IT’S A RELAY
AUGUST 19, 2007/PROPER 15C
HEBREWS 11:29-12:2
FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH, MELBOURNE, FL
Years ago, TV personality Dick Cavett interviewed rock and roll legend Jimi
Hendrix, and in the course of the interview Cavett asked, “Do you consider
yourself a disciplined guy? Do you get up every day and go to work?”
Hendrix replied, “Well, yeah, I try to get up every day.” That’s probably a kind
of disciplined life most of us could aspire to pursue without too much trouble.
“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster that
the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows
it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter
whether you are a lion or a gazelle; when the sun comes up, you’d better be
running.”
I am not a runner. The last time I can recall running hard was that short dash
off of the tee box to get a better view of the woods as my drive errantly flew
toward some not too distant tree. Running has never been my thing. Ron Logan, a
member of the church back in Greenville and one who was maybe a year or two
older, made it a practice to run every day, and to run in several marathons
every year. Ron is my friend, but I will never follow in his footsteps as a
runner.
The author of Hebrews wants us to be runners. He says, “Let us run with
perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and
perfecter of of our faith ….” So what kind of race is this? It is obviously not
a sprint, a 100-yard dash that is over in ten seconds or if you’re like me and
can be timed with a sundial it is over in about thirty seconds. It isn’t even
400 meters – a lap around the track that takes and Olympian 52 seconds.
Maybe it is a marathon. The marathon takes perseverance. The origin of the
marathon dates back to the year 490BC. The Persian Army was preparing to attack
Europe. They landed a large force just outside of Athens on the plains of
Marathon.
The Athenians were vastly outnumbered and desperately needed to the help of
Sparta to help fend off the attack. Time was short, so the Athenian generals
send Phidippides, a professional runner, to Sparta to ask for help. The 140 mile
course was very mountainous and rugged. Phidippides ran the course in about 36
hours. Sparta agreed to help but said they would not take the field until the
moon was full, due to religious laws. This would leave the
Athenians alone to fight the Persian Army Phidippides ran back – another 140
miles – with the disappointing news. Immediately, the small army, including
Phidippedes, marched to the plains of Marathon to prepare for battle.
They were outnumbered 4 to 1 but they launched a surprise attack, which at the
time appeared suicidal. But by day’s end, 6400 Persians lay dead on the field
while only 192 Athenians had been killed. The surviving Persians fled to the sea
and sailed south to Athens where they hoped to attack the city before the
Athenian army could re-assemble there.
Phidippides was again called upon to run to Athens – 26 miles away – to carry
the news of the victory and the warning about the approaching Persian ships.
Despite his fatigue after his recent run to Sparta and back and having fought
all morning in heavy armor, Phidippides rose to the challenge. Pushing himself
past normal limits of human durance, he reached Athens in about 3 hours,
delivered his message and promptly died from exhaustion.
Sparta and other Greeks eventually came to the aid of the Athenians and they
were able to turn back the Persian attempt to conquer Athens.
People have been running marathons ever since. Twenty-six miles of grueling
perseverance. That is what Ron Logan was into. I respected him for that, and he
was happy with me, because he knew there would never get in his way during a
race.
As much as a marathon is all about perseverance I don’t think that is the race
that the author of Hebrews is talking about either. He wants us to look to
Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Jesus certainly persevered. He
endured the cross. But the race he ran was more like a relay, for he handed the
baton on to others. He passed the baton of faith on to the disciples and his
followers. He commissioned them to make disciples of all nations and to share
the Good News of God’s love. They in turn handed the baton of faith on to others
who handed it on to others until it was handed on to us.
If we are going to run the race that is set before us like Jesus did, then we
will pass the baton of faith on to those around us. We will hand if off to our
children and our neighbors and our friends and cheer them on as they seek to
hand it on yet again.
After the bridal fair held at Florida Tech several weeks ago, we expect this
room to be a place that becomes popular once again for weddings. That will
inevitably lead to the following scenario. The prospective bride and the groom
will not be members of the church. For that matter, they won’t be members of any
church. His parents were Roman Catholic. Her parents were Baptist, but in both
cases their parents never really took them to church. Their grandparents were
devoutly religious, but the parents dropped the baton. They didn’t take their
kids to church all that much and now this couple doesn’t attend worship at all.
