Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
May 2, 2010

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

It probably won’t come as a surprise to you that I have a problem with the Book of Revelation. I suspect we all do, especially with the way it gets misused to be a prediction of a violent future when it is really about the present reality of the early Christians in the distant past. This morning, however, I have a different problem with it, and especially a problem with the passage we just heard. That passage contains the line “the sea was no more.” I mean, what’s up with that? I used to be a boater, frequently cruising the inland waters of Puget Sound and the Canadian islands. I love boating. It’s the one thing I miss from the days when I used to make good money as a lawyer. And I’ve loved going to the beach my whole life, as I know many of you do. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of our frequent trips from Eugene over to the magnificent Oregon coast. With no sea there’s no coast, no beach, no bays and harbors. So what’s up with “the sea was no more”? This passage makes it sound like that’s a good thing, but it sure doesn’t sound like a good thing to me. With no sea where’d we get our fresh salmon and halibut? So my first reaction to this line is “well, you can forget that!”

But then I remember something I learned a long time ago, something that would have been obvious to the audience for which Revelation was written so long ago but that isn’t obvious to us because we don’t live in that cultural and linguistic world. In the ancient world the sea was a symbol of chaos and disorder. It was threatening. It was dangerous. We see that use of the image of the sea in the opening verses of the Bible. The opening lines of the Bible are “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” Genesis 1:1-2 Before God begins the work of creation in the magnificent creation myth of Genesis 1, the universe is a watery expanse without form, without order. It is a place of chaos. In Genesis 1 God doesn’t so much create the world out of nothing as God brings order to a world of chaos symbolized by the sea. So when Revelation says that in the new world that God will create the sea will be no more it is saying that chaos and disorder will be no more.

That’s what our passage from Revelation is about. It is one of the most powerful, beautiful, hopeful, and consoling images in the entire Bible. We don’t often think of Revelation as beautiful, hopeful, and consoling, but really it is, or at least parts of it are. Here we have a vision of a new creation in which God is not distant but immediately present. When that new world comes God “will wipe every tear from their eyes.” I’ve always thought that was one of the loveliest lines in the whole Bible. There will be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain. It is a vision of a world transformed by God into the world that God dreams for us and for all people. In the book of Revelation empire brings chaos, violence and death. God brings order, peace, and life. It is a beautiful, beautiful image.

And I am convinced that if such a world is ever actually to dawn on earth it is up to us to help God make it happen. God’s call to us is to help make it happen. We can’t do it without God, of course; but neither can God do it without us. Which is why I have a problem with our reading from the Gospel of John. I guess this is just my Sunday to have problems with the lectionary texts. Here’s my problem with the passage from John. It is known as the New Commandment. In it Jesus commands his followers to love one another. That is of course well and good as far as it goes. Jesus’ word to Christians to love one another is an important word to the church, especially to churches that are in conflict, as so many of them are so much of the time. But this commandment from Jesus is entirely inward directed. It is a word to Jesus’ disciples. It is a commandment that they love one another. It is not a commandment that they love others outside the disciple community. That’s why these lines sound so much to me like John speaking and not like Jesus speaking. The Gospel of John can be very exclusivist and very inward focused. Jesus was inclusive and focused out onto God’s world. It’s not that the New Commandment that Christians love one another is wrong, it’s that it doesn’t go far enough. It can only be a starting point. How are we ever going to do anything to help bring about the Kingdom of God if all Christians do is love each other? All people, and all of creation, are crying out for love, for compassion, mercy, and peace. We know that in other New Testament passages Jesus teaches and models love for all people, not just for his followers. That, it seems to me, is how we help God create the new earth that we glimpse in Revelation. That’s how we help usher out the old world of chaos, violence and suffering that Revelation says is passing away. We do it by loving not just one another but all people and all of creation.

So let us with Revelation catch the vision of a new earth, of a new Jerusalem, beautiful and peaceful, being established on earth. It won’t come floating down from heaven as it does in Revelation’s metaphor. If it comes at all it will come, with God’s help, from us, from God’s people of all faiths and of no faith, who have caught God’s vision and who work with God to make that vision a reality. Maybe we, small as we are, can only do a little. But we can at least do a little, which is a lot more than nothing. We can at least do a little to move the world toward the new Jerusalem. And when Revelation says the sea was no more it means chaos was not more. We’ll still have our fresh salmon and halibut. We’ll still be able to go to the beach. May God grant us the vision, wisdom, and courage to work with God to make that new Jerusalem a reality on earth. Amen.