Sermon [with audio]: "Worthy is the Lamb"

Delivered at Rainbow Mennonite Church, Kansas City, KS
April 14, 2013.

Scripture: Revelation 5:11–14

In May of 1757, a promising and precocious 35-year-old poet and writer by the name of Christopher Smart was committed by his father-in-law to St. Luke’s Hospital for Lunatics in Bethnal Green, London. Though it was initially intended that Smart would only stay for a short while, the conditions of the sanitarium ultimately took their toll on his mental health, and he would spend the remainder of his life in and out of what were in those days called “madhouses.” Smart’s condition was marked by frequent periods of prolonged religious ecstasy, and he was often seen wandering the streets alone or cradling his cat Jeoffry. Over the course of many years of deplorable living conditions, his health steadily declined. This was back before the days of counseling, psychiatry, and mood-altering medication. In one of his poems, Smart wrote of his “caretakers”: “For they work on me with their harping-irons, which is a barbarous instrument, because I am more unguarded than others.”

He was eventually released from the asylum in 1763, spending seven short years in freedom before some previous financial debts caught up with him and he was arrested in 1770. He was imprisoned early in January 1771, but succumbed to pneumonia alone in his cell just a few months later in May of that same year. He died miserable and utterly alone, abandoned by his family.

Over the course of four years between 1759 and 1763, during his confinement, Smart penned seven hefty fragments of poetry that later came to be collectively known as Jubilate Agno, or Rejoice in the Lamb, which went unpublished until 1939, almost 200 years after its composition. At first glance, Jubilate Agno appears to be little more than the frenetic ramblings of a seminary student gone mad. However, a close reading reveals Smart’s mastery of liturgical style—being himself a high church Anglican—in addition to some fine wordplay. Still, with all of its liturgical grandeur, the poem reeks of mental, emotional, and spiritual anguish.

The lengthy poem is written in a sprawling call-and-response form, and begins on a cosmically tremendous note:

Rejoice in God, O ye tongues!

Give the glory to the Lord and the Lamb,

nations and languages and every creature

in which is the breath of life!
Let man and beast appear before him

and magnify his name together!

The most striking thing about this poem to me is the sheer joy welling up in Smart’s writing through the depths of his despair. Though his family had left him, though he was under great financial stress, though his health was failing and though everyone around him thought he was a fool, Smart found hope in his cat Jeoffrey. He found hope in the characters of the Old Testament, found hope in the apocalyptic image of the lamb, and found himself in a state of mind that allowed him not only to rejoice in the lamb himself, but to envision all of creation joining in with him, even as his own caregivers beat him with iron tools.

Like Jubilate Agno, the Book of Revelation emerged at a time when the Johannine community—the group of early Christians for whom it was written—was under an extreme amount of duress, persecution, and hopelessness. Revelation is not a book that was ever intended to “predict” the future, to be milked into a profitable series of 16 novels, or to be made into a really bad Kirk Cameron movie. Instead, this “apocalypse,” or “revelation” was written as a polemic against the Roman Empire, but also as a message of hope to those Christians suffering at the hands of Caesar. These Christians not only suffered the violence of physical persecution, but also the indignity of what appeared to be their philosophical error—this was almost a century after Christ; surely God was not coming back to establish God’s reign on earth if it hadn’t already happened by now.

And then John has this vision. This revelation.

To get you up to speed with where we are today: John is whisked away to heaven in a vision, and at one point he sees this scroll, and all of heaven is mourning because no one can break the seal on this scroll that holds the great mystery of the universe. But then, just as the Revelator himself begins to weep, he hears a lion roar with a ferocious bellow. But when he turns, he sees not a lion, but in fact a little slaughtered lamb. Now, the lamb is slain, but for some reason is yet alive—still bears the marks of his wounds from death—and stands in the presence of the throne of God. And it is seemingly because of these wounds that the Lamb is “worthy.”

