Month: November 2020

November 29, 2020; 1^st Sunday in Advent; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Here we are, still waiting, watching and wondering.  This whole year has been filled with watching and waiting and wondering.  Watching the movement of the pandemic, waiting for a vaccine or a cure or a semblance of “normal,” wondering what more can happen in this year.    

Now it’s Advent, a season before Christmas whose themes are watching and waiting and wondering, whose biblical readings begin with words of lament:

Tear open the heavens and come down, so the mountains would quake at your presence—as when fire kindles brushwood and fire causes water to boil. Isaiah 64: 1-2

O Lord God of hosts, how long will your anger fume when your people pray?  Ps. 80: 4

The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.  Mark 13: 24

These texts give us permission to tell the truth in this time of expectation and preparation.  We may decorate our homes with bright lights even as we long for social gatherings.  As winter closes our doors and windows in the North we may tire of isolation.  We fear for those exposed to risks, and we are sick of waiting. How long indeed!?! 

Our prayers may be as big and bold as those of Isaiah who wants a Big Thing to happen by a Big God who does Awesome Deeds.  Let’s be honest: aren’t our prayers similarly big?  Bring an end to this pandemic, that lives may be saved.  Protect the poor and vulnerable, the unemployed and hungry.  Uphold and strengthen health care workers.  Save us all!  In fact, our prayers may be even bigger than that.  End hunger.  Eradicate racism. Thwart greed.  Restore the health of our planet.  Stir up the Heavens O God and Come Down!!  Advent’s themes of watching, waiting, and wondering have never seemed more fitting.  Oh yes, we long for a mighty show of divine power to fix this broken world of ours.

Yet, when God comes, it is not with shaking mountains and devouring flame.  Our God comes to us in a baby, born in a poor place.  The salvation that comes is not the salvation we might hope for.  The Christ child comes humbly, emptied of all worldly might and glory. 

Even when we are tired of waiting, even when we lament the sorry state of things, even as we wonder what more can go wrong this year, even when we long for the heavens to open and the mighty power of God to save us all—the message of Advent may be just what we need to hear.  Watch, wait, wonder, and prepare to receive the One who Comes. 

Here we are.  Just where we are meant to be.  Welcome the watching and waiting.  Pray to be open to the Spirit’s leading.  Light a candle and patiently pray in the stillness.  Let your hopes rise and watch for salvation that is waiting to be born.  Amen.

You Did it to Me; November 22, 2020; Yellow Lake Lutheran Church; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Three years ago, my husband, Steve, took part in a workshop at our church in Mazatlan about legacy writing.  It is a process for distilling the lessons learned and the values held into letters for loved ones.  The self-examination and reflection on one’s own life experiences can result in spiritual growth and healing in addition to offering a blessing to one’s children or friends.

My mom did something like that for several years.  Each Christmas, when our kids were still at home, they would receive a compilation of my mom’s memories.  She put herself and her values into those collections of stories.  I’m not sure our kids fully appreciated them at the time.  After all, my mom is still going strong and she loves to tell stories.  But, in the years to come, in that inevitable time when we can no longer listen to her tell us stories in her living voice, I’m sure those Christmas Memories will take on even deeper meaning.

For the past several weeks our gospel readings have been from the section of Matthew’s gospel that covers Passion Week.  We can think of this whole section as a sort of legacy letter from Jesus to his disciples.  He is preparing them for his death.  In chapter 21 Jesus enters Jerusalem, humbly, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.  He goes straight to the temple and turns over the money changers’ tables.  The next day he curses a fig tree.  The religious leaders confront and challenge him. 

Then he launches into the telling of three parables, the one about the two sons who were sent to the field but only one of them went, the parable of the wicked tenants who kill the landowner’s son, and the parable of the wedding banquet where the invited guests refuse to come.   In this parting message to his closest followers he it telling them to be ready for his return, even though they won’t know when or how that will happen.  He’s telling them that it’s not their words that matter but their actions.  It is after the parable about the landowner’s son being killed that the scribes and the pharisees figure out that he’s talking about them and they begin to make plans to arrest him.

