How Big Is Your Jesus?

Colossians 1:15-29

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Many New Testament scholars tell us that the first part of our reading is a hymn or maybe just part of a hymn that Paul is quoting or even wrote himself.  He seems to be trying to make the point that all of God’s very good, awesome, wonderful, beautiful creation is integrally and intimately tied to Jesus – in him, through him, for him all things…all things…were created and hold together.  He’s not just talking about physical matter, the stuff we can see and touch, but also means things like the power to rule, relationships, and things we can’t see that influence other things.  In some way that we ain’t ever going to understand Jesus is integrally and intimately tied to everything.  Nothing exists apart from him.  Everything is in some sort of relationship with him whether it’s a personal, communicative relationship like we have with him or that he can turn a stone to bread if he wanted but doesn’t.  Everything in God’s very good, awesome, remarkably beautiful creation is bound to and answers to Jesus.

Let me tell you a bit about the way Paul understood reality.  We would call this his Cosmology.  He’s a Hebrew Bible scholar not a Greek philosopher.  The Greeks believed everything has just always been.  They believed reality was two-sided.  There’s an unseen spiritual world of divine energy that was very good and is all that really mattered.  And, there’s also the material world in which we live which is of lesser importance if not all out evil and which just needs to be left behind for better things in Eternity.  The gods who are themselves very self-involved and capricious have their way with this world and especially us.  Divinity to them was sheer, raw power such that an emperor could be called divine even a god for the power he wielded.

Hebrews were very different from the Greeks.  They had the audacity to say that God created everything and it is good, very good especially once you put humanity into it – humanity made in God’s image.  Genesis Chapter One stuff.  God in God’s love and good will wants matter and us and everything there is to exist.  God spoke the Creation into existence and God’s Spirit made it come about.  And God was very pleased with Creation.  

The Apostle John at the beginning of his Gospel says that Jesus is the Word that God spoke to bring everything into existence.  This Word was with God and was God and it was this Word who himself became human as Jesus of Nazareth to heal God’s very good creation of the very lethal disease of sin which causes us to act like those Greek gods whom we make in our own image and worship.  Paul is basically saying the same “Word” thing in saying that by, through, and for Jesus everything was created and in him it holds together.

With respect to how Paul understood the Cosmos, the world.  He’s very Genesis one.  God created light and then spoke a big bubble of order into the chaotic waters of darkness.  He separated the water that was in the bubble and made land come up.  Then, he put the lights in the sky, filled it with creatures, and finally made humanity and then took a day off.  To be humorous, he was a flat-earther and geo-centric; all the lights in the sky circled the earth.  

Paul also said there are unseen heavenly realms in the Cosmos one in particular called Heaven were the angels and other powers were and in which God would abide.  There was also a “below” realm which the Hebrews called Sheol which was a holding place for the dead as they await resurrection and somewhere in there was a place called Paradise where we are with Christ.  Oddly, Paul never spoke of a Hell or Hades so neither will I.  

In Paul’s world, God existed outside of Creation and stepped in and out as he pleased.  This changed when God the Son became human as Jesus which bound physical matter to God and so also the Holy Spirit indwelling Jesus’ followers.  This is New Creation – Creation bond to and indwelt by God.  So, God (the Father) created Creation and bound it to himself integrally and intimately in, through, by and for Christ Jesus (the Son) in the power of the Holy Spirit. The completeness of that bond is where Creation is ultimately heading.

Well, by today’s standards, Paul’s cosmology is pretty small.  It’s based on what can be seen with the naked eye and has more than a little of what could be called “mystical experience” thrown in there.  It’s just this bubble in the midst of water with land and sky and realms above and below which God in his love and will created.  God loves it so much that he bound it to himself as, in, by, through, and for Jesus Christ in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.  

I used the word small there because today due to telescopes and microscopes we have a way bigger picture and understanding of the universe.  Most would accept that our universe banged into existence about 14 billion years ago.  The static we hear on radios is a remnant of that explosion.  When we look up into the night sky with the naked eye, depending on our eyesight, the average person sees between 2,500-5,000 stars.  In actuality, there could be as many as 200 billion trillion stars out there and many to most of those have planets orbiting them and an astronomical number of the planets are probably able to support life.  Hmmm. Inquiring minds want to know.

A man named Edwin Hubble in 1922 at an observatory just outside of Hollywood discovered that one of the stars he saw with his latest and greatest telescope was actually another galaxy, Andromeda.  When I was in High School in the ‘80’s the number of galaxies was hardly in the thousands.  In 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope focused on a section of space hardly the size of a thumbnail and showed us that in just that little bit of space looking back 13 billion years there were roughly 10,000 galaxies.  Based on that little picture, there could be anywhere from 200 billion to 10 trillion galaxies in our universe.

There’s a new telescope up there now, the James Webb Space Telescope.  It can see a little further back in time than the Hubble Telescope can and it sees a few galaxies that apparently formed just 250 million years after the Big Bang.  Most astrophysicists say galaxies couldn’t have formed that early.  So, they are starting to say that those Galaxies are part of an older universe into which we Big Banged.  And some are even saying that it is entirely possible that our universe is what’s on the other side of a black hole that’s in another universe.  I’m not quite sure what to do with the black hole stuff.

Many people use the bigness of this universe as we know it to dismiss Paul and his understanding of the universe.  They basically say there’s no God big enough to deal with all that and instead they call it an accident.  Me, I look at the pictures that these telescopes give us of this big, beautiful universe and I can’t help but sing, “O Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds Thy hands have made…How great Thou art.”  It moves me to praise.  If it is as Paul says, and I believe/know it is, that everything is held together in Jesus Christ then this means that the love of God is as big as the universe and bigger, infinitely big.  How big is your Jesus?

Let’s talk about small things for a moment and then I’ll be done.  With microscopes we can now almost see atoms.  Atoms are made of even smaller particles and some of those particles are made of even smaller particles.  Basically, when we say particle, we mean a little blip of energy and somehow when particles of a different type interact with each other by means of a particle called the Higgs Boson, known as the God Particle, they form matter.  Physical matter is at ground zero energy.  

Atoms have a nucleus made of protons and neutrons bound together.  Electrons orbit the nucleus but they don’t circle it.  Rather they pop in and out of existence at certain distances around the nucleus.  Where they come from and where they go, nobody knows and the blipping in and out of orbit happens at or faster than the speed of light.  An atom is like a spectacular light show that at any moment may or may not exist.  I can’t tell you how in the world, those quantum physicists have figured that out.  They some smart cookies.  

Inside the atom’s area of influence, those electrons are so teenie-tiny that they are as proportionally as far away from the nucleus as the inner planets of our solar system from the sun.  This means that atoms, like our solar system, are predominantly empty space.  Gravity keeps the planets in orbit around the sun but it’s something called the Strong Force that keeps atoms together.  It’s called strong because if you break that bond, well, that’s what a nuclear bomb is.

Ponder what we are.  We are mostly empty space inhabited by a gazillion gazillion particles bound together to be electricity-filled fluid sacs that have consciousness and God-awareness.  We think, learn, feel, love, build stuff - we are really amazing!  Our bodies consist of roughly 37 trillion cells.  When you include the microbiome that each body has in and on it – bacteria, viruses, yeast, and fungi – there’s over 130 trillium cell-size bio-machines that have a purpose you don’t mess with or you get sick.  That’s more than the number of galaxies in our universe.  We are each like a little universe.

When you pull out a microscope and look at those cells and then the molecules that make-up those little cells, you see beauty.  The cells of a flower are more beautiful than the flower.  And to think that cells and the parts of the cell are like little living machines that have particular jobs to do…and people say it’s accidental!  The cells are made of molecules and stuff that are made of atoms.  That energy can be pulled together into matter that can become a living human being who does art and sings and stuff.  We are fearfully and wonderfully made!  “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all.”

