Coming Soon

Coming Soon

© copyright 2010 Robert J. Elder

Seventh Sunday of Easter , May 16, 2010

Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

See, I am coming soon...

Amen, come Lord Jesus!

Our Scripture lesson today is brief enough as it is, but even in the space of these few verses, we find one word that is repeated, in one form or another, more than any other:

“See, I am coming soon...”

“The Spirit and the bride [the church] say, ‘Come.’”

“Let everyone who hears say, ‘Come.’”

“Let everyone who is thirsty come.”

“Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”

It sounds to me as though John believed something important is coming, even if we aren’t quite sure what it is! The invitation, the claim, the image of something coming, something on its way, is inescapable.

Some people have said that the phrase at the end of our reading is one of the earliest Christian prayers: “Come, Lord Jesus!” Paul thought it was such an important prayer that when he ended his first letter to the Corinthians with it, he even preserved it in its original Aramaic language, writing, “Marana-tha!”

Clearly, in his vision, John believed that something important was on its way, and that the appropriate response from believers was to welcome what was coming, even to encourage it, to pray for it. But I have to ask myself, if this early Christian prayer was so important, what has become of it? When I am in prayer with others, I rarely hear those exact words spoken: “Come, Lord Jesus.” Oh, it’s part of the Lord’s prayer, of course, the part that says, “Thy kingdom come..,” but how often do we really emphasize that intention behind the Lord’s Prayer? What’s the problem? As believers, have we given up on the idea that Jesus is coming, that his kingdom is being established in the world? Or are we just so unsure how he will bring it off we simply prefer not to think about it?

I can think of two ways to ponder Jesus’ promise that he is coming and the ancient church’s prayer that he will.

Threat

“Just wait ‘til your father comes home!” When my imaginary 7-year-old children’s sermon friend, Clayton, hears that, he does not begin to rejoice in anticipation of the arrival of the one who is to come! This word of Revelation can be a word of judgment. The phrase “I am coming soon!” can be heard as a threat under many circumstances. We might not mind this little passage so much if it just said, “I am coming soon,” and left off that part about coming “to repay according to everyone’s work.” That makes us nervous. That’s the threat. This little passage contains words of judgment as well as words of salvation. Is Jesus coming to judge or save, or is Jesus coming to judge and save? It makes a big difference. Which do we believe?

What if he is coming to judge or save, to divide us into one of two categories, the judged and the saved, the condemned and the rescued? What if my good works aren’t judged to be enough? What if my bad works are judged to be more than plenty? What then? Never mind the sins for which I have asked forgiveness, what if I have forgotten to confess some? And what about those sins that are logs in my eye, but which I haven’t really even noticed because I have been working so hard to help point out the specks in the eyes of others? What about the long-forgotten transgression, the casual gossip? There’s a lot of my work for which I hope not to be repaid! If Jesus is coming to judge or save, I could be in pretty bad shape. Could judgment be coming my way, while saving waits for someone more deserving?

Jesus coming soon? We’ve accommodated ourselves to the world as it is pretty well, thank you, so please, no great shocks, no dramatic intrusions by heavenly messengers, no opening skies and trumpets of angels and the Lamb of God descending to earth on a cloud. Our poor old world of warfare and riots and thieving and careless injustice and cruelty may not be perfect, but at least we know what to expect. We also have something to eat, and a place to sleep, just like those slaves in Egypt before the coming of God’s word to them in the form of a stuttering Moses. Please, don’t rock the boat! Shall we pray, “Come, Lord Jesus”? What if he came to judge rather than to save, what then?

Promise

“Coming soon to a theater near you.” “Coming to America.” “Hold on, I’m coming.” “I am coming soon,” can also be heard as a promise, a hope-filled pledge. Have I spent my life trying to measure up to standards which I am beginning to realize I will never meet? Have I begun to despair of ever understanding the answers to the big “why?” questions? Does the purpose for my own existence seem increasingly unclear, does life seem senseless?

“I am coming soon,” says Jesus.

The 911 operator takes the call from a distraught mother. Her baby has just been fished out of the backyard swimming pool, but he’s not breathing. If the Emergency people take any time at all to come it will be too much time. Patiently, the operator tells the mother what to do to help get the baby some air while the medics are on the way, racing through city traffic. “Please hurry!” screams the mother. “Just keep trying,” says the operator, “we’re coming.” Why was the baby left unattended? Why did we build that pool anyway? Why was that door left unlatched? Plenty of time later for judging. Time now for saving.

Revelation declares that Jesus comes to judge and to save, to demand repentance and provide healing, to say to anyone who is thirsty for righteousness, “Come,” and “take the water of life as a gift.”

The very coming of the One who is perfect judges our imperfection, yet not in order to destroy, but so that we can be made perfect, we can be made whole, we can be healed.

Reality and Hope

The word for all those who must face the future, which is all of us, is that whatever future it is, it is a future in which Jesus will be present in the world which he has claimed. He is coming because he has already come.

How should I live my life? What career should I choose? Should I go on for more schooling, or get a job? What lies ahead for me?

Revelation asks a question in return. John asks, “How will you choose to live your life since you know Jesus is coming?” What do you want to commit your life to doing in light of the fact that Christ is coming soon? How does the promise of a future filled with the love of God for the world change what you believe he is calling you to do today?

Of course Jesus’ coming is a threat. It threatens at the very deepest level the very idea that we can live our lives for ourselves alone. It threatens and judges all those past decisions on which we are tempted to build our lives. Jesus’ promise to come soon judges our past.