In the pre-marital inventory that couples complete, Spiritual Beliefs was the
biggest growth area in their relationship. They talked about feeling a void
there. They consider themselves Christians. They have talked about looking for a
church, but they have never followed through with it.
A wise person once said, “Christianity is always one generation away from
extinction.” The same idea can be expressed another way: “God has no
grandchildren.” God has beaucoups of children, but depends on those children to
keep the family alive. Parents need to pass the baton of faith on to their
children.
One of the things that has bugged me forever is parents who talk about not
wanting to force religion down their children’s throat. Granted, there are lots
of excuses for not attending church, and for not encouraging one’s children to
attend church. Here’s an odd thing: a lot of the excuses cited for why this
place and places like are not desirable places to be are very much like the
excuses on would use to explain why would give up on football. Imagine a
dyed-in-the-wool football fan giving reasons for never having anything more to
do with football. I can imagine reasons – eleven of them – and they would work
if I was trying to keep my children away from church. Here are my reasons, (and
irony of ironies), there are eleven of them:
• Every time I went, they asked for money.
• The people I sat next to in the stands were not friendly, so I’m not going
back.
• The seats were too hard and not comfortable at all.
• The coach never came to my house to visit me, despite the fact that I’ve been
a season ticket holder for years.
• The referees made decisions that I can’t agree with so I’m not going back.
• The game sometimes went into overtime, and I got home late, and I can’t stand
that!
• The music there wasn’t my kind of music.
• Games were always scheduled when I am busy. I want to be somewhere else.
• I suspect that I was sitting next to some hypocrites because they came to the
ball game just to see their friends and just sat there and talked the whole time
and didn’t even participate in the game.
• It is so crowded, I didn’t have any elbow room and I had to park way out. I
had to walk too far to get there. I’m not going back.
• And the eleventh one: I was taken to too many games by my parents when I was a
kid, and I’m getting away from that.
When applied to church, parents have this fear that they will turn their
children off to the faith if they make them attend worship. When I was growing
up there was never any question about where I was going to be on Sunday
mornings. Unless we were really sick we were in worship. I never felt it was
forced upon me. It was just something my family did. My parents felt worship was
an important part of their life and they wanted it to be important to me, too.
Some parents say they will let their children decide if and where they want to
worship when they are old enough to make that decision. Those parents have made
a decision for them. By not bringing them to worship they have largely assured
that those kids will never worship when they are adults. I doubt any parents
would say, “I will let my child decide if they want to attend school when they
are old enough to make that decision.” Parents want their children to learn to
read and write so they can be successful in life. Why would you not want your
child to learn about Jesus so they can have a relationship with God that will
carry them through both the joys and sorrows of life? It is our responsibility
as parents to pass the baton of faith on to our children. It is our
responsibility as Christians to pass that baton on to others, even as it has
been passed on to us.
The author of Hebrews talks about this “Great cloud of witnesses …” Those are
the people who have passed on the faith to us. There is a huge, grandstand
filled with them. They are all there cheering us on in the race of a faith. They
are encouraging us, surrounding us and supporting us and supporting us in our
life of faith.
I would like you to close your eyes for a moment. Close your eyes and picture
some of the people who are apart of that great cloud of witnesses cheering for
you.
Who do you see in that grandstand?
Do you have a grandmother or a grandfather there cheering you on?
Maybe it is your parents shouting your name.
Maybe it is a neighbor who taught you about forgiveness when you broke his
window with a baseball you threw or hit.
Or that Sunday School teacher that really helped you understand that God loves
you no matter what.
Maybe it is your spouse, who led you to the faith. Or that church member who
provided you with an example of what it means to be a Christian.
Picture them for a moment.
Give thanks for them.
I have been blessed with many, special people who stand out among that great
cloud of witnesses cheering me on in my life of faith. My parents were deeply,
devoted Christians who lived out their faith in their every day life. My Dad was
a quiet man, a hard worker with a dry sense of humor. There were very few times
when he was not a member of a committee at the church. I believe my parents were
very generous contributors to that congregation. I never heard my Dad swear or
curse, partly because we never owned a motorized lawn mower.