From the very big of the universe to the very small of things at the subatomic level, all things were created by, in, through, and for Christ Jesus and are held together by him.  That’s how big Jesus is.  That’s how big the love of God is.  And Paul says also that in him all the fullness of God is pleased to dwell.  Through Jesus the infinite love of God abounds everywhere and in everything. Finally, Paul says that the mystery of all times is Christ in you.  This great big, infinitely big Jesus and all his love is in us.  “Jesus loves me, this I know.”  I’ll shut up now because I’m speechless.  Amen.

 

Live Lives Worthy

Colossians 1:1-14

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One of the most powerful moments in motion picture history is the ending of the movie Saving Private Ryan.  Private Ryan was an American soldier in WWII post D-Day.  He needed to be found and extracted because he had become the only surviving male in his family.  So, the Army sent in a team of men to get him out of the combat zone.  They all died getting him out.

The final scene takes place in Normandy Cemetery in France at the grave of the soldier who led the mission, Cap. Miller.  Now an elderly man, Private Ryan kneels at the grave and reflects on Cap. Miller’s dying words to him, “Earn this.”  Ryan says, “I’ve thought about what you said every day of my life.  I’ve tried to live my life the best I could. I hope that was enough. I hope that at least in your eyes I have earned what all you have done for me.”  He stands up and his wife comes up to him and notes the name on the cross-shaped grave marker.  He says to her, “Tell me I’ve lived a good life.  Tell me I’m a good man.”  Not really understanding what’s going on, she simply touches him on the cheek and says, “You are.”

Private Ryan stands emblematic of the soldiers who came home from the War and the burden they carried to live a life worthy of the men and women who paid the ultimate price, who died instead of them.  My grandfather was one of those who lived.  He came home and got into law enforcement and retired as chief of police in Waynesboro, VA, a city about the size of Owen Sound.  He was a good man.  He made “Benson” a name to be proud of.  When I look into myself and wonder about how I’ve lived my life, it’s his gravestone that I find myself kneeling at asking if I’ve lived a life worthy of the name he left behind.  

If I might rant a bit; we have all been reaping the benefits of the world that men and women like my grandfather came home from the War to build.   They saw firsthand just how evil that otherwise good people can be.  I mean, how does a person justify to themselves being a guard in a concentration camp.  Sadly, time has passed and that generation and its values are now passed.  I think we as a culture are no longer appreciative of the sacrifices made for us to live the lifestyle we live.  We have forgotten that people had to kill or be killed by people who were deceived and deluded by Fascist authoritarians who disrupted global security and well-being because they lusted after power and simply did not care that people had to suffer and die for them to grow richer.  We have forgotten that war only serves to make the very wealthy wealthier.  There are no longer eyewitnesses to the atrocities of that war: the Holocaust, nuclear bombs, bombing of whole cities and civilian populations done by all sides, the starvation, children traumatized in fear.  That war in particular had a historical lesson that we apparently did not learn: that it is better for nations to work together for the common good of all rather than to seek their own national interests at all costs or worse, being the vehicle through which a handful of sick puppies seek power and wealth by trying to turn the world into a dystopia.  We’ve lost our sense of having to live worthy lives…that sense of "Earn it"…and have replaced it with a sense of entitlement that will not end well.

Well, anyway, sorry for that rant.  But then again, if I were really sorry, I would have deleted it from the sermon and never said it.  So, I guess it was a bit premeditated and it must serve a purpose in this sermon.  I’ll get on with that.

Paul in this letter to the Colossians is writing to a group of Christians he did not know, to a church he did not plant.  I would conjecture that the church was likely planted by and being pastored by a man named Epaphras who may or may not have been an understudy of Paul’s.  For some reason, Epaphras came to Paul and told him of the Colossian Christians and of a particular problem they were facing that was brought to them by some false teachers who appear to have been teaching that you weren’t fully Christian unless you got circumcised and kept the Law of Moses.  Epaphras probably thought that a visit or at least a letter from Paul, the Apostle, would help stamp it out.  

So, to these Christians whom he has never met Paul wrote this letter and highlighted right at the beginning the most important things they need to concern themselves with.  First, in the entirety of this section of the letter we get a glimpse at the world according to Paul.  Just like after WWII there was a global sense that the world is now free from some pretty dark and sinister forces, so also Paul paints a picture that God has intervened in his very good creation in, through, and as Christ Jesus and his death and resurrection to deliver and heal it from the power of darkness, a healing being made manifest as churches – Holy Spirit enlivened human communities.  The Colossians were one of these many small gatherings springing up all over the world in response to the royal edict (or Gospel) being heralded from town to town that Jesus, the Son of God and the Messiah of the Jews, had defeated sin and death and is the world’s one true Lord and Saviour.  This victory was felt and seen through the presence and work of the Holy Spirit whose primary work was bonding and shaping these Christians into a community of strangers from all walks of life who loved one another unconditionally, as if they were family, because they all knew themselves to be beloved children of God the Father just like Jesus.  By the presence of the Holy Spirit, they were experiencing an inheritance that was eternal.  Paul tells them that God had rescued them from the power of darkness and transferred them into the Kingdom of his beloved Son.  In and among them, God was bringing about New Creation, a new world order one could say, in and through Christ Jesus and those who follow him. 

With the exception of the Letter to the Galatians, Paul began his letters by stating some things that he was thankful for about the church that he was writing to.  If you pay close attention to what he’s thankful for, you will usually find the solution to the problem he sought to address.  Two things Paul brings up as the antidote to this false teaching in their midst – Paul says he is thankful for their loyalty to Christ Jesus and their love for one another which is evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in their midst.  They will discover God’s will, God’s desire for them, not by keeping the Law, but by attending to their loyalty to Christ Jesus and to their love for one another.  “Live lives worthy of the Lord” is the imperative Paul gives that sums it all up.  That’s what it is to be fully Christian.

 Live lives worthy of the Lord is very applicable to us and our world today, especially we who claim to be disciples of Jesus Christ.  In this world where the greatest source of discontent appears to be people not getting the things they feel they are entitled to, live lives worthy of the Lord is the antidote.  Love others as Jesus loves you.  This discontent is at the heart of how people can be so easily misled, indeed radicalized, into populist authoritarianism that’s just one more unkept promise and lie fulfilled away from the Fascism that my grandfather laid his own life on the line to combat.  

The world is in a very precarious place at present.  We are at a pivotal point when we who call ourselves disciples of Jesus Christ, who know his love and the peacefulness of the Holy Spirit, who feel the tug of loyalty to him…we need to step up and “Earn it!” – Live lives worthy of the Lord.  We must pay particular attention to how we express our loyalty to him.  Paul here mentions only one way, one word – love.  He used that pesky word for love that’s known in the Greek language as agape.  It’s not romantic love.  It’s not the love of friendship nor is it the love of family.  It is unconditional, selfless, indeed sacrificial love for others.  We must put aside our political affiliations and our cultural values be they liberal, conservative, or something else and attend to our loyalty to Jesus.  

I’m sure you’ve heard of WWJD, the acronym for What Would Jesus Do.  That’s a good place to start, but I invite you to take that to a higher level with WIJD – What Is Jesus Doing?  Discern what Jesus is doing in every situation we find ourselves in.  I can guarantee that it will likely be compassion-based, heartfelt understanding of a person’s situation and needs.  It will involve honesty and kindness.  A sense of what to do and the resources for it will be there.  There is a harsh realization on each of our parts that we need to come to: I might be the only Jesus someone sees.  Therefore, in all things, am I living a life that is worthy of him.  Amen.

  

The Work of the Kingdom

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Luke 10:1-20

As you might remember, I went to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada back at the beginning of June. One of the matters we dealt with and probably the most pressing was (and these are my words) the imminent death of this denomination if we do not make some drastic changes right now. We appointed a commission, for once not a committee, that has the authority of the Assembly to act to effect certain changes. The changes appear to be mostly structural and among them will be the establishment of regional resource centers that will help congregations with everything from Sunday School resources to legal advice. I don’t know. Time will tell.

