A Glimpse of Heaven (Revelation 7:9-10)

Sunday, April 28, 2013

A version of this sermon was originally preached at HillSong on April 28, 2013 under the title “God in New Faces.”

            It was my third year, time for my classmates and I to think about life after seminary.  We were training to be pastors, chaplains, missionaries.  Where would we end up?

            I was sheltered, a suburban kid who grew up watching MTV and going to hang out at the Mall. For me, a night on the town meant driving to the Roanoke Civic Center to see professional wrestling.  Ric Flair was in his heyday.  In seminary, as I read the Bible, God shredded my sheltered, play-it-safe life. 

I knew God wanted me to preach and a lead church.  But what kind of church (beyond just whatever church would hire someone really young with limited experience) would call me?  Pastors find their calling in different ways.  For me, it was a direct, uncomfortable encounter with scripture.  The words of Revelation 7:9 burrowed into me.

“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!” 

Every tribe and people and language; it was fall 1995.  Almost everyone I knew was just like me - white, American, middle class, suburban.  That was my entire world. 

Imprisoned for his faith in Jesus, John was carried to Heaven in a vision.  There he saw people from every language, tribe, and nation, all together, praising Jesus.  I only knew one small subset of one tribe speaking one language in one nation.  My knowledge of the people of God was pathetically small.  That meant my knowledge of God was woefully impoverished.  How could I be a pastor and lead a church, knowing so little?  How could I even follow Jesus?

I had to serve a church where there were more than just white people.  I needed diversity.  God led me to Greenbrier Baptist in Arlington, Virginia.  There’s not a more diverse community anywhere than what you’ll find in Arlington.

I had been at that church about 1 month, when the Promise Keepers rally came to the national mall.  The ministry attracted 100’s of thousands of men to our nation’s capital for worship.  Our church took a couple of refugees from Sudan.  They had been persecuted and forced to flee their country because they were Christians.  Like me, they had only been in DC about a month. Here they were, free to worship God with thousands of others.  We also had about 10 guys from the Spanish congregation at Greenbrier.  Two Africans, ten Hispanics and two whites guys – my Dad and me.   

Over and over, for 9 years pastoring in Arlington, I had experiences like that.  I met God in the faces of white American, black Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans.  I met God in Gypsies, Romany people.  I met God in a community of Sudanese refugees, and the young Ethiopian woman who attended our church.  I met God in the Pakistani man who gave me a copy of the Qur’an.   Each new encounter was like seeing another side of God’s indescribable beauty.  I realized I personally would never enjoy God in this way if I had met God in just one culture.  I needed that diversity of people to expand my appreciation of who God is. 

All those experiences came after I sat in my seminary classroom a few minutes before class and happened to read Revelation 7:9.   Every tribe and people and language.  The arc of my life changed by the reading the Bible that day and then reacting to what I read.  I have gotten many things wrong over my life and career in ministry.  I have made my share of mistakes.  But one thing I did right was listen to God that day as I read Revelation 7 and waited for class to start.  God told me to seek out people from tribes different than my own.  I am so thankful I did that.

Seeing more of God is one of two primary reasons I press for the church to be racially and ethnically diverse.  Most churches are mono-culture.  Many of these mono-culture churches are great churches.  But I believe God is calling our church to be so diverse that no single culture is the dominant one.  God is calling us to be a church that embodies the vision cast in Revelation 7.  We want people to meet God in God’s fullness here, among us.  That can only happen if we are fully committed to diversity.

We have to celebrate numerous cultures.  We have traditionally been a church of white people.  I say that without any criticism.  It’s not a negative thing.  It just is.  However, going forward, to see God, know God, and celebrate God, we have to understand the way Chinese culture works and Mexican culture, and the numerous expressions of African American culture; we have to allow these various cultural expressions of faith sometimes be the ones guiding how we come together.  If you find us worshiping God or fellowshipping in a way that feels strange to you, step into it.  Embrace it.  What feels odd to you might feel comfortable to your black sister in Christ or your Mexican brother in Christ. 

Understand that Mexican, Chinese, black, and other people of color have adjusted their expectations to white cultural practices for a long time.  For us to be a truly diverse community, we white people have to be just as willing to give up our expectations sometimes.  It can’t be everyone is welcome to come do things the way we white Christians have always done them.  It has to be we all come together in humility, friendship, love, and faith in Jesus.  We all get our turn planning and leading.  This might be applied in the style of music or preaching, the kinds of food at our meals, or the pace of our social gathering.  Each culture present gets an equal voice in how we do ministry and how we live together as a family of God.  We become something new, something different from any earthly entity. 

Seeing more of God is one reason for making diversity a priority in the church.  The church’s witness is a second reason we promote diversity so that we are all empowered participants in church life.  When we talk about our witness, we literally mean what we have seen and experienced.  We have seen that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.  We have experienced salvation, rescue from sin and death.  Because of Jesus, we are not alienated from God by our sins, but rather, with our sins washed away, we are adopted as sons and daughters of God.  As Psalm 34:8 says, we have tasted and seen that the Lord is good.

Our testimony is the word we speak based on what we have witnessed.  We testify that the world is fallen, dying in sin.  Racism and institutions perpetuating a white, male hierarchy are societal manifestations of sin.  Sin brings death and eternal alienation from God. Our church testifies to the specific ways the Gospel offers an alternative to the dark-realities of sin where we live. 