That leads into a section where they challenge him.  Jesus and the leaders debate heatedly after which Jesus predicts drastic and dangerous things to come.  Finally we come to the final three parables, the 10 bridesmaids and their lamps, the parable of the talents, and today’s lesson about the sheep and the goats.  Jesus is undeterred by the threats and challenges.  In this second set of parables Jesus tells them again to be ready to greet the bridegroom when he arrives, to watch for him.  He makes it clear that they are to be busy while they wait, using their gifts and talents to multiply the impact of their resources.  Today’s lesson is the culmination of this neatly organized section.  Each of these 6 parables builds on the others and the meanings are found below the surface level.  Just like any other legacy letter or parting message, the disciples would have understood their meaning better after Jesus was gone.   

Today’s gospel is often called the Last Judgment, or the Judgment of the Nations.  The scene is grand with the Son of Man seated on the throne in glory, surrounded by angels, with all the nations at his feet.  The Italian renaissance painter, Michelangelo, painted his vision of this text on the alter wall of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.  The famous triptych by Hieronymus Bosch in the 1400s is an equally vivid depiction of Judgment Day on the middle panel with heaven and hell on either side.  Our minds have been filled with stark and severe images throughout Christian history.  It is no wonder that the church has preached a message of fear at times. 

Sometimes today’s gospel is boiled down so far that it becomes like a sticky, bitter goo in the bottom of a pan, with all the grace and compassion burned away leaving only a residue of moral superiority over others deemed as sinners.  We can slip into a reward and punishment attitude, thinking of judgment day involving some kind of tally sheet with sins on one side of the ledger and good deeds on the other side. Even those of us with the message of “Saved by Grace through Faith” engrained in our minds can be swayed by the cultural idea that “God’ll getcha for that!” 

As spectacular and artistic as Michelangelo’s painting may be let’s remember that this text is a parable, the culmination of 6 parables given by Jesus to prepare his disciples for his death, and his return and the show them how to watch for and see his coming.  It isn’t supposed to be a literal description of a specific day.  Nor is it a threat to frighten us into doing good deeds, or else. 

In 2013 a Canadian sculptor, Timothy Schmalz, unveiled his new work titled, “Homeless Jesus.”  It is a life size bronze of Jesus as a homeless man. He lies curled up in a blanket on a park bench.  The blanket is wrapped around his whole body, covering most of his head. Only his crucifixion-wounded feet are exposed to identify him.  The artist says the sculpture is a visual translation of our parable today.  As you can imagine, reactions have been mixed.  He intended the work to be provocative.  He offered the first casts to Cathedrals in Toronto and New York but both churches declined because appreciation “was not unanimous” and due to ongoing renovations. 

Eventually the first cast was installed at the St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Davidson, North Carolina. According to the Rev. David Buck, rector of St. Alban’s, “It gives authenticity to our church. This is a relatively affluent church, to be honest, and we need to be reminded ourselves that our faith expresses itself in active concern for the marginalized of society”. Buck welcomed discussion about the sculpture and considers it a “Bible lesson for those used to seeing Jesus depicted in traditional religious art as the Christ of glory, enthroned in finery.” Furthermore, he said in an interview, “We believe that that’s the kind of life Jesus had. He was, in essence, a homeless person.”   Some Davidson residents felt it was an “insulting depiction” of Jesus that “demeaned” the neighborhood. One resident called police the first time she saw it, mistaking the statue for a real homeless person. Another neighbor wrote a letter, saying it “[creeped] him out”. However, other residents are often seen sitting on the bench alongside the statue, resting their hands on Jesus and praying. By 2016 there were over 100 copies of the sculpture around the world, perhaps the most famous one outside the papal office of charities in Rome.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeless_Jesus#Copies

Today is the last day of the church year and was designated as Christ the King Sunday in 1925 by Pope Pius the 11^th.  It was during the aftermath of World War I and he intended to lift up the dominion of Christ over the destructive forces and totalitarian claims of the modern world:  secularism in the West, the rise of communism in Russia, fascism in Italy and Spain, and harbingers of Nazism soon to seize Germany.  It was a good idea, but I don’t think it has worked very well.  Nearly a hundred years later we oppose the same ideologies.  And, the image of Christ as King can obscure Jesus’ own words. When he was asked point blank by Pilate, “Are you a King?” Jesus tersely answered, “You say so.”  After that he did not respond. 