I have some thoughts on the matter if you care to hear them. Jesus and the early church ushered in the inbreaking of the Kingdom or Reign of God. The early Christians met mostly in homes. When they met, they nearly always ate together. They were known for their love, generosity, and how everybody was an equal. The institution we call the Church with its buildings and paid clergy has existed ever since Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire in the late 300’s AD is indeed largely palliative. It unfortunately has served as the religious impetus of European/North American Imperialism, Colonialism, and Westernization, as well as the Morality Police of Western Culture. We need to remind ourselves that the institution we call the church is very different from the gatherings of the early church. What we call the Church in our culture is not synonymous with the Kingdom of God that we heard about in our reading from Luke. Sometimes the two overlap. Sometimes Kingdom things happen in churches. Sometimes church activities are manifestations of the Kingdom. But, please, do not confuse the two as being the same. Terrible things have happened when we have done that.

At many points over the centuries the Kingdom of God has broken in and the church served it resulting in things such as the civil rights movement, the abolition of slavery, hospitals, public education, worker’s rights, and soup kitchens and food banks for example. The Kingdom of God does not exist as an institution but rather it is embodied by everyday people like us. It manifests in places like the kitchen of my best friend’s mother, Mom Landis, who gave a sense of home to this somewhat orphaned child. The door was always open and there was always something on the stove to eat for whoever stopped in and a Bible not far away giving evidence that she actually read it. Mom Landis went to church but the Kingdom of God could be found at her kitchen table. What we call the Church and the Kingdom of God are not synonymous.

Back to our denomination, we’ve commissioned ten people to come up with how to save a whole denomination from imminent death. We’ve got the commissioning part right. If one interprets what we did in the light of the reading from Luke, commissioning people is a good place to start. The translators used the word “Appointed” here but commissioning is the better word, I think. To commission is to empower to act with the authority of the commissioning body or person. In Greek, the word literally means to make visible. What Jesus did here was to empower his disciples to make his Kingdom visible.

If it were up to me to call the shots for the denomination, I wouldn’t have commissioned just ten people with the authority to tweak the structure of the denomination. I would rather go to every congregation and start commissioning disciples of Jesus to go and make the kingdom visible. And now, to quote Al Pacino’s famous courtroom line from the movie Scent of a Woman, “I’m just getting warmed up.”

Let’s humour Jesus here for a minute and try to imagine doing in our community what he did back then. I would divide you up into groups of two and section off the neighbourhoods of this town into as many sections as there are groups of two. You would leave your homes and go to that neighbourhood with only the clothes on your back, wearing no shoes, and no money. You will be barefoot and hungry and sleep in the street unless someone takes you in. You will look like the poorest of the poor. You will have to rely on the hospitality of the people in the neighbourhood.

While you’re on the street, don’t greet anybody. Don’t say “hi” or “how’re you doing”. Just keep announcing, “The Kingdom of God is at hand. Come and follow and believe this good news.” If people stop to talk to you just ask them what they need prayer for and pray for them. When the prayer is answered, tell them, “The Kingdom of God has come near to you”.

If someone invites you to their house, go with them and when you get there proclaim “Peace be to you”. Peace is rest. It’s the laying down of burdens. It’s well-being. When welcomed into a home, stay in that home. Don’t house hop. Eat what is set before you. In this day of dietary restrictions, food allergies, and overwhelming choice that may be the hardest thing to do. Pray for your hosts particularly for their healing. When they are healed, tell them, “The Kingdom of God has come near to you.” You may be interested to know that in Greek there are two words that can be translated as salvation and both are synonymous with healing. Again, stay in that house. That home may wind up being where the gathering meets.

The idea here is that the Kingdom becomes visible when in loyalty to Jesus we take the risk of being completely reliant on God; when we open ourselves to utterly accepting the hospitality of others and that’s not easy as proud and self-sufficient as we are. The Kingdom of God becomes visible when we pray, especially when we pray for healing. When the Kingdom is present, Peace is felt and people gather.

I realize I probably just scared the socks off of every one of us, myself included. What I just described though not from the twilight zone is definitely beyond the comfort zone. I think I have fairly well described church planting, which is what this denomination really needs to do if we Presbyterians want to be around in 25 years, but we probably don’t have to go to the extreme of living in the street hoping someone will invite us in. Yet, we need to rethink Church planting. The goal isn’t to wind up with a building, or even paid clergy, and certainly not a denomination. The goal should be making Jesus’ Kingdom visible. Work which involves hospitality, gathering, and praying for real needs.

I can think of something that congregations can do that takes advantage of the fact that we have buildings. Something that involves hospitality and gathering, could involve prayer. All our churches have kitchens. Pick a regular night, monthly or weekly, for a potluck or a regular morning for coffee or even breakfast or put a pot of soup on ( a big pot). Get the word out to the surrounding neighbourhood. Just let the church fellowship hall and kitchen be a place the immediate neighborhood can gather and see what comes of it. Southampton’s been doing this for a couple of years now. Cornerstone in Tara has a Friday coffee as well that is doing remarkably well. These things aren’t resulting in new faces in the pews, but new faces come to the kitchens, friendships are made, and Jesus’s Kingdom is there. Amen.

Healing Leaves

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Revelation 21-22

One afternoon while coming out of the Jerusalem temple one of Jesus’ disciples remarked how beautiful the temple was saying, “Look, Teacher, what wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!"  And then Jesus dropped a bomb.  He prophesied saying, "Do you see these great buildings?” Which means do you understand what they are about, what they represent? “There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down."  In 70 AD that prophecy came to pass. 

Flavius Josephus was a Jewish historian in the first century AD.  In his book The Jewish Wars he recounts how the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD.  He recounts of how Titus Caesar ordered his army to utterly destroy the city and the Temple leaving only its two towers and the Western Wall of the Temple in order to demonstrate to posterity what kind of city it was, and how well fortified, and yet the Romans were powerful enough to demolish it.  They even destroyed all the gardens and trees around it in order to make it like a desert.  Josephus claims that 1,100,000 people were killed during the siege, of which the majority were Jews, and that 97,000 were captured, enslaved, and most were made gladiators.  The Jews that were left mostly fled to areas around the Mediterranean. Titus reportedly refused to accept a wreath of victory, as there is "no merit in vanquishing a people forsaken by their own God". 

Building further on that note, the God forsaken note, the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem temple on the last day of the Jewish month of Av (our July), a day they call Tisha B’Av, the Day of Five Calamities.  On that same date in 586 BC, the first temple, the temple Solomon built, was destroyed by the Babylonians.  In those days the prophet Ezekiel had a vision in which he saw the glory of the Lord leaving the temple in Jerusalem and heading east to be with the exiles in Babylon.  A very touching message proclaiming that God had not abandoned his people even though he had cast them off of the land.  Seventy years later when a remnant returned none of the prophets in that day claimed a vision of the glory of the Lord returning to the temple.  Isaiah 65:1 which dates to this time indicates that God didn’t want to live in the temple anymore.  “Heaven is my throne, earth is my footstool.  What is this house that you would build for me?”  The Lord God apparently did not return to the Jerusalem temple after it was rebuilt by the remnant that returned and certainly not after Herod the Great did all his glorious renovations just before Jesus was born.  It was not until Jesus that the presence of the LORD God of Israel again dwelt among his people.

Coming to John in exile on Patmos, he was a Jew and his love for Jerusalem, the Holy City, would have been quite strong.  The destruction of Jerusalem by Rome and the dispersion of the Jews was only 20 years prior to the writing of the Revelation.  Talk to any war refugee and they will let you know full well that what happened 20 years ago might as well have been yesterday.  To a Jew the Roman destruction of Jerusalem was as vivid and traumatic as the eruption of Mt Vesuvius to the Mediterranean world 9 years later. 

Jerusalem was more than just the symbol of national identity over which people swell with patriotism.  The temple was in Jerusalem and to a Jew the Jerusalem temple was the one place on earth where heaven and earth were open to each other.  To a Jew the temple symbolized the presence of the LORD God with his people.  Therefore, the opposite would be true as well.  Jerusalem destroyed, the temple destroyed, and the Jewish people cast forth from the land would have been clear indication that God had not only rejected his people, but abandoned them as well.  

