"Revelation: Un/Veiled"

Revelation 19:1-19

Sunday, May 31, 2015  

First Congregational United Church of Christ – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

When I am riding my bicycle home from work, I often ride up Manhattan Avenue and a memory comes back to me. It was a hot August day and I had just moved into my room in Moore Hall the day before. I was about to begin my first year of college and I was on top of the world. I was out and about, navigating the world, no parents, no worries. I felt pretty great about myself. In fact, I had just done something very grown up. I rode my bike from Moore Hall down to Aggieville to pick up a few schools supplies at Varneys.

And as I rode my bike back to my new home, something a little strange happened on Manhattan Avenue. I was very close to Petticoat Lane, riding on the sidewalk on the West side of the street. Riding along, riding along and suddenly……EEEERCH. Bam! I fell over on my side. Scraped my knee. Wounded my pride.

Did you know that your shoelace can get caught around your gears when you’re on a bike? Yeah, neither did I. Some lessons you have to learn the hard way, I guess. Since that day, I have always checked my shoelaces before getting on my bike.

Falling off your bike hurts. But there is one good thing about it: it keeps you humble. Right when you’re feeling all grown up, like you’ve got things figured out, you can be humbled by a simple shoelace.

Now I promised you a sermon (four, in fact!) on Revelation. Not shoelaces and skinned knees. So let’s dig in to this crazy book at the very end of our Bibles. I promise I’ll bring back the point about bicycles and exercises in humility before we’re done.

If I were to go around the room and ask every single person their favorite book in the Bible, I’d venture to guess that none of us in the room would choose John’s Revelation. I could be wrong. Maybe it’s wildly popular among us, but I kind of doubt it.

Because this book is Problematic with a capital P. Before we can even begin to delve into it, I think we have to at least name some of the things that keep us away from it.

First, it’s scary. I can remember gathering up courage and peeking at a few paragraphs here or there as a child….and then slamming my Bible shut. Back then, I thought the Book of Revelation was some kind of magical book, akin to a Magic 8 Ball, maybe, and that if I read it too often, the horrors in it would come to pass. I was really terrified by this book as a child. For anyone who thinks of this book as a prediction about the future, it’s horrifying. I mean, even though God wins in the end, a lot of scary stuff happens before we get to that point.

Fortunately, Revelation was never meant to be a prediction or even prophecy. Instead, it’s a odd and unique type of literature called apocalyptic.

That’s why you’ll sometimes hear it refer to as the Apocalypse of John or John’s Apocalypse. Apocalypse means revelation. Or it’s sometimes translated as “unveiling.” Which is strange, because apocalyptic literature often obscures more than it reveals. John’s not the only Biblical author who uses apocalyptic, of course. You may have noticed we heard another brief bit of it from Mark’s Gospel earlier this morning.

Apocalyptic is about a particular time and place and it’s essentially a coded way of speaking to an oppressed group of people about their oppressors and God’s ultimate power over them. Believe it or not, it’s meant to be a love song of hope. Through very carefully crafted symbols and coded speech, the authors of apocalyptic unveil a parallel universe – unseen by the average person – where God is in control and working diligently to dismantle forces of evil. It’s meant to be uplifting, not scary.

Of course, the fear factor isn’t the only problem with this book. Many of us stay away from it because we just can’t identify our God with some of these images. There’s a lot of blood, violence, and some horrible misogyny for added fun.

Anyone know the hymn “Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?” We don’t sing that one around here. I don’t think that being dunked in lamb’s blood is very appealing to most people in our cultural context. But those kinds of bloody images are all over the place in Revelation. John’s God is angry, violent, filled with wrath. If you think God in the story of the 10 Plagues in Egypt is bad, just wait until you see how God acts in this book. It’s pretty appalling.

Even without these problems though – even if John’s Apocalypse wasn’t terrifying and pointing to a violent God – there’s yet another issue that is particularly problematic for me. And that’s this: in this book John reveals a God who is supremely powerful. Omnipotent, in fact. We hear the language from today’s reading echoed centuries later in the text that Handel set to music – “King of Kings! And Lord of Lords!”

I have no problem with thinking of God as our ruler. I’m down with that. I have no issues pledging allegiance to God as my ultimate source, my ruler, my guide, my sovereign.

