well.  We used to sing it at our high school Young Life meetings every Wednesday night – we had this older guy who would bring his guitar and lead us in some group singing before our Bible study.  The song is called I Wish We’d All Been Ready, and as best as I can tell it's the songwriter's account of Revelation.  It’s an interesting tune.  The first verse goes like this:

Life was filled with guns and war,
And everyone got trampled on the floor,
I wish we'd all been ready
Children died, the days grew cold,
A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold,
I wish we'd all been ready,

Okay, so that kind of sounds like Revelation.  You've got chaos and the celebration and worship of “Nike” power– represented in guns and war and stuff like that.  You’ve got this notion of an unjust and unfair economic system with the haves and have-nots duking it out over a piece of bread.  I’m not quite sure what's going on with that whole “people getting trampled on the floor” part, but I'm guessing he needed a rhyme for “war.”  Not a bad first verse.

But it’s the second verse that has always troubled me:

A man and wife asleep in bed,
She hears a noise and turns her head, he's gone,
I wish we'd all be ready,
Two men walking up a hill,
One disappears and one's left standing still,
I wish we'd all been ready,
There's no time to change your mind,
How could you have been so blind,
There’s no time to change your mind,
The Son has come and you've been left behind.

   

Ah, the Rapture – you gotta love it, don't you?  Whether it's Larry Norman or William Miller in the mid-1800's or a charismatic Korean church in 1992, “rapture theology” is the most common way our culture conceptualizes Revelation.  Even people who don’t profess a particular faith or who have never read Revelation will assume that’s what it’s about.

And I think it’s fair to say that nothing in our generation has better captured rapture theology than the “Left Behind” book series of the 1990's.  I remember reading the first one a few years ago because a youth in my previous church was reading it and had lots of questions.  And I’ll admit – it’s a captivating read.  Authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins are excellent writers.  I’ll never forget that opening chapter – how airline pilot Rayford Steele, an agnostic at best, discovers much to his horror that dozens of passengers on his transcontinental flight have mysteriously disappeared from the plane.  The only trace of them is their clothing neatly folded in a pile where they last sat or stood.  From there the story, recounted in a dozen books, launches into an epic battle between good and evil; good represented by the “Tribulation Force,” a self-appointed conglomerate of “left behind” believers who use souped-up Land Rovers and state-of-the-art artillery to fight the Antichrist and his minions.

Now – a word from your sponsor. If you haven't already picked up on it, you probably will soon realize that your pastor is skeptical about some of the nuances of “Rapture Theology.”  And please, please do not get me wrong: I believe very much in the second coming of Christ.  I believe very much that there will come a time when evil in this world will end and God will reign supreme.  I believe these things because, as the wonderful song we’ve been singing since we were kids says, “the Bible tells me so;” and I believe, like all of us, that the Bible is in the business of pointing us toward the truth.

But you and I have been in this wonderful pastor-parishioner relationship for 5½ years now, thanks be to God!  And because of that relationship, I feel comfortable in sharing with you (and hope you feel comfortable in me telling you) that I do not believe people will mysteriously disappear off the face of the earth; nor do I believe that the world will be destroyed in some cosmic and cataclysmic, God-ordained event.  And the reason I do not believe these things is quite simple: they are not in Revelation.  There is no account of people disappearing and leaving their clothes behind.  There is no account of an epic battle that destroys the world and brings about its end.  There is talk about preparations for a battle, but the battle never happens – it doesn’t need to, because “lamb power” prevails before “Nike power” can even get itself to the battle lines.

None of this, of course, has stopped rapture theology from getting a grip on us in some form or fashion – and this, I think, should alarm us. Shouldn't it concern us how this mindset promotes an “I’ve-got-mine-now-you-go-get-yours” mentality that uses fear to motivate?  Fear, after all, is a tool of the empire; as is the understanding that the world is divided into two groups: those who are “in” and those who are “out.”  This is not what Revelation talks about. And shouldn’t it concern us how this notion of the righteous being taken up and away from the earth, how this impacts our sense of environmental stewardship?  I mean, what’s the point of even taking care of the earth – recycling and reducing CO2 emissions and seeking alternative forms of fuel  - what’s the point of doing any of that if we’re not going to be around this earth much longer anyway?

