Revelation 21: 1-6
April 24, 2016
Sojourners Church UCC

Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life. It just seems like the right way to begin today’s sermon.

When I was in college I was, like many students, in need of some hope when I happened to meet the college chaplain. I stumbled into her office one day because I was looking for some assistance in starting a bereavement group for students who had experienced a death in the family. I had been buoyed by such groups in the past and wanted to pass on that support.

When I told her my idea the chaplain, the Rev. Janet Cooper-Nelson said, (this is a direct quote) “I’ve been waiting for you to come!”  Together, we crafted a vision for a group that could give sacred space for students from all walks of life who needed some room in their lives for grief.

The group of about 7 students became, perhaps unsurprisingly, very tight-knit by the end of my senior year. One student confessed later that he would have dropped out of school were it not for our group. For me, it had given my time in college meaning, purpose and infused it with hope.

I do not believe I am blessed with the gift of social organization, but I have, on occasion, been given the gift of a vision of what can be and been blessed enough to be surrounded by people who understand the vision as well as how to make it a reality.

For certainly, before we can make any changes in our lives or in the world, we have to first have the dream. We have to have a vision of what can be, before we can start out on the path that will get us there.

The book of revelation is just such a vision. If I am honest, I have always avoided the Book of Revelation when it comes up in the lectionary readings as it did for today, on the 5th Sunday of Easter and our Earth Day celebration. I bought into the bad theology that twisted John’s words into ones of anger instead of the call to change and the incredible vision of hope for what is possible, that it was intended to be. And, in buying into what the Book of Revelation is not, I gave up on it altogether.  But perhaps, even the Book of Revelation deserves to be resurrected for us all this Easter.

Anyone alive in the United States during the 90’s can’t forget, even if they wish, the phenomenon of the Left Behind book series that turned Jesus’ message of love and John’s vision of hope into a strange and fear instilling threat. But to remove the book of Revelation from its context and to misunderstand the very definition of “prophecy,” as those books (and their corresponding theology) did is, at best, like hearing a sound bite of conversation as you pass people talking on the street and assuming you know what the rest of the conversation was about. At worst, goes beyond poor theology to something like heretical and twisted ideology.

For centuries, John’s letter of Revelation sat, fully understood in its context as a book of prophecy in the tradition of Isaiah and Daniel– that is to say, not a book that provides any kind of future road map, but a book that urges its readers to remain hopeful and to transform the world around them with that hope. Sadly, less than 200 years ago, a Scottish writer began a very Jeffersonian biblical pursuit of seeing whatever he wanted in the bible and came up with a bizarre storyline that captured modern Americans’ imaginations.  

While the pericope we hear from John’s letter today practically sparkles with vision, the chapters before that, which we did not hear today, but that you may be familiar with anyhow, can sound bizarre and might be seen down-right war-mongering if heard with the ears of someone who does not know the conversation in which it took place. Most scholars agree that the John who wrote this letter was writing to Christian communities in peril. He was writing to people who were being persecuted for their faith. People who were experiencing trauma, exile, violence, and hatred. People who were in desperate need of a vision of hope.

John gives them such a vision in this revelation. He wrote to these communities to tell them that the realities they were experiencing, were not the whole story. In a way, the purpose of his revelation is to place the very lives and struggles of his reader into a greater context. John puts their losses, their refugee status, in the context of a world where struggles and grief are not the end of the story. He places them into a context where God is the beginning and the end.  His readers were awaiting the any-moment return of Jesus and in response to their frustration, John pulls back the curtain, so to speak, to reveal a bigger picture than their pain. He pulls back the curtain to show them the beautiful revelation of God’s kingdom of heaven– not removed and far away, but right here, right now. There is reason to hope.

Because here’s the thing: prophecy is not meant to be a peak into the ether of the future or a crystal ball.  Prophets such as John are less Miss Cleo sitting at her table waiting for your call, and more Rev. Martin Luther King Jr sharing his dream of what our world can look like. A true prophet is someone who holds up a mirror to a person or a community to show them the truth of right now, and the possibilities (both good and bad) of what may come.

Certainly, on Earth Day, we must consider the visions of the future given to us from scientific and ecological communities. They warn us of the bleakest possibilities. It is hard to read the newspaper without being constantly reminded of the implications for continuing to ignore these prophets. But as with any good prophecy, we are not showed a dismal future and told to give in and walk away. Instead, we are urged into action, we are called to change ourselves and our communities because we have taken that hard look in the mirror. We are called to not turn our faces away in fear, but to begin to walk a path towards a healthier more peaceful relationship with our earth.

The other huge misunderstanding that I have always brought to bear on my understanding of the Book of Revelation, is the mistake in thinking that the vision of heaven that John tells us about today, is about some heaven that is far away from here that we will never know anything about in our earthly shells.

But consider John’s words about a new heaven and a new earth. In John’s vision of hope, heaven is not removed but rather comes down to earth. John is not speaking of a mysterious next life that we will find some day after we have abandoned the here and now. John is urging his readers to hope for God with us, Emmanuel. John is urging his readers to not give up, to work to bring about God’s kingdom of love, peace and justice here on earth. Now that’s a prophecy.

The Good News that John shares with us today is that there is reason to hope.  There is hope because there we have a vision of a bigger picture, and there is hope because we are called to change and transformation.

Where do you need a revelation of hope? Where in your experience, or in your community needs to be nourished with a vision of God’s water of life?

Centuries ago, Martin Luther wrote “if I knew the world were going to end tomorrow, I would plant a tree.” With these words Luther makes clear that he would, in the words of my colleague Barbara Rossing “continue to live even more deeply rooted in the confidence of God’s love for the world,” and I would say, continue to work with God on building God’s kingdom of peace here on earth.

We can continue the hard work of loving the earth, of working for justice and peace because we are called to a vision of God’s love where God wipes tears from every eye, where God nourishes us all with the waters of life. We can continue the work because the John shows us that truth of God’s love is bigger than our pain, than our lives, than the headlines, than the realities we are fed.

May this moment be a mirror for all of us.  May this be our revelation that the vision of God’s kingdom is at hand. May John’s vision of hope lift our hearts that we may work to plant our own seeds of hope wherever we go. Amen.