When we talk about diversity and racial unity, we’re speaking out of our God-inspired Gospel witness.  We should not seek diversity for diversity’s sake.  Plenty of secular organizations do that. We seek diversity because the Kingdom of heaven, as seen in Revelation 7:9; is the most diverse place in the universe. We want people to find rescue from sin and to get a glimpse of the goodness of Heaven. As Revelation shows, diversity is one indicator of heaven’s goodness.

What we offer is a radical alternative to the violence and hatred produced by prejudice and racism.  Recall the events in Charlottesville two years ago.  Neo-Nazis paraded around protesting the removal of a statue of Civil War general Robert E. Lee.  Counter protestors confronted the New-Nazis.  The result was the death of a young woman.

Recall the incidents right here in our own town.  In protests around the University of North Carolina’s removal the Civil War statue “Silent Sam,” there have been minor acts of violence though nothing as dramatic as in Charlottesville.  In both places, whether the violence was a car ramming a crowd, or a fist in the face, one fact cannot be avoided.  In the American Civil War, the slaves were black and plantation owners were white.  Many black people still feel they have to carry the shame of that heritage and it hurts to hear white people today defend it.  We can’t escape the racial nature of this conflict which so often turns violent.

The last examples are Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas.  In Texas, the killer, an American terrorist, targets Hispanics, ranting about an invasion.  That includes our brothers and sisters in Christ who are Mexican.  That includes people whose families go back several generations living in America.  They are targeted because they aren’t white enough to be true Americans in the mind of this evil killer. 

Charlottesville, El Paso, Texas, the killing of members of a black church in a prayer meeting in Charleston, South Carolina several years ago – these a few of the way too many examples of brokenness in our land.  In every case, the sin is based in racism, fear, and hatred.  To respond to such evil, the church has to offer good news about racial diversity based in welcome, hope, and love.

Our testimony as followers of Jesus has to be based on what we’ve witnessed.  There is something better – a kingdom in which people from every nation, tribe, and language are joined together in love for each other and desire to praise Jesus.  By developing a multiethnic church that’s more concerned about the eternal Kingdom of God than any earthly nation, we point to something better.  We create an environment in which we celebrate one another uniqueness and learn about the love of God in the ways we love one another.  We help others who visit our church see the way out of the brokenness around us and the way into the beloved Kingdom of God.  We say to the world, “this is what God’s kingdom is like.” 

We exist as a church to help people find their way to God – all people.  One of the many ways we do that is to intentionally celebrate our diversity and to work to make sure diversity is a core principle in our congregation.

Diversity helps us see more of God.  I believe God has given me this vision for a diverse church.  I pray you will embrace this vision too and we as a church will work to make our church a place where people come and get a glimpse of the Heavenly gathering of God’s family. 

AMEN

Gospel Imagination (Jonah 4:1-11)

Sunday, November 20, 2016

            Jonah chapter 3 ends with God changing his mind.  God was going to wipe out the city of Nineveh.  However, when the people turned from their evils ways, God changed the plan.  Then chapter four begins, “this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry” (4:1). 

            Eugene Peterson writes “Jonah is quarreling because he has been surprised by grace.  He is so taken aback that he is disagreeable about it.  His idea of what God is supposed to be doing and what God in fact does differs radically.  Jonah sulks.  Jonah is angry.”[i]  Peterson goes on to say that Jonah is stuck in literalism.  Because God put the message of destruction in his mouth, then in his mind, it must play out only that way; no other outcomes occur to him.  Nineveh, one of the largest cities in the world, has to be obliterated.  Peterson observes that Jonah fails to see Nineveh.  He’s so caught up in a narrative in which he is one of the “good guys” because God is on his side and the Ninevites are “bad guys” that he never considers their humanity or their need for God.  He has no grief for their destruction because he does not think about them at all.

            Peterson is the scholar who translated the entire Bible into a colloquial vernacular that is very popular today – The Message.  He originally translated Paul’s short letter to the Galatians into everyday language in order to help the members of his own church better understand the scripture.  He did not intend to translate the entire Bible.  He was a pastor trying to liven up a Sunday school class and help the people feel the full emotion and effect of scripture. 

            Editors who had worked with him on other books persuaded Eugene Peterson to give up his pastoral ministry and dedicate his time to writing The Message.  His work conveys an understanding that the power of the Bible comes in the story.  In story, we can relate to God and see how past interactions between God and humans speak into our lives.  In Jonah’s case, it is the story of someone who thinks of himself as one of God’s insiders even as he disregards those he deems outsiders.  Peterson says Jonah is guilty of a failure of imagination.

            I know in my own life as a Christian, I have been guilty of this too.  From high school to college to seminary to full time ministry, I have always been inside the church.  That’s not the same as being close to God, but I often tell myself it is.  I worked a summer in the Ingersoll Rand factory Roanoke, pulling parts for the guys on the line who made heavy digging equipment.  I played football in highs school and a little bit in college.  I went through army basic training and spent six years in the National Guard.  I am familiar with the crass language of the barracks and the locker room.  But when I spent time in those earthy places, in my mind, I was a person from the church and of the church.   I was separate from those places even when I was there.

            Restricting my identity and my sense of God to so-called holy spaces, I failed to appreciate the transcendence of God and the love of God.  Inside the church, we worship God.   He is here.  But God is not bound by the church.  When we walk out the church doors and go other places, God is in those places too.  God was with me in barracks and in those factories where I worked between semesters.  If you had asked back then, “Was God present when with you all night as you pulled parts and took them to workers on the line,” I would have responded, “Yes.”  Mentally, I knew God was in all places.  But I wasn’t conscious to the possibility that God might actually be at work while I labored in uncomfortable steel-toed shoes at the Ingersoll-Rand factory.  It didn’t occur to me that great works of transformation could happen there because God loved those factory workers who weren’t, like me, going back to college in the fall. 