It is into this context that we must place this climatic vision of John’s.  He saw a new creation, a new Heaven and a new Earth.  The old had passed.  It was gone, never to be again.  The Greek word for “new” here, kainos, is more powerful in its emphasis on utter newness than is the typical Greek word for “new”, neos.  Neos is like having a new car.  Kainos means coming up with an altogether new mode of transportation, the flying car of The Jetson’s.  The old was gone and the new had come.  And then there in the midst of this utterly new creation where heaven and earth are openly now joined as one, where it finally is on earth as it is in heaven, John sees the New Jerusalem coming from God.  I suspect that the heart of John the Jew leapt.  Like the tower of Babel, God had destroyed the Jerusalem his people had built as a symbol of the name they had made for themselves and sent them asunder.  Now God himself is giving a new holy city to his people to symbolize the name that the LORD God had made for them and it was as beautiful as a bride prepared to wed her husband.

Then a voice came from the throne of God saying that God himself is with his people and he himself will comfort them.  Not only would a new esteem be given to his people, Jew and Gentile alike, but God would once again be with his people and this time personally.  He would intimately involve himself with each of them to heal and comfort them.  God himself will wipe away their tears.  Moreover, death will be no more and mourning, crying out, and toilsome suffering will be no more.

Then, God himself speaks, “Behold, I am making all things new.  Write this down.  It is trustworthy and the Truth.”  This is the most important word spoken in the entire book, indeed in history.  God is making all things new.  Time in the Book of Revelation is two faceted.  John sees what is and what is to be.  Sometimes, it’s skewed to one side more than the other, but in this passage John is seeing both what God is doing now and what will be in the future.  In this world that is a mess, God is presently working to make all things new until the day comes when the old is utterly gone and everything is made utterly new with the glory of God.  It may not seem like it to us, but behind the scenes of history God is making all things new.  That’s the Truth; capital “T”.

Then God speaks directly to John and it is a message for John to give to his churches in Turkey who are about to undergo great persecution for refusing to call Emperor Domitian Lord.  He says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” This means the buck stops with God.  The LORD God has the final word in every matter and his final word is all things are being made new; all things on earth will be as they are in heaven.  He says to those Christians about to suffer and some even be martyred that the one who conquers, the one who keeps the faith even unto death, he will freely give of the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Living Water.  But those who cowardly deny Him and in turn resort to a pagan life, they will suffer the bitter fire of judgment for there is nothing left for those who knowing the Truth, turn back from it, who put their hand to the plough and leave it in the field when the ploughing gets tough.

Then John sees a river of living water flowing out from the middle of the city from the throne of God and straddling it is the Tree of Life from which humanity was banned from eating after the Garden of Eden fiasco.  John notes that the leaves on the Tree are for the healing of the nations…for the healing of the nations.  Friends, this image of the New Jerusalem with the River of Living Water flowing from it and the Tree of Life with its healing leaves, this is what we are as fellowships of followers of Jesus.  We, who are born of the Holy Spirit, the Living Water, and united to Jesus and to each other in him and share in Jesus’ relationship to the Father so that we know the steadfast love and faithfulness of God and drink of the very communion of love that the Trinity, the LORD God is, we are the new Jerusalem in the making. 

We are the Tree of Life and each one of us is one of those healing leaves. Love one another.  It’s important.  Feed the hungry. Give drink to the thirsty.  Give home to the homeless.  Clothe the naked.  Visit the prisoner.  Care for the orphaned and the widowed.  Show hospitality to the stranger, the refugee, the immigrant.  It’s important.  Those are the actions that heal the nations, that point to the coming new creation.  The ways of Empire are exercises in futility that lead to death but the work we do in the Lord is not in vain.  In these interesting times in which we presently live, when Empirism is making itself so blatantly obvious (except to those who are deceived and deluded by it), what the world needs is for us Christians, each and every one of us healing leaves, to step up and show our loyalty to Jesus through acts of unconditional love.  Amen.

 

Finally

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Revelation 19-20

By skipping chapters 15-18 of the Revelation we’ve missed the most “Mature Audience Only” content in the book.  Regardless, please allow me a moment to bring us up to speed.  Chapters 15-16 tells of seven angels pouring out the seven bowls of God’s wrath upon the inhabitants of the earth who worship that first beast who came out of the sea from chapter 13.  The Beast supporters are smitten with painful boils.  Then the entire sea and all the rivers and streams turn to blood and everything in them dies.  Then the sun gets really hot and scorches everything.  And, astonishingly and true to form, the Beast worshippers don’t turn to God but rather curse him.  There’s a point to all that as we learned from the Seven Trumpets series: God could pour upon humanity the most unimaginably horrible yet deserved wrath and we still wouldn’t turn to him.  So, there must be a means other than the infliction of ultimate suffering to get humanity to be what God created it to be and there is, the message and mission of the love of God in Christ embodied in the church.  The message and mission of the Church, the heavenly Jerusalem, is next week’s sermon.

That was just the first four bowls of God’s wrath.  The fifth bowl affects the Beast’s power to reign and his kingdom is thrown into darkness.  A Dark Ages full of plague and ignorance and suffering and poverty.  If you’ve lived long enough, you may have noticed that Empires seem to think that war and its accompanying industry is the only way out of dark times, especially economic dark times.  So…the sixth bowl brings a demonic deception that convinces all the kings of the earth to gather for war in the Valley of Armageddon in Northern Israel, which is not big enough to host such a thing.  They gather for war, but it doesn’t seem to happen.  Jesus show’s up as we read today.  

The seventh bowl of God’s wrath starts with a voice coming from God’s throne saying, “It’s done”.  There’s a great cataclysmic upheaval of everything that resembles very much the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD that destroyed Pompeii and other cities, and which also had a dramatic psychological effect throughout the Roman Empire.  John wrote Revelation within fifteen years of that event.  Instead of lava and fireball rocks falling from the sky, this bowl’s disaster involved hail, horrible hail, the worst hail imaginable.  And as you might guess, instead of repenting, the people cursed God.  Again, there has to be a better way to hold humanity accountable than the total destruction of everybody and everything by disease, war, and natural disaster which incidentally actually arises as the consequences of the way of Empire.

Chapters 17-18 are an extended sort of lament concerning the Fall of Babylon.  All empires fall.  It’s interesting to note how Babylon’s fall affects things globally particularly in the area of economics and particularly among the wealthy who lament it greatly.  I think this is so because Empire is built on economic exploitation.  You can’t have Empire without wealth and the ultra-wealthy who build Empires don’t come by their wealth honestly.  They have exploited someone along the way.  It’s also interesting that John describes Babylon (Rome) as a whore and the trade relationships that Babylon has with other nations as prostitution and adultery.  You would think that Rome did its business on Jeffery Epstein’s Island under the secrecy of his sealed ledger.  Babylon (Rome) did eventually fall.  After a couple of centuries of debauchery and scandal which led to gradual decline, Alaric I of the Visigoths (a former ally) made a week of it in 410 AD and sacked Rome.  That event kicked off a period of time known as the Dark Ages which lasted for six centuries.

And so we turn to Chapter 19 with a big sigh of “Finally”.  God acts and takes rightful vengeance for those who have suffered on his behalf.  It’s now time to feast if you’re a buzzard.  Remember back how all the kings of the earth were demonically deceived by Beast 1 and Beast 2 into gathering for war at Armageddon?  We were left hanging with the thought that this was going to be the world war to end all world wars.  But as we learn here the war isn’t between the kings themselves but rather between the Beast with his followers and Jesus, the King of King Lord of Lords, with his followers.  This scene has the makings of some pretty gory Hollywood stuff.  The computer graphics/AI people would have a field day with it…but it doesn’t pan out that way.

