Sermon April 28, 2013 Revelation from Revelation

Scripture: Revelation 5: 11-14 and 7: 9-12, 15-17
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells

“It’s been said that one of the most radical things Jesus did was to eat with the wrong crowd.” So begins an article by Shane Claiborne in the latest issue of the magazine Sojourners. Claiborne goes on: “Undoubtedly, folks on the Left were frustrated with Jesus for making friends with Roman tax collectors. And folks on the Right were surely ticked at him for hanging out with Zealots. Dinner must have been awkward with both of them at the table; after all, Zealots killed tax collectors for fun on the weekends.” Claiborne reminds us: Jesus’ “love had no bounds and his friendships defied categories. . . . He challenged the chosen and included the excluded – in the family of God.” [Sojourners, May 2013, “Friends Without Borders,” Shane Claiborne]

We know that to have peace in the world and to fulfill our calling as peacemakers, we need to make friends across divides with people of backgrounds, ethnicities, races, and cultures different from our own. We affirm one God and one family of God by embracing those who are “other” as family.

This building of relationships happens in many ways. In his article, Claibourne encourages friendships across boundaries and borders, like Israel and Palestine. This is the goal of the organization Friendship Force. This is the impetus behind St. Petersburg having a sister city relationship with Takamatsu, Japan, a relationship that was initiated after World War 2 to promote goodwill and peace through friendship. It is just one of many examples of relationships established between former enemies to foster peace.

In the book of Revelation as we heard this morning, we are given images of all peoples worshipping at the throne of God. Rather than get caught up in when this will happen and where and how, let’s not miss the glory of the images. We are told of “myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice. . . every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing. . .” [New Revised Standard Version of the Bible] Then we hear of “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,” singing. All life is praising God. Every living creature. From every habitat, every land, every culture, all of creation in its profuse diversity glorifying God.

When God is large enough to include everyone, then it is a god that everyone can praise. When God is parochial, tribal, playing favorites, this is not a god all can worship. In Revelation we see a god worthy of the worship of all. A god of all. A god loving all of creation. A god giving peace to all of creation. A god present in all that is. A god imbuing and infusing all of reality in its prodigal diversity. Revelation gives us a vision of a huge, all-encompassing, all-embracing God. A tent big enough to shelter all. No one is left out.

This is the God of Jesus and the Jesus movement. This is the God that Jesus incarnates. That is why his friendships know no limits. He sees everyone as a beloved child of God. Friend. Foe. Jew. Gentile. Man. Woman. It doesn’t matter to Jesus. He wants to be friends. He wants to get to know people: Share food, share stories, share life experiences, share hopes and dreams. Jesus is not afraid of those who are different. He is not put off by varying views. To thrive and grow as a person, we must encounter differences and conflict. These things help us to see who we are, what the world is like, and are opportunities and invitations to call forth our highest good. Diversity brings out our strength.

The early church was known for its remarkable diversity. Jews and Gentiles. Women and men as leaders. Rich and poor. Servants and slaves together with those of wealth and property. There was no other movement or organization or religion that was as diverse. The gospel is about reconciliation. Overcoming the things that separate us from our best selves, from God, and from each other. And we practice that reconciliation, we learn the truth of the gospel, we embody the way of Christ when we move out of our comfort zone and into the unknown, in relationships with people who are different, who we do not understand, and who we do not agree with.

Sadly, from these glorious beginnings, seen in the beautiful visions of oneness and peace and unity in the book of Revelation, people have used religion, and specifically Christianity, to create a great divide. This is the polar opposite of the intentions of Jesus and the teachings of the gospels. For this discussion about what has been done with the tradition of open, extravagant love, reconciliation, and friendship, let’s focus on Revelation. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard people say, “I don’t know why Revelation is in the Bible. It is so violent and filled with destruction.” And what are common images that we association with Revelation? The firey sea, earthquakes, the horsemen, the whore of Babylon, the seven-headed dragon, the 144,000 who have the seal on their foreheads, the Beast. These are images of vengeance, punishment, violence, and destruction. And these are some of the primary images associated with Revelation. They are highlighted because they enforce the human agenda to use religion to decide who is in and who is out. Who is worthy and who is not. Who is approved of and who is not. The images of violence and destruction amount to a threat. Follow what the church says, and you will be saved. Depart from the teachings, control, and influence of the church, and in the end, you will be destroyed. It is through these images of violence and destruction that people garner power and maintain control.