It didn’t occur to Jonah that God’s love was bigger than God’s judgment.  Yes, the Ninevites were wicked.  But so was Jonah.  So am I.  We all sin.  Our sins might be different than the sins committed by the ancient Ninevites or by attendees at a frat party or by poor Syrians recruited into ISIS.  In each case the specific acts of wickedness is different, but people in every walk of life in every nation sin, and God loves us in spite of our sins.  This is the Gospel.  Jesus died on the cross out of love for human beings.  In becoming human, he embraced the end of all humans – death – even though he never did what brings death; sin.  In his willingness to die and in rising from death, he defeated death and invited us to join him in resurrection, if we would receive forgiveness from him and follow Him as our Lord and Savior. 

We see this failure to imagine that God would turn around the lives of sinners in Mark chapter 2.  There Jesus calls Levi to leave his work as a tax collector and to follow Jesus as his disciple.  Levi is so overjoyed, he has a party and invites all his friends.  All his friends are tax collectors who became rich by overcharging people who were already quite poor, and prostitutes who – well, we know what they do – and, other miscreants.  Pharisees, the legal experts, aware that Jesus was partying with this motley crew, rejoiced. “Yes Jesus,” they cried, “you’re leading these lost people back to God!”

Actually, no, that’s not what the Pharisees said.  Actually they complained bitterly because, like Jonah, they perceived themselves to be part of the in-crowd, insiders with God.  They weren’t interested in helping society’s deviants to grow closer to God.  They were happy to let the lost stay lost and magnify their own reputations as holy men. 

How do we recover imagination?  How do orient our hearts so that when great acts of God’s grace are seen, we are ready to rejoice instead of complain?  I can’t go back to the factory or the locker room or the barracks and have a “do over” from those times I failed to keep my eyes on God’s glory and failed to help other see him.   Too often, I missed opportunities to be a witness in those places.  But today God gives me new chances see Him at work among people who don’t know him.  God is calling you and me to be part of his work of inviting hurting people to the healing and love he gives.  How can I be ready to join God in this work?  How can we change our outlook so that we show up at Levi’s party full of rule breakers able to relax among them and love them?  We don’t join the tax collectors and prostitutes in immoral behavior, but do we reach out to them in friendship because we believe God will work miracles in their lives.  How do get to the point where we can do that?  How can you and I learn to rejoice when we see Nineveh saved?

First, of course, we recognize that it is a work of God, thus we must draw close to God.  We pray, we worship, we stay in the scripture, we meet in small groups to discuss life and faith with other believers in our church family, participate in works of the church, and we eliminate from our lives activities that prevent us from living more faithfully.  All this is basic to knowing God better.

Second, we live with uncomfortable honesty about our own sins and this drives us to confession.  Deceiving ourselves into thinking we’re “not that bad,” whatever not that bad means, is a total waste.  We begin to be shaped by God when are unabashedly honest with him and with ourselves. 

Third, we live on the look-out.  This is where Gospel imagination can kick into overdrive.  Suppose you’re running errands.  Might God there, at Harris Teeter?  When you go in to buy eggs, bananas, tuna, and bread, do you expect to encounter God in the aisles?  No?  Why not?  He’s there.  He’s at the post office and at the auto mechanic’s garage.  When we leave the house in the morning, headed out to the most mundane of places, do we expect to encounter God in our daily comings and goings and are we prepared to join God when we see God on the loose in the world?  When we pass people at the grocery store, at the bank, at the mall – do we see potential for great works of grace?  No, not every trip to McDonald’s is going to be akin to going to the Mount of Transfiguration.  But, we go through our days thinking “this trip has the possibility for me to meet Jesus as I see his face in the faces of the people I meet. 

Stay connected to God through life in the church in order to know God more deeply.  Be brutally honest with God and with yourself about everything that’s in your heart and mind and comes out in your actions.  Live on the look-out, expecting to see God at any time, in any place.  There’s one more thing.

This one more thing is tough because it go against the way our society has conditioned.  As we watched all the election coverage, we were told how African Americans voted, how women voted, how the LGBT community voted, how white professional males voted, how working class people voted, how Hispanics voted; and on and on.  Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were each trying to become the first Hispanic president.  Bernie Sanders would have been the first Jewish president.  Hillary Clinton would have been the first woman president. 

Taking it away from presidential politics, in our daily interactions with people, do we notice?  Was that exchange in the parking lot at the library with a man, or with a Chinese man?  Would I say the General I saw on the news was a courageous, bold soldier, or would I say she was a courageous and bold for a woman?  Would I say the guy at the party was tremendous dancer, or I would I say, he could really dance, for a white guy? 

Staying in touch with God through devotion and through life in the church; being completely transparent with God and with ourselves; living in expectation that today, we’ll meet God; the fourth essential for recovering and then living in a Gospel imagination is the release of categories.  I don’t mean we’re color blind.  We should acknowledge the pains of African Americans, or indigenous Americans, or of different immigrant.  It would be an affront to Jews to ignore the Holocaust.  It would be akin to spitting in the face of black people to pretend slavery didn’t happen. We acknowledge cultural distinctives and we celebrate them.  We rejoice in the unique contributions and accomplishments different cultures make to the human tapestry.  In art, in music, in sports, in business, in technology, in food, in dance, in personality, in style and in a 100 other ways, different cultural expressions are to be championed. 

