Sunday, May 29th, 2022 – May It Be So, a sermon on Revelation 22

Second Reading: Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21

¹²“See, I am coming soon; my reward is with me, to repay according to everyone’s work. ¹³I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
 ¹⁴Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.
 ¹⁶“It is I, Jesus, who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”
 ¹⁷The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
 And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”
 And let everyone who is thirsty come.
 Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
 ²⁰The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” 
  Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
 ²¹The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.

Spirit of the Living God, as we sit in worship, settle our minds and soften our broken hearts with a moment to find rest in uncluttered gratitude. Gratitude for this moment. For these people. For this life. Though there is so much distance between last week and this week, the work, the ministry, the life you call us to is the same. To love and be loved. Give us the strength and courage and an endless hope to do just that. Amen.

Mindful of everything that has gone on this past week, I want to reflect with you this morning on the reading from the book of Revelation. And not just the reading, but the book of Revelation in general. 

If someone stopped you on the streets and asked, “What is the opening line of the bible?” I’m guessing, a number of us – after the stage fright of being asked a question on the street wears off – could probably come up with, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…”

Over the years, a lot of time and attention has been given to the beginning of the bible. To the creation stories and the wonderful, wonderful original blessing that is given there. That God made creation and called it good. That God made humanity and called us very good. That we are made in the image of God. That is our first and foundational claim. Our first and really only identity. Child of God. No other name or label holds any weight before God. 

But if someone on the street asked you for the final words of the bible…what’s the last word…what’s the final message of the bible…I’m guessing…most of us couldn’t come up with it. Myself included.

But that’s what we’ve just heard this morning – the final words of scripture. The thing we all wait for with a great movie, or story or tv show…how’s it going to end. The final scene.

The Bible ends like this…

And let everyone who is thirsty come.
 Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
 ²⁰The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” 
  Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
 ²¹The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.

That’s it. That’s the end. Let everyone who is thirsty…come. Let everyone who wishes, take the water of life as a gift. And the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. A number of manuscripts don’t include the words “the saints”. It just says the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. No conditions. And then the bible ends with the amen – a word meaning…”may it be so.”

Did you know that’s how the bible ended? That that’s the final scene. 

On Friday, I told a friend of mine what the text was this week, and he literally stopped in his tracks. “We’re so thirsty,” he said. “We’re so thirsty…”

But I’m not surprised that most of us don’t know this. There is so much before this final image in the book of Revelation, that it’s hard to get to the end. 

The book of Revelation has a massive reputation out in the world as a scary and terrifying book about the apocalypse and the end of the world, and scary, scary things happening. It’s a book that’s been misused to generate fear and panic – with people thinking they can use it to decode and to predict or know who is the anti-Christ or how or when will the world end – with some people being vacuumed up into heaven in the so-called rapture, and others left behind to suffer. Our cultural assumptions about this book are so wrapped up in people like Hal Lindsay or the Left Behind book series from the 90s.

I remember about 20 years ago being warned that the World Wide Web was a sign of the end times because “w” in Hebrew is the 6^th letter in Hebrew alphabet and www equals 666, so…you know… watch out with that internet thing. 

Because of this, so many of us have kept the book of Revelation at an arm’s length – either scared of it or simply thinking it’s nonsense. And as a result, we miss the ending – the final scene – the  profound gift of Revelation at a time such as this. 

Pastor Pam mentioned much of this a couple of weeks ago, but it is worth saying again. First off, the book of Revelation isn’t a book at all. It’s a letter – written to seven churches. We are reaching our hands back into the mailbox of history and lifting out a letter that was not written to us. But it was written for us. 

I invite you to go into your imagination for a moment – imagine you’re part of a very small church – a house church. And you have to gather early, early in the morning on Sunday, because Rome demanded that you work even on a Sunday. You’re afraid of the powers that be. But you still gather. Fresh in your mind is the violence 20 years ago – when the empire of Rome burned down your city and sent people off into exile. You have to worship in secret, because there’s persecution and fear and every time you say Jesus is Lord, it is treason…because Caesar is lord….so no one really wants to sing too loudly at this morning house worship. But you know you’ll be back for a holy meal of communion in the evening, because that’s how important being together is right now, to “come together around a radical and transforming vision of the joyful and hopeful (kingdom) of God”^[1], in spite of the kingdom of Rome that flexes it’s might just outside the window.