My mother was equally involved in the life of the church. She did not succeed in
getting my father to convert to the Baptist church of her youth. She was a good
sport about it, and was faithful to the West End Christian Church, the church of
my father’s youth and the church he wasn’t going to leave. My Dad didn’t win
many confrontations of that sort with my mother, but the fact that I am standing
here in this pulpit is testimonial to the fact that he won that one. I was given
the baton.
There have been others in that great cloud of witnesses that stand out for me.
Pastors, seminary professors, college professors whose unenviable task it was to
teach me business statistics, but who by their actions taught me about the
faith. To this day, I cannot tell you how to come up with a median, or a mean.
All I remember about the class in which I should have learned that is the
professor.
There are parishioners who do a great job of cheering me on. Some of them have
only cheered me on for about four and a half months, but they can be excused
because, let’s face it, I’ve only been here for that long.
And always, whatever the need, when I stumble, when I fall, when I feel lost,
when the track ahead is not clear to me, I look up into that great cloud of
witnesses and see shining through them all the face of Jesus, smiling at me,
believing in me, calling me to keep running. My hope, my prayer is that one day
I will be included in a cloud of witnesses for others.
A woman received a letter from a soldier she didn’t know. The soldier, named
Murray, wrote that he had once been in her Sunday School class, and she had
spoken about Christ as a hero for boys. He even mentioned the date when her
witness had altered his life. She had kept a diary all her life, so she turned
to the date Murray mentioned. She came home that Sunday discouraged, and thought
about giving up teaching Sunday school. The entry read: “Had an awful time. The
boys were so restless. I am not cut out for this kind of thing. I had to take
two classes together. No one listened, except at the end, a boy from the other
class, named Murray seemed to be taking it in. He grew very quiet and subdued,
but I expect he was just tired of praying.”
Just when you think you are making about as much of a lasting impression as the
person who puts her hand into a bucket of water and then takes it out, something
happens to change your mind. We just never know how we just might end up being
part of the great cloud of witnesses in the lives of others, of how Christ can
use us to touch and change someone else.
We are in a race. It is a race of faith. We don’t run it alone. There are times
when it takes great perseverance. Times when our faith is challenged by illness,
the death of a loved one, struggles at work or at home. In those times it is
wonderful to know that others are those who are there for us.
The Holy Spirit is present to help us, guide us and give us strength.
Other Christians are there to surround us, support us and cheer us on.
We are also called to cheer them on.
We are called to pass on the baton of faith and to be apart of that great cloud
of witnesses for others. We are called to run with perseverance the race that is
set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. Amen.
THE SECOND PHRASE
JULY 29, 2007/PROPER 12C
LUKE 11: 1-13
FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH, MELBOURNE, FLORIDA
Sometimes just a couple of words can get you started. If you had a high school
English teacher who thought memorization was a good things, then all it takes is
“to be or not to be” and your mind is off and running through the “slings and
arrows of outrageous fortune.” I’m not sure whether it was good for me or not,
but I must have had a lot of those teachers because I certainly had to memorize
a lot of material during my school years. Some of it I can still remember.
I also know that not all memorization works the same way. When the item under
consideration was a soliloquy from Shakespeare or Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address,
you were expected to understand the meaning of the text that you had memorized.
You were expected to carefully articulate the less-than-familiar words. But
other memory assignments required only the repetition of the material with no
particular concern for pronunciation or meaning. All that was required – all
that was required was for you to make your way through whatever it was without
any prompting.
I can remember memorizing a list of forty prepositions for what I’m sure was a
good reason, but we learned to say them so quickly that you’d have to listen
carefully to discern the particular words. Learning the 66 books of the Bible
produced a similar result.
There are a lot of items that fall into this latter category. Many are learned
as part of what we regard as our cultural heritage – those things it is just
assumed everybody knows: The Pledge of Allegiance, the first verse of “The Star
Spangled Banner,” half a dozen Christmas carols, and eight to ten great lines of
movie dialogue. When you become part of a church community, the list increases
to include – among other things – the passage we just read as our scripture
lesson: The Lord’s Prayer. For many of us, that learning began in early
childhood, when the words didn’t make much sense and thus were morphed into the
phrases that have become a standard source of humor over the years: “Our father
who aren’t in heaven, Harold be thy name!”