Our Lord emptied himself of all privilege.  Born in a stable, naked and squalling like every other infant. He traveled and taught and had “nowhere to lay his head.”  He entered Jerusalem not as king, but humbly.  He washed feet and died on a cross. 

In this parable, I believe Jesus is answering the questions about his return left hanging in the other 5 parables and in chapter 24 when his disciples asked him “When will this be?  What will be the sign of your coming?”  He comes in the least of these: the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned.  Our faith calls us to ben our knee to Jesus, not the king on the throne in some otherworldly scene surrounded by angels, but to Jesus who can be seen in the lost and broken, the wounded and suffering. 

Amy Frykholm reviewed for the Christian Century magazine a strange book called The Spiritual Meadow, written by sixth-century wandering monk John Moschos. One of the last stories in the book seems to be a perfect way to end this sermon;

In the ancient city of Antioch, the church had various kinds of social services. “A man who was a friend of Christ” used to gather supplies and give them out to people in need.

Once he bought some linen undergarments from Egypt and was handing them out “in accordance with Matthew 25:36.” One particularly poor man came, stood in line and received his linen undergarments. Then he came a second time and got another set. He came a third time and, finally, on the fourth time, the man who was distributing the undergarments singled him out and said, “Look, you have received a garment a third and a fourth time and heard nothing from me. Do not do this again in the future, for there are others afflicted like you and in need of good works.” The poor man went away ashamed.

That night, the man distributing the garments had a dream. He saw Jesus descend from an icon. Jesus came toward him and took off the robe that he was wearing. Under it, he had on four pairs of linen undergarments that the man recognized. “Forgive me my faintheartedness,” the man said to Jesus. “For I reckoned this matter in human terms.” From then on, the story says, “he gave to all who asked with simplicity and joy.”

In her article, Frykholm reflects, “Recently, people at my church’s community meal complained because a certain person took two packages of donuts from the boxes of baked goods in the hallway. This is a common refrain. I wanted to make them feel like I was doing something about it, so I said, “Hey, Janelle, do you mind just taking one box of donuts and leaving one for someone else?”

Janelle looked at me and scowled a little. I have no idea if she did as I asked. But now I am picturing Jesus and Janelle sitting together sharing not one but two boxes of donuts, and I am wondering how to reckon donuts in spiritual terms. https://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2013-01/reading-weird-monk-joke-about-underwear

Our lives don’t tally up like some accounting balance.  What would be so amazing about that?  But when we encounter the grace and mercy of God, when we see Jesus’ radical extravagant love for all and the way he tore down systems that oppress, divide and diminish we are meant to follow him.  We are to look for him in the unpretty places, the places we’d like to speed through our ignore.  As we follow, as we watch, equipped with oil in our lamps and talents at the ready we can see the suffering and needs of others and respond with compassion.  It’s in the doing that the eyes of our heart become enlightened and we know what is the hope to which we have been called.  That is our inheritance among the saints, the immeasurable greatness of God’s power for us. 

Matthew 25: 14-30;  “You Knew, Did you?”  November 15, 2020; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Today we read yet another parable of the kingdom.  This time a master entrusts his servants with HUGE amounts of money.  A talent was worth many years’ worth of wages.  It would be an amount like winning the lottery.  The first two invest and multiply what has been entrusted to them and are met with approval and joy by the master and they are given even more to steward.  The third is afraid.  He sees this generous master as harsh.  He believes the opposite of what is demonstrated by what actually happened; thinking that the master reaps where he doesn’t sow and gathers where he doesn’t scatter.  