So, do yourselves a favour and don’t read this literally.  Jesus is not going to show up someday with a double-edged sword sticking out of his mouth hacking all those who won’t follow him to pieces.  That’s what Empire literally does, but not Jesus.  This is symbolic.  The sword in Jesus’ mouth is the Truth, and particularly the Truth of God’s love in Christ Jesus and its embodiment in the communities of people who loyally follow him.  It is by Truth-telling that the Beasts are taken captive and finally thrown into a lake of fire.  The rest of their armies are slain by the truth.  They are forced by the Truth to own up.  Again, please don’t read this as a literal bloodbath.  It’s a grandiose description of what happens when we are confronted by the Truth of the Love of God in Christ.

Chapter 20 gives us a vision of an event of ultimate accountability.  Everyone is held accountable for everything we have done or left undone.  The Dragon (Satan) and the two beasts are thrown into the Lake ofFire.  The ultimate powers of deception will be put to their deserved end.  Moreover, everyone whose name is not written in the Book of Life is also thrown into the lake of fire.  There’s quite a bit of discussion as to what the Book of Life is and we don’t have time for it.  The point here is that everyone is held accountable for their lives and everyone will be confronted with the love of God in Jesus Christ.

There’s a lot more that can be said here but I think the point should be kept simple.  The only way out of this world of Empire that ends well is Truth-telling, with letting oneself be held accountable by the Love of God in Jesus Christ experienced by the cutting sword of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  This Truth cuts through all the deception Satan and his beasts have to offer and binds them and their power over us.  

God’s big “Finally” comes through being honest with ourselves and each other and proclaiming the Truth of God’s Love in Christ Jesus embodied in the Holy Spirit-filled communities of those who follow him.  In these interesting times when Empire seems so inexplicably powerful with seemingly no apparent way to hold it accountable, Truth-telling the love of God to those who follow the Beast is the way that will win out in the end.  We will suffer for the Truth, but telling the Truth is the only thing that ends well.

The Unholy Trinity

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Revelation 12-14

I don’t want to say too much as far as a preramble because we have yet another long passage.  But to set the context, one of the reasons, if not the main reason, John wrote the Revelation was to encourage early Christians to remain faithful to Jesus in the face of persecution that for all shapes and purposes appeared politically motivated.  Calling Jesus “Lord and Saviour” and refusing to worship or offer incense at Imperial Cult temples on civic occasions at a time when the Roman Emperor was demanding to be worshipped made early Christians appear treasonous and they suffered for it.  There are questions that those suffering for their loyalty to Jesus would ask.  

The main driving question showed up in Revelation 6: “Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood upon the inhabitants of the earth.”  With respect to the question of how long, the answer was a little while longer until the number of martyrs is complete.  To illustrate that answer, John was shown a countless multitude of white-robed worshippers in heaven who had come through this great ordeal.  Judging by the uncountable number, that’s going to be a long little while.  Apparently, God wants as many people as possible to turn to him in faith which requires the Gospel to go out into the world and unfortunately those who proclaim it will suffer and sometimes even die for their loyalty to Jesus.  

The last sermon involved a vision of angels blowing trumpets resulting in a third of everything on earth and in the skies being destroyed.  The message was that God could take the tough guy route and destroy a third of everything and still the inhabitants of the earth surprisingly would not turn to him.  Thus, God is choosing the route of proclaiming the Gospel throughout the world by means of Jesus' followers and their fellowships of unconditional love and that will yield a better outcome. 

This week we’re looking at the question of who or what is the behind-the-scenes reality driving humanity away from God and persecuting/killing those who bring the Truth.  The short answer is Satan by means of Empire undergirded by False Religion.

 

Unfortunately, we don’t really have time to unpack all the symbolism or coded images here so forgive me for being brief.  Chapter 12 begins with an obvious reference to the birth of Jesus and as Matthew’s Gospel recounts. King Herod of the Jews wanted him dead and killed all the male children around Bethlehem born around the time that Jesus was born.  This political and religious opposition to Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, continued throughout his life in the form of opposition from the religious authorities until finally he was crucified by the Romans at the behest of the Jewish authorities on trumped up charges of blasphemy (claiming to be the Son of God) and treason (claiming to be Lord).  Both of these charges stood in the face of what Caesar claimed himself to be – Son of Zeus and Lord of all the world.  Finally, God raised Jesus from the dead.  Interestingly, there was also an urban myth that circulated about Emperor Nero after he died that he had been raised from the dead.  That’s what all that talk about the first beast being raised from dead was about.

As evidenced in the Book of Acts, what happened to Jesus was the pattern of persecution that affected early Christians.  Sometimes it looked like bigotry and at other times like systematic ICE raids or Kristallnacht.  Throughout the Roman Empire in the early church, the followers of Jesus were often accused by Pagan and Jewish religious authorities for blasphemy and treason for claiming Jesus was the Son of God and Lord of all (Pantokrator).  They would lose their trade jobs and businesses, were forced out of town, were stoned, and publicly whipped.  Some had to fight wild beasts and gladiators in the coliseums as public entertainment.  Some were themselves crucified, skinned alive, or burned to death. 

To explain why this is to early Christians suffering for their loyalty to Jesus, John gives a behind-the-scenes explanation that goes beyond saying, “Power corrupts and ultimate power corrupts ultimately”; though that is certainly the case.  He says Satan is behind it all, the Red Dragon.  In the biblical worldview there is a personal unseen force in God’s very good Creation that is violently opposed to God and seeks to destroy God’s good works, particularly humanity.  

Satan’s means for destroying what God is up to in, through, and as Jesus Christ is to persecute those who follow Jesus.  The fullness of Satan’s plan is simply to destroy all of human community through the vehicle of Empire.  To do this he raises up two beasts, one from the sea who is blatantly an Emperor-type leader who controls everything particularly by pulling economic strings and demands singular loyalty (worship).  One cannot buy or sell without having received his brand.  

Satan then causes a second beast to come up from the land that forces everyone to worship the first beast.  This beast represented the Imperial Cult.  Refusing to worship the Emperor at the Temples that the emperors built all over the empire was likely the test for whether or not a Christian would be sentenced to fight beasts and gladiators for public entertainment in coliseums or worse.  So, to sum up thus far, Satan’s means of destroying human community made in God’s image and the vehicle through which God is trying to restore his image to human community – Jesus and his followers – is the populist authoritarianism that is endemic to Empire and Emperor undergirded by civil religion - the idolatrous worship of those who are ultimately corrupted by wielding the power of the State.  

The warning of chapter 14 is quite clear.  When this Emperor/Empire worship stuff comes to a head, those who buy into it are going to drink the wine of the grapes of God’s wrath.  Babylon/Rome/any Empire will in God’s time fall.  Therefore, it is a time for patient endurance on the part of God’s people.  It is time to abide by God’s commandments and loyalty to Jesus at all costs.

All that said, these are interesting times that we are living in.  I don’t know about you folks, but I can’t help but think and feel that these three chapters of the Book of Revelation are particularly relevant at this moment in history.  Speaking as an American serving as a Presbyterian minister in Canada, I realize that what I’m about to say might be lacking in appropriateness and I apologize.  That said, I am astonished at what I see happening in the US.  My comments need to be brief as we’re having communion today.  Perhaps that’s fortuitous.  

True power looks like the Jesus revealed in this meal – the giving of oneself in unconditional love so that others may live.  Granted, there is yet to be a government on earth that follows this way without some form of corruption.  Still, when tax dollars go to feed, heal, educate, house, clothe, protect, and employ the most vulnerable among us – well, that’s a good start.  But when a nation suddenly stops doing such things and, in the end, it is simply part of a larger effort to make the very wealthy wealthier at the expense of everybody else, particularly the most vulnerable, well something else is at play.  By their fruits you will know them.  Good trees bear good fruit and bad trees, bad.  Moreover, the fact that the current President and majority party in government in the US could not have been elected without the strong, unquestioning support of a certain element of the Christian faith is also telling.  Something else is at play.