But of course Jesus’ coming is a promise, too. The world could certainly stand some improving. Jesus’ promise to come soon certainly gives us at least some hope of a better future.

But what difference does it make for us today that Jesus died to save us? Any difference? And knowing that he has not washed his hands of us, but has plans for us, how does that alter our thinking, our hoping, our dreaming? Has the Messiah come? Is the Messiah coming? John answers both questions with a resounding yes, but not without declaring that something important is going on in the present.

Has the Messiah come? Yes. History. One named Jesus came, centuries ago, and the world has never been the same because of what he did. Past tense. Recorded. Entered in the book. Codified. Over.

Is the Messiah coming? Yes. Just as surely as it declares that the Messiah has come, the Bible claims that he will come again, “that I may receive you to myself,” as John’s gospel puts it.[1] That is the future. Coming, on its way, just wait — but for who knows how long?

What, then, of the present? I think the present is changed, moment by moment, because Jesus declared to John, “See, I am coming soon.” Soon. That little word changes everything. The presence of Christ is not only historic, not only promised for some remote future in heaven, but just ahead, just over the next rise, just around the bend, as close as your next breath. He can come to us that soon, and all he awaits is our invitation. We can offer it.

“Amen. Come Lord Jesus.” Say it with me, as a responsive prayer:

Amen. Come Lord Jesus...

To triumph over our pain and to glory in our praise...

Amen. Come Lord Jesus...

To set us free to serve, to cut the knot of self-interest that binds our hearts and hands...

Amen. Come Lord Jesus...

To declare victory over life as well as victory over death...

Amen. Come Lord Jesus...

To rejoice the hearts of the grieving, to give courage to the fearful...

Amen. Come Lord Jesus...

Amen.

Come.

Amen.

Copyright © 2010 Robert J. Elder, all rights reserved

---

[1] John 14:3.

Come Over and Help

Come Over and Help

© copyright 2010 Robert J. Elder, Pastor

Sixth Sunday of Easter May 9, 2010

Acts 15:36, 40-41, 16:4-15

During the night Paul had a vision;

there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying,

“Come over to Macedonia and help us.” NRSV

I’m not sure if the name “Silas” is all that familiar to present generations of church people, but it will become more familiar again, I believe. We know from today’s reading in Acts, as well as in the story in Acts directly following our reading – where Paul and Silas found themselves imprisoned in Philippi and their miraculous escape from jail there – that Silas was a traveling companion with Paul in his missionary work.

I recall in my youth having to read Silas Marner, by George Elliot (which, now that I think about it, may not be the ideal association to bring up on Mothers’ Day!) and I recall a few folks from my parents’ generation – and moreso from my grandparents’ – named “Silas.” But if you look on the internet at a site called “Baby Name Wizard,”[1] where you can see how many times per million babies any name has been used in the last 125 years, we can see why the name has not been all that familiar in the so-called baby boom generation. While in the 1880s the name was chosen for 330 boys out of every million born, by the 1960s, that number had fallen to fewer than 20 per million. Since the turn of the century, the name has experienced an increase in popularity, chosen by parents for 250 of every million boys born. Maybe it’s a trend. I suspect the name might still sound sort of old-fashioned to most of our ears. Other than that, and one old uncle of a college friend, I have only one other immediate connection with the name, which came by way of the 60s folk trio, Peter, Paul, and Mary, who sang a version of a traditional 12-verse carol on one of their early recordings, called “Children, Go Where I Send Thee.” Do you remember it? As with most spirituals, there have been a lot of different versions of it, but here is one:

Children go where I send thee: how shall I send thee?

I’m gonna send thee one by one

One for the little bitty baby

Who was born, born, born in Bethlehem

Children go where I send thee: how shall I send thee?

I’m gonna send thee two by two

Two for Paul and Silas

One for the itty bitty baby

Who was born, born, born in Bethlehem.

Three for the Hebrew children...

Four for the four that stood at the door...

Five for the gospel preachers...

Six for the jars where the wine was mixed...

Seven for the seven that never got to heaven...

Eight for the eight that stood at the gate...

Nine for the ninety-nine in line...

Ten for the ten commandments...

Eleven for the eleven who went to heaven...

Twelve for the twelve Apostles...

Now, as a youngster in 8th grade, two years into learning to play the guitar and playing with my brothers, I sang that song with relish, not having a clue as to the meaning of some of the references. Oh, I knew about the itty bitty baby born in Bethlehem alright, I knew that “Hebrew children” wasn’t really a reference to children but to the Hebrew people who were children of God, I knew there were 12 apostles and ten commandments. But who were the four that stood at the door? Why was it “five for the gospel preachers” when there were but 4 gospels? How come seven never got to heaven, while eight got as far as the gate?

Well, if you want to know the answers to these and other mysteries involved in that little song, you’ll just have to pick up a copy of the sermon, there isn’t time to go into all of it here.[2] One verse that I didn’t know much about as a child was the one that says “Two for Paul and Silas.” Oh, I knew at age 14 who Paul was, but Silas? I didn’t know a thing about Silas. Those of you who come well-tutored in the New Testament will recall that Paul and Silas spent an evening together in the Philippi County jail before a midnight earthquake released them.

Today I have the advantage of a bit more study on the subject and I know that Silas was a reasonably well-known person in the New Testament, known both by his Greek name, and by the Latinized version, Silvanus, when he makes an appearance in Paul’s letters to the Corinthians, Thessalonians, and gets an honorable mention in I Peter.