The master’s reply may be the whole key to unlocking this parable.  He says, “You knew, did you, that I reap where I do not sow and gather where I do not scatter?”  What do you suppose he meant by that, “You knew, did you?”  I think his question points out the flaw in the servant’s thinking.  After all, he has sown a huge amount in the man’s care.  He has scattered his wealth among his servants, ABUNDANTLY! 

What happens when we live expecting harshness from God, when we live in fear of doing something wrong?  Nothing except the hiding of our gifts and resources from the world.  Nothing but living with an expectation of doom hanging over our heads.  We live our lives in a scarcity mentality instead of the very real truth that we have been showered with gifts and resources beyond imagining.  We hide and hoard what we think of as ours instead of recognizing the riches we have been endowed with. 

I don’t really even think the servant needed to be cast out into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  I think he’s already living in a hell of his own making, shaped by his “knowledge” of the harshness of God.  “You knew, did you?”  the master asked. 

Our beliefs shape our reality.  We see what we are looking for.  God is great, God is good!  Open your eyes and see the goodness of God.  Let go of your fears and stinginess.  Life is for living and loving and risking, trying new things and investing in possibilities. 

Perhaps you could ask yourself this week, “What do I know about God?”  “What gifts and resources do I have that can be put to use to build the kingdom of God, the Beloved Community, where all are welcome and all are fed?”  “Where in my life have I been hoarding and hiding out of a mistaken idea that there will not be enough?” 

Let’s enter into the joy of our God, with gratitude and confidence.  Amen.

November 8, 2020; Yellow Lake Lutheran Church; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Justice and Righteousness like Water

In 2006 I was working as the Executive Director of a non-profit organization in Duluth Mn called SOAR Career Solutions.  We helped people get jobs.  Our clients had a variety of challenges:  chemical dependencies, or mental health issues, a lack of education or training, negative work histories or criminal records.  We provided training and support to help them break out of the cycle of poverty.

One of our key staff members suggested that we specialize our services on the group of people with criminal histories. I had never imagined that I would find myself in that situation.  You see, I had been the victim of a violent crime when I was 17.  So, my first reaction was just outright rejection of the idea.  Someone else could do that but I couldn’t see myself leading such an effort. 

However, I couldn’t deny the considerable need and our capacity to meet that need.  So, SOAR created the Community Offender Reentry Program to assist people returning to Duluth from prison so that they could succeed and avoid re-offending.  Instead of what I think of as a catch and release model of criminal justice focused on punishment and incarceration, we adopted a restorative justice model of rebuilding lives and creating solid relationships.  I had to let go of my judgmental views and my fears.  The meaning of the word justice changed for me.

One of the volunteers who was instrumental in our program is Don Streufert, a psychologist who facilitated a weekly restorative justice group session for program participants.  But Don is much more than a psychologist.  In 1991 Don and his wife Mary’s 18-year-old daughter Carin was home from college for the summer.  They lived in Grand Rapids MN, a relatively small town where people generally felt safe.  Until the night Carin was abducted, raped, and murdered. 

Although her killers were caught, convicted and sentenced to life in prison for this brutal crime, Don and Mary didn’t feel closure.  They sought healing that the retributive criminal justice system didn’t provide.  They turned to restorative practices and forgiveness.  They founded an organization to reduce violence, held forgiveness workshops for other crime victims and even visited their daughter’s killers in prison.  They found a way forward without letting anger control them.

Amos spoke his prophetic words 2800 years ago contrasting outward displays of piety with what God really seeks—justice and righteousness, rolling and flowing unceasingly like waters. 

Today we hear calls for justice after a crime and the intent is usually a call for prosecution and conviction through the courts and criminal justice systems.  The George Floyd case comes quickly to mind.  But a guilty verdict won’t be enough.  We also hear the cries – No Justice, No Peace.  The deeper need is for the forging of restorative practices and the building of right relationships, for the formation of what Martin Luther King Jr called, the Beloved Community. 