The lesson coming from the Book of Revelation today is pretty straight forward – whenever there is a political leader who comes grasping at and attempting to wield ultimate power, demanding absolute loyalty, and claiming to have the backing of an almighty God and this leader/ship is backed by religious groups that for all shapes and purposes worship it…it is entirely possible and likely that it’s the dragon and his two beasts who are at play.  Jesus said, “Beware that no one leads you astray.  Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead man astray” (Mk 13:5,6).  “When the Son of Man comes, will he find loyalty on earth?” (Lk 18:8).

 

Scatter Forth

 Genesis 11:1-9

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Why congregations build buildings is an interesting study?  Back in the 80’s I regularly heard church people remark, “If you want people to come to your church, build a new building.”  The idea was that if a congregation could afford to build, then it was a vibrant and growing fellowship rather than some stuck in mud, always-done-it-this-way club of old stogies.  Consequently, a lot of new church buildings went up in the 80’s as congregations blatantly tried to make a name for themselves in the grand competition for new members that went on between churches.  Unfortunately, the result was mostly “sheep stealing” rather than new disciples of Jesus.  Congregations lost members to each other over what amounts to religious consumerism.  Congregations were making a name for themselves through building up-to-date facilities to house their snazzy church programming and charismatic ministers.  People came, but mostly from other churches.  Sadly, the “build it and they will come” model of church growth did little to further the name of Jesus.  Census figures still showed that Christianity was waning in North America.  

Building a new church these days is a rare occurrence. Today in North America we are dissolving more congregations and selling the buildings than we are planting congregations and building facilities to house them.  Most church buildings are simply ghostly reminders of the day when Western culture and Christian religion walked hand-in-hand, a relationship that has all but withered.  The idea that a culture, a civilization needs a god to make it great has all but died.  

Looking at Genesis, the relationship between a culture and its god is at the heart of what the story of The Tower of Babel is about.  We have a tendency to mistakenly think that the story of the Tower of Babel is about a group of humans who got prideful and wanted to build a tower so high that they could stand equal to God and so God punished them by confusing their languages.  But the story of Babel is better read as the parable of how humans try to use God to make their civilizations safe, secure, and culturally great (or great again).  

If we step back roughly 5,000 thousand years into ancient Mesopotamia with the ort of historical accuracy that archaeology provides, we find that ancient Mesopotamians didn’t build skyscraper-type buildings or CNN towers.  Rather, they built tall step-pyramids called ziggurats and usually right beside the ziggurat was a temple.  The purpose for which they built these ziggurats was not so that they could climb so high that they could go into the heavens to be with the gods.  That’s what mountaintops were for.  These ziggurats worked the other way around.  They were rather staircases for the gods to come down to earth from the heavens to come be with the people by taking their place on a throne in a temple.  The Ark of the Covenant wasn’t just a box for keeping the tablet of the Ten Commandments.  It was also God’s throne on earth.  The lid was called the mercy seat.  

The people at Babel were apparently trying to build the highest of all ziggurats to try to get the highest of all gods to come down and be their god in order to make their civilization great.  Mind you, as the story goes, back in the days of Noah God had commanded humans to spread out over the earth.  But the Babel folks stopped short of that mandate and decided to settle down and build a civilization - the seedbed of Empire, of Conquest.  

Babel represents our human attempts to build civil religions.  Civil religion is when we use God to undergird our ways of doing civic community rather than trying to get our communities to reflect God’s image – the loving communion of the Father Son and Holy Spirit – and God’s way of doing community as modeled by Jesus as the way of unconditional, self-giving love.  Civil religion is asking God to bless our empire building, our ideas of prosperity and power, rather than committing ourselves to God’s kingdom and the way of Jesus Christ.  Simply put, civil religion is our using God to make our own name great rather than lifting up God’s name in praise, gratitude, and humble service by building love-based community.

When I see a new church building, and that’s a rare sight, a question comes to mind: Is this just one more Tower of Babel?  Is this just one more congregation trying to get God to make its name, its programming, its charismatic minister…great.  I am suspicious of this fundamental need we seem to have as congregations to have a sacred space represented by a building.  If we read the Bible from cover to cover, we find the trajectory that God is on is not reposing his presence in buildings. God wants to be embodied in human community.  God doesn’t want a building where he can sit on a throne cut off from the world.  God wants to live in and among us.  That’s why God the Son became the human person, Jesus.  That’s why God filled the followers of Jesus with the Holy Spirit.  I believe God would rather we spread out through our communities meeting in living rooms and kitchens, restaurants, or school cafeterias instead of holing up in buildings that we can’t really afford. 

The last thing Jesus said to his disciples before ascending was to mandate them to go into the world and make disciples and he promised to be with us.  We did that for a few centuries and met in homes, caves, and even tombs.  Yet, soon enough we let ourselves and our ideas of God get co-opted by Empire and we have been embroiled in civil religion ever since…at least until recently here in North America and prior to that in Europe.  It’s this civil religion-based Christianity that’s dying in our culture.  The true church, the body of Christ is still alive and well.  Now is the time to yield to the Holy Spirit and leave the building mentality behind, and as the body of Christ, get back to making disciples of Jesus everywhere we are – in our homes, in our neighbourhoods, in our workplaces, in coffee shops, in schools, and even in church basements.  The mandate and the drive of the Spirit is to scatter forth, not to settle down.  Amen.

 

Prayers, Prophets, and Scary Monsters

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Revelation 8 - 11

Please recall the sermon from the Sunday before last when we took a behind the scenes look at reality.  John recounted his vision of God seated on the throne at the centre of everything and of the worship that undergirds everything.  In God’s hand was a scroll sealed with seven seals whose content is history – what was, what is, and what will be.  It is particularly the history of conquest and what God intends to do about that.  

If you remember, the first four seals were horsemen who brought conquest and its deadly results.  The fifth seal involved the prayer of the martyrs who were at rest under the altar.  These are those who have stayed loyal to God even unto death in the midst of the ways of a conquesting world that hates them.  

The martyrs ask a question which I think is the central motif of the Revelation.  The rest of the Book deals with the answer to it.  The martyrs cry out, “Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long until you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?”  They were given a white robe and told to wait a little while longer until the number of martyrs is complete.  

The sixth seal is God’s cataclysmic judgement on conquest and the conquestors but John also sees a countless multitude surrounding the throne.  They are also dressed in white robes and they worship powerfully.  He is asked who are this multitude and where did they come from.   The seventh seal was silence, silence for a very long and pregnant half hour.  

We pick up today with a scene of seven angels blowing seven trumpets that appear to bring God’s judgement of conquest.  Please don’t hear this scene as a roadmap of end-times events that God is going to do.  It is rather a commentary on human nature and the route God must take to get us to repent - to turn to him and the peaceableness of his kingdom.  The lesson to learn here will be that to end our conquesting ways and bring us back to himself, God could destroy a third of the earth, a third of living things, a third of the lights in the sky, and even of humanity in ways reminiscent of the way God plagued Pharoah’s Egypt to deliver his people from slavery, but humanity still wouldn’t repent so there must be another way.  What is it?  Let’s give an ear to chapters 8 to 11.

 

Does it matter when in the Lord’s Prayer we pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” and “Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil”?  Well, it does. God’s deliverance, God’s intervention on behalf of his people to save his creation is rooted in prayer.  In the Book of Exodus it is said that God heard the crying out of his people there in slavery and that’s when God decided to call Moses and act.  So also, here in the Revelation.  The seventh seal brought silence.  The first thing heard after that silence is the prayers of God’s people.  It's like everything in heaven stops so that the prayers of God’s people can be heard.  God hears us when we cry out about our own sufferings, about the suffering and injustice in the world.  And, it is in response to these prayers that God acts to save.

I am reminded of the parable in Luke’s Gospel of a widow who continually pesters an unjust judge for vengeance.  As a widow she had no rights in that society and somebody had wronged her.  The judge decides to act on her behalf not because it was the right thing to do, but rather because she was wearing him out.  How much more will our God, who is just, respond to our prayers for help with justice.  Pray.  Pray without ceasing.