Silas deserves to be better known, by all counts. He was a leading member of the new Christian community in Jerusalem following the resurrection of Jesus, and he later traveled with Paul to Antioch, and accompanied him in his second missionary journey to Galatia, from which our story in Acts today comes... He was, by all accounts, faithful, loyal, brave. Parents could do a lot worse than to name their little boys after this man.

Silas is listed with Timothy and Paul in the very first lines of both First and Second Thessalonians, as a co-author or at the very least a co-sender of those letters. Silas is also mentioned with Peter on missions in Pontus and Cappadocia. He served as scribe for the writing of I Peter.[3]

I hope all this conversation about Silas – and Paul – serves to remind us of struggles in the early church. Real struggles. For those of us who think church life ought to cater to our needs or be fun or at the very, least mildly entertaining, the book of Acts snaps us back to the realization that commitment to the gospel was and is downright serious business, especially the spread of the good news. Any time the gospel has reached into new places in the world and in people’s hearts, it has met with opposition. I suspect that when Paul went to sleep in the harbor city of Troas (better known to us as Troy, the farthest west of all the cities of Asia, across the Aegean from and in view of Europe), he apparently had no inkling that soon God would be calling him to cross over to Europe, to Greece and Macedonia. But sure enough, that is what happened in his nighttime dream or vision of a man standing and pleading that he “Come over to Macedonia and help us” across the straights that separate two continents

Paul was in the midst of his second missionary journey, on which he had meant to go and strengthen churches already established in Asia on their first journey in what is today southwestern Turkey, meaning to go to Ephesus, and Colossae. But as we heard in today’s lesson, they were “forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia,” winding up in the port city of Troas. We don’t know the form in which the forbidding took place, just that it happened and stopped them in their tracks.

We might think of our spiritual journeys in faith as some sort of self-generated “Mapquest” in which we plug into the celestial computer the request for directions, and then we are on our own way. But God does not want us to go on our own way, God wants to make the journey with us, and God can be quite insistent about this too.

Sometimes the only word the Spirit has for us along our pilgrim way is something like the signs we occasionally see blocking old forest tracks: “Road Closed.” Sometimes the Spirit senses our determination to go one way in the walk of faith and responds “No, you can’t go that way. Not now.” Sometimes the road is blocked by bad weather or a traffic jam. Sometimes the recruiter who interviewed us for that job we really, really wanted calls to say, “Sorry, we chose someone else.” Sometimes the perfect college for all our dreams fails to admit us. Sometimes aspirin won’t work, so we have to try Advil. Sometimes what we thought was our best chance for romance turns out to be the date from purgatory. “No” is the word we sometimes hear even when we have made extensive plans to go a certain way, as Paul and Silas must surely have done. At such times it’s important to remember that “No” doesn’t mean “Stop everything; Give up.” It only means “Stop going that way. Find another way.”

Probably Paul and Silas came to the city limits of Troas totally confused about where they were to go, but they were not confused about where they were not going.

A friend of mine once wrote,

“Often when someone is standing at the crossroads of a difficult decision he or she will come to see the pastor. I’m often struck by the wonderful opportunities they have. They could stay home with the kids or keep working. They could take the new job or keep the old one. They could move into the retirement home or keep the big house. ‘Well isn’t it wonderful,’ I say, ‘that you are not a serf on a medieval farm?’ But most of the time they are not impressed by my cheery optimism. What they want to know is: what is the right choice? What choice does God want them to make? This is when I usually shrug my shoulders and as profoundly as I can, say, ‘I dunno.’ It is then that people realize why pastoral counseling is free. But just to drive home the point, I continue, ‘Do you really think God is up nights worrying about whether you’re going to move to Boston or Houston?’

“We all need to live with a good theology of Plan B. This theology goes like this: I thought I was supposed to head this way. Apparently I was wrong because the road is now closed. Now I need Plan B. The Bible is filled with people who had to go to Plan B. Abraham’s Plan A was to have a child with Hagar. Moses’ Plan A was to kill the Egyptian. David’s Plan A was to be a shepherd. Peter’s Plan A was to prevent Jesus from going to the cross. Paul’s Plan A was to evangelize the Jews. All of them had to go to Plan B. But in the discovery that Plan A was not working, all these people grew closer to God which was God’s plan for them all along. Some of you are up to Plan X, Y, or Z, by now, I know. That’s okay. Go to double letters if need be, but you have to get off the hook for being right all the time. That is called hubris, and it is one of the deadlier sins.”[4]

Of course, Paul discovered where he was supposed to go with the help of a dream of a man from Macedonia, the little country just north of Greece, across the Aegean from Troas. The man was saying “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Macedonia. In Europe. The gospel had not yet been taken to Europe. What if Paul had waked up and said to Silas that he had a dream that they should carry the good news to Macedonia. But after conferring with Silas, they decided the boat trip would be too risky – the Macedonians were all Gentiles anyway – and, delivering the crushing blow the church often applies to all new ideas, they uttered what are often called the Seven Last Words of the Church: “We’ve never done it that way before.”

But they did not respond that way, they went over to Europe and carried the gospel of Christ with them. And from Europe, the gospel eventually made it’s way to the Americas, and after a couple centuries it was carried around the Horn and across the Oregon trail until, in 1882, some frontier Presbyterians carried it to a meeting of eight men and seven women here in Vancouver and started the very church congregation which has continued in ministry until this very day.

