Room for Everybody--August 14, 2017
"After this I looked, 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. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, 'Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!'" [Revelation 7:9-10]
When I get there, it will have been because the living God makes room for everybody.
When I get there, to that promised day among the sea of all those faces in the presence of Mercy, this face of mine with its pale pink Northern European tint, will be in the minority.
When I get there--in the glorious company of the chorus of all those voices of every tribe and nation singing their praise--my voice, which has only ever spoken English fluently, will not be among the majority.
When you and I meet there, before the throne that undercuts every other power and every other ruler, it will be because the Creator of the universe loves... otherness.
We have witnessed a great deal over the last few days in this country. I have been, I confess, at a loss for how to put into words things that feel so obvious, so crystal clear, so (to borrow a phrase) self-evident, that I would not have thought they needed to be said out loud or put in black-and-white text on a screen. I have been, I shall further confess, disappointed--first in myself for having had to take so long to hammer these words out (knowing the delay doesn't make for any necessary improvement in the quality of those words), and disappointed, too, by others to whom we might have looked for the right words, only to find silence or empty phrases heaped up without clarity.
And for that matter, I have been disappointed, too, in the attempts we all sometimes feel to "weigh in" on the news or buzz of the day in order to make ourselves feel relevant and profound. I am under no illusions that these words of mine right now will be any different.
But I find that in a moment like this one, when we have witnessed an angry mob, literally carrying torches, trying desperately to convince the world (or themselves? I seriously don't know to whom they think they are shouting...) that they need to "reclaim" a power, a prestige, a place in the pecking order, that they think is theirs and theirs alone... a moment when I have watched people whose skin, and ancestry, and heritage are like mine, use cars as weapons to intimidate, silence, and kill others in the attempt to "reclaim" it, a moment in which the folks who carry those torches and shout about blood and soil think that they are doing so with the blessing of the living God... well, in such a moment, it seems important to listen again to what the voice of that living God actually says.
And this is the unequivocal answer: when we get there to glory, it will be as members of a great multitude from every nation, every language, every tribe, and every place. The Scriptures themselves leave no question about it--the future toward which the living God is drawing all of history, includes a whole rainbow of humanity. And that means, furthermore, that my presence will be but one shade of color there... and by no means should I expect to be in the majority there. By no means would it make sense to assume that English will be the official language of the heavenly throne room--there will be, we are promised, voices from every tongue and dialect, every language and group.
This is how God wants it, it would appear. This is the future to which we are called. This is the kingdom, so to speak, to which we are called to pledge our allegiance. This is the beloved community Jesus is creating--and it is for all. It is rooted in the soil of every place on God's green earth. It is made up of the blood that flows through every heart.
And, as I say, it has struck me as especially sad that these things need to be said out loud again... and said amidst the vacuum of silence of voices that should have spoken up sooner or louder. It has struck me as unfathomably uninformed to hear anyone claim that Jesus is the sole property of one group, one language, one anything... and downright blasphemous to invoke the name of Christ in the quest to "reclaim" power and social place.
It is a travesty that these things need to be said at all, except that we religious folks do have this pernicious habit of covering over the things in which we are complicit so that we do not have to deal with them anymore. It is sin--and there is no lesser word for it--that followers of Jesus have been so indifferent to the ways faces around us are treated that someone else might think the way of Jesus could ever be compatible with the notion of hating the "other" simply because of their "otherness." It is absurd that it has to be said at all, that hatred must be explicitly condemned as "not the way of Jesus"--which is to say, "anti-Christ." There are not many sides on this one--there is instead the picture from Revelation in which all peoples, all nations, and all languages are gathered on one side around the Lamb.
To be a Christian, let us be clear, is to hope for the day when God brings all such peoples together, when every face is welcomed, when every voice is given space to be heard, when every language is spoken, and when every shade of color is found in sea of humanity gathered around the Lamb. And to be a Christian is no longer to pledge allegiance or loyalty just to the fortunes and futures of one group, of "my" group, or "my" heritage, or "my" place of power--to be a Christian is to be done, once and for all, with the attempt to get more power, more privilege, more prestige for "me and my group of people like me." To be a Christian is to be where Jesus is--and Jesus the Lamb insists on being surrounded by infinite crowds where all nations and all peoples are not just "allowed," but welcomed. If it were not clear already, let these words from the book of Revelation (which is never a book to pull punches) remove any doubt. At the last, all of creation is headed toward a future in which every language, every beautiful shade of brown and pink and olive and black, and every nation is found. That is where God is leading the story of the universe.
And so on these days, I keep looking ahead at the promised future. Like old sailors in the days before GPS and radios, I know that if I keep pointed toward the setting sun on the horizon I will be headed always west. And the promised future is a multitude so large you can't count it, made up of all peoples, all groups, all nationalities, all languages... everybody. And in the Reign of God, everybody means everybody. If we have the courage to listen to the Scriptures, to see the future they are intent on showing us, then it will make a difference in how we live and act now. We will speak up now any time someone settles for a vision that is not open to all. We will stand with those who have been excluded or threatened. We will set aside the childish quest to get more, or "reclaim," our power or prestige or perks. We will stand, when the angry shouters with tiki torches come down the street, simply with hands held open and the invitation that Mercy is making room for all of us... yes, even for a white-skinned English-speaking minority among the heavenly crowd like me. The more we keep that promised future in our view now, the more we will dare to embody it now, too.
Thanks be to the God who loves otherness... including yours and mine.
Lord Jesus, give us the courage to love otherness as you do, and to speak where you lead us to.
When I get there, it will have been because the living God makes room for everybody.
When I get there, to that promised day among the sea of all those faces in the presence of Mercy, this face of mine with its pale pink Northern European tint, will be in the minority.