Something needs to change, folks.  Something needs to change.  I remember a conversation I had with one of my students in the online New Testament class I teach at the college. We were having a discussion about something in Revelation; and when I asked her if she had read the assigned scriptures from Revelation for that week, she responded that “no, she found Revelation confusing, so she just read the “Left Behind” books to understand it better.”  I mean, that’s kind of like going to the Grand Canyon and standing on a precipice with that incredible view before you, but all you’re looking at is a picture of the Grand Canyon on the postcard you just bought from the gift shop.

Something needs to change.  We’ve got to go to the source – that’s the thing.  We’ve got to read the book of Revelation, we’ve got to know who wrote it and why he wrote it.  We’ve got to know who he was speaking to and what those people were going through.  And when we do this, we might be surprised at what we find.  We find a powerful message of hope for the hopeless; we find Fluffy and the “lamb power” that opens scrolls and calls God to action.

And in our scripture today, we find what John calls a “new heaven and a new earth” – “new” not in the sense of being a different earth, but a “renewed” earth: the old earth given a new lease on life.  And on this new earth, descending from the heavens, comes a “new Jerusalem.  It is the epitome of glory, beauty and grandeur.  The walls of the city are adorned with a myriad of jewels – the same jewels found on the breastplate of the high priest.  There are twelve gates around this city that always remain open – so the city is home for the whole world, open to all nations and people.  And no one – no one – is left behind.  But perhaps the most wonderful thing about this city is that God is there.  Not just on a visit, passing through – God literally sets up residence in the city, “dwelling” with the people and making God’s home with them, forever.

John of Patmos is gazing upon this incredible vision – the culmination of the lamb power’s perseverance in the world – and all he can think of to describe how he feels is that it's like “a bride adorned for her husband.”  Ha!  You know why I love this?  Any guy who has ever stood at the end of the aisle on his wedding day and recalls that instant when the doors in the back are flung open to reveal his wife-to-be in her wedding finest – you remember, guys, how that made you feel?  You remember what that does to you?  Your knees get weak, your stomach knots up, you feel chills run up and down you like an electrical shock, and you are totally oblivious to the silly ear-to-ear grin that suddenly spreads across your face.  Your whole body rejoices in this “revelation!”  That’s exactly what each and every one of us will feel when God’s kingdom on earth comes into view.  We’ll be overwhelmed with joy; basking in the “lamb power” that has called us to be servants, disciples, fellowshippers of the risen Lord.  

Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?  Well, friends, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, folks, but I’m afraid to say that this is not quite the scene of total peace and harmony.  LaHaye and Jenkins, I must admit, were right – there is something that is left behind in all of this; something that does not make it into the new Jerusalem; something that is eternally shut out from the city’s gates.  And we find it in the fourth verse of this chapter, when John says:

Death will be no more;
Mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
For the first things have passed away.

These, my friends, are signs of the empire, the elements of that Nike power that used to call the shots.  But not any more.  Those kinds of things are left standing outside the city walls, never to enter.  Imagine that!  In fact, that's exactly what I'd like you to do right now.  Close your eyes, if you would, and imagine yourself in this New Jerusalem.  You walk over to the city walls and look down at what's on the outside looking in.  Suffering and Persecution are standing out there, right next to Injustice and Inequality; and they can’t get in.  AIDS and Hunger are trying to find a back door, but they never will.  Cancer doesn’t stand a chance of finding its way into the city.  Depression and Anxiety are left out, as are Hate and Prejudice and Racism.  War – war most certainly is on the outside looking in.  Even Death itself – the ultimate manifestation of Nike power – even Death is not getting in.  This is what's “left behind” from God’s kingdom on earth.  You can open your eyes now.