Who is saying, “Come over and help us” today? Let’s listen to the Spirit to find out. And let’s go.

---

Copyright © 2010 Robert J. Elder, all rights reserved

Sermons are made available in print and on the web for readers only.

Any further publication or use of sermons must be with written permission of the author.

---

[1] http://babynamewizard.com/namevoyager/

[2] Four for the four that stood at the door... (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) Five for the gospel preachers... (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and all gospel preachers who followed after) Six for the jars where the wine was mixed... (the six jars of wine at the miracle feast in Cana, John 2:1-11) Seven for the seven that never got to heaven... (This verse may originally have meant the seven that came from heaven, the seven-fold spirit of God) Eight for the eight that stood at the gate... (The eight who entered Noah’s ark) Nine for the ninety-nine in line... (Those who waited while the good shepherd sought the one lost sheep) Ten for the ten commandments... Eleven for the eleven who went to heaven... (The disciples, minus Judas Iscariot) Twelve for the twelve Apostles...

[3] I Peter 5:12

[4] Craig Barnes, “Road Closed,” preached at Shadyside Presbyterian Church, January 9, 2005.

Passing Fancies

Passing Fancies

© copyright 2010 Robert J. Elder
Fifth Sunday of Easter , May 2, 2010

Revelation 21:1-6

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth;
for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away...

I remember when, many years back now, some people from a congregation began telephoning me in Texas. They turned out to be members of a church’s Pastor Nominating Committee, of course. I’d been serving a church in Texas for about 7 years, I wasn’t really thinking about moving again, but apparently new events were preparing to change that accustomed world. It was a long time ago now, but I still remember it as though it was just last week. Today’s reading from Revelation brings that memory back to me, unbidden.

“And he who sat upon the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’” All things? We’ve heard religious-sounding phrases enough in our lives that we are apt to let this one go by without really paying enough attention. But let’s don’t be too hasty. Remember, there are some things, many things, perhaps even most things in this world to which we are pretty attached as they are. I can’t believe we really want everything made over new.

I have tried to hear this phrase with new ears during the past week. I began to think that if everything is to be made new in the kingdom, it might do us good to make a little catalogue of those things that we hope could possibly stay pretty much the same. For example, maybe we like living in a comfortable place on a nice street, having access to good roads and highways, and most of us have cars to drive on them.

We like our church. We really do, don’t we? I’ve been privileged to hear from many of you over the short time I’ve been here in Vancouver, and one thing is clear to me: you really love your church. Oh, the old place could use a change here and there, but for the most part, you seem to like it pretty much as it is. Perhaps a few more new members, or some touchup of this or that program, as long as the big things stay about the same. But, reflecting on what the author of Revelation said: everything made new? Maybe we’re not so sure about that. We shouldn’t gloss over those words too uncritically. It can be a threat as well as a promise. And I’ll bet there were those who read it for the first time after John wrote these words who saw it that way too.

Think of the ancient British ritual of formal afternoon tea. When it is practiced in its proper context, nothing could be more pleasant. On the veranda with Lady Quizenfield, or in a Victorian parlor, or even in the headmaster’s office at a nice country day school. I can’t see anything wrong with that. But it becomes little more than an odd caricature when it is served on African safari, complete with linen tablecloths that have to be lugged overland alongside all the crockery that is necessary for a proper British tea. In the 1980s movie, Out of Africa, one of the most telling moments occured when the lady of the house finally allowed her native table servant to stop wearing a pair of ridiculous white gloves, which throughout the movie had only served to hinder his dexterity and cause a near tragedy with a bottle of wine. Out of the context of the genteel English countryside, afternoon tea can seem like little more than fodder for New Yorker cartoons, surely not something someone would seriously consider doing in the wild.

The world order changes, our accustomed context shifts, what was once the appropriate thing to do becomes less than appropriate, even demonic when cherished long beyond its usefulness. Like it or not, we will be called upon to change with the new world that is emerging or be changed by it. This promise that all things will be made new is not merely a gentle, spiritual promise, but a life-changing, possibly even wrenching experience as well. No wonder it comes near the end of the book of Revelation, for only after readers have waded through one fantastic image after another in this fabulous New Testament book can we join John in this affirmation with anything but astonishment.

As with John’s Revelation, Paul spoke of Christ’s coming kingdom through the image of a woman hard at the labors of childbirth. Things are becoming different, powerfully different. And even those who would welcome a change from the present order will find themselves going through a change such as comes on a woman giving birth.

Perhaps much of what we have given our lives to will be of no use as the new order emerges. We will have to become accustomed to the fact that a whole host of things just simply are not to be left alone in the kingdom of God. All the little compromises of life, all our having it both ways, all this will change. It is not simply a load of smiling, happy, no problems good news, this loaded promise coming out of the most loaded of the New Testament books.

But the new order need not take us by surprise. Jesus’ words are full of anticipation for this new order. He said, in dozens of different ways, what it is that we could expect. “Even as I have loved you, love one another.”

There are lots of other people in our time who look for a dramatic change in the world order, who welcome the possibility, who even go to the greatest lengths to help it come to pass. One definition of a fanatic is a person who has taken a little slice of the truth and tried to make it pass for the whole pie. Whoever the crazy people are who hatch plots to plant bombs on airplanes, subways, and in cars outside restaurants and embassies in cities all over the world, they are trying in a misguided way to force a new order of things into being.

