Today is the Fourth Sunday of Easter, also called "Good Shepherd Sunday." The readings for today can be found here. You will notice that the second reading comes from John's Revelation. Two years ago, during my last Sabbatical, I spent a lot of time praying and reading and reflecting on Revelation. My theory was that it's a book the Church needs to rediscover and claim - not as a code that predicts the end of the world but as a Word of the Lord that empowers the Church for mission. The sermon I'm preaching this weekend at St. Stephen's in Pittsfield represents some of the fruit from this previous labor, and my desire to reclaim Revelation as a sacred text that speaks to this time and place.
Imagine a world where there
is incredible uncertainty about the future. Yet, even in the midst of all of
those signs of uncertainty, there also remains tremendous denial. It’s a way to
cope, of course, when the problems seem insurmountable. So there is not just
personal denial but corporate, social, political, and economic denial. The
world feels like it’s catipolting toward an inevitable disaster.
Imagine a once-mighty nation
where democratic ideals first took hold, but that now seems adrift. All that
remains is a desperate attempt to hold onto power and control. But the problems
go deeper than politics or the economy. The moral fabric of this society is
coming apart at the seams. It feels like there is no longer any sense of “right” and “wrong:” sexual immorality is
rampant, injustice seems to be the norm, and violence is so much a part of
daily life that it goes virtually unnoticed. The visionaries and prophets and
dreamers are nowhere to be found.
Imagine a Church in this
society comprised mostly of well-intentioned good folks, but who are without a
clear sense of purpose. While they may be commended for their “patient
endurance” and for some acts of charity, they have abandoned the commitment to
love boldly in the name of Jesus. They have a hard time loving even each other,
not to mention their neighbors or their enemies. They have become complacent,
asleep, and lukewarm; unsure about what if anything they can do to make a
difference even locally. They feel powerless and trapped.
With very few exceptions,
most Christians are not being persecuted for their faith. In fact the problem
is that their conformity to the world around them is so complete that there is
very little to distinguish them from their neighbors, and therefore little to
vilify or persecute. On those occasions when someone does take a stand that is
counter to the conventional wisdom, they are more apt to be harassed or
ridiculed for failing to conform to social norms and expectations than they are
to be persecuted.
The society I’m describing,
of course, is the Roman Empire in the latter days of the first century. You all
figured that out, right? (Any parallels to our own time are purely coincidental.)
Under Emperor Domitian, the Roman Empire
had become a mere shadow of the glory days of the Republic. The old days of the
Senate, and the engineering genius, and thinkers like Cicero and Virgil were
distant memories. And the Church I’m describing is located in one of the
provinces of that failing empire, Asia Minor; what we would call Turkey today. We
know something of their struggles by reading one of the most difficult books in
all the Bible to interpret. The Greek name is the Apocalypse, which means “Revelation.” Not plural. Not
“Revelations.” But the Revelation of
John, the Unveiling by John. Think of Asia Minor as something like a diocese.
Within that region, there were congregations, including Ephesus and Smyrna and
Pergamum and Thyatira and Sardis and Philadelphia and Laodicea. Together, they
are described collectively as I’ve already mentioned: as well-intentioned and patiently
enduring tough times, yet without a clear vision or commitment to making
disciples.
So the Revelation of John is a wake-up call that
paints a picture of what genuine fidelity might look like in the context of a dying
empire. Partly because of the
political context and partly because of the genre of literature it is, it’s heavily
laden with metaphorical language and symbols; a kind of “code language.”
Cracking the code, though, isn’t like translating from Morse code, as some have
supposed. The challenge isn’t about finding what the number “666” means, or the
word “Babylon” means as if those had one-to-one correlations in a distant
future. Seeing and hearing this message has more to do with where we stand. It’s
about getting ourselves into the right place to see with John what he saw with
such clarity from the Island of Patmos.
In fact, there is a lot of talk
in this book about “seeing” and “hearing” and at least in this way it very much
echoes the ministry of Jesus. Those who wish to understand need “eyes to see”
and “ears to hear.” Jesus said. What is required is discernment. I think of
that unforgettable scene in “The Dead Poet’s Society,” when the teacher played
by Robin Williams has his students stand on desks to challenge their
perspectives. Remember? He is inviting and cajoling them to take notice of the
world from another angle. It’d be like me coming in here today and encouraging
all of you as you enter into this time of transition and discernment to switch
up your seats and move to a new pew for a season. Scary, huh?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer exhorted
the Church in his day (which was during the rise of Naziism in Germany –
another hard time to be the Church) to “be
communities able to hear the Apocalypse.” Bonhoeffer suggested that the way
to do that is to stand with those who suffer violence and injustice. The
problem is that in spite of Jesus’ ministry to the poor and outcast, the Church
throughout its history has been prone to forget that part of the gospel. I’m
not talking about acts of charity here, although those are important. I’m
talking about trying to see the world from the downside up. Hanging out with
the people who attend Cathedral here in Pittsfield and talking about the
economy and healthcare from their perspective.