The positive images in Revelation are used by the church as a carrot. Do things the way the church teaches and you will have peace. You will be welcomed in heaven. Depart from what the church is telling you and you will suffer tribulation. So even the positive images in Revelation are often used to intimidate and coerce.

We were told as much at a church in Spain last summer when we were on the Camino de Santiago. When everyone makes their way home to the Catholic church, the world will be filled with peace and good will. All will be well, but not until then. You are basically told that you are holding things up for peace in the world by not being Catholic.

Frankly, this kind of approach is having exactly the opposite effect in the world, regardless of which religion or expression of Christianity promotes it and there are plenty doing so. Insisting that your religion is the right way and the only way creates division and contention and conflict in the world. It does not bring people together as God intends.

The Jesus way of doing things and looking at the world does not involve establishing and maintaining power over people. It does not involve coercion or intimidation. The images in Revelation of peace, unity, and healing are not aimed at keeping a human leader or human institution in power. These images are not intended to provide leverage for manipulation and control. It is hard to accept the vision of all people praising God from every land and culture and language because we don’t see the means of control. And basically we like what we can control.

The good news of the gospel, the vision of the commonwealth of God, the images of unity in Revelation, are not about control but about community. Jesus embodies egalitarian community. There is diversity but not when it comes to the worth and sacredness of every person and all of life. We are all equally beloved by God. And that is beyond our control. The overriding message of the gospels, and of Revelation, is a vision of the final triumph of peace through community. We heard it this morning. And there are many more images of this intention in the book of Revelation. God wipes the tears from every eye. Not just the eyes of Christians. Or North Americans. Or English speakers. Or people who have a bed to sleep in at night. Or whatever we may want to use as a gauge. God’s community includes all peoples.

Now when it comes to internationalism, we like to think we are broad-minded. We accept people from other countries. We are affirming of other religions. We don’t want to be ethnocentric or jingoistic or bigoted. Our daughter went to a meeting recently where someone referred to people in Africa as “backward” and “uncivilized.” She was horrified. We want to be open and accepting of differing peoples, countries, and cultures. I daresay we like the image in Revelation of all different kinds of people from every land singing together.

What may be of greater concern for us today, in our context, in terms of embodying the universal love of God as Jesus did, may be much closer to home. Personally, I hear more biting comments and condemnation of Americans by other Americans. The vitriolic culture wars right here at home seem far more scathing than anything between the US and countries abroad. The vituperation, the incriminating lies, the insults, the vicious attacks are disturbing. The conflict between conservatives and liberals, fundamentalists and progressives, the blue mindset and the red mindset, amounts to all out war, at least verbal war. For now. While we have access to more information than ever, instead of seeking out a variety of opinions and using our analytical abilities, people seem to simply fill themselves with more ideological brainwashing instead of exposing themselves to varying perspectives and actual facts about issues. And the mean-spirited manipulation is not the sole purview of one side or the other.

One area in which the divide that surrounds us right here in our country and in our community can be seen is around the issue of gun ownership. In the book Hidden America: From Coal Miners to Cowboys, An Extraordinary Exploration of the Unseen People Who Make This Country Work, Jeanne Marie Laskas, a journalist, offers chapters that reveal the life of workers who do certain jobs in this country. One section is about the people who work at Sprague’s Sports in Yuma, Arizona, a store that carries a large inventory of guns. Laskas spends time with the workers and the owner and the customers. She shares what she experiences of their lives and outlook as well as her perspective in good, even-handed journalistic style.