But the new order for which others may look by such methods does not match the new order which John’s Revelation was calling into being. Believers begin with different assumptions. “As I have loved you... love one another.” This declares that at the end of the day, while drawing up a strategy for the new world order, we may not leave out the assumption with which we began: “I have loved you... so love.” God is love. This we believe. And this rules out many currently popular methods of bringing on a new world order, ways which resort to hate in an attempt to bring love into being.

Someone once said that for Christians to see the big change coming, to know that new things are on the way, is to be like a reader of John Grisham novels who reads the last chapter first... So that in the middle of the book, where the normal reader cannot decide whether to blame the murder on the crooked city official or the owner of the big company, this reader knows.

John was giving his people that kind of an edge in facing the turbulent historical forces of his day. We are in the world, but not to be too much attached to it the way it is, because we believe that God’s love is moving history irresistably forward, toward the birth of a new creation. One of the ways that God is accomplishing this is through the new witness of Jesus. “As I have loved you... love one another.” That was and is new. It is certainly new to a world so much persuaded that violence and threat of violence are the only ways to secure the peace.

One dilemma in a vision such as John’s is that it can be treated two ways:

1. We can see it as a fanciful vision of the way things might be some future day, but since we don’t see it now we don’t think about it too much. That places the whole load in God’s lap in some far-off future time. If God can bring it off, fine. Until then, give me all my accustomed material and familial security blankets to rely on.
2. But the other way to see his vision is the way he would have wanted his readers then, and now, to see it. Not as some nearly unattainable future utopia, but as a present witness now to the way things will be, causing us to live differently now. What mountain climber, if he knew he would be required to climb a mountain tomorrow, would not scour the house tonight for his best equipment? That is how John wants us to respond to his vision. Not merely to hear, but to begin to do. Begin to see the world not through jaded, accustomed eyes, but through new eyes. If this is the way the world will inescapably be, how can we justify continuing on in our old ways?

The Revelation of John shows us the direct connection between the “new commandment” that Jesus spoke to his disciples – the commandment that we love one another – and the new order that God will bring to pass. He calls us as actors in the new heaven and new earth, not passive observers. Even the sea, the old-time symbol of chaos from the time of the creation story and of Noah and the children of Israel walking between the walls of the sea, even the threat of that oldest symbol of the chaos, the raging sea, shall be tamed, no longer merely held at bay, but entirely defeated.

Any good scientist could tell us that each truly new technological possibility for our world must pass through an ocean of impossibilities. In every new discovery that changes the way the scientific world sees things, there is always the sense of the miraculous, the “Aha!” moment, when suddenly accustomed perspectives change, cherished ways of seeing things must be thrown out, and we have to begin again. It is not fulfillment which drives, calls, enriches humanity, but the mystery of what could yet be: the longing, hungering disatisfaction with what is because we have caught a glimpse of what could be and we won’t rest until we have achieved it.

Martin Luther King, Jr., said, in his last and most famous sermon, preached just prior to his death, “I have been to the mountaintop, I have seen the promised land.” Once Moses brought the children of Israel to that point, there was no way for them to stop there, to return to Egypt. They had become too committed to what could be to settle for what had been.

God’s people are led forward by promises. It is dreams that drive us and hopes that make us happen. I frequently correspond with an old friend who is also in the ministry. I was reminded not long ago of a letter he once sent me. I had written him that uncertain economic times inevitably show up in the church budget. But his response to me could have come straight out of Revelation, for it reflected the new times into which Jesus inevitably draws us. He wrote,

“What a community’s economic condition can do to the church is the typical [budget committee] question. My question is what the church’s hope can do for the community. My suspicion is that they have that to offer even if their finances are half of what they are now. Money moves with... and is moved by ideas. I think when leadership is bold and innovative it always moves money...”[1]

…as with our commitment to a community garden and other mission projects in a year that has been one of the toughest, budget-wise, in the history of this church!

Our response to John’s disturbing-happy-terrifying-glad-sad news must be to take a look at our world with new eyes. To realize that living in the old world can never be the same. And remember that “I make all things new” is preceded by,

Behold the dwelling of God is with humanity. He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.

It’s some pretty solid evidence that God’s new world will be worth any pain we might be called upon to endure in helping to bring it about. One of my favorite authors, Frederick Buechner, once wrote,

“Christianity is mainly wishful thinking. Even the part about Judgment and Hell reflects the wish that somewhere the score is being kept. Dreams are wishful thinking. Children playing at being grown-up is wishful thinking. Interplanetary travel is wishful thinking. Sometimes wishing is the wings the truth comes true on. Sometimes the truth is what sets us wishing for it.”[2]

Copyright © 2010 Robert J. Elder, all rights reserved

_____________________________
[1] George E. Chorba, personal correspondence
[2] Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC, Harper & Row, 1973, p. 96.

Wipe Away Every Tear

Wipe Away Every Tear
© copyright 2010 Robert J. Elder
Fourth Sunday of Easter, April 25, 2010
Revelation 7:9-17

Here we are, in the middle of that strange and wonderful book of the Bible, the Revelation of John, with its strange and wonderful and baffling imagery providing scriptural foundation for our service. What are we to make of all the numbers, the hundred and forty-four thousand sealed, followed by an even greater number that could not be counted? If we wanted to look backward, we’d find John’s words about the “slain Lamb” in Revelation 5, which came as a surprising image of a Messiah to a people more accustomed to the image of the Lion of Judah as the symbol of their Messianic hope. In today’s reading we find other references to the Lamb and its strangely cleansing blood. And there is the familiar image of living water, which we will recognize as a connection to the fourth chapter of John’s gospel, where Jesus offered living water to the woman at the well. It is followed by the promise of the gospel – almost tossed off here as though it were of much less significance than it truly is – that “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Are you aware of anything that can readily bring tears to your eyes? The answer is likely to differ greatly from person to person. There are so many human reasons for tears. And when John promised that there would come a time when God will “wipe away every tear from their eyes,” it was a pretty big promise. There have been so many tears shed since the beginning of time, and so many reasons for shedding them.

