The Fourth Sunday of Easter

April 29, 2007

The Rev. Thomas William Blake

Left behind?

Revelation 7: 9-17

One Easter Day in my childhood, the congregation to which my family then belonged walked from its old building to its brand new, larger building down the street. The congregation was in a state of significant transition as its membership had swelled from a small family-sized church to a large resource-sized church in a very short period of time.

I remember the walk that day as an exciting journey, especially for a little boy. It was bittersweet, to be sure, because moving to the new building meant leaving behind the old building filled with memories. I never set foot in the old building again after that day.

I was also well aware, however, that the new space would accommodate the congregation much better. Ushers wouldn’t have to set up lots of folding chairs every Sunday or crowd people into aisle space, standing room only, as had been the case in the old building. And, too, I was excited because everything was new and sparkly and shiny in the new building. It was a wholly new and wonderful experience for me, and I’m sure my face was aglow.

Looking back, I have also come to appreciate the rich symbolism of making the transition from one building to another on Easter Day as opposed to other times of the year. In a very tangible way, the congregation experienced both death and resurrection that day. Only by being attentive to and accepting that death with appropriate closure could we experience the resurrection in store. I remember the Easter journey I made that day as a significant journey of my life.

Of course it was only a segment of a larger journey that all of us walk, especially as people who profess the Christian faith. Our journeys will often lead us along paths where there are noticeable forces of tension, such as the bittersweet emotions I felt that Easter day leaving behind the old and anticipating the new. What does it mean to allow ourselves to enter places of tension? Sometimes the very mention of the word, “tension,” will make us feel uncomfortable or unsettled, but that need not necessarily be the case.

Indeed, as our faith reveals, places of tension can be holy places where our encounters with God are vivid and profound. Think of the Exodus narratives, where people are grappling with tensions between old and new, struggling in those in-between places that often make us feel so uncomfortable. There in the desert, in the middle of nowhere and in the most unlikely of places, they experience an extraordinary encounter with God at Sinai that transforms not only the rest of their journey, but yours and mine as well.

One of the major tensions within both the Judaic and Christian traditions is what we might label as the “already-not yet” perspective. God chose the people Israel and has blessed them in many ways, but life is far from perfect, so they await with eager anticipation the final fulfillment of God’s promised kingdom. Similarly, we Christians acknowledge both that Christ has come and that Christ will come again. The kingdom of God is here, but we still long for the day of its final fulfillment.

Some would label such theology as being slippery at best, yet many of us experience it as being sacred, a place where our encounters with God are very real. We walk in confidence that we are going someplace with our faith. Our journey is leading us in a clear direction, even if for the time being, we can see only glimpses of our destination.

So here we are in Easter Season. We have made the central claim of our faith: that in the resurrection event God has intervened to defeat the forces of death and darkness and to restore a broken creation to wholeness and salvation. There is a tone of finality in our liturgical claim, “Christ is risen,” yet at the same time our lectionary assigns throughout this season readings from Revelation: pointing not backward but forward, anticipating a day of final fulfillment. Once again we find ourselves in a place of sacred tension.

We want to latch on to the beautiful and poetic apocalyptic images from Revelation of a day when people “will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” The vision is beautiful and of course we want to embrace it, but do we embrace it at the cost of running away from the very real problems of this world?

We come to a church building splendidly decorated for the Easter season with flowers and festal tapestries, but no matter how beautiful the space or the liturgy, thoughts about those deadly shootings at Virginia Tech continue to occupy our minds. We want badly to believe that the kingdom of God is here, but then we think of the situation in Dar Fur and wonder, what happened to the kingdom of God? We try to take seriously the call to share our faith with others, but sometimes we wonder whether our faith is even real for us.

Thinking back to my childhood journey that Easter Day, I don’t think I fully realized the finality with which we were leaving the old church for the new. There was bitter-sweetness and there was tension, yes, but I paid them very little mind. I don’t think it occurred to me that I would never set foot in the old church building again. My lopsided focus on the joy of what lay ahead blinded me to the reality of what was left behind. Driving by the old church from time to time it always seems to me so desolate, and I often wonder, “do I still have unfinished business there?”

The writer of the Book of Revelation sees a vision that is whole and complete and inclusive. “I looked,” he writes, “and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.”

The articulated vision is not for one group that happens to be privileged over another group, or for one nation to be privileged over another nation, or for anyone to claim superiority over someone else. “There was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne.” This kingdom is for everyone, with no one left behind.

I think there is a temptation for all of us embracing this imagery for the future, whether the new church building or the promised land or the kingdom of God, to ignore the tension between old and new, to ignore our responsibilities as stewards over creation, and to ignore our call to seek social and economic justice, reconciliation and peace for all.

The kingdom of God has come, yes, but we await the final fulfillment of that kingdom. We stand in a place of tension, and not just tension, but sacred tension. There is something holy about this place of already-not yet. Why has God led us here, and what does it mean? What are we called to do here?

The words of the mystic Teresa of Avila come to mind as our Easter journey moves us in the direction of Ascension and Pentecost. “Christ has no body now but you,” she writes. “No hands, no feet, no eyes, no ears, Christ has no body now but you.”

You and I are the body of Christ in the world and witnesses of God’s transforming love. Through our thoughts, words, and deeds, through how we shape our lives, we are entrusted to fold all creation into God’s kingdom fulfilled. We are called to leave no one, or no place, or no thing behind.

Amen.