Words from today’s Old Testament lesson are carved on Martin Luther King Jr.’s gravestone.  It was his most quoted passage of scripture and shaped his vision of the Beloved Community, a global vision in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth.  The Beloved Community is something we shape and form together, on earth as it is in heaven: where poverty and hunger and homelessness are not tolerated, where racism and discrimination, bigotry and prejudice are replaced by the all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood, where international conflicts are resolved by peaceful conflict resolutions and reconciliation instead of by wars.  Love and trust triumph over fear and hatred, peace and justice over war and conflict. 

Martin Luther King Jr quoted our text for today in his I Have a Dream speech in 1963.  Now, 57 years later, basically my whole lifetime, we live in a nation so divided, the tension in the air this week is palpable.  Fears of militia uprisings loom right alongside fears of riots and looting.  We are a broken nation right now.  Friendships and families are strained over red and blue lines.  The calls for No Justice/No Peace are not threats but a description of our reality.  After 2800 years the stark call of Amos rings as truly as it ever did. 

Justice and Righteousness are words with rich and deep meaning in Hebrew.  They do not mean law abiding adherence to any external standard as one might think.  No.  At the core, these words have to do with relationship, RIGHT RELATIONSHIPS.  These words are not one-size-fits-all concepts.  No. They instead describe the condition that occurs when each relationship is right, according to its own specific demands.  No one is free until everyone is free. 

Our biblical tradition teaches us that God’s desire is that we be a part of creating a community where all types and classes of people are assured access to what they need to live well.  The people of God are repeatedly called to provide for the poor, to break down systems of injustice, to let the oppressed go free, to support the widow and the orphan, to visit the sick and imprisoned because that is what it meant to be in right relationship, with them, and with God. 

Without true Justice and Righteousness all the offerings, prayers, hymns, vestments, and talk of God are of no use at all and not pleasing to God at all. 

I spoke to my son the other day.  He lives in Minneapolis near the Theodore Wirth Parkway.  He walks his dog there daily and he called me during his walk.  He told me there is a statue of Abraham Lincoln there that has become part of his new ritual.  When he feels anxious or weighed down by the conflicts and divisions in our culture he makes his way to Old Abe.  In Lincoln’s second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, he encouraged a divided nation with these words:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.   

One hundred and sixty-five years later those words speak still.  We are challenged to face others without malice, with love, and with a commitment to shaping the Beloved Community that God intends for this world. 

Today, after our worship service we will honor the veterans from our community in another ceremony.  This solemn recognition acknowledges the battles for freedom that have been waged by this country even as we pray for and work toward the day when such sacrifices will not be required. 

Let us pray. 

Gracious God, it is your will to hold both heaven and earth in a single peace.  Let the design of your great love shine on the waste of our wraths and sorrows, and give us peace, peace in our homes and our hearts, in our cities and rural communities, in our civic processes and our government.  In any conflicts help us to meet each other without hatred or bitterness, to listen for your voice amid competing claims and to work together toward the Beloved Community you envision.  In the holy name of Jesus, our Prince of Peace we pray.  Amen.

All Saints’ Day; Nov 1 2020; Pastor Rebecca Ellenson

Normally on All Saints Day, we would have the memory of the night before, Halloween, when we would have seen ghosts in white sheets floating down the driveway, devils with horns and pitchforks stomping through the dry leaves, skeletons dripping blood out of the sides of their mouths, werewolves, witches and wizards. There might have been a couple of supermen who were clinging to their moms’ legs with all that ghoulishness going on around them, a Cinderella looking a little overpowered.  It would have been a night that belonged to Zombies and Frankenstein and the grim reaper, who demanded candy or else.  As a pastor handing out treats, I might have thought to myself, “Hey, this looks and sounds a lot like the book of Revelation. This stuff is straight out of the Bible.”

Think about it… white robes, some wearing crowns, beasts and a couple of angels. Even if there weren’t any lambs, there might have been lions, bears, eagles.  Flashes of lightning and peals of thunder are part of the displays on some streets. Flaming torches. Bloody moons. Dragons with horns and a two-headed monster.  Such characters, straight out of the Revelation of John, fill Halloween night.