But I want to draw your attention to what exactly the Lamb is worthy of:

[Read Revelation 5:11–12]

Power, wealth, wisdom, might, honor, glory, blessing—what’s wrong with this picture? The slaughtered lamb has none of these things. Even as all creation is singing its praise, the bloody, mangled, victimized lamb is the very definition of weakness, of poverty, of foolishness, of dishonor. The real, proper response for such a sight should be laughter, not praise. And yet, the lamb is the only one with the power to open the scroll, and ultimately the only one with the authority to establish God’s reign on earth as it is in heaven. A place of justice and mercy, where the trees grow leaves for the healing of the nations.

See, the Lamb defies our worldly expectations of glory and redefines these terms. No longer is power defined by politics and intimidation, but now by humility and self-sacrifice. No longer is wealth associated with monetary gain—what would the lamb need with money?—but now by poverty, empathy, and by love. No longer are might and honor defined by getting the upper hand against someone and forcing others to submit to your will, but instead by binding up the broken hearted and by setting the captives free. No longer is wisdom defined by gray hairs, by theologizin’ and philosophizin’, but now by the very foolishness of the cross. Just as Jesus in the Gospels heralds the reign of God as the anti-Rome—where we turn the other cheek after being struck, where we walk the extra mile when forced to carry the gear of our oppressors, where the poor are exalted and the rich are sent away empty-handed—so do these anti-values become values under the Reign of God. We look for Jesus expecting a lion, instead we get a lamb.

And it is in the lamb’s weakness that we see true strength.

One of my favorite movies when I was a kid was the 1984 film, The Neverending Story. In the movie, there’s a character called the Rock Biter, whom the hero Atreyu encounters early on. The Rock Biter is called the Rock Biter because he is basically this giant mountain with arms and legs and a face, who eats rocks (which is kind of weird, if you think about it) and rides around on a big stone bike, and he has these tiny friends that travel with him—a guy with a “racing snail” and a guy who rides around on the back of a giant bat. But at the end of the movie, when an approaching darkness of nonexistence known as the Nothing is eating up everything in its path and threatens to rip the world apart, Atreyu runs into Rock Biter once again, and this time, he sits alone, staring at his hands that are as big as houses, waiting for the world to end. “They look like good, strong hands, don’t they?” the Rock Biter says. “My little friends. I couldn’t hold onto them. The Nothing pulled them right out of my hands. I failed.” The Rock Biter’s admission is one of the most empathetic, heartbreaking moments of the whole film, because we look at this giant mountain of a creature, we see his monumental strength, and yet in his inability to save his friends we see something of ourselves—we see our own weakness and vulnerability. How many friendships have we let slip through our fingers because of things we have done or haven’t done? How many loved ones have died of illness, despite our best efforts to take care of them? How many times have we failed, picked ourselves up, and failed again?

Canadian theologian Jean Vanier says that “the greatness of humanity is that we are programmed to become weaker, that we all ultimately become conscious of our own fragility.” When we fully reveal ourselves to one another in all our brokenness, we catch a glimpse of Christ. We catch a glimpse of the lamb who redefines weakness as power, poverty as wealth, foolishness as wisdom, frailty as might.

In our weakness, we find strength in one another. In our despair, we find joy. In our brokenness, we encounter God.

So we see in this passage that the Book of Revelation doesn’t predict the future. It eternally informs the present.

Like the Rock Biter who finally has to admit his own weakness, like those who praise the upside-down values of the Lamb in John’s vision, and like Christopher Smart, who discovered joy even in his suffering, we must find each other in our vulnerability. It’s just like in our celebration of the Eucharist—we not only recognize Christ’s brokenness in participating in the Lord’s Supper; we recognize that breaking the bread together in some way recalls our own brokenness before one another. And in that mutuality is power. We see that in Christ’s brokenness, we are to follow suit.

The emblem of the Moravian Church is the image of a slaughtered lamb surrounded by the motto: Vicit agnus noster, eum sequamur. “Our Lamb has conquered, let us follow him.”

Let us follow the Lamb into weakness.

Let us follow the Lamb into vulnerability in our relationships with one another.

Let us follow the Lamb into the spiritual poverty that cultivates true humility.

Let us follow the Lamb into the Lamb into the community of the broken.

And may we all join those myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands in the unending cosmic hymn of praise for the foolishness of Christ.