When I say that release of categories is essential for Gospel imagination, I mean, I cannot assume anything about you.  If you’re unshaven, wearing a Dale Earnhardt hat, a camouflage-styles coat, and muddy boots, I must not assume you are a dumb bumpkin because you might be smarter than me in 100 ways.  Maybe you’re a country person, but country folk contribute a lot to make the world better for everyone.  I dare not assume you’re a racist because wearing your books and camo-shirts, you may have done immeasurably more to fight racism than I have.  I cannot assume anything.  I will celebrate who you are, I will seek the face of God in your eyes, I will not bind you in some category, and upon meeting you, I will eagerly await the in-breaking of the Holy Spirit as you and I talk, however briefly.  The same would be true if you are black or if you are Asian or female or of a different economic background.  However we are different, when I meet you, I need to release categories and come believing God is about to show up. 

I heard Kelly McEvers interview white nationalist Richard Spencer on National Public Radio.  Spencer said he found nothing immoral about swastikas or the KKK.  He intimated that different racial groups in America should stick to their own kind and that the white kind, European Americans, should be the ones in power.  Many in America believe that with Donald Trump coming into the oval office, racists like Richard Spencer will gain power and nonwhites will be in some trouble.  I pray that this is not the case.  I think one response – the church’s response is to live in Gospel imagination.

We repel the ideology of Richard Spencer by living with arms wide open to all people.  She is not that black woman; she is my beautiful African American sister in Christ and when we get together we both believe something amazing can happen because God is in it.  When Spencer advocates for advancing the white race, we announce the Kingdom of God.  Where Spencer promotes segregation, we display our diverse unity – the full colors of God’s church.  Where white nationalist groups process down the street in a parade of hate, filled with the Holy Spirit, we lock arms with one another in a show of love. 

We even pray for Richard Spencer because we know that God took Saul the Christian-killer and turned him into Paul the church-planter.  Release him from the categories to which he clings.  His mouth speaks hatred, but he is a lost soul who needs Jesus.  We are free to see that even as we renounce his hateful words.  We are free to pray for Donald Trump because we know God is God in the white house and in Trump Towers.  God’s sovereignty reigns in those places, so those places, even there, can be a site of miraculous transformation.  We are free to go to Levi’s party of sinners and laugh and eat alongside Jesus as he loves people who need him.  We are free to sit with Jonah overlooking Nineveh, and we are free to rejoice in the mercy God has shown. 

America is in transition.  Acts of harassment and bigotry have been reported.  There’s an uneasy wind in the air and many are scared.  But there is another story to tell, the one in which God is God and is on the loose in the world.  Let’s tell that story.  Let’s believe all the things we say about God in our song and our prayers.  Let’s live that story. 

What’s going to happen this week?  I am not sure.  But I look and I see a lot of people who are going to walk out of here ready to love all people and ready to meet God in the simplest of places.  I see a people ready to cheer for the salvation of Nineveh, the people and the animals. 

What’s going to happen?  I don’t know, but God is about, so we will find out.

AMEN

---

[i] E.Peterson (1992), Under the Unpredictable Plant, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (Grand Rapids), p.157.

Gospel Imagination (Jonah 4:1-11)

Sunday, November 20, 2016

            Jonah chapter 3 ends with God changing his mind.  God was going to wipe out the city of Nineveh.  However, when the people turned from their evils ways, God changed the plan.  Then chapter four begins, “this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry” (4:1). 

            Eugene Peterson writes “Jonah is quarreling because he has been surprised by grace.  He is so taken aback that he is disagreeable about it.  His idea of what God is supposed to be doing and what God in fact does differs radically.  Jonah sulks.  Jonah is angry.”[i]  Peterson goes on to say that Jonah is stuck in literalism.  Because God put the message of destruction in his mouth, then in his mind, it must play out only that way; no other outcomes occur to him.  Nineveh, one of the largest cities in the world, has to be obliterated.  Peterson observes that Jonah fails to see Nineveh.  He’s so caught up in a narrative in which he is one of the “good guys” because God is on his side and the Ninevites are “bad guys” that he never considers their humanity or their need for God.  He has no grief for their destruction because he does not think about them at all.

            Peterson is the scholar who translated the entire Bible into a colloquial vernacular that is very popular today – The Message.  He originally translated Paul’s short letter to the Galatians into everyday language in order to help the members of his own church better understand the scripture.  He did not intend to translate the entire Bible.  He was a pastor trying to liven up a Sunday school class and help the people feel the full emotion and effect of scripture. 

            Editors who had worked with him on other books persuaded Eugene Peterson to give up his pastoral ministry and dedicate his time to writing The Message.  His work conveys an understanding that the power of the Bible comes in the story.  In story, we can relate to God and see how past interactions between God and humans speak into our lives.  In Jonah’s case, it is the story of someone who thinks of himself as one of God’s insiders even as he disregards those he deems outsiders.  Peterson says Jonah is guilty of a failure of imagination.

            I know in my own life as a Christian, I have been guilty of this too.  From high school to college to seminary to full time ministry, I have always been inside the church.  That’s not the same as being close to God, but I often tell myself it is.  I worked a summer in the Ingersoll Rand factory Roanoke, pulling parts for the guys on the line who made heavy digging equipment.  I played football in highs school and a little bit in college.  I went through army basic training and spent six years in the National Guard.  I am familiar with the crass language of the barracks and the locker room.  But when I spent time in those earthy places, in my mind, I was a person from the church and of the church.   I was separate from those places even when I was there.