It's a pretty cool picture, isn't it?  So we have yanked the curtain away, my friends.  Like Toto in the Wizard of Oz, we have exposed the “wizard” for who he really is; we have witnessed with our own eyes what Revelation is truly about.  And because we don’t have to be afraid anymore, because we see things in our world for what they really are, we can respond as people of faith and as followers of Christ.  We can respond by pledging our allegiance to lamb power even when the world around us continues to be lost in its Nike-ness.  We can proclaim the inclusive nature of God’s kingdom as a place where all people can live in peace.  And most of all we can declare, for all to hear, an eternal hope – hope that renews, hope that sustains, hope that can make a difference in a hopeless world.

And I think you’ll agree – that is certainly a future that we all can look forward to. Thanks be to God.  AMEN.

REVISITING REVELATION - NIKE MEETS FLUFFY

Revelation 5: 1-6, 11-13
Steve Lindsley
July 13, 2008                  

Last Sunday morning as I was making my “rounds” around the church visiting with folks as they arrived, I found one church member sitting in the chair across from Lynn’s desk with newspaper and scissors in hand. She was cutting out an article for me; Billy Graham’s column on, of all things, the topic: Does the book of Revelation have meaning today? Jane knew I was beginning a three-week sermon series on Revelation that Sunday and thought it might prove useful – which it did.

Probably not so surprisingly, Graham emphatically assures us that YES, Revelation still has great meaning in our day and world. He writes this: Admittedly, parts of it are hard to understand. And although Bible scholars may debate the details, the central truth of Revelation is clear: we can have hope because God is in control, and someday Christ’s victory over death will be complete.[i]

I mean, it was almost as if Rev. Graham knew what I was preaching on last Sunday! All that talk about a river whose waters run from the temple and trees that never cease bearing fruit. These are the kinds of things, Revelation tells us, that give us hope – hope that the world as we know is not the world that will always be; hope that people can change and that the powers-that-be in this world will not have the last word.

But the reality of things is that, while we do find all kinds of rivers and trees in the 22nd chapter, there are 21 other chapters we must contend with – and many of them talk about things that do not, at face value, appear to be all that hopeful. Even Billy Graham would have to agree with that. And you know, I find myself feeling a fair bit of sympathy for the guy who wrote all of this. John of Patmos, he’s called. Patmos was the island where he and a fair amount of fellow Christians were in hiding, seeking refuge and retreat. Just years before John penned his famous words, Roman soldiers had burned Jerusalem to the ground and either enslaved or exiled its people. John’s book was written to a beleaguered group of believers who had lost everything and had seemingly lost any sense of hope – all at the hand of the brutal Roman empire.

You know, it seems kind of strange, doesn’t it, to picture the Roman empire in such a negative light? Nearly 2000 years of history have served to whitewash things a bit, where most of what we see, if not all of it, is fairly positive. We think of ancient Rome and we think of major contributions to society in culture, art, literature. We think of the calendar we use and the first major road system, architecture and a modern form of government. We think of Rome and we overwhelmingly see a model for modernization and human ingenuity.

But progress, as sometimes is the case, does not come without a price; and there’s this darker side to Roman civilization that the early Christians knew all too well. It’s hard to see unless we take time, like we talked about last week, to pull back that curtain a bit; to “unveil” what was previously hidden from our view – which, of course, is what Revelation is all about. So when we pull back the curtain on Rome, this is what find: we find “Rome” referred to throughout the book as Babylon – a name that sent shivers down the spine of any early Christian who knew of their destruction of Jerusalem some 600 years before. The book also speaks of a terrifying “beast from the sea” that wreaks havoc on the earth – much like the Roman empire had been known to do the same. We’ve all heard about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse – the white horse that conquered, the red one that made war, the black horse that unleashed famine, and the pale green horse of death. This was John’s way of describing the ghastly consequences of Roman rule for those who didn’t play by the rules – they were conquered, they were victims of unrelenting warfare, they suffered disease and famine, and they died.