Normally I would be in Mexico at this time of year where the Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos is a fantastic event.  In Mazatlan there would be, in normal years, a parade of costumed skeletons.  There the pre Hispanic customs flavor the day with celebration.  Death isn’t creepy there.  The theme is about remembering their loved ones. 

Today is All Saints’ Day in the church.  It’s a time meant for celebrating God’s victory over death.  We can say to death, “You can howl at the moon if you want to, but we worship the risen Son. And he has already put you in your place among the tombstones and darkness. So you might scare us, but you will not defeat us.”

Halloween, All Saints’ Day and the Day of the Dead remind us in their own way who is in charge of life and death. They help us see God’s revelation.

There is a line between life and death, you know. A thin line. Most of us live as if it isn’t really there until we are confronted by it through our own health concerns or by the death of a loved one, the horror of a tragic accident, violence, brutality, war or this year a worldwide Pandemic. I think the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox believers may have a stronger sense of the thin veil than we rational Protestants. They never quit praying to the departed saints, because in a very real sense, in Christ, these saints are always with us. We can learn something from them, we Protestants. John the Revelator helps us to see it.

In his stunning apocalyptic vision, John blurs the lines between the daily grind and the evermore. He draws the future of God into the present of our lives. He brings heaven to earth and shows us in his fantastic symbolism how things are in God’s world, not the way we have come to think they are.

“Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come.”  So begins the last book of the bible.  Peace is not, however, a word many people would associate with this fascinating book.  Fear, maybe.  Confusion, surely.  The Revelation of John is a widely interpreted book and given its image-rich language it is subject to all kinds of wild and often conflicting interpretations.  There is much in this book that is difficult to understand.  Sensational treatments of it can put us off from even trying to grasp its meaning for us but it is well worth making the effort to understand this powerful testimony of a man named John to the risen Christ. 

Let me begin today with a brief introduction to the book of Revelation as a whole.  The author tells us his name–John.  He wrote at about 90-96 AD.  So that means he is probably not the apostle John.  This man was a Christian who lived through the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero and wrote during the reign of the next Emperor, Domitian.  Both were notorious as rulers who harshly persecuted the Christians.  In those days the emperors of Rome considered themselves to be gods.  All people living in the Roman Empire had to publicly state their belief in the emperor as a god and worship him.  Perhaps because he refused to do so, or for some other action related to his faith, John was exiled to the island of Patmos.  His main message is that Ceasar is not God and that the true God, revealed in Jesus Christ is stronger than any government. 

Because of the tense relationship between the early church and the government John was not able to write openly and in direct language about Jesus Christ without facing further persecution and probable death.  So, he disguised his message in figurative language.  For example, he referred to the Roman government as a beast with seven heads and ten horns that had come up out of the sea.  One of the heads has received a mortal wound.  In other words, the first emperor, Nero, died.  The wound healed, suggesting another emperor, Domitian, began to rule. 

This style of writing flourished from about 200 years before Christ to about 100 years after his death, and is called apocalyptic literature.  The biblical book of Daniel is another example of apocalyptic literature written at the beginning of that period.  Like John, the writer of Daniel was being persecuted and wrote his message using highly symbolic language.  This kind of literature was written almost in code and was meant to be understandable only to insiders in the faith.  Books like these were written to give hope and encouragement to people who were having a very hard time.  There was usually a concrete political issue at stake.  The language, as I said, was full of symbols and numbers.  Sharp distinctions were made between this age and the age to come often with a message about the approaching end of all time.

The style of this writing accounts for much of the confusion often experienced when this book is read.  No one writes that way anymore.  When we try to read this book as if it were direct and literal writing without knowing the reference points for all the symbols we wind up with all kinds of crazy and fearful interpretations. 