And it’s at the small, quiet evening meal worship that your church receives a letter from your brother in Christ, John. John who is a refugee of the war, exiled on the island of Patmos. And as the letter is read aloud, you are taken on a mystic – a visionary journey – into the throne room and the heart of God, and back again. 

That’s the letter of Revelation.

And with the backdrop of the Roman Empire and a city in ruins and violence and fear, in this letter to your church, on this journey, John shares a vision where Jesus is on the throne (meaning Caesar and the Roman empire is not on the throne), and Jesus is leading the people to springs of water – we are so thirsty. And he is accompanying them in every struggle. And there is not a weapon in sight. Remember God breaks the bow and shatters the spear. Turns swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. In the words of theologian and scholar Barbara Rossing, as the heart of John’s letter, he shows “a vision of God’s beloved city…a city of healing and hope more real than reality itself. Despite the system of injustice and powerlessness in which they live, Revelation invites these beleaguered Christians to enter into God’s beloved city as full citizens and royal heirs. (After everything they’ve been through), this culminating vision of Revelation gathers them together beside God’s riverside, to drink of its water of life, to find shelter beside God… Revelation invites them to dream about their world in light of God’s story and God’s vision for the future.”

And in contrast to all other ancient writings, in John’s vision, this new heaven, this new earth, this majestic city…does not stay far off in heaven for some other time. In John’s vision, this vision of a city in the kingdom of God comes down. The letter of Revelation isn’t about some people being raptured out of here, it’s about all of God and God’s kingdom being raptured down to earth. To move into the neighborhood and to dwell with us. 

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth, as it already is in heaven.

And then in the very end of Revelation, John says, “(For all who are thirsty…) Drink in this vision. Let yourself fall in love with this city as you let go of all ties to the violence and injustice of empire today.”^[2]

And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take this water of life as a gift, John’s letter says to these small churches. 

As the reading of the letter comes to a close, the people in that small house church, open their eyes and look out the window to see their own city, their own country more clearly, glimpsed in a deeper way. “Challenged now to live their whole life according to the story of God’s beloved city.” ^[3] As the chaos of the world rages around them, they hear in John’s visionary letter a call to faithfulness in the God of suffering love, the God of Jesus Christ, and a call to renew their love for one another and for the world. 

“Thank God for John,” the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said over 50 years ago. “John who caught a vision of a new city.”^[4] A new Buffalo. A new Uvalde. A new America. A new Northfield.

Friends, the book of Revelation is not about a scary time in the future, it’s for a scary time in the present. And written by one who knows just how scary of a time it can be, no less. 

It is word of hope for those struggling to find hope. A reminder of the God in Jesus Christ, whom we give our hearts to, and who gives their heart to us. The God who calls us to faith active in love even when all seems lost. A God who will not stop loving, even on the cross. And a God who will not let the grave win the day, even when the stone seems immovable. 

Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand was on Stephen Colbert on Tuesday night. She said two things that have stayed with me. First, she talked about how New Zealand had fully closed down for two years during COVID. Closed their borders to protect their people. But now they are opening up again and she talked about how central hospitality and welcome is to life as a New Zealander. And then she said the remarkable, off-the-cuff thing. With joy and a smile, she looked at the audience and the camera and said, “Come to New Zealand. Come and make us whole again.” 

We’re not whole without you, she said. Come. Do you hear the echo of John? Let everyone who is thirsty, thirsty for wholeness – come. 

And then she mentioned a conversation she had recently with the Prime Minister of Ukraine.  And she mentioned so gently how any contribution that New Zealand could make to Ukraine felt so dwarfed by the magnitude of what’s happening there. And so she said to him, “We’re so small. But here are the things we can do and this is what we are doing.” 