There are the tears of a little child when the new toy breaks. Small potatoes to adults – we are accustomed to shedding tears over much bigger issues than a child’s small tragedies. But in the imaginal world of a child, a broken toy can mean a broken fantasy, a broken dream. Even strong men cry over broken dreams if they are dreams that were dearly cherished. The magnitude of any tragedy depends in no small part on the perspective of the person who experiences it.

Humanity is continually provided with opportunities to feast on tears, if the word feast can be used for such things. Anonymous killers make airplanes explode and fall from the sky, shattering dreams of thousands in an instant; famine, infant mortality claims thousands every single day of the world.

The Bible knows about tears. The Psalmist groaned in the 6th Psalm, “I am weary ... I water my couch with my tears.” The unnamed woman with the unspecified grief in the 7th chapter of Luke’s gospel washed Jesus’ feet with her very own tears.

Tears are part of the human landscape, inescapably. They have been, and they will continue to be. And our responses to the tears of others, as well as to our own tears, can vary tremendously.

One general response to human tears could be simply to shrug one’s shoulders and say, “What more can you expect from life in a world where we are born so that one day we will die?” Many have advocated the adoption of a Stoic attitude toward human misery and pain, acknowledging that complaining will not ease the pain, and will only give tormentors the pleasure of knowing their work is having its intended effect.

But John was writing his words to the seven churches of Asia minor, not as a philosopher – pondering in the luxury of a detached life the problem of human misery – but as a general rapping out marching orders to an army of Christian gospel-soldiers, many of whom he knew, if they followed his direction, would be signing themselves up for intense suffering, even death.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer – German theologian executed by the Nazis for crimes arising from his faithfulness to the gospel – once wrote, “When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die.” While that is theologically true, Bonhoeffer also knew it is not the whole story. John’s vision in Revelation was the engine that powered his exhortation to the Christians of Asia Minor: that they stand firm in the face of the persecution which he knew was certain to overtake them.

As he told them to stand firm in the faith even in the face of persecution by the mightiest empire the world had ever known, someone was bound to ask why, to demand to know what could possibly be worth the suffering they would voluntarily endure.

John recognized that the gospel we preach does not deny that tears are in store for those who believe. However, something of great significance lies beyond those tears, something to which it is well worth giving our very lives. Jesus may, in calling us, bid us come and die, but not senselessly, like sheep led to the slaughter. A profound aspect of John’s vision is that there is a purpose to be found in human suffering. It is a purpose spoken in our reading for today in poetic and metaphorical terms, for that is how the profoundest truths are often expressed.

John’s vision was of a multitude – uncountable – like the innumerable descendants God promised to Abraham; people from every nation, every tribe, every tongue. Not a single person in this great thronging fellowship of the saved was to be ruled out of this picture of what is to be because of color, nationality, language, or custom. Paul, writing to the Hebrews, put it a bit differently. He said, “We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.” A witness is someone who watches, among other things. Inasmuch as we are amid a great cloud of witnesses, we are watched-over. To be watched over means no one is overlooked, no one left out of the lineup because they are too short, too tall, can’t play shortstop or hit a basket from the free throw line. In heaven, at the center of the life of God, “we are watched and watched over forever, but never overlooked.”

A friend of mine, preaching on this passage, once invited listeners to ask an obvious question of a reading that speaks of an uncountable multitude of people standing before the throne in heaven. Who are these people? He invited us to consider another – related – question. “Which of the following names should appear in the membership directory of a Presbyterian church? Abdul, Dubois, Goldberg, Gronowski, Johnson, Juarez, Sun Yung Kim, McDowell, Konomoto, Monteverdi, Martinez, Nielsen, Kouvalong, Phoumy, Phan Hoa Quoc, Rashad, Schmidt, Thorensen, Ying, Yellowbird.”

A heavenly party the size of which John envisioned, has to include many people beyond the limited vision of the church that we may have had. To those who pray for the coming of God’s kingdom so that the evil of others may be avenged, God seems to answer, saying, “Wait a while longer; you may be surprised to discover who else belongs to me.”

What a marvelous way of saying that you belong here. The good news of the gospel is for you... and you, and you, and for me. No one is excluded. If we’ve lived a life of being left out, left over, left alone, we can reach into John’s vision and see that God’s kingdom is the place where that is no longer the case. You belong. We belong – all of us.

This whole company of the elect were standing, in John’s vision, in white robes –which is what triumphant Roman generals wore when celebrating their victories. Imagine how such a vision would strike a runaway slave waiting to be executed for his faith. Beyond all the suffering lies the tremendous victory such as all the generals of all the armies that ever marched have never known.

In John’s vision, the whole company was singing. We may never have thought of the singing of hymns as such a revolutionary activity. But imagine the power of such a vision of triumphant singing for a church that had to post a guard at the door of every meeting to be certain they were not discovered. The vision of a singing throng would have sounded like – well, like heaven itself. Expression of praise, free and full. It should make us ashamed for any pale and lifeless singing that takes place in God’s house.