John was harshly persecuted for his faith.  He was sent into exile, away from his home and family, and stripped of his rights as a citizen.  This was happening to many Christians throughout the Empire.  The government tried to silence all the witnesses to the God known through the crucified and risen Christ.  But nothing could stop people like John.  Through the apocalyptic language that is sometimes hard for us to understand but would have been clear to his contemporaries, John got his message out.  Not exile, not the threat of further persecution, nothing could stop him from telling about his Lord. 

Now comes the hard part.  What does all this mean for us today, in 2020 on All Saints’ Sunday? Unlike John or Peter or the other apostles, or Christians in other places today we are free to say what we want.  Prisons and threats of persecutions are certainly still a part of daily Christian life in this world, even if it is not something we ourselves have personally experienced.  For people resisting government oppression and boldly speaking a word of faith and truth in our time these lessons carry words of encouragement, comfort, and empowerment.  They still say loud and clear that no government can stop the power of God or the witness of Christians to that God.

I believe these texts speak a word of challenge to us here and now.  Prison and threats of persecution or exile are not stopping us from testifying to the astonishing power of God– so what is stopping us?  What makes us so silent as Christians?  Is it embarrassment?  or doubt like Thomas had momentarily?  Do we think we are too busy?  or Do we have the mistaken idea that everyone knows the grace and peace of God? 

These texts also speak a word of comfort to us.  After all, we live in a world full of hurting people.  The world needs faithful witnesses to the power and love of God as much now as ever.  The threats we face today may be more subtle than in the days of the Emperors Nero and Domitian.  John called the Roman government a seven headed monster.  We face a different sort of many headed monster. We face emptiness and lack of meaning.  We face a world full of rampant alienation and loneliness and poverty.  We face addictions and violence and fear of our neighbors.  We face our fear of our own mortality, the loss of our loved ones, the worry over friends and family with health concerns or financial troubles or broken relationships.  We in America face deep divisions and ideological factions that threaten to destroy us. The God who empowered the early disciples of Christ to spread the news of Christ’s resurrection and to write the books of the Bible can fill us with faith and a message and mission that cannot be contained, moving us out to meet today’s seven-headed monster head on.

You see, for those late-first-century and early-second-century Christians, it’s not that John the Revelator was offering pie in the sky by and by. Yes, he was extending the hope of glory. But even more, he was offering hope for the here and now.

Hope for those marginalized, impoverished, weak and starving communities that Rome was gobbling up. And John is saying, in this fantastic vision of a new earth and heaven, with all the tribes on the face of the earth gathered around the throne, John is saying, “Take heart. Be of good courage. That wild thing death — that thing running around your porches, slipping under your bed at night, hanging out in your hospitals, tormenting your cities, wrecking this good earth — that thing death, Jesus has already put a stake through his heart. We call that stake the cross. ”

The saints remind us, you see, that we live on the other side of death. As theologian Dorothee Soelle puts it, Christians are those whose death is already behind them. We are free to live in the victory scene of Revelation 7, because death cannot touch us, not really.

This year especially we see death ravaging. In addition to Cancer, Alzheimer’s, domestic violence, hunger in our cities and rural communities and in all parts of the globe, and the insanity of war, this year we’ve seen 45.8 million cases of Coronavirus and 1.1 million deaths worldwide as of Halloween with the numbers rising dramatically. Death has certainly not given up. But what John the Revelator is saying, what Paul the evangelist is saying, what Jesus the Christ is saying, is that the last enemy to be defeated is death, and the battle is engaged.

So we can live free from the gripping fear of all that ghastliness, because we know the real story. We live how we live and do what we do, as Kimberly Bracken Long says, “because the world envisioned by Scripture is the real world. The real world is not the one of suffering, and pain, and death. That world has been swallowed up in victory — the victory of Jesus Christ.”

So as we worship and live today, we can pray to God for all the saints, those living and dead from this earthly life, that their witness to Christ might embolden our witness to be the true church in these troubled times. A church that draws near to the poor, the hungry, the refugee, the imprisoned, the unemployed and the underemployed, and says, “Take, eat; this is my body, full of good news, my cup, full to overflowing.”