Sermon May 5

 

Sermon May 5, 2013 Easter 6 Year C Rev. 21:10, 22-22:5

       Please pray with me. Gracious Lord, bless the hearing and bless the speaking, that your Word may take root in our hearts and bear fruit in our lives, for the healing of the world you so loved, and to the glory of your holy name. Amen.

       I know that it is May 5^th, and 70 degrees and sunny outside, but I need you to remember for a moment a story that we generally hear before Christmas. In December, you can hardly turn on your TV without some version of Charles Dickens’ the Christmas Carol popping up in one version or another- I think my first exposure was the Flintstones’ version, but the Muppet Christmas Carol is among my favorites, too. You know how it goes, the ghosts visit Scrooge in the night as a sort of warning, and show him his past, his present, and his future. They take him on a journey through his painful past, they expose how his actions in the present are harming others, and they depict truthfully what will happen if he does not change his ways. At the end of the ghost of Christmas future’s visit, he breaks down weeping, mortified at what he now has seen. These visitors from another world uncover for Scrooge a frightening reality, and he is changed after this night of visions.

I mentioned last time I preached on Revelation that the other name for this book is the “apocalypse” of John, and the meaning of this word apocalypse is to “uncover” or expose. This “un-covering” is what the ghosts do for Scrooge, exposing the truth about his condition, and in the same way, the book of Revelation is John’s way of uncovering the truth about the powers-at-be in which the early Christians lived. John’s words are meant to expose the violence of the Roman empire as evil, and like Scrooge’s visions in the night, they are meant to be a warning from another world that inspires us to act differently on earth.

John has many visions written in the book of Revelation, dreams given by God that are both hopeful and dire. In the chapters before the one Dave read for us this morning, John has visions of the city of Babylon, represented as a beast that devours anyone who stands against it and who has seduced the kings and rulers of the world with false promises. John writes that the nations were deceived by the city’s “sorcery,” which in Greek is pharmakeia, like the word we get pharmaceutical from, or simply put, drugs. The city of Babylon has enticed the people to live pumped up on drugs that may feel good for a moment, but are in reality stripping away the health and wellness of the world. The city of Babylon represents the Roman empire, who was actively persecuting those were faithful to Christ, and claiming to be the eternal power. John exposes the city of Babylon’s tactics as manipulative and untrustworthy- as pharmakeia, drunk-making “sorcery.”

In contrast to this, John writes of a holy city, the city of God, coming down out of heaven. What we heard today is part of John’s final vision, the crowning moment of the whole book. Actually, it’s the crowning moment of the entire Bible- it closes the circle than began at the very beginning of Genesis. In Greek, the word for garden that we find in the opening chapters of scripture, is actually “paradise.” Humans began their life in paradise, in a garden of delight, but were blocked from access to the tree of life when they were kicked out of the garden. Now, John’s vision of paradise is not simply a garden, but a city that has been redeemed. In the new Jerusalem, God’s presence fills the entire city, and a river, clear as crystal flows through it, and on either side, there is the tree of life, which provides healing medicine in its leaves. The word for healing in Greek is therapia, from which we have the word therapy. And we all know that therapy is meant to help us regain our health, whether physical after we’ve had an injury, or emotional from the pain we experience in this life. Therapy in Greek is a wholistic healing, too, and we read that these leaves are not just for individuals’ healing, but for the healing of the nations who have been at war for the past six thousand years of human civilization. In fact, God heals all things in creation- the waters which had been polluted with blood now run clean, and the people sit at its riverbanks, binding up each other’s wounds, resting by the water, and healing from the long ordeal. It is paradise in the midst of the city.

       I don’t know how many of you know Tracy Chapman- she’s an American singer-songwriter from Ohio, where I will return when my time with you is done and I go back for my last year of seminary in August. What personally draws me to Tracy Chapman’s music is her ability to see the present with clarity and to dream into the future. She has vision. One of her more recent songs is called “something to see” and captures her visionary spirit, “No war, no greed, that would be something to see, I hope I live that long, No want, no need, the struggle to end poverty finally has been won. Now, we’re all free.”

I imagine that the people in the New Jerusalem probably sing something like Tracy Chapman’s first verse, “No blood in the streets, just a distant memory the history books recount, now, we’re all free!” Imagine- No bombings against innocent people, no gangs in the cities shooting their rivals, no wars over rights to natural resources, no arms trade, no drone attacks. There is no need to fight over who gets what anymore, because the tree provides medicine and food for all nations and peoples, and the river satisfies their thirst. There is no more fear that someone will gate off the tree and start charging for its resources- no, God has assured that no sorcery, no greed, will enter into this city. No, this is the peace the world cannot give, as Jesus says in the Gospel reading today, that comes from God and the Lamb- now, we’re all free.

        Many people read the book of Revelation to be about God’s people being taken from earth in a great “rapture” to experience this paradise with a select few in heaven, far away from the chaos and pain of the earth, but hear instead what the book of Revelation says: “and I saw the holy city Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God.” Instead of escaping from the mess on earth, God’s presence fills this new city, and all things radiate with God’s glory and presence. Jesus speaks of this when he says in today’s Gospel reading, “my Father will love them and we will come to them and make our home with them.” To make home really means to pitch a tent, and Eugene Peterson translates that word in a unique way. He says, “God moved into the neighborhood.” God promises to come down, to pitch a tent in our front yards, to move into the neighborhood.

       What do YOU think it would look like if God moved into the neighborhood? What would the tree of life look like if it sat at the corner of Greenwood Ave N and 132^nd? Or what would it look like in the neighborhood that you live in, if you come from further away to worship here? It might look like affordable housing for those who work two jobs but still don’t make enough money to keep their kids off the streets; it might look like a place where therapy happens at affordable rates for people whose lives feel out of control; it might look like a garden, teeming with life and reconnecting humanity to our origins, it might look like a medical tent; or a creek whose water now flows clean again and is full of fish and healthy plants and purifies toxins, instead of being overwhelmed by them. Turn to your neighbor, and ask them, what dreams do you have for the places you live; what would the New Jerusalem look like in this city? I’ll call you back in a few minutes.

… What dreams of God’s healing presence does God visit you with in the night? God visited John of Patmos with a dream of a world restored and reconciled and redeemed, a dream that God continues to inspire us with, leading people to leave their despair of the pain of the world behind, and to act against all odds. God scatters little seeds in us- dreams of preschools for poor kids and the homeless sheltered and all people fed and humanity taking care of creation. Because the saints of God have been captivated and called by a vision of a world with no war, no greed, and they run the race set before them, to be faithful to God’s dreams. No war, no greed, that would be something to see. I know I won’t live that long, and Tracy Chapman knows that, too. But I hope that one day, we will wake up and join the resurrection celebration, singing, “now, we’re all free!” For the promise and the dream of an earth made whole again by God’s love, I say, thanks be to God. Amen.