Laskas decided to actually buy a gun to see what feels like. She reflects: “I didn’t really want to buy an assault rifle, much less a handgun, but I was curious to know what buying a gun felt like, how the purchase worked, what all was involved. This was admittedly foreign turf. Back home, saying Hey, I’m thinking of buying a gun would be conversation stopper, taken as either a joke or a cry for help. Nobody in my circle back east had guns, nobody wanted them, and if anybody talked about them at all, it was in cartoon terms: guns are bad things owned by bad people who want to do bad things. About the only time the people where I came from even thought about guns was when something terrible happened. A lunatic sprays into a crowd and we have the same conversation we always have: Those damn guns and those damn people who insist on having them.” [p. 142]

As for the perspective of the folks at Sprague’s, well, “Think of just the hunters,” said Richard Sprague, the owner of the gun store. “Thirteen million in this country. That’s thirteen million Americans trained with firearms – the equivalent of the largest army in the world. . . Anyone thinking of invading this country has to take that into consideration.” [p. 153] Sprague went on to explain that “the whole point of guns was personal responsibility: taking care of yourself, your family, your neighborhood, your country. The more people there are with guns, the safer the society.” [p. 153]

One day chatting with a group of customers and clerks, Laskas mentions, “‘Where I come from, people don’t talk about shooting bad guys as much as you folks do.’ . . . ‘You depend on the government to protect you,’ said a middle-aged woman dry firing a Ruger. She was admiring the smooth trigger action and regretting her clunkier Glock. ‘We depend on ourselves,’ she said.” [p. 155]

In another conversation with the people at Sprague’s the issue of power and control was raised. “It’s not gun control. It’s people control,” Laskas, was told. “If you can control firearms, you’re not going to have people rising up in revolution.” Laskas tells us, “I thought about the 13 million hunters rising up to defend America against an invader, a concept that seemed almost charming and heroic now that I was imagining an America under attack by its own government.” Someone else responded, “So the military comes in and what are you going to do? Go after them with sticks?” [p.170]

While this may seem ridiculous to some of us, if you read the paper this week, you may have seen the column by Leonard Pitts referencing a letter he received pretty much warning of impending civil war in this country. And not between the haves and have nots, as some of us would have expected, but between groups with differing ideologies. Pitts reflects, “Can a nation pulling so energetically in opposite directions survive?

“We call it hyper-partisanship, polarization, balkanization. But those are SAT words, polysyllabic expressions that make abstract what they describe. So let us face what you embody and call it by name. It is hatred. And it is contempt.” This is Pitts’ response, or a portion of it, to the person sending an anonymous note calling for a civil war and declaring, “THERE IS A CLEAR REASON WHY WE ARE ARMED TO THE TEETH. . .” [Tampa Bay Times, 4/25/13, “Even in tragedy, a nation divided,” Leonard Pitts, 11 A]

We could offer many, many more examples of how our country is divided – one state is expediting the death penalty, while another is abolishing the death penalty. There is issue after issue that shows the growing divisions among people right here.

Where is the guiding hand of leadership with the stature of, say, Lyndon Johnson, who warned, “The biggest danger to American stability is the politics of principle, which brings out the masses in irrational fights. . . it is for the sake of . . . stability that I consider myself a consensus man.” [Quoted in The Christian Century, 5/1/13, p. 3] How prescient!

As Christians, we need to be leaders in the movement for reconciliation and peace. We need to let ourselves be captivated by the images of the universal human family at peace, singing and praising, from the book of Revelation. We need to give the message of universal love in the gospel of Jesus Christ power over our lives. We need to let our religion inspire and empower us to confront the divisions right here in our midst, our communities, our families, our churches, as well as the conflicts around the world, with love, with compassion, with understanding, and with hope. We need to be a force for reconciliation and respect. We cannot be the perpetrators of the snide comments, the biting condemnations, and the smug superiority that is disrespectful of others. We need to communicate our values and commitments with grace and love to those close to us as well as to those around the globe. There is no room in our Christian calling for vituperation, venom, and vicious attacks.

Being part of this kind of conflict is completely at odds with the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the images of God’s intentions for creation so beautifully expressed in Revelation. We are called to build bridges, to span the divides, to cross the chasms of difference that separate people and foster fear and conflict in the world. We have access to the internet, to government, to information, to travel. We have so many tools at our disposal for being agents of reconciliation in the world and we need to use them.

But it really is as simple as sitting down to a meal. Like Jesus did. With someone different. With someone “other.” With someone ignored. With someone we disagree with. As Shane Claiborne puts it in his article, “Friends Without Borders,” “Jesus was a subversive friend, a scandalous bridge builder, a holy trespasser. His love had no bounds and his friendships defied categories. Jesus made friends – with folks who adored him and folks who hated him.” May be led by Jesus until we find ourselves with the throng from every land, thousands upon thousands, myriads upon myriads, singing praises. Amen.

A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.