My discomfort comes from this particular vision of a Ruler who is all-powerful, all-mighty- totally omnipotent. Even the best rulers have their limits, you know? And when I look around this world and see how incredibly messed up things can often become, I find that I feel like I need to choose between a loving God who is unable to control everything and an all-powerful God who allows terrible things to happen. A God who weeps with us when evil and pain interfere verses a big, mean, uber-powerful God who controls the entire universe.

I long ago chose a God of love whose power is limited. And that’s a difficult version of God to reconcile the one John unveils in this book.

I’m doing a great job convincing you that you want to hear a four-week sermon series on this book, aren’t I?

Here’s the thing about Revelation, though. And this was the discovery that made me feel like I could dip my toe in, or maybe even wade back into these pages looking for something worthwhile. Ready?

Revelation wasn’t written to us. Now, that you may have already gathered if you’ve read the first chapter. The author, John (by the way, we don’t know much else about him except he was likely a Jewish-Christian who was living in the Diaspora – that is, outside of Israel – and wrote near the end of the Roman emperor Domitian’s reign…around the 80s or early 90s of that first century of the Common Era). So John says right up front that this book is to the seven churches in Asia. It’s not written to us.

But even more than that, this was the real game-changer for me: Revelation wasn’t written for most of us in this room.

Revelation was written for a group of people who were persecuted, oppressed, given very little authority over their own lives, forced to live within the confines set by the Roman Empire. They were persecuted for their faith. They were kept in poverty. They lived with the constant threat of violence. John’s Apocalypse was written as a word of hope and possibility for people who were horribly oppressed. It wasn’t written for most of us.

It doesn’t even translate very well. I mean, you can get out the secret decoder ring with the best of the Biblical scholars and try to determine what exactly John was referring to with every word, every verse.

And if you do, the overwhelming message will be this: hold on. Help is on the way. Your God has not forgotten you or forsaken you. Your God is battling behind the scenes right now, fighting for your freedom. God has not abandoned you and God will bring you safely to freedom’s shore.

Those are words of hope and consolation for people who are embittered and embattled. And perhaps if we have the misfortune of one day finding ourselves in a state of total oppression like John’s audience experienced, we, too, will find hope in these pages. But since we don’t mostly live in that world, I don’t personally feel comfortable writing off this book entirely. It wasn’t written for most of us.

Even with all of these problems and issues – even with the difficulties in translation – there are still things about this book that compel me to its pages. In the next three weeks, we are going to explore some of those things. Next week we’ll be grappling a bit with idolatry and empire and what it means to be a person caught between two or more allegiances. On June 21^st, when we worship in the park, we’ll look at Revelation’s words of comfort for those who mourn. And on the last Sunday in June, we’ll be looking at the very end of this book – which is, of course, the very end of our entire Bible. John paints a vision of a New Heaven and a New Earth and we’ll be pondering what that might mean for us living here and now.

But for today, this is what is sticking with me about the Book of Revelation. I don’t understand it. Not well at all. Much in the same way I went from feeling totally grown up to very silly that day on Manhattan Avenue back on my first week at college. Falling off my bike keeps me humble. Reading Revelation keeps me humble.  

No matter how hard I try, I am not likely to ever really “get” Revelation or name it as one of my favorite books of the Bible. And no matter how grown up I feel or how carefully I ride, I am bound to get tangled up and fall off my bike from time to time.

It keeps me humble.

Revelation reminds me that no matter how much I seek the face of God, God is ultimately unknowable. Just when I think I’m starting to get a handle on things, something shifts and I discover I was wrong. Or confused. Or that there’s so much more there that I’ve never even seen before.

You may have noticed that today is marked Trinity Sunday in your bulletin. Talk about something that keeps us humble. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been through a whole journey when it comes to my understanding of how God, Christ, and the Spirit are related to each other….what makes them the same, what makes them different. I’ve gone through phases of my life where I felt very Trinitarian and others where I couldn’t bring myself to mention the three persons of the Trinity in one sentence because I was so put off by the idea. I have to say this for the concept of the Trinity: it keeps us humble. Whether you love it or hate it, the fact that it’s been a meaningful way for so many Christians over the centuries to understand God certainly points to a common experience of God….that God is bigger, more complex than we can fully comprehend. I do think the doctrine of the Trinity gets at that reality in some important ways. It keeps us humble.