Citizens of the Roman empire were either patrons of the system or victims of it; and there was no middle ground. While some enjoyed the benefits of a prosperous lifestyle, a huge class of impoverished lived just outside the beautiful architecture and buildings. The gap between rich and poor was wide and extremely hard to overcome. And not only that, but everything about the Roman empire focused on expansion of that empire and unquestioning loyalty to the emperor. One “had faith” in the emperor in the same kind of way you and I have faith in God – and those who did not share this were either persecuted or ostracized. To be part of the empire was to support a never-ending quest, on all fronts, to literally conquer the world.

In fact, this very word “conquer” comes into play big-time in Revelation, especially in our passage today. John paints this scene for us of a vision he has; a vision of God’s holy throne and a scroll that no one is worthy enough to open. John is upset by this – because this scroll, when opened, would cause God to leap into action and make all of the wrongs of the world right. So he laments that no one is “powerful” enough to do it. John is comforted, though, when he is told that “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll.” It’s a classic Jewish symbol of power – a Lion, and an offshoot of David, the great king of Israel lore. This, John is led to believe, is the one worthy enough to do what needs to be done.

Now before we go any further, let’s pull that curtain back a little shall we? Let’s pull it back on this word “conquer.” In the original language the word for “conquer” here is the Greek word Nike. N-I-K-E: which of course in our day and time is pronounced how…….? Nike was the Roman goddess of Victory, and it probably wouldn’t surprise us to learn that she was symbolized by a little swoosh emblem; the same that adorns everything from our sneakers to Tiger Wood’s golf shirt to just about anything where the motto “just do it” applies. In fact, “just do it” is a pretty good way to summarize what Nike meant to the Roman world. Nike wasn’t just celebrated, it was worshiped. It was the motivating force behind the empire’s rule and its conquest of the world. It embodied the very heart and soul of the ancient world’s greatest power.

So the image John is presented with here is a commanding one: a Lion, King David, Nike-like power – this is what will open the scroll, this is what will take on the Roman domination system and deal it a final death blow. And it makes all sense in the world, doesn’t it – power verses power, might verses might, two boxers in the ring and the strongest one comes out on top!

Except that is not what John gets. That is what he’s led to believe he’s gonna get, but it’s not what he gets – not at all. As John gazes around the throne to see this “power” that will prevail, he sees something there – but it is not Nike. What he sees is a lamb. A lamb, folks! And not just any run-of-the-mill lamb. The actual word in Greek suggests a very diminutive creature, the runt of the lamb litter. And I really like the way one writer describes it: he calls it Fluffy. Fluffy the runt lamb. Fluffy the lamb who, as we read on, is slain; slaughtered even.

So what we have here in Revelation 5, friends; what John of Patmos is encountering in this vision, can be summarized in a simple three-word phrase: Nike meets Fluffy. Nike meets Fluffy. The classic symbol of victory and conquest; verses a slaughtered, helpless, minuscule runt of a lamb. World power verses “lamb power.”

Now let’s just stop for a minute and soak this in, shall we? And let’s ask the obvious question here: what in the world do you think John made of this? I mean, here he is – all jazzed about God bursting into action to put an end to the suffering – and he is presented with cute little Fluffy. Better yet, what do you think those early Christians thought when they read John’s letter, holed up in their homes and wondering whether the next day would bring more of the same? People who were used to having Roman soldiers bursting in unannounced, uninvited? People who were denied access to the marketplace because they didn’t posses the Roman coins they needed? People who were ridiculed for who they believed in and who they did not believe in?

What do you think they made of Fluffy? Is that really who they imagined having in their corner? Did they not wonder how Fluffy could possibly stand a chance against Nike? How “lamb power” could ever persevere in the face of the world’s power? How the ways of nonviolence and grace and self-denial could ever make a difference in a world sold out to violence and heartlessness and selfishness?