All this is fun to reminisce about, and there is, I’m sure, some of it hat was
part of your experience or the experience of someone in your family, story of a
misunderstood phrase or mispronounced word. But at another level, there is a
legitimate concern here. By committing something to memory, we may have moved it
to a place where we no longer think about it, no longer have real awareness of
what we are saying or of what it all means. Once again, the Lord’s Prayer is an
example. For all the thought we give it, God’s name could be Harold! Actually
many of us memorized the Lord’s Prayer using the singer’s pronunciation
“hallow-ed” and it has never registered that we’ve been mispronouncing a
slightly-less-than-familiar word all our lives.
But I want to move beyond the Lord’s Prayer’s first phrase today, so that we can
look at the second phrase. The words here may be more common and ordinary, but
their meaning is no less hidden from us by our mindless repetition. “Thy kingdom
come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
I wonder how many times you and I have uttered those words -- weekly, maybe even
on a daily basis, through much of our lives. Year after year, we make our way
through the prayer as if we were a race car. We’re a little slow at the start,
but by the time we get to “hallow-ed” we’ve picked up speed, and from there,
it’s pedal to the metal zipping right through to the checkered flag at “Amen.”
It could be that we think of the recitation as a mantra, as an enveloping set of
sounds that provides a good spiritual feeling. That may be what it has become,
but I cannot believe that is what was intended when the disciples asked Jesus to
teach them to pray. It is the only such request found in the New Testament – the
only instance of the disciples asking Jesus to teach them anything. They wanted
to know how to pray.
What Jesus offered in response to that request was a summary of his purpose and
mission and the mission of all those who would seek to follow him. It’s all
right there in that second phrase: “Father God, we plead for the coming of your
kingdom.” This is what we are working toward, you and I. This is what we want to
see happen. It is a radical request, although I doubt many of us think about
just how radical it is as the words flow easily from our lips.
Maybe that is because when we have actually stopped to think about this phrase,
we have assumed it was one of those wacky end-of-the-world things, that it
related to what theologians call eschatology – the last days, the final chapter,
the end of the world as we know it. Yes, there is some of that stuff imbedded in
this phrase. The early church lived in the expectation of Jesus’ quick return.
Much of the New Testament writing seems to assume that Jesus will return in the
lifetime of those first-century Christians, and so their prayer suggested that
when that happened, when Jesus did return, then the kingdom of God would be
established.
We, too, have an eschatological hope. We expect that at some time Christ will
return, but we have learned two things over the years. We’ve learned first, that
return will not be quick. And second, that the return’s timing is known only to
God. I say that knowing that there are some in the Christian community who are
busily working out the details of how and when and where the end of the world
will arrive.)
So we are people who are living in what can be properly called the in-between
times – between Christ’s coming and his coming again. Now it might be possible
to think that such in-between time places no particular demands upon us, sets no
agenda for us. It might be possible to decide that if we behave ourselves, keep
our heads up and our hands clean, then all will be well in the end. That really
could be a fair assumption, if it were not for the prayer that we hardly notice
but continue to offer up each week. But there it is – right there in that second
phrase – that radical request that pushes aside the possibility of a smooth and
easy life. There it is, the second phrase of this prayer where we ask for God’s
kingdom to come.
Tell me, what would that mean? What would that kingdom look like? Those are fair
questions, and the answers are best drawn from Jesus’ teachings and from the
patterns of his life and his ministry. Over and over again, Jesus would launch
into a time of instruction with a parable that began with these words, “The
kingdom of God is like ….” With illustration after illustration and analogy
after analogy, Jesus worked to try to make clear what could never be adequately
depicted, explained: that the kingdom of God is a community of justice, mercy
and hope. The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, like a pearl of great
price, like a gracious king, like bridesmaids waiting for the bridegroom. The
kingdom is glimpsed when one welcomes little children; when a steward cares for
the master’s vineyard; when talents are used wisely; when the least of us is
ministered to; when one master is served, not two. The kingdom is marked by
those who are salt and light, who hunger and thirst for righteousness, who are
laborers in the vineyard and purveyors of justice, good Samaritans, good
neighbors. The kingdom of God is a shared experience; the I – BECOMES WE. It is
the manifestation of the body of Christ, the family of God.
