Text: Revelation 21:22-22:5 / 6th Sunday in Easter, Year C
It seems a bit ironic that the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) was held in Houston this week. This is, after all, a week of terrific strain on that industry as they struggle to bring under control the environmental disaster unfolding in the Gulf off the Louisiana coast. You didn't want to be driving around Reliant Stadium this week as 135,000 or so OTC participants crowded the streets, parking lots, hotels and restaurants from Galveston to the Woodlands.
The massive, and so far unstopped, oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is an environmental and economic disaster with consequences that could last for decades. That's the conclusion of biologists and earth scientists as they consider the likely effect of the growing oil slick that is moving into the coastal wetlands and onto the beaches of the states along the Gulf.
Engineers from oil company BP are scrambling to find a way to contain oil gushing from a well on the seafloor of the Gulf of Mexico. BP has met problems with a containment box it tried to lower over the blown-out well in order to funnel the leaking oil to the surface. Oil has been spilling into the Gulf at the rate of 210,000 gallons a day since a drilling rig exploded on 20 April. Balls of tar have begun washing up on a section of beach in Alabama.
We humans like to think we are in control of our environment. However, there is a certain volcano in Iceland and now a certain oil spill on the Gulf Coast that remind us that we are NOT in control of our environment. How will we respond to our lack of control?
Professor David Buttrick tells the story about the African American woman deep in the bayous of Louisiana who had raised over a dozen children, most of them adopted and foster children. When a newspaper reporter asked her why she had done this, she replied, "I saw a new world a' comin."
She saw a new world a'comin'. What do we see? Of course, we all see the things that are obvious, like the beautiful stained glass windows in this church. But can we see the unseen things? Can we see a new world a' comin'? Can we see beyond the walls of this building, to the world outside?
"There is a church in the Northeast with a stained-glass window problem. High above the chancel, set in glass, is a picture of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, dipping out of clouds toward the earth. Some of the church members want to tear the window down: 'it is,' they claim, 'too otherworldly.' Well, perhaps they're right. After all, with terrorism and the soaring price of gasoline, we've enough on our hands without hankering after some make-believe town in the sky. Perhaps like the stained-glass window, we should dump the book of Revelation and stick to the here and now. Yet, there's something about the vision that grips us: 'And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down...from God...And I heard a loud voice ... saying ..., "Death will be nor more; mourning and crying and pain will be nor more."' What a wonderful vision...
A wonderful vision! The vision speaks to our deepest longings. Is there anyone here would not wish an end to death and pain and crying? For we live in a world where pain is fact, where salty tears stream down every cheek, where the mortality rate stills runs at 100 percent. Yet, we can't help dreaming, dreaming of a day when everything will be right and bright and good and glad: "A new heaven and a new earth," that's the picture.
Of course, there's more to the picture than mere escape from personal pain; Revelation envisions a world at peace. For the Holy City has many gates, and the gates stand open day and night. And through the gates shall stream kings and conquerors, nations and races, all joining together as children of God. Do you know the American primitive painting entitled The Peaceable Kingdom? It shows a lion lying down with a lamb, a barnyard cow and a grizzly bear nuzzling each other, while in among the animals children laugh and play. The picture's a little romantic for our tastes. Apparently the artist had never heard of Al Queda or torture prisons. Perhaps the lion and the lamb will declare a truce, but what about the Middle East? The fact is we live in a world of power politics, not in zoological society! So at least the Bible is realistic; the Bible knows there can be no peace until national power—including American power—bows down before the throne of God. Then, and only then, will we see a new heaven and a new earth and a many-gated city of God.
Is Christian faith a mirage, that will never come? If so, then like the stained-glass window, let's tear it down, and settle for the hard reality of here and now.
Yet, we can't. Dimly we know that human beings cannot live without hope. Hope makes human life possible. If life is nothing more than a prison cell in which we twitch and squirm until an unseen executioner arrives, then what's the use? Struggle is senseless, striving vain. Without hope we are absolutely paralyzed. Albrect Durer has a famous woodcut. He pictures a woman sitting dejectedly on dry ground. in the distance is a city waiting to be built, and beside her is a box of tools for building, but she doesn't move. She has no hope. Without hope, nothing is possible, and therefore, nothing attempted. Maybe that's what happened to us in America. We dreamed an American dream. But then there were two World Wars, plus Korea, Vietnam, and Watergate. Now have we lost all hope of changing the world? Listen, without hope nations do perish. So do people. We cannot live without hope.
Of course, it all depends on what hope you have, on what kind of vision you cherish. The trouble with most of us at the beginning of the 21st century is that our hopes have turned to dust. The Communist dream of a proletarian state and the American dream of a technological messiah, both have foundered on the hard fact of human nature. For what's the use of a utopian dream if we're stuck with the same old men and women? Unless we can be changed we'll dream a Holy City but end with death and pain and a warring of nations, everytime. "A new heaven and a new earth"? My God! What we need is nothing less than a whole new human race.
Well, now do you see why the Holy City must come down from God? The city must come from God because we can't build it on our own. And do you understand why the book of Revelation hears a great voice from heaven shouting, "See, I make all things new!"? Left to ourselves all we can do is remake the old, trade in the stone ax for the B-2 bomber (Whatever good that will do!). Left to our own devices we'll dream a Holy City and build Babel every time. But, "See," cries the voice of God, "I make things new!" Well, God better, because we can't. God must shape a new heart for loving a new will for living, and a whole new humankind. A new people of God; that's what the Bible promises. What's more, now after Easter, we know what God can do. The resurrection means nothing less than God has power to overcome old chaos and dying, mass evil and humanity's impossible cruel streak, and to make something new—a risen Christ and a new humanity. Listen, the Easter message is not simply news of personal survival. Easter is God's shout down through history, "See, I am making all things new."
Now, do you want to know a secret? Making new: that's what's going on in the world; that's what's happening. The Holy City is not future perfect, it's present tense. (Check out the Greek verbs in the text!) Now the Holy City is descending. Now God is making things new. Right now God is wiping tears and easing pain and overcoming the power of death in the world. Now! There's nothing otherworldly about the vision; it's happening now in the midst of our worn, torn, broken world. And, with eyes of faith, you can see it happening.
What about the church with the stained-glass window problem? "Too otherworldly," the people complained. Well, they decided to keep the window after all. For they discovered that through the years the glass had faded so that through the golden image of the new Jerusalem they could see the towers of their own town; one city seen through the vision of another. We are meant to live in the world with a vision of God's promises, judging injustice with hard truth, but taking hope where hope is sure, and trusting the power of God that raised up Jesus. See, our God is making things new! The vision of the new Jerusalem, that Holy City, is our guiding light. Let's march on—toward the guiding light--until the time comes when God makes all things new and there is no more night.
Let us pray ...
O God, we pray for the Gulf Coast, that the oil spill won't devastate a people and a region already devastated by so much. Grant your comfort to the families of those 11 lost at sea. Help us to protect this earth of yours. Teach us how to live in a world that we can not control. Give us hope for the new heaven and new earth that You envision. Help us to bring it about in our own small ways each and every day. In Jesus' name. Amen
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Dr. Jon Burnham preached this sermon at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Houston on May 9, 2010.