When I get there--in the glorious company of the chorus of all those voices of every tribe and nation singing their praise--my voice, which has only ever spoken English fluently, will not be among the majority.
When you and I meet there, before the throne that undercuts every other power and every other ruler, it will be because the Creator of the universe loves... otherness.
We have witnessed a great deal over the last few days in this country. I have been, I confess, at a loss for how to put into words things that feel so obvious, so crystal clear, so (to borrow a phrase) self-evident, that I would not have thought they needed to be said out loud or put in black-and-white text on a screen. I have been, I shall further confess, disappointed--first in myself for having had to take so long to hammer these words out (knowing the delay doesn't make for any necessary improvement in the quality of those words), and disappointed, too, by others to whom we might have looked for the right words, only to find silence or empty phrases heaped up without clarity.
And for that matter, I have been disappointed, too, in the attempts we all sometimes feel to "weigh in" on the news or buzz of the day in order to make ourselves feel relevant and profound. I am under no illusions that these words of mine right now will be any different.
But I find that in a moment like this one, when we have witnessed an angry mob, literally carrying torches, trying desperately to convince the world (or themselves? I seriously don't know to whom they think they are shouting...) that they need to "reclaim" a power, a prestige, a place in the pecking order, that they think is theirs and theirs alone... a moment when I have watched people whose skin, and ancestry, and heritage are like mine, use cars as weapons to intimidate, silence, and kill others in the attempt to "reclaim" it, a moment in which the folks who carry those torches and shout about blood and soil think that they are doing so with the blessing of the living God... well, in such a moment, it seems important to listen again to what the voice of that living God actually says.
And this is the unequivocal answer: when we get there to glory, it will be as members of a great multitude from every nation, every language, every tribe, and every place. The Scriptures themselves leave no question about it--the future toward which the living God is drawing all of history, includes a whole rainbow of humanity. And that means, furthermore, that my presence will be but one shade of color there... and by no means should I expect to be in the majority there. By no means would it make sense to assume that English will be the official language of the heavenly throne room--there will be, we are promised, voices from every tongue and dialect, every language and group.
This is how God wants it, it would appear. This is the future to which we are called. This is the kingdom, so to speak, to which we are called to pledge our allegiance. This is the beloved community Jesus is creating--and it is for all. It is rooted in the soil of every place on God's green earth. It is made up of the blood that flows through every heart.
And, as I say, it has struck me as especially sad that these things need to be said out loud again... and said amidst the vacuum of silence of voices that should have spoken up sooner or louder. It has struck me as unfathomably uninformed to hear anyone claim that Jesus is the sole property of one group, one language, one anything... and downright blasphemous to invoke the name of Christ in the quest to "reclaim" power and social place.
It is a travesty that these things need to be said at all, except that we religious folks do have this pernicious habit of covering over the things in which we are complicit so that we do not have to deal with them anymore. It is sin--and there is no lesser word for it--that followers of Jesus have been so indifferent to the ways faces around us are treated that someone else might think the way of Jesus could ever be compatible with the notion of hating the "other" simply because of their "otherness." It is absurd that it has to be said at all, that hatred must be explicitly condemned as "not the way of Jesus"--which is to say, "anti-Christ." There are not many sides on this one--there is instead the picture from Revelation in which all peoples, all nations, and all languages are gathered on one side around the Lamb.
To be a Christian, let us be clear, is to hope for the day when God brings all such peoples together, when every face is welcomed, when every voice is given space to be heard, when every language is spoken, and when every shade of color is found in sea of humanity gathered around the Lamb. And to be a Christian is no longer to pledge allegiance or loyalty just to the fortunes and futures of one group, of "my" group, or "my" heritage, or "my" place of power--to be a Christian is to be done, once and for all, with the attempt to get more power, more privilege, more prestige for "me and my group of people like me." To be a Christian is to be where Jesus is--and Jesus the Lamb insists on being surrounded by infinite crowds where all nations and all peoples are not just "allowed," but welcomed. If it were not clear already, let these words from the book of Revelation (which is never a book to pull punches) remove any doubt. At the last, all of creation is headed toward a future in which every language, every beautiful shade of brown and pink and olive and black, and every nation is found. That is where God is leading the story of the universe.
And so on these days, I keep looking ahead at the promised future. Like old sailors in the days before GPS and radios, I know that if I keep pointed toward the setting sun on the horizon I will be headed always west. And the promised future is a multitude so large you can't count it, made up of all peoples, all groups, all nationalities, all languages... everybody. And in the Reign of God, everybody means everybody. If we have the courage to listen to the Scriptures, to see the future they are intent on showing us, then it will make a difference in how we live and act now. We will speak up now any time someone settles for a vision that is not open to all. We will stand with those who have been excluded or threatened. We will set aside the childish quest to get more, or "reclaim," our power or prestige or perks. We will stand, when the angry shouters with tiki torches come down the street, simply with hands held open and the invitation that Mercy is making room for all of us... yes, even for a white-skinned English-speaking minority among the heavenly crowd like me. The more we keep that promised future in our view now, the more we will dare to embody it now, too.
Thanks be to the God who loves otherness... including yours and mine.
Lord Jesus, give us the courage to love otherness as you do, and to speak where you lead us to.
Beautifully written,Pastor Steve. I do not nor ever will understand racism. I grew up in the big city of Pittsburgh and there were certain things about "others"I was taught. But as I grew up and read Christ's teachings along with a large variety of fiction I learned,thought and rejected those ideas. Those who stick with their hatred often seem unreachable and I have engaged in many arguments with racist people, they seem so ingrained as to be immovable. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings. They helped heal some of my pain caused by what's going on in America today.
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