Sermon - The Vision

Part III of III in the series "Life in Exile"

Preached on October 17, 2010 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, UCC
Jeremiah 31:27-34 and Revelation 21:1-2, 22-26

What if we decided that our vision in the church is to put the church out of business? What if that is God’s vision for the church?

The vision that is given to the people who struggle in exile, is that the day is coming when God will restore them to their true home. And in that home we will be so intimately related to, and connected to, God that there will be no need to teach about God because everyone will know God. God’s law will be written on our hearts. The vision is not just that they are going home to Jerusalem, but also that the day is coming when we will be as close to God as our own hearts beating within us.

At the end of the first century, several generations after the life of Christ, the writer of Revelation picks up on the idea of the exile because the early Christian church had the same feeling of being in exile, homeless in an empire that did not recognize them or give them any space to live in peace. And so we read in Revelation about God creating a new heaven and a new earth, and the holy city of Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven. And in the new Jerusalem there is no Temple, because just as Jeremiah had said, this new home is where all people will know God by heart. Our exile will come to an end.

Several days ago, in Chile, the 33 miners who were trapped for over sixty days were finally brought home to the surface. It occurred to me that when the mine caved in, those thirty-three men were cast into exile, cut off from their home. Very quickly, a small relief hole was drilled, and this small passage kept them alive during their exile. It brought them water and nourishment, and communication with their families. One of my favorite parts of the story is that someone figured out how to bake meat pies in the shape of a cylinder that would fit down the hole. That little hole kept them alive. But the real vision was the other, larger hole that they were drilling, the one that was just big enough to fit a metal tube that could carry the men one at a time to the surface. When the rescue hole was completed, it put the first hole out of business.

And that’s what I mean about putting the church out of business. The day is coming when we won’t need a sanctuary or temple because we will worship God and know God everywhere. We won’t need to learn about God because we will all know God by heart.

We have been thinking, these past weeks, about how you and I often feel that we are in exile, spiritually homeless, longing for the home that is true and secure. Sometimes we make a good home that may last for years or even decades, but nothing is permanent, and we soon we are looking again for a place to call home.

Our times of exile may be times to practice what it will be like when we are finally home. One day, we will know God by heart. Think about the other things you might know by heart: how to play an instrument, how to bake a pie, or swing a golf club. Think about what happens when you ride a bicycle. You keep your body in balance as your weight shifts from left pedal to right pedal. You must keep your legs moving in oppositional directions, alternating force from one foot to the other, and adjusting your speed of rotation according to the slope of the street, the traffic, and any turns you might make. These turns, by the way are made not so much by turning the handlebars as by leaning into the turn at a precise angle, and maintaining sufficient speed to avoid tipping over, and shifting at just the right moment from the braking to accelerating through the turn, and of course both your hands are operating these brakes and also shifting gears and signaling to traffic if necessary. Oh, and you’ll need to do all of these things by heart because your mind is busy remembering where you are going, how to get there, taking stock of your fatigue or need for water, and keeping an eye on your companions – especially if they are children. Now, how do we do all of these things at the same time, so smoothly and enjoyably? It seems miraculous. We do it because we have practiced it so well that it is a part of us. We know it by heart. That’s the vision.

Do you remember that Amish community in Pennsylvania, and the tragic day, three years ago now, when a man came to their school and killed their children and himself? The cruelty of the crime shocked us around the country, and then the Amish community shocked us again by their immediate acts of forgiveness for the shooter, and their compassion for the family he left behind. They comforted his wife, and offered support for his child. I can only think that this was possible because they have practiced their faith enough to make it written on their heart. Forgiveness comes to them as naturally as riding a bike comes to us after years and years of riding.

The church is where we practice, here and now, the home that we will one day have. Because we are now in exile, we have the church. This is the place to hear the vision of God’s power to make the world new. This is the place where we begin to act as if God has already made the world new. We’re not there yet, but we do have a home in the midst of the journey. When you are searching for your home, the home that is more complete than any home you have yet known, come and worship, and together we will find our way there.