            Restricting my identity and my sense of God to so-called holy spaces, I failed to appreciate the transcendence of God and the love of God.  Inside the church, we worship God.   He is here.  But God is not bound by the church.  When we walk out the church doors and go other places, God is in those places too.  God was with me in barracks and in those factories where I worked between semesters.  If you had asked back then, “Was God present when with you all night as you pulled parts and took them to workers on the line,” I would have responded, “Yes.”  Mentally, I knew God was in all places.  But I wasn’t conscious to the possibility that God might actually be at work while I labored in uncomfortable steel-toed shoes at the Ingersoll-Rand factory.  It didn’t occur to me that great works of transformation could happen there because God loved those factory workers who weren’t, like me, going back to college in the fall. 

It didn’t occur to Jonah that God’s love was bigger than God’s judgment.  Yes, the Ninevites were wicked.  But so was Jonah.  So am I.  We all sin.  Our sins might be different than the sins committed by the ancient Ninevites or by attendees at a frat party or by poor Syrians recruited into ISIS.  In each case the specific acts of wickedness is different, but people in every walk of life in every nation sin, and God loves us in spite of our sins.  This is the Gospel.  Jesus died on the cross out of love for human beings.  In becoming human, he embraced the end of all humans – death – even though he never did what brings death; sin.  In his willingness to die and in rising from death, he defeated death and invited us to join him in resurrection, if we would receive forgiveness from him and follow Him as our Lord and Savior. 

We see this failure to imagine that God would turn around the lives of sinners in Mark chapter 2.  There Jesus calls Levi to leave his work as a tax collector and to follow Jesus as his disciple.  Levi is so overjoyed, he has a party and invites all his friends.  All his friends are tax collectors who became rich by overcharging people who were already quite poor, and prostitutes who – well, we know what they do – and, other miscreants.  Pharisees, the legal experts, aware that Jesus was partying with this motley crew, rejoiced. “Yes Jesus,” they cried, “you’re leading these lost people back to God!”

Actually, no, that’s not what the Pharisees said.  Actually they complained bitterly because, like Jonah, they perceived themselves to be part of the in-crowd, insiders with God.  They weren’t interested in helping society’s deviants to grow closer to God.  They were happy to let the lost stay lost and magnify their own reputations as holy men. 

How do we recover imagination?  How do orient our hearts so that when great acts of God’s grace are seen, we are ready to rejoice instead of complain?  I can’t go back to the factory or the locker room or the barracks and have a “do over” from those times I failed to keep my eyes on God’s glory and failed to help other see him.   Too often, I missed opportunities to be a witness in those places.  But today God gives me new chances see Him at work among people who don’t know him.  God is calling you and me to be part of his work of inviting hurting people to the healing and love he gives.  How can I be ready to join God in this work?  How can we change our outlook so that we show up at Levi’s party full of rule breakers able to relax among them and love them?  We don’t join the tax collectors and prostitutes in immoral behavior, but do we reach out to them in friendship because we believe God will work miracles in their lives.  How do get to the point where we can do that?  How can you and I learn to rejoice when we see Nineveh saved?

First, of course, we recognize that it is a work of God, thus we must draw close to God.  We pray, we worship, we stay in the scripture, we meet in small groups to discuss life and faith with other believers in our church family, participate in works of the church, and we eliminate from our lives activities that prevent us from living more faithfully.  All this is basic to knowing God better.

Second, we live with uncomfortable honesty about our own sins and this drives us to confession.  Deceiving ourselves into thinking we’re “not that bad,” whatever not that bad means, is a total waste.  We begin to be shaped by God when are unabashedly honest with him and with ourselves. 

Third, we live on the look-out.  This is where Gospel imagination can kick into overdrive.  Suppose you’re running errands.  Might God there, at Harris Teeter?  When you go in to buy eggs, bananas, tuna, and bread, do you expect to encounter God in the aisles?  No?  Why not?  He’s there.  He’s at the post office and at the auto mechanic’s garage.  When we leave the house in the morning, headed out to the most mundane of places, do we expect to encounter God in our daily comings and goings and are we prepared to join God when we see God on the loose in the world?  When we pass people at the grocery store, at the bank, at the mall – do we see potential for great works of grace?  No, not every trip to McDonald’s is going to be akin to going to the Mount of Transfiguration.  But, we go through our days thinking “this trip has the possibility for me to meet Jesus as I see his face in the faces of the people I meet. 

Stay connected to God through life in the church in order to know God more deeply.  Be brutally honest with God and with yourself about everything that’s in your heart and mind and comes out in your actions.  Live on the look-out, expecting to see God at any time, in any place.  There’s one more thing.

This one more thing is tough because it go against the way our society has conditioned.  As we watched all the election coverage, we were told how African Americans voted, how women voted, how the LGBT community voted, how white professional males voted, how working class people voted, how Hispanics voted; and on and on.  Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were each trying to become the first Hispanic president.  Bernie Sanders would have been the first Jewish president.  Hillary Clinton would have been the first woman president. 

Taking it away from presidential politics, in our daily interactions with people, do we notice?  Was that exchange in the parking lot at the library with a man, or with a Chinese man?  Would I say the General I saw on the news was a courageous, bold soldier, or would I say she was a courageous and bold for a woman?  Would I say the guy at the party was tremendous dancer, or I would I say, he could really dance, for a white guy? 