The images are familiar, but we have not considered the implications of taking
them seriously, of putting them all together and then putting them into
practice. I don’t think we have thought a lot about what it would mean if this
kingdom we pray for on a regular basis actually began to emerge. This is not
some personal kingdom, not the kingdom of Tom and Sally, of Ronald Reagan, Bill
Clinton, George Bush. It isn’t the kingdom at the end of a yellow brick road nor
is it a kingdom of rainbows and doves. This is the kingdom of God. Have you ever
heard the line “Be careful what you pray for – you may just get it”? Well, it is
time to think about that when you pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on
earth as it is in heaven.”
God’s kingdom means more than “liberty and justice for all,” although that’s not
a bad place to start. Even in our own back yard, under the banner of democracy,
where we have come to expect liberty and justice as entitlements, there are
neighbors – real 32901 Melbourne neighbors – who have been forced to accept half
a loaf of liberty and less-than-just justice while others of us have it in full
measure.
Our church participates in the work of that place in our community that is
called Daily Bread. When I’m not sitting there plying my trade as a garlic bread
specialist or concentrating on dirty dishes in a sink that doesn’t drain, I get
a chance to look at the people. They aren’t angels, but then, neither am I. But
what comes to mind to me is that some of the people who show up for lunch are
pretty smart and very resourceful. I watch them, and it occurs to me that I
couldn’t survive were I in their place and they in mine. I am reminded of a
lyric from a Randy Newman song, “It’s Money That Matters.” He’s singing (as only
Randy Newman can sing) about the people who frequent Daily Bread and he says:
ALL OF THESE PEOPLE ARE MUCH BRIGHTER THAN I
IN ANY FAIR SYSTEM THEY WOULD FLOURISH AND THRIVE,
BUT THEY BARELY SURVIVE
THEY EKE OUT A LIVING,
THEY BARELY SURVIVE.
That isn‘t even an approximation of the kingdom of god, but were it not for the
Daily Bread I would hardly notice the way my daily life clashes with this prayer
we say or sing. And I don’t think I’m alone.
What’s worse is that in the place where it would be really good for people to
notice, the people haven’t taken note. The latest figures from Washington, D.C.
indicate that the top 20 percent of the households in that city have 31 times
the income of the 20 percent of the households at the bottom. My guess is that
there are disparities like that in Brevard County. The simple question to ask is
this: Does that sound like the kingdom of God we are praying for?
Stock prices fell this week, and from what I hear it has to do with the housing
market. The last week as bad as this one occurred when a major corporation
announced that second quarter profits of almost $280 million. That came out to
be about 12 ½ cents a share, but the market was expecting 14 cents. So jobs were
cut to enable the company to increase its profit margin. Where is the Kingdom of
God in that?
We need to wake up to the fact that we are praying for a whole new order – a
whole new structure, a whole new reality, a whole new way of life.
In the kingdom of God – no child left behind means just that. What we are
praying for is not that motivated parents with motivated kids and a good
understanding of how the system works can find a way for their children to
prosper. We are talking about all of us working on the system until we can get
it right for every child and not expecting that enough people will play the
lottery so that we won’t have to pay higher taxes to educate other people’s
children. In the kingdom of God, there are no “other people’s children!”
In the kingdom of God we are praying for every week, there is no one who can be
labeled “them” or “those people.” The neighbor concept is not limited to those
who think like we do, talk like we do, express their affections like we do,
spend their money in the same responsible way we do. This prayer pushes us
toward a radical neighborliness that we can barely imagine and for which we have
almost no blueprint. How do we do this? How do we love as neighbor people who
insult or irritate us, who reject our values and pursue very different goals
from the ones we pursue? How can we find ways to talk together that will allow
us to discover commonalities, find a basis for respect in spite of differences,
build a relationship that allows us to agree to disagree and yet remain
connected?