The multitude of John’s vision were beyond tears at last, were enjoying the ultimate glory, having doggedly persisted and outlasted their tears. William Barclay says that for many, this final verse is the passage for which the whole of the Revelation of John exists: “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” There are no tears in our world which God does not see; no sorrowing hearts to which his compassion does not reach out. What John promised here for those who could persevere through the great persecutions of his time, is the final fulfillment of the hunger and thirst of the human soul.

It is often not popular to speak much of eternity as a reason motivating our actions in this life. If we mention it we are bound to be told that such future promises minimize the extent of worldly suffering in the present. But the opposite is true for John. His vision of a blessed eternity takes most seriously the suffering of this world in a way that is impossible for those who have no hope of eternity. We need the illumination of eternity if we are to have faith for living life in a land of many tears. The vision of a tearless land is both hope for the future and the beginning of the end of our present tear-filled landscape – a tearless future means we can no longer be satisfied with the world as it is. Seeing the secure reign of God makes temporary all our sorrow and puts it in the perspective of a Time greater than the little time we can know. Just as a child’s tears, put in the perspective of an adult’s view of time, are wiped away.

This is God’s profound promise to us. That what we must suffer in this life – if suffer we must – is one day to be seen in a whole new way; that the purpose of this life will become increasingly clear to us, and God will wipe away our tears to set us free for praise.

Copyright © 2010 Robert J. Elder, all rights reserved

It’s Not About Me?

It’s Not About Me?

© copyright 2010 Robert J. Elder, Pastor
Third Sunday of Easter: April 18, 2010

Romans 14:7-9

We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.
If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord;
so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.
For to this end Christ died and lived again,
so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living. NRSV

Three verses of scripture as the entire Bible reading for the day: this might seem odd. It might seem odd to us – in this day of the churches’ broad attachment across denominational lines to lectionary preaching – to schedule a sermon on such a very small section of a letter from the Bible, and from only one of the four passages which lectionaries offer for the day, one each from the Old Testament, Psalms, Gospels, and Letters.

Yet there have been times in the history of preaching ministry when scripture was expounded in sermons verse by verse, and even word by word. I remember worship services in my childhood during which the preacher took a whole sermon to work through one verse, or sometimes a single word in a verse.

While today’s Epistle (or Letter) reading is comprised of only 3 verses, it contains what some teachers of preaching have called “verbal hand grenades, ” words so high in their impact value that if we hear them right, they might just stop us in our tracks by their concussive effect.

One such explosive handful of words is here in Romans 14:7, the very first verse of our short reading, indeed, the very first phrase of the very first verse:

We do not live to ourselves

Think about these six words for a moment (only five words in Paul’s Greek).

In a world where there are hundreds of automobile brands and styles to choose from – not to mention the number of brands of tires or fuels for them; hundreds of breakfast cereals; dozens upon dozens of pain killers in pill form, gel caps, liquid, or tablet; walls filled with televisions of every conceivable type in every discount store ... you can add to this list ... couldn’t it more accurately be said that “we live almost entirely to ourselves” and our own personal choices about everything from underwear to frozen foods? Hasn’t personal choice become something of an idol of our age? And of course, even dying has about it aspects of personal choice. “What would father have wanted?” families ask themselves when choosing cremation or in-ground burial, pine box or enameled casket, simple grave or extravagant tomb ... as if, even after death, loved ones might be thought to continue to worship at the feet of the idol of personal choice in all matters. “You should be able to have the bridesmaids stand where you want them, it’s your wedding,” says the maid of honor in the middle of the pastor’s harried attempts to organize the choreography of wedding attendants at the rehearsal. “I have told the worship committee several times that all the flowers in the church should be no taller than 24 inches, and still nothing has been done about it!” says the liturgical critic, fully expecting that his word should result in instant action to satisfy his solitary, and hopelessly futile demand.

“We do not live to ourselves.” In order to see how radical Paul’s simple words are in our culture today, stand them alongside common – and popular – cultural fascinations such as, for instance, so-called “reality” shows. I am no expert on these shows, I have tuned in to some a few times but confess they are not my cup of tea. Yet I am clearly in the minority in this. The genre includes shows like – and I’ll see if I can do this in one breath – “Survivor,” “The Amazing Race,” “American Idol,” “America’s Next Top Model,” Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice,” “The Bachelor,” “Wife Swap,” “Laguna Beach,” “The Biggest Loser,” “Extreme Makeover,” “Beauty and the Geek,” and my favorite name, because of its sheer presumption: MTV’s “The Real World.” There are lots more, these are just some I have heard of or read about. A quick internet search yields over 300 such shows when each season of each one is counted separately. They just keep multiplying, and there can only be one reason, it is because people tune in by the millions to watch them.

One of my preaching friends declared in a sermon once, several years ago now, that he thought what we have come to call reality television would peak soon; yet now, about 5 years later, his follow-up observation remains pertinent: “Peak is the wrong word. Hit bottom is more like it.”[1] When I was in Italy a couple of summers ago, I discovered an Italian version of one of these programs on my hotel room television, and noted in the couple of minutes that I watched that their program had most of the familiar ingredients that are present in virtually all of these shows in the USA: some young, exceptionally attractive twenty-somethings (occasionally, there may be an “older” person as ancient as 34 or 35 in the group), voluntarily join in some kind of living space or quasi-athletic activity, and agree before the cameras start rolling, to allow every single moment of their waking and sleeping and eating and dressing and relating – especially the relating – with others to be taped and broadcast to the wide world. And it generally isn’t very long before the hoped-for conflicts and arguments and romantic liaisons and outright combat emerge among the participants.