Staying in touch with God through devotion and through life in the church; being completely transparent with God and with ourselves; living in expectation that today, we’ll meet God; the fourth essential for recovering and then living in a Gospel imagination is the release of categories.  I don’t mean we’re color blind.  We should acknowledge the pains of African Americans, or indigenous Americans, or of different immigrant.  It would be an affront to Jews to ignore the Holocaust.  It would be akin to spitting in the face of black people to pretend slavery didn’t happen. We acknowledge cultural distinctives and we celebrate them.  We rejoice in the unique contributions and accomplishments different cultures make to the human tapestry.  In art, in music, in sports, in business, in technology, in food, in dance, in personality, in style and in a 100 other ways, different cultural expressions are to be championed. 

When I say that release of categories is essential for Gospel imagination, I mean, I cannot assume anything about you.  If you’re unshaven, wearing a Dale Earnhardt hat, a camouflage-styles coat, and muddy boots, I must not assume you are a dumb bumpkin because you might be smarter than me in 100 ways.  Maybe you’re a country person, but country folk contribute a lot to make the world better for everyone.  I dare not assume you’re a racist because wearing your books and camo-shirts, you may have done immeasurably more to fight racism than I have.  I cannot assume anything.  I will celebrate who you are, I will seek the face of God in your eyes, I will not bind you in some category, and upon meeting you, I will eagerly await the in-breaking of the Holy Spirit as you and I talk, however briefly.  The same would be true if you are black or if you are Asian or female or of a different economic background.  However we are different, when I meet you, I need to release categories and come believing God is about to show up. 

I heard Kelly McEvers interview white nationalist Richard Spencer on National Public Radio.  Spencer said he found nothing immoral about swastikas or the KKK.  He intimated that different racial groups in America should stick to their own kind and that the white kind, European Americans, should be the ones in power.  Many in America believe that with Donald Trump coming into the oval office, racists like Richard Spencer will gain power and nonwhites will be in some trouble.  I pray that this is not the case.  I think one response – the church’s response is to live in Gospel imagination.

We repel the ideology of Richard Spencer by living with arms wide open to all people.  She is not that black woman; she is my beautiful African American sister in Christ and when we get together we both believe something amazing can happen because God is in it.  When Spencer advocates for advancing the white race, we announce the Kingdom of God.  Where Spencer promotes segregation, we display our diverse unity – the full colors of God’s church.  Where white nationalist groups process down the street in a parade of hate, filled with the Holy Spirit, we lock arms with one another in a show of love. 

We even pray for Richard Spencer because we know that God took Saul the Christian-killer and turned him into Paul the church-planter.  Release him from the categories to which he clings.  His mouth speaks hatred, but he is a lost soul who needs Jesus.  We are free to see that even as we renounce his hateful words.  We are free to pray for Donald Trump because we know God is God in the white house and in Trump Towers.  God’s sovereignty reigns in those places, so those places, even there, can be a site of miraculous transformation.  We are free to go to Levi’s party of sinners and laugh and eat alongside Jesus as he loves people who need him.  We are free to sit with Jonah overlooking Nineveh, and we are free to rejoice in the mercy God has shown. 

America is in transition.  Acts of harassment and bigotry have been reported.  There’s an uneasy wind in the air and many are scared.  But there is another story to tell, the one in which God is God and is on the loose in the world.  Let’s tell that story.  Let’s believe all the things we say about God in our song and our prayers.  Let’s live that story. 

What’s going to happen this week?  I am not sure.  But I look and I see a lot of people who are going to walk out of here ready to love all people and ready to meet God in the simplest of places.  I see a people ready to cheer for the salvation of Nineveh, the people and the animals. 

What’s going to happen?  I don’t know, but God is about, so we will find out.

AMEN

---

[i] E.Peterson (1992), Under the Unpredictable Plant, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (Grand Rapids), p.157.

A “Revelation 7 Church”

“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. ¹⁰ 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),

            The final vision of the eternal kingdom of God cast in the book of Revelation is one of glorious diversity.  This is not a color-blind gathering.  It is a color-celebrating assembly.  John of Patmos (Rev. 1:9), can plainly see dark-skinned people and fair-skinned people; people with freckles and with tanned skin; people with flowing red hair, with curly dark hair, and sandy blondes.  There are tall people, short people, people with deep voices, and people with broad shoulders.  The description “all tribes and peoples and languages” is meant to show that every conceivable shape and shade of human is there.  This is no uniform crowd, but one with dazzling color and an array of vocal tones and cultural backgrounds.

            This is not uniformity.  It is spectacular harmony.  This gathering is united in praise of God.  This people has come together because all came to life through faith in Jesus Christ. 

            The church of the 21^st century (and of the 10^th century and the 1^st) is called by God to anticipate this future, heavenly eternity.  When we as a people are in Christ, we are to live as if this Revelation 7 vision were already coming into reality in our gathering. The way our church lives as community should anticipate what John sees in Revelation 7.  Also, our church should point the world to this vision.

            How we are formed and how we function as a family of believers is a witness.  How we “do church” is our testimony.  What this looks like varies from community to community.  Recently, I was in a small town in a rural Midwestern community.  Almost every person I saw was white.  These were working class, Caucasian people.  A church there is going to be 98%-100% Caucasian. 