Visionaries need to stand on
the peripheries. When we risk standing with those who suffer violence and
injustice, we begin to see and hear things we would otherwise not be able to see
or hear from our normal places of privilege and comfort. I think about
Alexander Solzhenitsyn in the gulags of the former Soviet Union. I think about Rosa
Parks sitting in the back of all those buses for all those years until finally
one day she said “enough already.” The seer who writes the Apocalypse stands in
such a place, at the periphery of the failing empire, on a tiny little island
in the Aegean Sea, off the coast of Asia Minor called Patmos. He writes as a
Christian who dreams of a Church where Easter faith is practiced on a daily
basis, a Church where people dream big again. When John thinks back to the
fifties it’s not like us – it’s not about full Sunday Schools during the
post-war boom in population. When John thinks of the fifties he is remembering
the missionary vitality of a Church on the move, of new church plants in towns
like Corinth and Ephesus and Philipi and even the heart of the empire itself:
Rome. He imagines a Church where hope is in the air and where members strive
for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being. A Church
that knows what it means to take up their cross to follow Jesus.
John offers strange
images—images made even stranger in the intervening 2000 years since they were
first written down. But what he sees and then describes for his readers in the
seventh chapter of this Apocalypse remains fresh even to this day, and I
believe it still has power to heal and to transform and to invigorate the
Church for mission. If we dare to look, and to listen, we too might be prodded
and jarred from complacency. He sees a great multitude, which no one could count.
That in itself is a word of hope to beleagured congregations in every age; congregations
which may feel burned out and worn out and perhaps isolated, or feel that they
must do it all. In that “great multitude”
of disciples, that no one could count!—there is much to ponder, for it is a
reminder that we are not alone and that we are a part of something here and now
that is much bigger than we realize. I must tell you it is perhaps the greatest
gift of diocesan ministry for me because I can picture those gathered even now
not just in these pews, but in Williamstown and Sheffield, and headed east to
Greenfield and Southwick and Fitchburg and Westborough. On any given Sunday,
across this diocese, we may still be a small denomination. But there are more
of us gathered to break the bread and share the cup even in this small
denomination than we sometimes realize.
In John’s vision, they don’t
all look alike. They come from every
nation, from all tribes and peoples and they speak many languages. It is
the Lamb at the center that defines who they are; not their nation-states or
their flags, nor their creeds nor their denominations. Not their socio-economic
class nor skin-color nor sexual orientation. It is this Lamb who unites this
pluralistic community into One Body singing one song: “Salvation belongs to our
God and to the Lamb!” It is He who matters, above all else, for it is he whom
these saints worship day and night.
The promise remembered is the promise foretold. And it still has the power to enliven the Church for
mission. In a world where children go to bed hungry in this richest nation in
the world, the seer imagines no more hunger. In a world of gun violence the
seer imagines no more tears. In a world where the water in Flint, Michigan is
not potable, the seer imagines no more thirst. No more hunger. No more tears.
The Church is called to work from the nightmare that is, for so many, toward
the dream God has for this world. The Church is called to do justice, and love
mercy and walk humbly with God. That begins by learning to not be afraid.
This fourth Sunday of Easter
is sometimes called “Good Shepherd Sunday.” That’s the theme for the day:
- Today’s opening collect that reminded us that Jesus is the Good Shepherd who calls us each by name;
- The 23rd Psalm which is almost certainly the most widely known of all the psalms even among those who know little else from the Bible—describing a shepherd whom we can rely on.
- The gospel reading from the fourth gospel that reiterates how the sheep hear their shepherd’s voice, calling them by name.
But it’s this strange text
from this even stranger Apocalypse
that draws me into the meaning of this day even more than all the rest, and
captures my imagination and I hope yours, too. It stands as a bold reminder to
the Church in every age that no matter how tired or weak or confused we may
feel in a world that seems as if it’s gone stark raving mad, we must not lose
hope. That hope is always directed to us as persons, to each by name. But it’s
all about us. We are part of a much larger whole, part of Christ’s Body through
the Sacrament of Holy Baptism.
By keeping our eyes open, and
focusing on the Good Shepherd—by listening for his voice amid all of the noise
of the world—and by being willing to change our point-of-view from that of the
dominant culture around us by standing with the most vulnerable on the fringes
of society, we have a chance to become the kind of communities that are able
“to hear the Apocalypse.”
And in our hearing, there is
always the chance that we may actually become doers of the Word we hear.
Followers of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who calls us still, by name. May we
proclaim with our lives what we profess with our lips, as we become agents of
reconciliation and instruments of peace who share even now in the work of
feeding the hungry, and wiping away the tears of all who mourn, and of becoming
the beloved community, for Christ’s sake.
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