I love what D.H. Lawrence said about the book. Lawrence said, “When we read Revelation, we feel at once there are meanings behind meanings.” I like that. Maybe part of what compels us to Revelation is precisely that we can’t understand it….because it’s too complex. There is a beauty in letting go of conquering the text and simply letting the images and profound complexity of it wash over you.

Revelation obscures more than it reveals. It shrouds more than it unveils. We feel adrift upon its pages – as if there’s no real way to find solid footing. It’s true meaning seems impossible to grasp. Like water, it slips right between our fingers.

It keeps us humble. And that’s not a bad thing.

"Get Up and Go"

Acts 8: 26-40

Sunday, May 3, 2015  

First Congregational United Church of Christ – Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

There’s a lot of action in the book of Acts. I guess it only makes sense, given that the book is called Acts, right? It is the story of the early church….book two in a two-part series by the author of the Gospel of Luke. And it’s action-packed.  

As I was studying today’s passage about Philip’s encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch on the road to Gaza, I was struck by the angel’s commandment, “Get up and go!”

“Get up and go to the south…to the road that goes from Jerusalem to Gaza.”

I thought to myself, “Boy, there’s really a lot of ‘get up and go’ in the book of Acts because right after this comes the story of Saul’s journey to Damascus.” You might remember that Saul was a total jerk. Evil, really. “Breathing threats and murders against the disciples of the Lord.” He was hauling people out of their homes and jailing them. Self-righteousness and privilege and bigotry unchecked often leads to terror. When Saul was on his journey, he was suddenly struck blind….literally “blinded by the light.” And when he was laying on the ground he encountered Jesus himself. And Jesus’s command to him was to “get up and go.” By the time this little story is over, Saul’s name is Paul and he is baptized. An unlikely convert.

That’s Chapter 9. In Chapter 10 we have two more people who are told to “get up and go” – Cornelius and Peter. They are commanded to find each other. This faithful Jew and Roman Gentile solider encounter each other. Peter shares the story of Jesus and Cornelius is baptized. An unlikely convert.

The entire story of Acts seems to be just one “get up and go” after the next. The story of Jesus is exploding faster than the early followers can manage. People everywhere are begging to encounter Christ and to be baptized. There are arguments about who can be included in this new movement….just the Jews? What about those who are God-fearers….non-Jews who participate in some of the Jewish rituals? What about straight-up Gentiles who have no connection at all to the God of Abraham? And the answer over and over is yes, yes, yes. You, too. You are invited. You can be baptized. You are included.

Perhaps none of these stories of radical inclusion are more powerful than today’s passage. When Philip gets the orders to “get up and go” he is in Jerusalem. It’s a testament to his faith that he went at all. He was having a great time in Jerusalem. Preaching the Gospel like crazy. Converting people left and right. Baptizing people by the boatload.

But when he is told to get up and go, he does just that. Did I mention that the place he is going is into the wilderness? The angel tells him to start walking to Gaza via the wilderness road. So he does. And who does he encounter but this nameless Ethiopian eunuch, sitting all alone in a chariot.

Talk about an unlikely convert. We don’t know the man’s name, but we can guess a few things about him. First, he is from Ethiopia and works closely with the Queen. He is in charge of her treasury. That’s a pretty big job. He’s traveled a long way. He would have been of a completely different ethnic group than Philip. He would have been a black African.

We also know quite a bit about eunuchs in the ancient near east. Eunuchs were men who were given important positions in the court precisely because they could be trusted around women. Female rulers and family members needed to be guarded and served, and they did not put typical men in those positions because they feared that they would take advantage of the women. So they entrusted eunuchs because eunuchs were men who were not interested in women. Now, it’s not really okay to totally conflate eunuchs with modern-day gay men. We know that some ancient texts speak of eunuchs who were “born eunuchs” (as in, not interested in women at all) and others who were “made eunuchs” (as in, castrated). We don’t know for a fact that this particular man was gay, but we do know that he would have been associated with gay men. By the way, for a more careful treatment of this, please check out the book The Children Are Free, which is in our church library. It’s one of my absolute favorite easy and short reads on what the Bible has to say about same-sex relationships. 

