September 11 2022
Revelation 1:4-8
It goes without saying that you really don’t know how things are going to turn out when you begin any new venture. Along these lines, I can’t help but think of when the State of Ohio was celebrating its bicentennial in 2003 and in the spirit of it all they called on every county to designate a barn to be painted with the bicentennial logo. So, being the adventurous people that we are, our family decided that it would be fun for us to go and have a family picture taken in front of each county barn. That sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? We had no idea that it would take three years and put over two thousand miles on the mini-van to visit all eighty-eight barns. So, yes we had no idea how things would turn out when we began our odyssey; if we had we might have thought twice about even beginning such a crazy adventure! Yet, we for our family, this trip was one of our favorite memories.
In a very similar way, when I begin a message series I never know what to expect. As I planned out the year and decided what I would preach on during the summer, I found I was left with a seven week gap at the end with which to fill and having seen where other pastors had preached on the seven letters to the churches from the book of Revelation, I thought it seemed like a match made in heaven. I even found a book to use as a resource called “The Sermons to the Seven Churches of Revelation “ by Jeffrey A.D. Weima. Now, I have a confession to make in that what I had hoped would happen is that I would take what he had written and then go off of that and have a simple, easy way to end up with a series of seven messages. What happened though, is that much like our family’s barn trip, things did not go as planned because there were unknown surprises lurking there at the beginning that I would not know about until I got into the middle of the series.
You see, what I discovered is that good hearted people who write commentaries can, none the less, have, for lack of a better word, a blind spot when it comes to understanding scripture. Where this became apparent is when the commentary is writing about the church at Smyrna, and we hear the risen Christ tell this church that he knows of their tribulation and their poverty. Now, the author had five different ideas as to what this poverty was about yet what was baffling, for me, was that he never once thought that maybe, just maybe, that this mention of poverty had something to do with the teachings of Jesus. I mean, the risen and exalted Christ is the one and the same person as Jesus who walked this earth and chose disciples and taught them core teachings they needed to know in order to be known as being his followers. Anyone even remotely familiar with Jesus knows that he taught more about money, poverty and wealth than any other subject so why wouldn’t you at least throw the teachings of Jesus out there as a possibility that this is what was meant when we read that the living Christ knew about the poverty found in the church at Smyrna. I mean, Smyrna was one of the two churches out of seven in which there was no need of them to repent, so the poverty that Christ found there was not a problem but rather a sign that they had indeed been faithful to his teachings. This is, I discovered, the blind spot that was afflicting the guide I was counting on to lead me through these addresses to the seven churches of the book of Revelation. So, I went and got other commentaries and no one even remotely thought to look at the teachings of Jesus to explain what was going on in these seven churches found in the second and third chapters of Revelation. This seemed rather strange since wouldn’t you expect these churches to be followers of the teachings of Jesus, because as Jesus himself taught as found in the sixth chapter of Luke, only by living according to his teachings can we have a life built upon a rock, safe against the coming flood.
All I could conclude is that what these commentaries were doing is taking our modern sensibilities about what it means to be the church and using our experience to understand the issues and the problems found in these early churches. In other words, it becomes clear that there must be more than a few churches which may not know or may not follow what Jesus teaches us, the very core teachings that were first given to his disciples. If you want to say I had a revelation out of the book of Revelation you would be correct and it pretty much left me dumbfounded. You see, if what is the issue at the rest of the churches that the living Christ called to repentance was indeed that they had not been following his core teachings then I would think that we as his church should lean in and listen to what he has to say. You see, it was not enough that they did not bear with those who were evil, and endured patiently and did not grow weary; it wasn’t enough that they held fast to the name of Jesus and that they would not deny their faith; it wasn’t enough that they worked hard, and were known as a church where love, faith, service, and patient endurance were to be found; no, even though these sound like what a church should be striving for they were not enough. All the churches with these attributes were found to have come up short of what the living Christ expects from those known as being his church. Five out of the seven churches that the risen Christ addresses were found to be pretty good but pretty good just was not good enough. If nothing else, this should make us all who call ourselves the church of Christ, to pause and figure out just why this is so. If all we do is to take our experience as a church and use it to try and understand these early churches we will have gained absolutely nothing. We must, like these early churches had experienced, allow the living Christ to speak to us and confront us because when the flood comes it is a little late to worry whether our foundations are secure enough to weather the storm.
The real problem which these commentaries pointed out to me is that the teachings of Jesus are ignored mostly because they are extremely difficult to put into practice. It is much easier to make everything about spiritual matters, to talk much about just hanging in there until we go to heaven instead of understanding that Jesus spoke about the real, physical world, where people are hungry and people do weep and hurt. Jesus, in his very self, proved that what God is up to is bringing heaven down to earth; this is the real crux of the matter. Can we so easily forget that the prayer Jesus himself taught states that our Father’s will be done here on earth just as that will is done in heaven? While this means that what Jesus teaches us is difficult this does not mean that it is by no means impossible, for God is with us and with God all things are possible. This also is what we can learn from these addresses to the seven churches because the risen Christ did not just dismiss the wrongdoing that he found but he instead called those churches that had strayed to, “Repent”. This call further tells us that what is necessary to follow the teachings of Jesus is repentance, a transforming of our minds and our thoughts, when these words of Jesus confront us. The way of the world is done without much thought; all of us just do what we do as we have always done it. Then Jesus comes along and what he teaches goes against everything that we thought was the right way to be about in our world. So, to follow the teachings of Jesus requires us to be intentional, to stop and think and consider just what is the way of Jesus. We have to stop and consider just what is at stake in all that we say and do because as we also learn from these addresses that the living Christ makes to the seven churches, what we do now has eternal consequences. Yes, we may be a church which is a light in the lamp stand but that light can be removed if we refuse to go out into the world and bring the Father glory through our good works. Or, if we do not seek to care for the hungry in our midst, the risen Christ may come and war against us. Or the living Christ may throw us into great tribulation or he might come upon us suddenly like a thief in the night. The living Christ stands outside the church and knocks, pleading and hoping that the church might once again let him into their lives. You see, while these words of the living Christ seem harsh they are, in all reality, a means of his grace calling his church to salvation before salvation is no longer possible.