I think that’s how many of us feel and felt this week – we’re just so small. What can I offer? What can I offer to the suffering in Buffalo? What can I offer to the suffering in Uvalde? What can I offer to the suffering in the world?

But then the prime minister of Ukraine said to her, “It’s not about small and big. It’s about those who react and those who don’t. It’s about values and standing together, regardless of whether you are on the other side of the world (or the other side of the country). To say this is not something we will let happen in the shadows…we will speak up and speak against it. And stand together until it ends….” That’s what matters.

It’s not about how small we are and what we have to offer. It’s about whether we react or not. Whether we are affected or not. To just let ourselves be affected. To feel something from it. That’s where our humanity resides. And then big or small, to stand together until it ends. Until empires end. Until hate ends. Until violence ends. 

I’m not sure what exactly that looks like for you as an individual, but as a church I think it means that we keep coming together. Like this. Each week. To sing and eat and pray and to hear the letters and words of hope written to the people of God – words that call us back to ourselves and then to head back out together, into the city of God, with a new vision.

Are you thirsty for that? 

Then just come. And drink in this vision. Let’s make each other whole again. 

The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you all. May it be so. 

---

^[1] Barbara Rossing, The Rapture Exposed, pg. 145.

^[2] Ibid., pg. 147

^[3] Ibid., pg. 163

^[4] Ibid. pg. 150

Sunday, May 8th, 2022 – She was with them, a sermon on Tabitha and Acts 9

First Reading: Acts 9:36-43

³⁶Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha, which in Greek is Dorcas. She was devoted to good works and acts of charity. ³⁷At that time she became ill and died. When they had washed her, they laid her in a room upstairs. ³⁸Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, “Please come to us without delay.” ³⁹So Peter got up and went with them; and when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them. ⁴⁰Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, “Tabitha, get up.” Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up. ⁴¹He gave her his hand and helped her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he showed her to be alive. ⁴²This became known throughout Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. ⁴³Meanwhile he stayed in Joppa for some time with a certain Simon, a tanner.

One of my favorite parts of being a pastor is watching two people whom I know well meet each other for the first time. This happened just last Sunday at church, where people I come into contact with regularly had never brushed elbows with each other. And to see those connections happen is a lovely thing, in my book. 

Well, this morning, I want to introduce you to someone. Or perhaps re-introduce you to her. 

She goes by the name Tabitha. Or Dorcas, depending on whether you speak Aramaic or Greek. Either way, her name means Gazelle. 

I needed to be reintroduced to Tabitha this week, despite the fact that I have preached on Tabitha’s story before. You see, I confess, that when I saw that the Acts reading for today was Tabitha’s story, my first reaction was, “Who is Tabitha again? Oh. Right. The clothing maker who dies and is raised from the dead. Yeah, I’ve already preached on that. I don’t need to do that one again.” Despite the fact that most weeks, I’m more than willing to preach on Jesus and the boys and their stories over and over and over again. 

I’ll let you make of that what you will. I’ve had my own reckoning with it this week. 

But the more time I spend with Tabitha’s story, the more I wonder why this story isn’t more central and well known among people of faith. Why does it get so little press? It always amazes me at how and why certain stories catch on and grow in popularity, and others don’t. And in the midst of realizing my own contributions to the untelling of this story, I was convicted in the need for this story to be told, over and over and over again. 

If for no reason other than – Tabitha’s story is the only place in all of scripture where the word disciple is used in the feminine form. 

Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha.

That may not sound like earth-shattering news to all of you. But you might be surprised at the number of us people of faith who haven’t absorbed the fullness of that good news.

Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha.

Making a rather bold comment, New Testament scholar Willie James Jennings says that Luke (the author of the book of Acts) “makes a point here more powerful for us in our time than probably for him in his time. Tabitha, a woman, is a disciple.”^[1]

She certainly wasn’t the first. And wasn’t the last. But her story matters immensely. 

Whenever there is a healing story in the gospels or in the book of Acts, rarely do we get to learn so much about the person. It typically goes straight to the action. The healing of the sick; the raising of the dead.