Then the angels start blowing the trumpets.  It’s very reminiscent of God’s plagues on Pharaoh and Egypt.  There’s hail and fire and falling stars and water turning to blood. A third of just about everything living, a third of land and water, and even a third of the lights of the sky are destroyed.  That’s just the first four trumpets. The fifth brings a star (angel) down from heaven who opens the bottomless pit to unleash a hoard of Satan-led demonic monster locusts who torture people with something like scorpion stings for five months, the lifespan of locusts.  It’s so bad that people wish they could die but can’t.  Thanks be to God it’s time limited.  Then, the sixth trumpet brings the unleashing of an evil monster calvary 200 million strong who bring plagues that kill a third of humankind. 

After all this destruction, a third of everything, we are to be astonished that it says the rest of humanity did not turn away from the evil stuff we do; our worshipping demons and idols, our murdering and our sorceries and our fornicating and our stealing.  This is some fodder for some good, old-school Bible-thumping, but I won't.  But think about it.  Why does humanity continue to war when we see the devastation it brings?  When climate change is indisputably related to human conduct, why don’t we make the necessary changes to lifestyle that will prevent Mother Earth from indiscriminately burning and starving us out?  Covid - its inception and spread were 100% related to human lifestyle.  Why were people so belligerent towards masking and vaccinations? And now, measles is coming back.  Seriously, God could unleash an army of Godzilla’s that destroy just about everything and humanity still wouldn’t change.  Like hard-hearted Pharoah, humanity wouldn’t/won’t change.  There must be another way other than utter destruction.

So here it is.  God sends two witnesses, two prophets who speak the Truth and have the power to work miracles.  They come out of the Temple which is symbolic of the people of God bearing witness to the love of God in Christ Jesus, a testimony re-enforced and validated by being able to command what insurance companies call “acts of God”.  Unfortunately, humanity can’t handle the truth about itself or of the love of God.  Satan can’t handle it.  He comes up out of the Pit and kills the prophets.  But, martyrdom and the persecution of Christians will not go unvindicated.  God raises the prophets.  We are raised up to be with God.  All I can say to this is that this other way is God being indisputably present with his people in love empowering us to speak the Truth…and it is noticed.  When God resurrects the prophets and calls them up, that rattles things enough so that the people were struck with awe and gave glory to God.  It is by the testimony and living witness of the martyrs that humankind finally begins to repent.  Not fear of the scary monsters and destroying a third of everything.  So it is when we share our testimony of how Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit has touched us.

The seventh angel blows his trumpet and it’s time for Handel’s Messiah – “And He shall reign forever and ever.”  Do I get a “hallelujah”?  And then the Temple is opened.  We are the Temple.  Community in the image of the love of Christ is the Temple today.  In this world of broken and hurting humans who break and hurt each other, salvation comes through the prophetic witness of the Truth of God’s love in Christ Jesus and how we embody it as the community of those who are loyal to him.  It’s the witness to the Truth of God’s love that brings people to repent – to turn and be embraced by God.  

I’ll end as I began.  It does matter that we pray for God’s kingdom to come and his will be done and for God to save us from the time of trial and deliver from evil.  Prayer is a crucial part we play in bringing in the kingdom.  Amen.

 

Raised with Christ

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Romans 6:1-14; Colossians 3:1-4

We disciples of Jesus Christ have some statements to make about reality.  I call them statements rather than beliefs because if you call them beliefs they are immediately thrown into the world of comparative religions and Christian faith is not religion.  Christianity can certainly be called religion, all the pomp and circumstance we have created and dogmatized around Christian faith, but Christian faith is not religion.  What God is doing for his Creation in, through, and as Jesus of Nazareth the Messiah or Christ is not a matter of personal religious belief.  It is reality, real historical and indeed physical reality. 

At the top of that list of these statements is that God is Trinity – the loving communion of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  In, through, and as Jesus Christ God has revealed God-self to be Trinity - three Persons who give themselves so utterly completely and unselfishly indeed sacrificially to one another in unconditional love that they are One.  If we miss this, that God is loving communion of Persons then we miss what it is to be humans created in the image of God and certainly miss what it is to be the Church.  

Another statement about real historical and scientific reality that we followers of Jesus Christ have to make is that Jesus Christ is God the Son become human flesh.  This was a hard one to believe from the very start.  For a Jew, it was blasphemous to say that God became human.  Gentiles didn’t buy it either asking, “Why would divinity, which is pure and perfect, become human?  We are weak, dull, and sickly. We routinely break out with fungi.  We stink and we die.”  

It wasn’t until the 300’s that the Christian church stated definitively that Jesus is God the Son become human with neither his divinity nor his humanity being diminished. The reason we state this as fact is as Gregory of Nazianzus said back in the 300’s, “What was not assumed is not healed.”  To heal his fallen Creation and us humans of the futility of sin and death, God had to take upon himself our fallenness and die with it so that it would be once and for all dead.  Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection has opened up a new way to be human that will come to its fruition when Jesus returns.  

The Apostle John in his Gospel liked to call that new way Eternal Life, a new human form of being in which we are indwelt by God the Holy Spirit through whom we are in union with Jesus the Son to share his relationship of steadfast love and faithfulness with the Father to the Father’s glory.  In, through, and as Jesus God has brought human being, history, and even physical matter into his very self, into the loving communion of his very self, and therefore he has and will heal it.

A third Christian statement that is readily dismissed these days is that God raised Jesus bodily from the dead.  Many, not just scientists and philosophers but even Bible scholars today, are resolute that this did not happen.  Many will say that Jesus' body was simply stolen by his disciples and buried elsewhere and then they made the whole thing up.  If that was the case, then why did the disciples of whom we have historical record live lives of poverty and die horrible deaths just to continue a lie.   If you are a fan of the DaVinci Code, then you say Jesus' disciples staged his death and he went on to live a long and happy life marrying Mary Magdalene and having children.  We must then again ask why his disciples would die horrible deaths just so he could live normally.  

If you are bent towards psychology and looking for a seemingly-scientific explanation, you will say that the post-resurrection experiences that his disciples had were just communal experiences of grief that involved a common hallucination of Jesus caused by mass hysteria among twenty-some people.  To my knowledge, such a hallucination has never been documented as ever happening among any group of people.  

Most people just fall back on reason and say that Resurrection is impossible.  Therefore, it never happened.  Yet, they believe there was something God-special about Jesus and so they follow his teachings and enjoy prayer.  

And finally, there are Christians who wholeheartedly believe in reincarnation because for some reason that seems more plausible than resurrection.  I could handle re-incarnation as long as I came back as a roach in the kitchen of a kind old grandma in rural Mexico; all-you-can-eat real Mexican food.  Sign me up.

The Gospel proclamation is that God the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit bodily raised Jesus, God the Son become human, from the dead.  Jesus in his resurrection has a real human body that could eat and be touched.  Yet, his body was a resurrected body and that leaves us hanging a bit.  What is a resurrected body?  According to Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, it is a spiritual body that is immortal and imperishable.  That's a bit misleading for us, for whenever the word spiritual comes up, we start thinking ethereal or ghostlike wisps of energy.  But, by a spiritual body Paul meant not only a person who is personally related to God, but also a body that has been made alive by God that will indeed never die; a body in which every atom is infused with the life of God.

As Christians, the resurrection is at the heart of our very real hope.   Resurrection means that death is not the final answer; that though we die, we will not die.  We will live again in bodies; not as angels with harps sitting on clouds in heaven or as stars, none of those fictions people tell their children.  Even though this physical fallen body will and must die, we will not experience death, complete cut-off-ness from God.  As Jesus told the thief on the cross, when we die, we will be with him in Paradise, a (I presume) bodiless state, until the resurrection when we will be given resurrection bodies, bodies of real human flesh in which every molecule about us knows the living and loving God and will never die again.