Once, when I was visiting one of my daughters, MTV’s “The Real World” came on. This “real world” group was holed up in a huge, completely tricked-out, beautiful apartment with numerous bedrooms, an immense living area with entertainment systems to die for, a huge kitchen, money to burn on evening outings together – by now I was thinking to myself, whatever else this may be, it is clearly not the “real world,” – I remember hearing, in about a ten minute period before I couldn’t take it any more, the beginnings of arguments over “my space,” “my laundry,” “where’s my soda?” “I can’t sleep because you keep the TV on half the night,” “she is just a spoiled so-and-so,” “he is a two-timing blankety-blank blank.” You get the picture, if you haven’t gotten it already.

The commonplace conclusion, which anyone who is half-awake during one of these programs could make, is that people are, by nature, often selfish, immature, ruthless, tiresome, even wicked, but especially selfish. This would not have been news to Paul as he set about writing his lengthy letter to the Christians in Rome. He had experienced the fact that life together in community for Christians in Ephesus, Corinth, Philippi, Thessalonica, and other places was anything but a bed of roses, and had seen enough to surmise that life together for Christians in Rome might not be all that different. As a rule, human beings do long for community, but – to put an opposite spin on Paul’s words – our seemingly innate desire to “live to ourselves” stands as the single most difficult obstacle to life in community together. Televised spats on shows such as “The Real World” demonstrate that the natural human willingness to forgive and forbear one another pales in comparison to our drive to put self first: my tastes, my opinions, my moralizing, my ego, so that commitment to the community, rather than a search for “what’s in it for me?” fails to characterize human community more often than not. And, sadly, down through the centuries “living to ourselves” has often characterized life in the church as well.

My friend Michael Lindvall, who preaches at Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City, once wrote in one of his published short stories, “Life together is hard. There are no perfect husbands, no perfect wives, no perfect children, no perfect mothers-in-law. Life in family – life in any community is both our sorest test and our sweetest joy... the only thing harder than getting along with other people is getting along without them...”[2]

So what was Paul’s prescription for this state of affairs? What were the doctor’s orders to cure this common ailment among communities of faith?

We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves.
If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord;
so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

The answer, the apostle’s prescription, so simple to state and clearly so difficult to live, is that we do not belong to ourselves, though we most often live as though we do. We live, not to ourselves, but to the Lord to whom we belong. It’s a shame that catechisms have fallen out of favor as tools for teaching and building faith in recent decades, for if we recalled the ancient catechism first inspired by Martin Luther, we would remember this all-important very first question and answer:

Q. 1. What is your only comfort, in life and in death?
A. That I belong–body and soul, in life and in death–not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who at the cost of his own blood has fully paid for all my sins and has completely freed me from the dominion of the devil; that he protects me so well that without the will of my Father in heaven not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, that everything must fit his purpose for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit, he also assures me of eternal life, and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.[3]

When we are in Christ, our calling is not a life lived “to ourselves,” as Paul puts it, but “to the Lord.” “According to the Scriptures ... at one crucial point, there is no distinction between life and death. Living or dying, living and dying, we belong to the Lord; there is no difference about that whatever our state.”[4]

Now this may be the hardest part of these three short verses: “If we die, we die to the Lord.” As often as we may speak with hope and even longing of Christ as the source of our eternal salvation, few of us are in any hurry to experience that eternal portion. For the most part, we limit our view to Christ as Lord of life, and think as seldom as possible about Christ as Lord of death. But here, Paul places it right on the middle of the table, in full view of everyone of us as we scurry about our daily lives as though this life we know will just go on forever.

It’s no fun to dwell on this. Preachers who talk about the glories of life under Christ are always many percentage points more popular than those who speak of Christ as Lord of death. But the reality, as Paul puts it, is that Christ must be Lord of the one to be Lord of the other. And so he goes on to say, in the final verse of our tiny passage,

For to this end Christ died and lived again,
so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

That word “end” is tricky, but it is more akin to words like purpose, or objective, than to “finish.” As in “He wanted to be an ornithologist, and to that end, he spent seven years in graduate study...” To this end... to the purpose of saving us in ways we could never possibly save ourselves, even save us from ourselves, to this end Christ died and lived again.

Our best and only hope in this world and the next is that we live and die to the Lord, we throw ourselves on the mercy of God in Christ in our living as well as our dying as we join with others in humility in our fellowship together, like a beleaguered ship full of sailors for whom the only hope is the Lord who calms the sea for them and leads them safely home.

Copyright © 2010 Robert J. Elder, all rights reserved
Sermons are made available in print and online for readers only.
Any further publication or use of sermons must be with written permission of the author.
Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989,
Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America.
Used by permission. All rights reserved

____________________________________________________________
[1] “The Real Real World,” by Michael Lindvall, preached at Brick Presbyterian Church, New York City, 9-11-05.
[2] Ibid.
[3] The Heidelberg Catechism, 1563-1963. 400th Anniversary Edition, © 1962, United Church Press.
[4] “We Are the Lord’s,” by Patrick D. Miller, in The Princeton Seminary Bulletin, Vol. XXIV, #2, New series 2003.