There is a story of a man who was lost in a great woods. There were many paths in the woods, and he tried one after the other after the other. Sometimes he made his own paths, but none of these ever got him out. Finally, he caught a glimpse of a person ahead of him. He began to run and caught up with the other man in a clearing. “Thank God I’ve found you,” he said. “I have been lost for a long time, and I was worried that I’d never get out!”
The other man said “I’m sorry; I am lost as well. But let us walk together, because we can share all of the paths we have tried that didn’t work out, and together we will find a way home.”
Isn’t that a wonderful description of the church? We come together here, and in our lives we have all tried so many different ways to make a home where we are happy and secure and accepted, and here we come together to confess that we have not been able to do it on our own. Here we worship together the One who will bring us home to the place where we know God by heart, and we are welcomed home with open arms.

The visions that come to us in scripture are always attempts to capture something that is too wonderful, too big, too incomprehensible to be put into words. The visions that scripture gives us are glimpses of what God has in store. I’m thinking of the 23rd Psalm, and the house of the Lord where we will dwell forever. I’m thinking of Isaiah who speaks of a mountain where God removes the veil that covers all people. I’m thinking of Jesus who says “in my father’s house are many rooms.”

These glimpses can only be rendered poetically with the best images at hand: a house, a mountain, many rooms. They are meant to evoke a truth that his too big for words. There’s a wonderful movie, called The Postman, that tells the story of the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and the postman who delivers his mail. They form a friendship of sorts, and as the postman begins to read Neruda’s poems, he comes him one day, points to one of his poems, and says “what does this mean?”
Neruda tells him “if I could say what it means in other words, I wouldn’t have written the poem.”

So it is with the visions of home in the scripture. These visions must be told in poetic language, metaphors of God’s law written on our hearts, or a city descending from heaven. These visions are true, not in the merely literal sense, but in the much grander sense of helping us to see a vision that is ultimately beyond our ability to see, at least for right now.

In Revelation, we are given a glimpse of a new heaven and a new earth, and the new city of Jerusalem. Jerusalem is where the Jews exiled in Babylon wanted to get back to, and metaphorically, it is the heavenly city of God that will be the end of all our journeys, all our exiles. In Revelation we read that the new city of Jerusalem has its gates thrown open during the daytime, and that nightfall never, ever comes. It is always light in our new home. A poetic vision of a place where the gates are open during the day, and the gates never, ever close. In God’s city, you are always welcome home!

Maybe you have heard the saying that home is the only place where, when you go there, they have to take you in. Sadly, that may not be true for all of us. Sometimes we are not taken in by the places we have called home. But I can tell you this: God’s home, this new creation, is a place where you will be welcomed in.

I once conducted a funeral service, and in the service I described, as I always do, the glimpses of our eternal home that we read in scripture. I spoke of our faith that promises to us that God restores our lives, makes us new, and with love and grace God welcomes us into our eternal home. After the service, one man greeted me on his way out and said that he wished I had presented the gospel. I should have presented the gospel? I imagine that what he meant was that I should have told people the requirements that they must meet in order to be saved by God into God’s eternal home. But to me, the gospel, which literally means good news, is not a set of requirements that leads to salvation, like following a recipe that pays off with a fantastic pie. Gospel is the gift of God’s love, God’s merciful, compassionate, endless, grace-filled love. God begins with grace, and we respond with praise, thanksgiving, worship, faith. We respond by being in relationship with God, and learning to be God’s people.

Because one day our relationship with God will be so close, that we will do what we do in here all the time. On that day, we will give thanks for God’s goodness, we will experience forgiveness, we will clothe ourselves in God’s love, and we will praise God with our very lives, and we will do it all by heart. We will know that every place is a sanctuary of God’s presence. We ourselves, every one of us, will be a sanctuary of God’s presence.

Until then, this holy sanctuary reminds us of our potential and our gifts. Until then, we come to this sacred place because it helps us to see the sacredness of other places. We come together to praise God and experience God’s grace because from time to time we forget, and we need each other be the bearers of God’s vision.