I don’t know – it doesn’t sound like much of a fair fight to me. And it strikes me how these questions are not a whole different from the ones you and I have, you know? I mean, is this really the symbol of hope that we, Christians of the 21st century, pledge our allegiance to – Fluffy? Because if it is, my friends, we’ve got some explaining to do. How is Fluffy good enough when the world dishes out its “Nike-ness?” How does “lamb power” deal with a continent of people where tens of thousands die from AIDS and hunger each day – what good is Fluffy to them? How does “lamb power” help a middle-aged man fighting tooth-and-nail with his addiction – what good is Fluffy to him? And how does “lamb power” matter to someone held captive by their painful past, and the demons that continue to rage within – what good is Fluffy to them?

If there is one thing that Revelation 5 speaks to us – screams at us – it is this: the message of hope and renewal in our lives, and in our world, does not always come as we expect it. The message of hope and renewal in our lives, and in our world, does not always come as we expect it. And that is why it is so hard, so hard to really wrap our brains and our arms around it. We sing about Jesus as the “worthy lamb that was slain,” but we’ve also been known to sing about “onward Christian soldiers marching on to war,” too.

When people of faith – the Christian faith – adopt the language and the nuances of Nike power to encounter and act in the world, they lose a part of their collective soul and their calling as Christ-followers. There is a great difference between Nike and Fluffy, but it has nothing to do with who is more powerful. We do not serve Christ by being more powerful; we serve Christ by being more faithful. Let me say that again: we do not serve Christ by being more powerful; we serve Christ by being more faithful. God’s kingdom on earth is not revealed because we force anything on anyone – God’s kingdom on earth is revealed because we speak the truth in love. And this, my friends, is the foundational difference between Nike and Fluffy; between the world’s power and the power of the lamb:

• Nike tells us that “the one who dies with the most toys wins.” Fluffy tells us that our worth is determined not by what we own but by who we are.


• Nike tells us that strength and power and domination are what bind us together. Fluffy dares to tell us that we are bound together by sacrificial love.


• Nike tells us that a person’s identity is determined by their place in the world. Fluffy tells us that a person’s identity is determined simply by being a child of God.


• Nike suggests that “if you are not with us, you’re against us.” Fluffy has the courage and the faith to call into question who the “us” really is.


• And Nike, as we all know, tells us “just do it.” Just do it! Fluffy, though, calls us to put aside our wants and desires, and focus on fulfilling God’s mission in the world.

You know what I do when I want to see Nike verses Fluffy in modern form? I look at a picture that hangs on the wall in my office. I’ve show it to you before from this pulpit; and if you haven’t seen it I invite you to come by and take a look at it sometime. The picture was taken back on June 4th, 1989 near Tienanmen Square in Beijing, China. On that day Chinese troops entered the square and killed tens of thousands of students who were peacefully protesting against their government for basic human rights and freedoms.

The picture shows a row of Chinese tanks making their way to the square – you only see one or two, but there were a dozen or so in line that day. And yet they are unable to move, these tanks; because one man – one single man – stands in the way, defiant. If you were to watch the video on YouTube, you would see the lead tank move to the right to go around the man, and then you would see the man move to block it. There would be a few moments of uncertain pause. And then the tank would move back to the left, and the man would follow suit. And then, amazingly, you would watch this man climb on top of the tank – on top of the tank! – and bang on the hatch as if to reason with the soldier inside that this is not right, that they don’t have to do this, that there most certainly is a better way…..

That, my friends, is how Fluffy opens God’s scroll and unveils God’s kingdom on earth – lamb power at its diminutive finest! What would our world look like, indeed, if we truly followed the way of the lamb. Thanks be to God. AMEN.

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[i] “Does the book of Revelation have meaning today?” by Billy Graham. Mount Airy News, June 16, 2008.