We need a different model – or else we need a different prayer! Be careful what
you pray for …
To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I would be ready to welcome this kingdom if
it were to make an appearance. I much prefer safe and predictable to risky and
radical. But I do know this: at its part, prayer changes not God, but us. By
praying this prayer, you and I are opening ourselves to being changed, opening
ourselves to a radical transformation. So we should not hold out hope that our
prayer will cause God to reconsider and to decide that what we have going at the
moment is good enough. Nor should we expect that we will be invited to serve as
design consultants for fresh new “kingdom concept”!
If we continue to pray “thy kingdom come ...” it may be that in time after doing
it again and again and again, we will discover that what Jesus said is true:
“Ask and it will be given you; search and you will find; knock and the door will
be opened to you.” And in small but significant ways, the kingdom of God will
come. And we will see it – and be glad.
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
MAY 13, 2007/THE 6TH SUNDAY OF EASTER
GENESIS 4:16-17; REVELATION 21:9-22:5
FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH OF MELBOURNE, FL
Americans are mostly city dwellers. While it is true that many of our social
myths draw heavily on rural areas like the wheat fields of Kansas, the cattle
runs of the southwest, the migration of salmon up the Columbia River, Americans
more often than not make their homes in urban areas. Although our geographical
myths idealize the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, Mount Rushmore, the
majority of us cling to the coastlands and mass together in the capital cities
of each state. We eulogize and wax poetic about the country while we huddle in
the cities.
If cities are (for the majority of us) our thing, then we should be ready to
explore cities mentioned in the Bible. There are many of them, but today I ask
you to look briefly at two of them. The first city to consider is one found in
the beginning of the Bible. It is the city of the murderer called Cain, and
described in two short verses, Genesis 4:16-17:
THEN CAIN WENT AWAY FROM THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD, AND SETTLED IN THE LAND OF
NOD, EAST OF EDEN. CAIN KNEW HIS WIFE, AND SHE CONCEIVED AND BORE ENOCH; AND HE
BUILT A CITY, AND NAMED IT ENOCH AFTER HIS SON ENOCH.
I want you to contrast that city with another city described in much greater
detail at the end of the Bible, in the Book of Revelation. The second city is
the city of God, The New Jerusalem.
Both cities are metaphors. Neither city is to be taken in a factual, mundane,
“ho hum” way, like me saying, for instance: “Tallahassee is the capital city of
the State of Florida, and Lexington and Louisville are major cities in the
Commonwealth of Kentucky.” The city of Cain and the city of God are far more
important, and far more profound, more real, than our cities. The city of Cain
and the city of God are more true than Lexington and Louisville, and even more
true than Tallahassee. They are like parables, plumbing the depths of human
shame and frustration, and declaring the saving faithfulness of God.
If you can forgive the lack of originality in my sermon title, then let’s look
at the first city. It came into being as a result of Cain, when he became a
restless nomad. After murdering his brother Abel, and after rejecting God’s
disapproval with those famous words (“Am I my brother’s keeper?), we’re told
that Cain went off and lived in the land of Nod. Nod in Hebrew means
“wandering.” Cain has lost the ability to stay still and to be contented. He is
now forever restless, and he cannot stay at home because he is alienated even
from the soil: “The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me from the
ground.”
Cain is filled with guilt and with anxieties that gnaw away at his being. Cain
travels far away from home, on the move, never settled. True, he marries and
sires children, but his restlessness persists. That is what happens when we
alienate ourselves from others in the human family. We live in the land of Nod,
a meandering life of rootlessness.
If you have yet to feel any of the suffering that Cain is experiencing, then a
poem entitled “Cain” by Victor Hugo can help you get a feel for Cain’s plight.
Then, with his children, clothed in skins of brutes,
Dishevelled, livid, rushing through the storm,
Cain fled before Jehovah. As night fell
The dark man reached a mount in a great plain,
And his tired wife and his sons, out of breath,
Said: “Let us lie down on the earth and sleep.”
Cain, sleeping not, dreamed at the mountain foot.
Raising his head, in that funereal heaven
He saw an eye, a great eye, in the night
Open, and staring at him in the gloom.
“I am too near,” he said, and tremblingly woke up
His sleeping sons again, and his tired wife,
And fled through space and darkness. Thirty days
He went, and thirty nights, nor looked behind;
Pale, silent, watchful, shaking at each sound;
No rest, no sleep, till he attained the strand
Where the sea washes that which since was Asshur.
