There Goes The Neighborhood

Thief In the Night  •  Sermon  •  Submitted
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ENTRANCE

GATHERING & ANNOUNCEMENTS Rob
Hi I am ...
What we are doing with worship
Reopening Team: find out your intentions
Pentecost Sunday
OPENING PRAYER Liturgist
Almighty God, your Holy Spirit came to Jesus’ disciples, hidden in an upper room in Jerusalem. A violent wind and tongues of fire were the symbols of a new thing happening in their lives. May your Holy Spirit burst into our lives today, encouraging and inspiring us to proclaim boldly the good news of Jesus Christ who offers healing and hope to all people.
AMEN.
HYMN: My Faith Looks Up to Me 1,2,3

PROCLAMATION AND PRAISE

PASTORAL PRAYER WITH LORD’S PRAYER Liturgist
Remind folks to put concerns and celebrations in comments
Knock us off our seats, O Lord, with the wind of your Holy Spirit. Don’t let us just sit back and rest as though nothing important was happening. Remind us that you have come to bless and prepare us for your service. Now is the time of proclamation and celebration! Now is the birth of your church, not as an exercise in futility, but as a dynamic group of people who know you and love you as you know and love each of us. Flame up our hearts! Make us so joyful that we find it difficult to sit back and watch. We want to be part of your healing love and mercy. We want to be people who bear the word that your love for us is eternal; that Jesus Christ, our Savior, proclaimed and taught that love in all that he did and said, modeling for us a new way to live. Pick us up and propel us forward into your world. Help us to remember that you have given to us what we need to be your disciples. We just need to say a resounding "Yes!" to you. Thank you for all the wondrous patience and blessings you pour into our lives each and every day, as we offer our lives back to you in joy and hope. AMEN.
LORD’S PRAYER Liturgist

Scripture Liturgist

Revelation 21:1–7 The Message
I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the first earth, gone the sea. I saw Holy Jerusalem, new-created, descending resplendent out of Heaven, as ready for God as a bride for her husband. I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate.” Then he said, “It’s happened. I’m A to Z. I’m the Beginning, I’m the Conclusion. From Water-of-Life Well I give freely to the thirsty. Conquerors inherit all this. I’ll be God to them, they’ll be sons and daughters to me.
HYMN: Thy Word 1,2
PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION Rob

Introduction

This is not as relevant and timely as it was on Wednesday. I am going to address white supremacy, racism, civil disobedience next week. I was going to rewrite yesterday, but this is a complicated subject and I did not want to write something that was just reactive. I wanted to think about this. So I will have a sermon in that regard next Sunday. Today, however we finish our series on the second coming.
I don’t want to bore you with detail but I think we need to talk a little about the book of Revelation in general so we can better interpret today’s scripture. The Book of Revelation was almost not included in the Bible. The Books of the NT were not decided upon until the fifth century and the inclusion of the Book of Revelation was very controversial. Many believed it did not reflect the Gospel accurately because of all the violence, doom, and gloom imagery contained in it. Nonetheless it made the cut because it was seen as a “natural ending” to the Bible.
However even to this day the Orthodox will not allow their clergy to preach from it and heartily discourage the laity from reading it. I know clergy who will not preach from it. The Book is still today highly controversial and divisive.
There is disagreement over who wrote it. It has become more and more apparent over the centuries that it was not John the Apostle, but another John that wrote the book. He wrote the books to seven churches in Asia minor. He wrote the letter as a comfort to those churches who were struggling with persecution. He may have been having heavenly visions (most do not doubt this) but he also had an eye on what this meant for the churches in Asia minor. I can just about guarantee that when he wrote this letter he had no idea that so much controversy would result from it, because it was addressed to a specific time and place in the history of the church! Of course, it is still applicable to us today, because God inspired it, and frankly, the tribulation that these churches experienced are not what we experience today but none the less we experience tribulation as well.
Now, one more thing about the context. John was obviously having vision, Revelation 4:1
Revelation 4:1 NRSV
After this I looked, and there in heaven a door stood open! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”
For me this explains all the weird visions and symbols. John has been taken into heaven and has been shown heavenly things. He is a finite mortal transported to a place that is infinite and eternal. It is a wonder he can describe what he sees at all. What he sees are things that God has allowed him to see and he communicates them the best he knows how. John is using a literary genre called apocalyptic to do this.
Apocalyptic language is a genre of biblical writing that reveals God’s actions and coming judgement in symbolic language. The genre was prevalent from 200BC to about 200AD, then it disappeared. (In fact in Jewish writing it disappeared after 70AD.) We only have one OT book that contains this genre and it is Daniel chapters 7-13. All of the other apocalyptic writings were not included in the Hebrew Bible by the Rabbis, however in Jesus day many of these would have been considered authoritative.
This genre dealt with the Day of YHWH, the day that God would return and defeat evil and set up his kingdom. After Christ, Christians borrowed this genre to speak about Jesus’ return or The Day of the Lord. Revelation is the best example of this genre we have in the Bible.
This type of writing is really not understood by us today, it was used in the day as a code if you will to communicate the end of things, the end of history, God’s defeat of evil and the establishment of God’s Kingdom. It was never meant to be taken literally it is wholly symbolic.
It was a style of writing and language used to express the inexpressible.
Just as the imagery of political cartoons (in which donkeys and elephants struggle for power) and science fiction (in which people are “beamed” from planet to starship) does not seem bizarre to the modern reader who recognizes the genre, so apocalyptic imagery did not seem grotesque or weird to the ancient reader.”