Tabitha’s story is different. It slows down to tell us her name, both of them, to tell us about her life, and the community she mattered so much to. 

While there is so much about her story we don’t know – we don’t know how old she was, we don’t know if she was a person with means or resources or a family – there are also many details to hold and to cherish. 

Tabitha is a person in the community of Joppa, who clearly had a lot of impact on a lot of people. So much so that when she dies – we don’t know from what – other disciples in the area are sent to Peter, who was nearby. They are sent with one message – come quick, it’s Tabitha.

In her memoir about the loss of her son, E. Corrine Chilstrom quotes a specialist in grief, saying “Run to the griever. Drop everything. Get there as fast as you can.”^[2]

That’s what Peter does. He drops everything. And he goes. We don’t know if Peter knew of Tabitha before this as a disciple or if she was just a stranger to him. But that wouldn’t last long. 

When he stepped into that house and climbed the stairs to the room where Tabitha’s precious body lay, washed and cared for and ready for burial, he was overwhelmed by the impact of Tabitha’s life. 

A room full of widows, weeping and wailing, so overcome with sadness that all they could do is wordlessly gesture and hold up the clothing and garments Tabitha made for them in their time of grief. 

That’s what we do when we’ve lost someone we love. We gather up the mementos and tell stories of moments that will stay with us, as we grasp at just about anything that will keep our loved one close and not far away. 

For Tabitha, it was “tunics and other clothing that (she) had made while she was with them” the text says. It was those things that the widows grabbed and held high for Peter to see.  

Tabitha, it appears, in her quiet ministry, was one who would run to the griever. With clothes and companionship. What a precious and tender thing. 

“Making clothes for someone else requires you to know that person – what size she wears, what she likes, what you think is appropriate for her needs and personality.”^[3] I imagine her heading to the market in search of a fabric that is both durable but also comforting. I can imagine her tenderly putting her arms around their bodies, taking measurements and making sure the clothing is just right at a moment when everything else in one’s life feels just wrong. 

Tabitha, the disciple, “helped knit her community together, literally clothing the people with protection, beauty, dignity, and love.”^[4]

Seeing all of this in that one moment, in the upstairs of the house, Peter then clears the room. He kneels down to pray, and then whispers, “Tabitha, get up.” 

And she does. Her eyes open. And she sits up. And then Peter calls them all back and shows them – Tabitha is alive. 

Many commentators will point out how Peter’s raising of Tabitha imitates almost exactly the same way Jesus raises Jairus’ daughter from the dead. As a result, many note and acknowledge that the point of this story is that the Risen Jesus is at work through Peter here. While that may be true, I’m not sure then why the book of Acts would have taken so much time to tell us about Tabitha. We don’t need all of the details of her life to see Jesus working through Peter. 

It seems to me that this story is just as much if not more so about the Risen Christ working through Tabitha. 

Think about it for a moment. Tabitha is the one who is known for going to the widows in her community. “Widows, that group of people vulnerable in ancient and current times, made vulnerable by death’s sting, have always been a special concern for God.”^[5] And here, they are a special concern for Tabitha too. 

Not only is she concerned about them, but she clothes them, when so much has been stripped away and their lives are completely changed. I’m reminded of that moment in the garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve, the two earthlings, in the garden were suddenly aware of their own nakedness and loss and grief and an uncertain road ahead, what does God do? God goes to them and clothes them. Just like Tabitha.

And then on the far other end of the Bible, in our Revelation reading, we read that God is, will be, and always has been one who will wipe away the tears from our eyes. Like someone who stands with widows in their grief. Like Tabitha. 

The way I see it, this is a story about how God is at work through Tabitha’s life. The way the book of Acts puts it, Tabitha was a person who was devoted to good works and acts of charity.

But all week, I haven’t been able to shake this wondering – is that how Tabitha saw herself. Is that how she would describe her life?  

If she had been interviewed by the Joppa Journal just a few weeks earlier, would she have said, “Hi, my name is Tabitha. Or Dorcas. Either is fine. And I am really devoted to good works and acts of charity.” 