A Different Kind of Kingdom—Sermon for Reign of Christ Sunday

The Basilica of Sant’ Apollonare Nuovo in Ravenna, Italy, is one of the most unforgettable churches I have had the pleasure of visiting in my lifetime. It is known for its massive and intricate mosaic work along the nave of the building which features scenes from the gospels depicting the life and works of Jesus. Along these walls, you may find an image of Jesus feeding the disciples here, the raising of Lazarus there, Jesus preaching the Sermon on the Mount in yet another corner of the church. In each image, the colored stones have been painstakingly placed to produce a familiar image of the one we call “Christ,” “Messiah,” or “the Anointed One.” But there’s something you may notice about how Jesus is depicted in each of these scenes. You might say that these familiar mosaic stories feature a very unfamiliar Christ. The Jesus in all of these images is young, clean-shaven, dressed humbly, and looks for the most part kind of wimpy. The Jesus found here is a very human figure—looking at these mosaics, we are reminded that Jesus was a man—a man who felt sympathy for the hungry, who experienced grief over the death of a friend, and whose very human conviction compels him to preach to Galilean peasants.

            But if you look up from these images into the nave—the main part—of the basilica sanctuary, you are confronted with an enormous depiction of a very different Jesus. Here, Christ is shown in expensive robes, with a full beard and a wide-eyed, serious stare. He sits upon a throne of fire—probably a reference to the Daniel passage we read earlier[1]—and is surrounded by attending angels. With his right hand he makes the symbol of wisdom, knowledge, or teaching. This image is known as the Christos Pantokrator. Pantokrator is a Greek word that’s often translated as “Almighty,” but it literally means “one who holds all things.” So Christos Pantokrator—“Christ, the holder of all things.” This Christ is one that we are often more familiar with from church—the Jesus of Authority, the all-powerful Word (Logos) of God. He seems a far cry from the Jesus of the other mosaics, with their worldly focus and their very human savior. There’s something else that is important about this Pantokrator image, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

The Basilica uses these magnificent pieces of art to convey a message that has seen echoes throughout history in cathedrals and on billboards, from the words of brilliant baroque chamber choirs to cheesy Christian pop song lyrics: Jesus is Lord.

But wait…did we miss something? When did the Jesus who healed the sick and proclaimed freedom for the oppressed become the Jesus of the creeds—the one who sits at the right hand of God, the one whom the Nicene creed says will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, whose reign will have no end? In other words, when did we go from the clean-shaven to the bearded Jesus?

And what does it mean when we say that this Jesus who spent his time with prostitutes and tax collectors, who cast out demons and cared for the poor (and who remained poor himself)—what does it mean to say that this Jesus is Lord? What does it mean to say that Jesus reigns? And where is this reign of God? What does it look like?

In this week’s Gospel passage, we find Pontius Pilate asking the very same question.

            By the time of the first century, Roman emperors (also called Caesars) were thought to be gods. While on earth, they were called “Son of God,” and upon their death, it was believed that they rose up into the sky and took their seat at the right hand of god. People greeted one another on the street by saying, “Caesar is Lord,” and at the time of Christ, “one of [Caesar’s] popular propaganda slogans was ‘there is no other name under heaven by which people can be saved than that of Caesar.’” [2] Does this sound familiar yet? As the Roman Empire grew, Rome even sent out regular announcements of Caesar’s victories in battle as they brought about the “Pax Romana,” or “Roman Peace” by the sword, moving from land to land, colonizing countries—like Israel—and forcing them to pay tribute to the Empire. These royal announcements were known as euangelia. In Greek, euangelia is where we get the term “Good News,” or “Gospel.” Cities that bowed to Caesar as their Lord and their God were known as ekklesias, where we get the English word “church.” So in the first century, for someone to say “Jesus is Lord” was to directly defy the authority of Caesar. To claim “Jesus is Lord” is to say that Caesar is not. To call the Gospel of Jesus Christ “Good News” is to invalidate what the Empire considered “Good News.” People who did not bow to Caesar, well, they were the ones who were crucified. Anyone who did not give in to the dominant empire was considered a threat to the reign of Caesar—especially one who was called “King.”  