Exegesis

What we see happening here in Revelation takes place after what we looked at Last week in the judgement and separating the sheep from the goats. In Revelation this is the Great White Throne judgement.
Jesus has been victorious over death, decay, and evil has been defeated. In verse 5 Jesus says “I am making everything new.” He does not say “I am making all new things.” This is a subtle but big difference. God is not destroying everything and starting over, he is taking what he has already created and redeeming it!
Will there really be this big Jerusalem coming out of the sky? I do not know that may be purely symbolic! But I know this for sure, and what this really says is: God chooses to redeem the creation and it is done because , “God is all and in all.” As Peterson puts it God has moved into the neighborhood.
Revelation 21:3 The Message
I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God.
In other words, the Kingdom of God has arrived! Further in 21:4
Revelation 21:4 The Message
He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.”
There is nothing to fear! Death is gone, the old order of things has been defeated. There is no more suffering there is no more death! There is no more sea! Again symbolic or not, what this means is that God has defeated chaos, that God has a new order a redeemed order where he rules. The sea throughout the Bible is a symbol for chaos. In Genesis when God’s spirit “swept over the face of the waters.” God’s spirit brought order to the prime-evil chaos.

Application

So what does this mean for us. Well, like the first readers of Revelation we should take courage in times like we are in, because the book demonstrates to us that God is ultimately in control of history. After what we have seen on our country this weekend, it looks like evil has control. From corrupt and immoral law enforcement, to pandemic, to rioting to racism and white supremacy. And we know the only way to fight evil is with good.
Romans 12:21 NRSV
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
The 7 churches saw evil as Domitian killed Christians who would not worship him. and thought evil was in control.
We should take comfort that God is in control and that history is moving towards God’s total redemption of the creation that he called good. The world will not be destroyed, no matter what you hear from the doom and gloom prophets. All of those end of the world scenarios, won’t happen.
Second, when we pray “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”, we are recognizing that in the church the Kingdom is now but not yet. That means that as people of the resurrection we are people of God’s future, a future of redemption and healing and it is our job to help bring some of that about now. We cannot be silent in the face of racial injustice and white supremacy. We have to work in our communities to eradicate such evil as God’s partners in the Kingdom. We should be feeding the hungry, we should be helping the poor, we should be wiping away tears, and alleviating suffering. We should be spreading the gospel in deed and word. We should be protecting our planet from war and ecological disaster. We should be sharing God’s grace. You see we are partnering with God preserving his creation for that day when he redeems it!
This is why we spread the gospel, so that we’ll be ready when heaven comes to earth! And it will! It is God’s promise and God is faithful and true. Jesus is the resurrected Lord and he is here right here and right now. He is in the process of wiping every tear away. Has Jesus ever wiped away your tears? Has the resurrected Lord, the man who is the first fruits of this great redemption of creation, has he been all in all for you? You see the New Jerusalem, God’s Kingdom is here, it is here in the presence of Jesus Christ in his bride the church all you have to do is to claim it now. The suffering isn’t gone yet, but it’s on its way out! The tears aren’t gone yet, but they are on their way out! All our fears are not gone yet, but they are on their way out!
Let’s take a look what happens when Jesus is in our neighborhood:
Mark 4:35–41 NRSV
On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Jonathan Kozol’s book Amazing Grace s is a narrative study of children in the South Bronx the poorest congressional district in the United States. One of the People described in this book is Anthony, a twelve year old boy who has been exposed to more street violence, crime, and poverty than a young life ought to endure, but who has also experienced the tender ministries of a local church. When Kozol noticed that Anthony Often Spoke of “the kingdom of God,” he asked Anthony to write a description of what he meant by such language. At first the boy resisted the suggestion, but a few days later he showed Kozol three pages in his spiral notebook titled God s Kingdom.” There, among other things, Anthony had Written: .
No violence will be in heaven. There will be no guns or drugs or IRS_You won’t have to pay taxes. You’ll recognize all the Children who have died when they were little. Jesus will be good to them and play with them. At night he’ll come and visit at your house.
The Son who sits in majesty is no distant deity but our brother, and we “are no more a stranger or a guest, but like a child at home.”
That’s because Jesus lives in the neighborhood.
Twelve year old Anthony could see Jesus bringing order to the chaos around him. Do you see it? Jesus is God who brings order to Chaos. Jesus who says, “peace be still!” I want to have the faith he speaks of don’t you? It is available to us. “Today let us remind each other often that the resurrected Jesus no longer needs to be awakened but is a constant companion ready and able to calm our fears and walk through all the storms of life that come our way” (Reuben Job)
HYMN: Blest Be The Tie That Binds

SENDING FORTH

BENEDICTION Liturgist
God, out of God’s great love, has created you. Jesus Christ, out of his great love, has redeemed you. The Holy Spirit, out of great love, has lifted and inspired you to go in peace and service throughout God’s world, proclaiming the good news of peace, love, hope, and joy to all.
Go in peace to Love Christ Love People and Help People Love Christ
AMEN.
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