So Philip is walking in the wilderness and encounters the man. I like to kind of imagine this moment as if it were a social media meme. You know, the kind that’s referred to as “clickbait?” A story or video with a ridiculous headline that you just can’t resist clicking on. “He went into the wilderness and ran into a foreign, black, gay man. You won’t believe what happens next!”

Okay, we’ll click. And, truly, what happens next is almost unbelievable. Not only does Philip see the man, but he listens to him, shares the gospel with him, and blesses him with the gift of baptism.

It’s telling that this stranger is sitting in his chariot reading this sad passage from Isaiah. “In humiliation, justice was denied him.” Because we know that the man would have been turned away from the temple in Jerusalem. Eunuchs were considered unclean – not allowed to go in. So he sits here – alone, rejected. And Philip sees him. He listens to him. He shares the gospel with him. And when the man asks, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” Philip answers – not with empty words, but with action. He takes the man into the water and baptizes him on the spot.

It’s a powerful story of radical inclusion. The entire book of Acts is one story after another of the Spirit blowing in new and powerful ways, drawing the circle wide….and wider still. No one is to be left out of the story. No one can be denied God’s love and care. All belong. All are welcome.

You really just shake your head and wonder, “Have some people even read the Bible?” Those who turn away queer folks? Those who refuse to bake a wedding cake for same-sex couples or to even deliver a pizza at their wedding? Those who bully and harass and terrorize at people who are transgender? How on earth can you read the book of Acts and come to those conclusions?

And so this: how do we honor our ancestors in the faith? How do we, as people here and now heed the call to “get up and go?”

It’s easy to stay in Jerusalem where things are going well – where you’re being praised – where the party is happening. But the wilderness beckons. Because life is not a party everywhere.

In the past week, I’ve spent many hours listening to horrific stories of injustice playing out in our own nation. We’ve seen peaceful protesters gassed. We’ve seen people clubbed and beaten. We’ve seen a man standing in the street with his hands up pounced on by a whole team of police, shoved into a van. It looked like a kidnapping out of some dystopian movie.

And we’ve heard the story of a Baltimore public defender who described the scene as and her team she liberated dozens of people who had been held without any charges in tiny jail cells in Baltimore. They had been there for over 48 hours – they were never charged with any crime, they did not make phone calls, they were not given access to lawyers or even their medication, and had to take turns resting because there wasn’t room for them all to lie down.  

The wilderness road can lead us into strange places. It may feel as though we’ve stepped through the looking glass into an alternate reality that can’t possibly be right. A reality where human beings – beloved children of God – are killed simply because they committed the “crime” of running from the police. But it’s not an alternate reality. It’s the United States of America. Here. Now. Today.

What do we do as we go into the wilderness? Well, for starters, just heeding the call to “get up and go” is huge. Because vast portions of privileged people in our society seem unwilling to do even that. They bury their heads in daily living. They side-step the issues when they come up around the watercooler. They dare not speak of them at church. They change the subject – at home and on national television. Getting up and going is no small thing.

And then, once we are on the road, I think we can learn so much from our brother Philip. Do you remember what he did?

First, he saw the man (hands to eyes). He saw him. He noticed him. He encountered him as a fellow beloved child of God.

Second, he listened (hands to ears). He heard his grief and pain. He did not explain it away. He did not change the subject. He did not even offer his opinion until he was invited to do so.

Third, he shared (hands extended). After he took in the man’s stories, he shared what little he had. And what he had was a story of hope. A story of encouragement. He had the story of a God who loved the world so fully, so completely, and who cared so much for justice that this God could not stop, would not stop, until all were fully respected, cherished, and loved.

And fourth, he blessed (blessing sign). When asked for a blessing, he did not hesitate. He used his very hands as instruments of healing and grace and God’s love. With the water, he reminded the man on the road that he was loved fully, included fully, cherished fully. No questions asked.

As we walk through the wilderness that is our world right now, let us all be on the lookout for opportunities to do as our ancestor Philip did. Let us see the pain in the world. Let us listen and honor the stories of those who have had experiences different than our own. Let us share, when invited, our own words of hope. And let us actively work with our hands to bless this whole world – until the day comes when all are safe, fed, housed, educated, respected, honored, and loved.