So Pilate has reason for serious concern when this “King of the Jews” is brought before him. “Are you the King of the Jews?” he asks. And Jesus responds, “My kingdom, my reign, is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over. But as it is, my reign is not from here, does not derive its power from earthly political authority.” The kingship, the reign, of Christ mocks the established order of the Empire of Caesar.

Pilate asks Jesus a second time: “So you are a king, then?” And Jesus responds, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world: to bear witness to the Truth.”

So what does it mean to be a part of the Reign of God? What does it mean to call Jesus “Lord”? It means (at least) two things:

1) We—the Church, the Body of Christ—are to be a people “set apart,” as the Hebrew Bible says. Christian author and activist Shane Claiborne calls the Church the “peculiar people of God.” We echo the conviction of Jesus when we proclaim, “My kingdom is not from this world.” The Church is supposed to be different. Here we stand at the intersection between an election cycle winding down and the consumer-based Christmas season beginning to take off. This past election season, I have seen so many people who claim to be Christians (on the left and the right) advocating one politician over the other as if either a Republican or a Democratic candidate could actually be chosen by God to lead the United States—in reality, this is the folly of a nation that worships Caesar—neither one of our candidates was or ever will be Christ the King. We are called to be set apart. A peculiar people who say, “Our reign is not from this world.” To refuse to lend voice and value to political campaigns and the toxic political speech of our age is to deny Caesar his power. Our reign is not from this world. Money and rampant consumerism—the driving desire to buy and have more “stuff”—may also be a Caesar that keeps us tied down to this world. I saw a poster image on Facebook the other day that said “Black Friday: Because only in America do people trample others for sales exactly one day after being thankful for what they already have.” I always encourage people not to take part in Black Friday activities, preferring instead to observe Buy Nothing Day, in which some people participate on Black Friday to avoid the competitive buying unleashed each year by retail stores across the country. While our culture says more, more, more, we hear the voice of Jesus in the Gospels saying “Less. Less. Our reign is not from this world. Consider the lilies of the field that neither work their lives away nor spin, yet God clothes them in beauty. Consider the birds of the air, who don’t store up food for themselves in barns, and yet God feeds them. If someone takes your outer garment, give them your underwear, too! Give to all who ask of you. Blessed are the poor. Blessed are the meek.” The Way of Christ the King is not the way of more, but the subtle way of enough. Go to Wal-Mart any time during the Christmas season and see how many of these teachings are broken by shoppers clamoring to get a good deal. Our reign is not from this world.

2) The second thing that it means to proclaim that Jesus is Lord is that we—like Christ, whom we confess as King—are to bear witness to the Truth in this world. It is not enough to stand at a distance and judge what we perceive to be against the Kingdom of God or the teachings of Jesus. We are to be active witnesses giving testimony to Truth in this world that confesses the Lordship of Caesar. We have seen the consequences of Jesus’s reign: the sick were healed, the lepers cleansed, and the dead were raised. Unfortunately, to live under the reign of a different King will also get you crucified. That is the very real consequence of the reign of God breaking into this world. It is the same today as it was for Jesus: when the reign of God comes, the established order—in our case, the greed, consumerism, pride, and violence of our culture that we ourselves are guilty of participating in—the established order views this reign of God as a threat. And that’s how people end up on crosses. But we cannot refuse to engage our culture in dialogue. Instead of participating in Black Friday sales, why not instead spend the day in fasting and prayer for our culture that places higher value on “things” than on people and relationships? Instead of picking a political candidate and claiming that “This is the Son of God,” why don’t we observe election day as some of my friends in the Church did: with both Democrats and Republicans joining in the Eucharist meal to recognize that regardless of the outcome of the election, we nevertheless remain a peculiar people set apart by God, and that we do not place our hope in partisan politics but in the very resurrected Son of Man? Our reign is not from this world.