This telling of Tabitha’s story, much like a funeral eulogy gives us all the roses of her life but none of the thorns.  I found myself wondering if Tabitha knew the impact she had on her community. Did she see herself in glowing light as this text does? 

Or do you think she was someone who found a way to create a living making clothes for the grieving, and some days her heart was totally in it, and she had mountains of compassion for these women. But then there were other days when Tabitha was tired and frustrated that there was yet another death that demanded the work of her fingers and her heart, and time away from her family or friends. I imagine there were moments when all of her creativity was gone and the garments she made for those grieving were….just fine. But not her best work. 

I wonder what Tabitha thought when she sat up in that bed, after her brush with death, to find a whole community whose lives were different because of her. Would she have been just as surprised as Peter at the number of people gathered by her bedside, weeping and showing off the massive impact she had when she was with them? 

And why was she resurrected – so that she and her tired hands could do more? To resurrect Tabitha isn’t to say, “Tabitha, no one can do what you do, you’re irreplaceable – so we’ve brought you back so that you can work a little longer – just part time, until we figure something out.”

No, it has to be more than that. Deeper than that. Better than that. Does Peter call everyone back into the room to show them Tabitha is alive, or to show Tabitha they are alive because of her? It’s to say, “Tabitha, look what a gift you are to this world. Your life – and your quiet ministry – mattered to others. Your life matters to God. And the blessing you’ve brought by just being you – the impact you’ve made – well, death can never take that away.” I wonder if she knew before that moment just how much she mattered and the impact she had.

That’s how it happens, isn’t it? So often the moments that left an impact on our lives – that changed our lives – are often unremarkable and unknown to the people who’ve changed us. Or our own fleeting and broken moments that turned out to be meaningful to someone else – that changed them – and we were totally unaware.

I could tell you stories of people who can pinpoint the moment their life was changed by someone, and that someone who has no memory of it. 

In Tabitha’s day-to-day work, she shows us the face of God refracted through an ordinary life. Whether her heart and head were always fully in it or not, Tabitha was with the women. In their grief. Clothing them with hope and love and the possibility of a future. 

It was International Day of the Midwife this past week. I was reminded by our friend Tamara Jackman, who is a midwife, that the word midwife means “with woman.” Tamara shared this poem by Emily Graham:

We all need a midwife

Not to do our work 
for us

But 
to see us naked 
and call us beautiful

To acknowledge we are 
more than a vessel 

To witness our power 
and remind us
When we have forgotten

What we 
can do

And as soon as I read that, I found myself thinking, that’s Tabitha. Tabitha who was with woman in grief. Tabitha, the grief midwife. We all need a Tabitha.

We all need a Tabitha. 

Not to take away
our pain

But
to see us broken and claim us as worthy.

To acknowledge we are
more than what we’ve lost.

To witness our grief
And remind us
When we have forgotten

That we
are not alone. 

We all need a Tabitha. 

And I’m guessing– we all have had one. 

Who has been a Tabitha to you? Who has loved you and been with you at the bottom in a way that mattered? Who has given you that small, but massive gift that changed you? And that person you are thinking of… do they even know the difference they have made?

Tabitha was with us, the women said. Emmanuelle – in the feminine form – God with us. 

It matters that the book of Acts takes the time to tell Tabitha’s story. She is her own story. She has a name. A ministry. People miss her when she is gone. And so it matters that we take the time to tell her story. Because it is in the tiny and overlooked stories of people’s lives that God is present and at work in ways we may never know. 

Amen. 

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^[1] Jennings, Willie James. Acts: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Belief: a Theological Commentary on the Bible) (p. 100). Presbyterian Publishing. Kindle Edition.

^[2] E. Corrine Chilstrom, Andrew, You Died Too Soon, chapter 5. 

^[3] Matthew Skinner, Acts: Catching Up with the Spirit, pg. 105. 

^[4] Ibid. 

^[5] Jennings, Willie James. Acts: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Belief: a Theological Commentary on the Bible) (p. 100). Presbyterian Publishing. Kindle Edition.