“Here pause,” he said, “for this place is secure;
Here may we rest, for this is the world’s end.”
And he sat down; when, lo! In the sad sky,
The selfsame Eye on the horizon’s verge,
And the wretch shook as in an ague fit.
“Hide me!” he cried, and all his watchful sons,
Their finger on their lip, stared at their sire.
Cain said to Jabal (father of them that dwell
in tents)” “Spread here the curtain of thy tent,”
And they spread wide the floating canvas roof,
And made it fast and fixed it down with lead.
“You see naught now,” said Zillah then, fair child
The daughter of his eldest, sweet as day.
But Cain replied, “That Eye – I see it still.”
And Jubal cried (the father of all those
That handle harp and organ): “I will build
A sanctuary:” and he made a wall of bronze,
And set his sire behind it. But Cain moaned,
“That Eye is glaring at me ever.” Henoch cried:
“Then must we make a circle vast as towers,
So terrible that nothing dare draw near;
Build me a city with a citadel;
Build we a city high and close it fast.”
Then Tubal Cain (instructor of all them
That work in brass and iron) built a tower –
Enormous, superhuman. While he wrought,
His fiery brothers from the plain around
Hunted the sons of Enoch and of Seth;
They plucked the eyes out of whoever passed,
And hurled at even arrows to the stars.
They set strong granite for the canvas wall,
And every block was clamped with iron chains.
I seemed a city made for hell. Its towers,
With their huge masses made night in the land.
The walls were thick as mountains. On the door
They graved: “Let not God enter here.” This done,
and having finished to cement and build
in a stone tower, they set him in the midst.
To him, still dark and haggard, “Oh, my sire,
is the Eye gone?” quoth Zillah tremblingly.
But Cain replied: “Nay, it is even there.”
Then added: “I will live beneath the earth,
As a lone man within his sepulchre.
I will see nothing; will be seen of none.”
They digged a trench, and Cain said: “Tis enow,”
As he went down alone into the vault;
But when he sat, so ghost-like, in his chair,
And they had closed the dungeon o’er his head,
The Eye was in the tomb and fixed on Cain.
The Genesis account says that Cain sought an alternative. If he can’t be
spiritually close to others, then at least he can be physically close. So he
gathers people together and builds a city, which he names after his first child,
Enoch. He congregates with others, presses close, longing for human warmth to
quell the inner cold of his spirit. His city (though much smaller and less
“sophisticated” than ours) is a symbol … a symbol of the cities in which we herd
together. Often we settle for physical closeness rather than sustaining personal
communication.
Cities appear to offer a lot. Note I say “appear” to offer much; in terms of
diversion and human interests. Superficially they even offer to make you feel
more important. In cities we can be part of a crowd, bump shoulders together,
and feel we belong so something massive. Many young rural Americans move to the
cities to get a bit of what they might call “the action.”
Cities appear to be vibrant, full of life. They may not give anything resembling
meaningful community, but they do provide plenty of going and coming, and an
overabundance of diversions and pass times. Busy shopping centers, sporting
events, musical spectaculars, ample choices in dining. And for some, there is a
huge party life, with loud music. And for some, a wide variety of sexual
partners, because sexual promiscuity is a powerful diversion for lonely and lost
people.
Yes, cities absolutely thrive in the land of Nod. Cities crop up everywhere for
restless wanderers. They promise much but deliver very little to the person who
is at odds with himself or herself, and they deliver very little to the one who
is alienated from God. Cities can be the loneliest places on the planet.
Please do not misunderstand me, I am not anti-city. There are many wonderful
opportunities in cities for those who want to grow in grace, in wisdom and love.
It is no accident that the Bible ends with the vision of a city where people
live together at close quarters, but this time dwelling in peace and love and
profound joy. John, isolated there on the island of Patmos, has a vision in
which there is the city of God, the New Jerusalem. The city of God comes down
from heaven to earth like a bride adorned for marriage. This is God’s ultimate
bonus. This is God’s redeemed community, the final fulfillment of what has been
a long and painful human story. It is sheer gift. It is grace.