However, even in that place, even in that demographic, a church can live in anticipation of the Revelation 7 vision.  There are numerous ways a church there could do this, but my more immediate concern is the church I lead in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Chapel Hill is tremendously diverse.  The University of North Carolina, UNC hospital, the Research Triangle, geopolitical dynamics, and a number of other factors has converged to draw the world here.  A church here reflects the vision of Revelation 7 by existing as a family of brothers and sisters in Christ in such a way that sensitivity is shown to all who come.  It goes beyond just saying, “All are welcome.”  We will examine our worship style, our leadership demographics, and our schedules, and we will make adjustments in order to open the door to people who might consider visiting but because of cultural divides haven’t yet, or have, but have not returned after one visit. 

I have seen and been part of churches who do all they can to communicate the beautiful sentiment, “All are welcome.”  But, then the leadership and the church culture is set by the dominant surrounding culture (white middle and working class America).  Any Latinos or blacks or Asians who attend as deeply loved, but in order to feel at home, they have to be at home in a church that is controlled by white people.  The church I have in mind was diverse and very welcoming.  It was a love-filled family of God.  But, it was a body unable to adjust its corporate culture and so its growth was limited.

HillSong has already demonstrated a willingness to involve new members in all areas of ministry, including leadership.  HillSong has opened its arms and heart wide to new ideas and more importantly to all who walk in our doors.  I am thrilled and thankful that God has me among a people so willing to see new possibilities.  In our attempt to define what a “Revelation 7” church is and to become such a church, we will ardently strive to examine our own church culture and adjust it so that people of “all tribes and peoples and languages” might consider making our church their home. 

Obviously HillSong cannot be a church that does all things, that is all things to all people.  We have members who speak in heavenly tongues, but in their own private prayer lives, not in corporate worship.  That will continue.  Our worship attire is business casual.  That will continue.  Our language is English.  We partner with a Spanish-speaking congregation and also with a Karen-speaking congregation.  We would be open to other partnerships.  But the language of HillSong is and will be English.  These examples – glossolalia, attire, and language – a few of many that put parameters around us.  We are a family of God within these boundaries.

Within these and other boundaries, I believe God is calling us to be a “Revelation 7” church.  God is calling us to be intentional about growing in diversity, in integration, and in international expression.  God is calling us to expand our understanding of the Gospel and of Himself by meeting His Holy Spirit in the hearts of people who come to worship and to be part of our community.

Please pray for HillSong Church as we pursue this vision.  Please pray God will show the pastors, elders, and deacons how we do this.  Please pray God will bring the people in who will make this vision become a reality.  Please pray that our church will, in becoming a “Revelation 7” Church, testify to our community what the Kingdom of God is like.

Revelation 7:9-10

God in New Faces (Revelation 7:9-17)

April 28, 2014

            I remember the moment.  It was my third year of seminary.  Along with friends in my class, I was thinking and praying about life after graduation.  We were training to be pastors, chaplains, missionaries.  Where would we end up?

            A good friend of mine constantly talked about God’s call on him to urban ministry.  When I heard “urban ministry,” I immediately thought, ‘inner city;’ ‘gangs;’ ‘crime;’ ‘crowds;’ ‘traffic jams.’  I couldn’t imagine what my buddy was thinking.  He would say, “Urban Ministry,” and I would incredulously respond, “Why?”

I was sheltered, a suburban kid who grew up watching MTV and going to hang out at the Mall. Every movie you’ve seen of the 80’s depicts my era.  For me, going down town meant driving to the Roanoke Civic Center to see Ric Flair in a professional wrestling match.

But in seminary sheltered, play-it-safe me collided with God.  In God’s word I saw my own limitations.  By my third year, I knew God wanted me to preach every week and to lead a church.  I was in my 20’s, with limited experience.  Only a small church would call me as pastor, but that was fine as long as it was not in the backwoods or the inner city. 

I sat in the class room for that morning’s lecture.  I happened to be early, so looked at the open Bible on my desk.  Students were moving to their seats.  It was quiet.  Revelation 7:9: the words burrowed into me.

“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!” 

Every tribe and people and language; it hit me.  Fall 1995, I don’t have any friends who are not exactly like me – white, American, middle class, suburban.  That’s it.  That is my entire world. 

It blew me away.  Here John saw in heaven people from every language, tribe, and nation – all in Heaven praising Jesus.  I only knew one small subset of one tribe speaking one language in one nation.  My knowledge of the people of God was pathetically small.  That meant my knowledge of God was woefully impoverished.  How could I be a pastor and lead a church, knowing so little?  How could I even follow Jesus?

I had to do something, but what?  In those days, this was my life: (1) pass my classes; (2) give myself fully to the church where I was a youth pastor; and (3) mail my resume around in hopes that a church would consider calling me to be their pastor.  In those things, how would I develop real relationships with people who had different backgrounds than my own?  I could know God as I needed to until I knew more of God’s people.  So what could I do? 

There was just one answer.  I had to go to a church where there were more than just white people.  I needed diversity.  Where are there churches like that?  In the city.  With one reading of Revelation 7:9-10, I knew I had to go to an urban environment.  That is where I had to pastor. 

God knew it all along and I landed at Greenbrier Baptist in Arlington, Virginia, a very urban place.  I lived three miles from the Pentagon, and within a few minutes could ride the metro into downtown DC. 

I had been at that church about 1 month, when the Promise Keepers rally came to the Washington DC mall.  Five hundred thousand gathered to worship Jesus.  From our church we took a couple of guys who were refugees from Sudan.  They had been persecuted and forced from their country because they were Christians.  Like me, they had only been in DC about a month.  And we had about 10 guys from the Spanish congregation.  Two Africans, ten Latinos and two whites guys – my Dad and me. 