The seriousness of what is being taught to us in these seven addresses should make us long to understand just what is it about these teachings of Jesus that is vital for us to know. We have to remember that these addresses serve to enlighten the teachings of Jesus which lay in the background of the living Christ’s addresses to his churches. When we learn that the living Christ is coming to the church at Pergamum to war against them with the sword of his mouth because they had failed to care for the hungry in their midst, this tells us that what was at stake is the very reputation of God himself. We know that the phrase, “the sword of his mouth”, comes from the eleventh chapter of Isaiah where God promises us that one day a king will come who will judge with righteousness the poor and decide with equity for the meek. The living Christ is that king and if we acknowledge that he is our king then we must make certain that everyone is cared for equally, that all enjoy having enough to live. In this way we communicate something to the world namely that the God who promised a king who would rule fairly for all, has made good on his promise therefore the world can know that God is faithful. And we know that what concerns God is that all of us understand that we are all equals in his eyes and therefore we can know ourselves as one humanity brought together by his love for us.
This understanding that we are one humanity then helps us understand that those who weep are blessed because they will laugh. Our common experience as people is that we all have experienced hurt and pain. Ours is a broken world and therefore we should begin our dealings with each other with compassion and mercy. As we lift the burdens of each other we find comfort and joy that together we are better people. This is what the church at Thyatira forgot when they followed the false teaching that told them that as followers of Jesus we should enjoy the benefits of the coming life today, segregating ourselves from those who are suffering and hurting.
In these two teachings of Jesus, then we learn that treating others with equality and righteousness witnesses to the world that our God is faithful in bringing about a new world order where his anointed king has come and under his rule we at last can come together as one people under the reign of Christ. Here as people who serve Christ, the evil of the world where the hungry go unfed and the stranger goes without a friendly face are at last reversed because our God is a God whose rule is the rule of love. So, bound together by this love, we weep together and together we share life and in doing so get a taste of heavenly joy. This then is the good works that we are to do which is the light to the world, the good works which bring glory to God. These are the good works that the church at Ephesus were refusing to do because of their fear of persecution.
So, as we bring glory and honor to God through living in a manner which witnesses to the new rule brought about through the coming of Jesus Christ, we then are to know that our Heavenly Father honors those who serve him. Even if people hate us, exclude us, revile us and spurn our name as being evil because we have united ourselves with the cause of our king Jesus, we can still say, we are blessed because our Father in heaven holds safe our life. So, we no longer have to get caught up in this world’s concern about whether our life is respectable because our life is respected by God. This is what the church at Sardis needed to know and be confronted by otherwise they would get so caught up trying to be somebody to everybody that they would forget that they were to be busy instead serving and caring to those in need, witnessing to the world the truth about God and who we are as his people.
I think its important that we grasp these three main teachings of Jesus first before we wrap our heads around why he also teaches us that it is the poor who are blessed and it is the rich who are told that they are on thin ice. You see, the future God is bringing about is only for those willing to live out that future now. Only those willing to go all in living in the kingdom of God, willing to witness to the new reign of our king Jesus, the one who judges with righteousness for the poor and with equity for the meek, willing to make certain that all are cared for as God desires, only these is the future glory to be given to. If people do not believe that such a future is here and is coming, and they live their life taking what God has given to them and use that to build their own future, then that’s the only future they will ever know.
As we see these addresses to the seven churches in light of what Jesus taught about poverty and wealth, about caring for others and why separating ourselves from the hurting and suffering people, do you begin to see just why I am profoundly affected by what we find here in these few chapters of the Bible. I don’t think that it would do to simply ignore these teachings of Jesus just because they appear to be too difficult. No, even if we are unsure where we can begin to follow what Jesus tells us we should at least allow his teachings to confront us in how we live life. These teachings should wake us up, because as the living Christ tells us, the night is far gone and the day is already here.
Well, not only did the commentaries all fail to at least consider the teachings of Jesus but they also refused to acknowledge that we are priests to God. Even though the Bible tells us that those who wear white robes are considered the priesthood, any time being clothed in white robes comes up in these addresses, none of those who are writing about them seem to even consider that the living Christ considers those within his churches are in fact part of the priesthood. Again, we in our modern understanding just struggle with this concept that we are priests, those who stand between God and the world, communicating to the world that our God is a God who is faithful, a God of overwhelming steadfast love and we in turn take the part of the world given to us by God and we return it back to him. We take, our abundance, which is given to us by God and we give it back to him through the love we show to others. We give the hearts he has made within us and use them to treasure his word. We take our lives and offer them up as we carry our cross day by day. You see, we have been saved from our sins for a reason, a reason we must not forget. As priests it just figures that we need to live holy lives because as we learn at the end of the twelfth chapter of Hebrews we are to strive for holiness without which no one will see the Lord. This holy life flows out of these teachings that the living Christ speaks of to the churches in Revelation and is found again from the sixth chapter of the gospel of Luke. Here is how Jesus speaks of the holy life we as his priests are to be about: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To the one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other one also. From the one who takes away your coat do not withhold your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you and from the one who takes your goods, do not demand them back. As you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.” This is the life for which we have been saved. This is the teachings that the living Christ confronts us through the Holy Spirit to make our own. I hope we will repent, allowing our minds to be transformed by the living Christ who loves us. Amen!
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