The city of God is a center of light. “Its radiance like a most rare jewel, like
jasper, clear as crystal.” It is a place of gold and jewels, symbols of rare and
valuable beauty. There is nothing ugly or obscene in this community.
Not only that. There is perfect symmetry in the dimensions of the city. It is a
place that is in harmony. “The city lies foursquare, its length and breadth and
height are equal.” Here everything has been planned to have its perfect place,
and everything is in that right place. A community where all is in divine
balance.
The city of God has twelve gates. It welcomes people from every conceivable
direction. These gates are never shut, for its free citizens never need to be
shut in, nor are there enemies to be shut out. This is truly a community of
shalom, a city of peace.
Well being and happiness characterize this community of God. There is no hunger
and thirst, no suffering, no separation, no loss and grief. All those agonies
are gone forever when God’s purposes are fulfilled.
Most remarkable of all, there is no temple. No church building, no cathedral, no
chapel. You see, all our temples, no matter how beautiful, are secondary. Such
sanctuaries are a witness not only to our hunger for a God who often seems to be
absent, but also to our kinship with wandering Cain.
But in the New Jerusalem, God is never felt to be absent. The kin of Cain have
come home forgiven and restored. The secondary temples have been made obsolete
by the presence and availability of God.
The light of God illumines everything in the holy city. Here are no
misconceptions, no more doubts, no more prejudice and error, no more need for
doctrines and creeds, no more need to cry, “Lord, I believe. Help me in my
unbelief.” For in the holy city God enlightens everything and everybody. “The
city has no need for the sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is
its light and the Lamb is its lamp.”
As I said earlier, this “New Jerusalem,” is a metaphor; one majestic metaphor!
It offers a redeemed humanity, rescued and healed, now gathered in one true
community in the presence of God.
In the beginning there is the city of Cain. There people jostle together for
warmth, and try to hide from the chill of alienated existence, but without much
love and community.
At the end there is the city of God: where all is light and warmth and joyful
community.
But, right now 2007 and the problems and alienation of 2007 is what we have on
our hands. Isaiah 11:6 says:
THE WOLF SHALL LIVE WITH THE LAMB,
THE LEOPARD SHALL LIE DOWN WITH THE KID,
THE CALF AND THE LION AND THE FATLING TOGETHER.
Those images from the prophet Isaiah are among the most precious in the Bible.
But I confess that every time I hear them, I remember something that Woody Allen
said. “On the day the leopard lies down with the kid, the kid won’t get much
sleep. And on the day the lion and lamb lie down together,” Allen quipped, “the
smart money will be on the lion getting back up.”
Where does that leave us. Where, then are we now? We are the in-between people.
We are the church; this flawed yet hope-filled community. In spite of the noble
literature that has likened the church to the city of God, we are far from that
light and beauty and love.
We are mixture – a mixture of Cain’s city with its misunderstanding, desperate
needs, fears, foolishness and sin – and of the final city of God where all the
sin, separation, crying and pain no more. In this mixed community there is
always the invincible love of Christ, already at work in us, and the small rays
of God’s light piercing the gloom and warming away the chill.
Please don’t expect too much of the church. It is not, and should never presume
to be, the final Holy City. Don’t become disappointed … don’t get bitter and
cynical when things go wrong. The church community is made of people like you
and me. And unless I am gravely mistaken, the mark of Cain still shows on all of
us. Please don’t expect too much.
But then, please don’t expect too little of the church. Do not settle for less
than is achievable. Please don’t become apathetic. With Christ and in the power
of the Holy Spirit, change and growth are always possible. There was once a
Protestant Reformation, and to this day, continuing reformation remains the true
cry from the heart of those churches that stem from that Reformation. It is also
the hunger of the venerated saints in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox
communities. Please, I beseech you, do not expect too little of the church.
We who are in the church, this in-between city, this flawed community of faith,
are on the way to something far better. By the relentless grace of God, I stand
with John and promise you that the new community, which lies behind John’s
vision of the holy city, will truly come to be.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth … and I saw the holy city, the new
Jerusalem, coming down from heaven like a bride adorned for her husband.
And the city had no need for sun or moon to shine upon it, for God is its light
and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light shall the nations walk, and the kings of
the earth shall bring their glory into it, and its gates shall never be shut.