So, since it is the case that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is where this Creation is heading, we should therefore begin to live the resurrected life now.  Let’s talk about Baptism for a minute.  Paul says that if we have been baptized into Christ, we have then been baptized into his death.  Basically, we are already dead.  This old self of ours has been crucified with Jesus, in his crucifixion in order that this body of sin might be brought to nothing, that we may no longer be enslaved to sin for a person who has died has been set free from sin.  Hear this, in our union with Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit at our Baptism (and it doesn’t matter whether we were an unknowing infant or even how it was done) we died with him and we are now raised with him to share in his resurrected life now by means of the Holy Spirit.  If his Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the living, loving Communion of the Trinity lives in us, then the state of our being, our very existence is that we are free from death and our enslavement to sin and are now free to live in and for God.  

Therefore, Paul instructs us in Colossians to seek the things that are above where Christ is for our lives are hidden in God with Christ.  Live according to that hunger to be with your brothers and sisters in Christ in worship, in study, in fellowship.  Live according to that hunger to pray and read the Bible and hear the Trinity speak to you.  Live according to the hunger for seeing justice happen in this world, of seeing the poor fed and the sick healed.  Live according to the hunger to know oneself as always being in the presence of God.  Live in constant prayer reminded that no matter what, you are a beloved child of God in whom he takes great joy.  Live this way and you will be living Eternal Life.  Amen.

If you are a parishioner of St Andrew’s Southampton or Geneva, you may have the feeling that you heard that sermon before.  That was the very first sermon I preached in the Coop Easter Sunday April 5, 2015.  We wanted our first Sunday as a Coop to be Easter Sunday and that would be largely why April 1 is our founding date.  Over the last ten years we’ve grown, not so much in numbers.  Death has taken its toll on us.  Yet, we’ve had a few new faces who stuck around.  We’ve grown to be more and more like the image of the God who created us.  Each congregation has grown and deepened in love.  Disunities have healed.  We’ve welcomed and loved our surrounding communities.  People we’ve prayed for have been healed.  In a day when in our culture it is difficult to be the Church of Jesus Christ, we remain churches witnessing to resurrection hope.  Well done, good and faithful servants.  Well done.  Amen.

 

Behind the Scenes

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Revelation 4-8:1

I like to imagine what it would be like to part reality in front of me as if I were poking my head through closed curtains to see what was happening behind the scenes.  Would I see some wizard pulling levers that makes things happen on this side of things?  Well, that’s kind of what John is recounting here.  He’s parted open the curtains of reality and stepped on into what’s going on behind the scenes of everything and one could say that what he sees going on there is the foundation, the driving force of what happens on this side of things.

He sees God the Father (not the Wizard of Oz) seated on a throne at the center of everything.  Except, he can’t see God because God is hidden behind an almost indescribably magnificent light display as the hymn says, “Tis only the splendour of light hideth Thee.”  Circling the throne are four living creatures who represent all of life on earth.  Day and night they forever sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty who wert and art and evermore shalt be.”

Surrounding them are twenty-four elders, twelve from the tribes of Israel and twelve for the churches planted by the Twelve Disciples.  When they hear the four living creatures sing, they fall down and “casting down their golden crowns upon the glassy sea” they begin to sing, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created.”  If you’re a first century hearer of this, you will be thinking that this God is bigger than Zeus and you will notice that none of that Greco/Roman Pantheon are there.

The next wave of concentric circles rippling out from the throne of God are myriads upon myriads upon thousands upon thousands of angels also singing praise; Cherubim and seraphim falling down before him; God in three persons, blessed Trinity.”  Then there is the fullness of the Twelve tribes of Israel.  And then there is every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth singing praise as well.  And then there is an uncountable multitude of people singing “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb.”  A first century person hearing that would say, “I thought salvation was what the Emperor claimed to bring through the Empire by means of his military.”

Our reality, God’s very good creation, is centered on God and worship of God is the lifeline that holds everything together – worship of God not political power, not militaristic, not economic power.  When we gather for worship or when we’re out in the field struck with awe and gratitude, we are joining in on the worship that holds everything together that’s going behind the scenes.  When we gather in the presence of God and worship the curtain is open.   

That said, when something else seeks that central place and the songs of worship are disrupted, our reality gets disrupted at the very core.  That is what empire and emperor have done.  Something I’m curious about here is something is something that can’’ be determined for certain for there is no evidence, but I am suspicious and I think it’s highly likely that the hymns that John hears here as he is peering into heaven probably sounded quite like things the citizens of the Roman Empire were required to say about Caesar when they worshipped him and the power of the Empire at the Imperial temples and/or Zeus at his temples.  Just conjecturing, but I think John is co-opting the songs of civil religion – the worship of nation and national leaders – and directing them to the One who rightly deserves to be worshipped with those songs.  Civil religion is quite alive today.  It’s very easy to get people quite worshipful in an idolatrous kind of way over flags and national values and popular national leaders who brand themselves as Saviours.

In God’s right hand is a scroll with seven seals.  The scroll is history – what was, is, and will be until God ends it.  If we want history to make sense we need to know what’s on that scroll.  But the scroll is sealed and no one on earth or in heaven is worthy to open it.  The fact of that is incredibly, incredibly sad.  But wait, suddenly in front of the throne there appears a Lamb who was slain, the Lion of Judah who has conquered by being slain and he’s full of the Spirit of God.  He is worthy, so worthy that the heavenly songs of worship change and become new songs.  Sing a new song unto the LORD.  “You are worthy to take the scroll and to break its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed a people for God, saints from every tribe and language and people and nation; you have made them a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they reign on earth.”  “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and glory and honour and blessing.”  “To the One seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever.”

This Lamb is Jesus, the crucified and risen one, the faithful one, the only faithful one.  If we want to know and understand the course of history, we must look at him and get involved in what God is up to in history in, through, and as him in the power of the Holy Spirit.  History, indeed life, is centered on him.  It is otherwise purposeless without him.  He, and only He, is worthy to sit on the throne of God as he is the true Son of God.  Caesar claimed to be that but is not.  Those who are loyal to Jesus even unto death are the true kingdom and the true priests who serve the true God.  The Emperor, the Empire and the priests of the Imperial Cult are not.

And now…the moment we have been waiting for…the Lamb takes the scroll and begins to peel away the seven seals.  If you are looking for a roadmap to history, this is it.  This is the past, the present, and the future of human history.   But, one should rather call it the history of Empire.  It is what has happened, is happening, and will happen because of Empire-ism until God ends it all.  

The first four seals are horse and riders, affectionately known as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  What each of them brings is a side effect of Empire-ism.  The first horse and rider, deceptively white, brings conquering.  A red horse and rider take peace from the earth and replace it with slaughtering.  A black horse and rider deceptively carrying the scales of equity take economic security away. The fourth, a pale green horse and rider…is Death…brings war, plaque, famine, and animal attacks.  These are the incurable symptoms that are present when Empire is around.  I am troubled at how well this describes the world we live in. 

The fifth seal is the struggle and fate of those who try to remain faithful to Christ Jesus and his kingdom.  This seal is the fact that there are martyrs.  These faithful ones abide in the most sacred place of heaven, the Altar.  And they cry out the question of those who suffer: How long, God, until you judge and take vengeance on our behalf.  The answer seems coldly disappointing.  First of all, there’s an honour in being on the right side, a white robe.  There is also a rest of a kind that the world doesn’t have.  But, the cruel reality of Empire-ism is that there will be more and more martyrs for Truth until their number is complete, however many that is.  The time frame is also trying – a little while longer.  The timeframe of suffering always seems to be a little while longer!

The sixth seal is the end.  Empire-ism will end.  Until that day the Empires that be will in time all implode or be themselves conquered.  Yet, the Day will come that Empire-ism will end.  John describes it with all sorts of celestial and earthly disturbances.  This wild imagery is the typical way the prophets tried to describe the indescribable nature of God ending the way things are to bring about something new.  It’s inconceivable.  One thing is for sure though; those rich and powerful slugs are going to hide in fear and in shame.  It’s called being held accountable. 

The seventh seal is silence; a long half-hour long, palette-cleansing, pregnant silence as God prepares something new.  Have you ever sat in the restful, peaceful presence of God in silence for a half-hour?  Amen.