I was a pastor in Arlington for 9 years.  A congregation of Christian gypsies met in our building until a bomb threat ended that relationship.  There was no actual bomb, but the threat was enough.  It came by way of a phone call from other Gypsies who opposed the Christians in that community.  It came on the opening night of our Vacation Bible School.  The Gypsies weren’t scared of the threat, but our people were.  So the Gypsies had to go.

Another year, again the night of opening ceremonies for Vacation Bible School, a man addicted to drugs came into the building threatening to end his own life.  I quickly told the VBS leaders to carry on without me and I spent over an hour convincing him to allow me to drive him to the emergency room.

Another year, again the week of VBS, the house across the street from the church parking lot was raided by the police.  They bashed in the front door and tore the place up.  They were looking for the third son in the family, a muscular, high school wrestler.  He had gotten into a gang fight – two rival Hispanic gangs.  I didn’t even know the kid was in a gang.  He was active in our church.  But I learned that when he was not at church, he was with his gang.  Two places never saw him – school and home.  He ended up spending two years in prison before being deported to El Salvador, a place he had last lived at age 4. 

By the way, he is doing well now – has a beautiful daughter and is carving out a good life for himself.  Some of our Greenbrier friends have visited him in El Salvador.

I remember long conversations with a homeless Muslim who was originally from the African nation of Mauritania, and was one of the most delightfully happy men I have met. 

I learned not to judge others from a Pakistani man who led a congregation of Pakistani Christians that began meeting in our building in my final year at Greenbrier.  I received a copy of the Quran from a different Pakistani man who was visiting his children in America.  He spoke no English but would walk with me and wish my God’s blessings.  I do not believe it is the word of God, but I cherish the Quram he gave because it matter so much to him.  He wanted to share with me the very best gift he thought he could give.

In my search for God, by searching for people in different cultures, I met people of deep faith and people who would punch your lights out and sometimes they were the same person.

I was invited to do the ordination prayer at a service of the Charismatic Baptists of Ghana who had a congregation in Alexandria, VA.  They invited all the pastors of our association, more than 100 churches.  I was the only one to show up and was treated as an honored guest.

All those experiences came after I sat in my seminary classroom and happened to have a few minutes before class, and in those few minutes instead of arguing about basketball with a buddy like I normally would, I read Revelation 7:9.   Every tribe and people and language.  God told me to seek out those from tribes different than mine.    

To is April 28, 2013.  My wife’s vision is as wide-open as my own.  God brought into our lives three children who come from other places and we have this colorful family.  God has joined us with an amazing church full of people who deeply desire to take the gospel to the world even as the world comes to our church. 

Just with people her today, we could translate this sermon into Spanish, Portuguese, Karen, Chinese, and maybe French. 

Why does it matter?  From Revelation 7 (and also chapters 1, 5, 14, and 21), we see the expanse of the people of God.  This is the fullness of the image of God.  We need each other because it is through one another that God speaks to us.  We need this body to be multicultural so we can see and hear God.

It means we are all included.  In verse 14 the elder talking to John testifies that all whom he sees are there because they have washed in the blood of the Lamb, which means they have put their faith in Jesus and given their lives to Him.  When you and I acknowledge him as Lord, we are among that countless multitude. 

For that reason, we realize we don’t need to generally fear people.    Maybe because of the Boston Marathon story, one develops a prejudice against and fear of Chechens or against Muslims of central Asia.  The feared people group of the day!  But in Revelation we see Chechens.  There they are dressed in white robes, waving palm branches, singing praise to God. 

The white Southerner of 1800, a slave-owner and church goer, goes to Heaven where he meets the darkest skinned people he’s ever seen.  They are his brothers in Christ.  The slave who was kidnapped from his Central African home, survived the Hellish middle passage, and lived out his days as the property of cruel whites: he sees those who owned him, but they don’t own him anymore.  Once a slave, he is now a child of God.  He doesn’t need to fear.  He can forgive the evil.  The white man, freed of his own hatred, can receive the forgiveness he needs, and can truly live as God intended in brotherhood with all. 

The vision of Revelation 7 frees us to let go of all past prejudices and fears and to see every new person we come across as one Jesus died for.  We are included.  We have no fear.  All people who follow Jesus are with us, part of our family.  Those who do not follow Him are put in our path that we might love them in His name and with love, share the Gospel invite them to consider Him.  

We are included.

No more fear.

All in Christ are a part of us.

A few years ago, a Men’s Bible study group here at HillSong, which no longer meets, had committed to helping a refugee family.  They came with only the clothes on their backs.  We delivered furniture to their apartment.  We drove them for doctor’s appointments and job interviews.  Leonard did a of the work because he had time and God inspired Him to give his free time to help others.

It was challenge.  He did not speak Karen.  But, God finds ways past that challenge. 

Leonard was going to drop something off and trying to think about how he could explain.  He had not called because what good would it do?  So he just showed up and went to knock on the door.  There were more than a dozen people there.  From inside, he could hear a familiar tune which he immediately recognized as the doxology.  Only the words were in Karen.  They worshiped to the same music he knew for worship.  And he knew God was in that place. 

There is no better thing to know.  God is in this place. 

Where and in whom will you see God this week?  He is the one who shares the water of life.  We need more and more of Him and we get more and more of Him as we seek him out in different faces. Seek God this week in someone whom you previously would not have.  Meet God in a person that seems foreign to you.  Your knowledge of Him will grow, your worship songs will become richer, and you will learn love in new ways.

AMEN