This leads us back to that mosaic of Christos Pantokrator. In the image of the Christ who holds all things, who is surrounded and worshiped by angels and who sits on a throne of fire to judge the nations—if you look closely, you’ll find that the throne of this Jesus rests firmly not upon the clouds or the stars of the heavens, but upon the green earth itself, bursting forth with flowers. It is important to make the distinction that while we proclaim, “Our reign is not from this world,” our living in and bringing about the Kingdom of God is very much in this world, just as we are promised in Scripture that Christ will return to establish the Reign of God on earth. We better get comfy here, because we ain’t leavin’. The change comes with us.

As we rush headlong into the Advent season, let us remember that. The Reign of God is not of this world, but its reality is very much in this world. It is found among those peculiar people who go against the grain of our culture, who testify to the truth. People like Jesus—who lived in poverty, was crucified by society, and yet who remains the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We confess this truth, and the Christos Pantokrator, the “Christ who holds all things,” will continue to hold us, as well.

---

[1] Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14. It appears that the artist is using the throne of flames to recall the image of the Ancient-of-Days.

[2] Rob Bell, NOOMA 15: 'You', DVD, (Grandville, MI: Flannel, 2007).

Reading My Great-Grandfather's Work

Today, my new Bauer-Danker Greek Lexicon came in the mail. It may seem a silly thing to be excited over, but I've been looking forward to this all semester.

I have added this reference book to my shelf, right next to my great-grandfather's copy of Young's Concordance (22nd edition). This concordance was given to me when I left for college; my great-grandfather, a United Methodist minister, frequently used the book in writing his sermons. While tidying up my office space and reorganizing my library the other day, I noticed a few loose pages sticking out of the top of the big book, and pulled them out. They turned out to be pages of a sermon (or some other piece of exegetical writing) that my great-grandfather worked on nearly forty years ago.

I did not know my great-grandfather very well. He died when I was very young, after suffering a series of strokes and slipping grumpily into dementia. However, the stories I have heard about him have led me to believe that he was a well-respected man, beloved by his community. As I progress with my seminary education, I find myself piecing together the life and education of my great-grandfather, and I'd like to think that in some ways, I take after him.

My great-grandfather's class photo from Eden Theological Seminary,
class of 1953. His is the fourth photo from the left on the bottom row.

Below is a word-for-word transcription of my great-grandfather's handwriting, including all mistakes. My editorial remarks are in brackets. I do not agree with everything he wrote, such as his use of masculine pronouns to refer to the Holy Spirit, or the assertion that the "best commentary on the Bible is the Bible itself." The manuscript is obviously not complete, and I do not know where the rest of the sermon could be. But it is one of the few remnants I have of the only other member of my family to ever attend seminary, to enter into a community of faith and minister to everyday people trying to make sense of their lives. If I am anything like he once was, my great-grandfather wrestled with the Spirit all his life, discovering new questions such as the one which he writes about here. 

And so by cherishing this scrap of writing, I am appreciating my great-grandfather's memory.

The Spirit of Promise

[by Roger L. Connelly]

Scripture Reading: Luke 24:44-53 (Verse 49)

INTRODUCTION:

          One of the terms used in the New Testament for the H.S. [Holy Spirit] is "the Spirit of Promise". This term is implied in our text when Jesus said, "And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high."

          Why has the H.S. been called "the Spirit of Promise"? The most obvious answer is because He [sic] was promised. And while that may be a simple answer, the substantiation of that answer by showing where in Holy Scripture He [sic] was promised is not so simple.

I have asked a number of people where was the Holy Spirit promised by God the Father as Jesus informed when He said "...I send the promise of my Father upon you..." I also checked my concordance, but to no avail, and I referred to the cross-reference Bibles that I have, but with the same result. There just must not be a specific scripture which says in so many words that God promised the H.S.

          The best commentary on the Bible is the Bible itself, so I decided to try to answer this question by the Bible itself.

          So, to begin, I turned to the fulfilment [sic] of the Promise in Acts 2: where the H.S. was given to the disciples on the Day of Pentecost.

          When Peter stood up to preach his sermon of explanation of what had happened, he began by saying, "But this is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel: And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy." (Acts 2:16-18) Also Joel 2:28, 29).

          When John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, baptizing, he explained his presence and work by saying of himself (Matt. 3:3) "For this is he that was spoken by the prophet Esias, (Isaiah) 40:3) saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight."