April 28 Rev. 21, Acts 11
Those of you with sharp memories narrowed your eyes a bit and wondered, didn’t we hear words similar to this last week? Those of you not here last week breathe a sigh and think, good I didn't miss anything last week, then. You’re right some of the words today at the end reflect words in the heavenly throne room back in chapter 7.One of my points of deep sadness is we have permitted the book of Revelation‘s beautiful vision to be obscured. I do not think it was sloppiness or a repetitive vision, that we are reminded about tears being dried and our thirst being quenched from the springs of the waters of life. Life is not easy; we do not get a free pass from trouble due to being Christian, no matter the positive thinking commands of contemporary religious life. This Bible- soaked set of images constantly goes to the Old Testament for its description of the new age being born in our lives right now. This powerful image of the new age is borne of memories carried forward.
While it is important to some to keep heaven closed off to only a chosen few, I prefer to see it as a more open environment of a God who says-see I make all things new. What is closed off to us in this little section is the sea and death. In biblical images they are linked in the theme of chaos, that utter disorder that threatens the order of creation and life itself, the culture of death as John Paul II called it. Even Eden’s threats are banished.
We catch a hint of the open heaven in our reading from Acts. The closed Christians saw the movement as one of the Jewish Jesus, but it was blowing the doors off and spreading along the Roman travel system. It takes a vision to get through to Peter, not argument or persuasion, but he gets the message clearly. A new day was dawning. Acts tells us that the God who makes all things new then is not a rigid static entity trying to freeze time.God does not worship particular aspects of the past, nor particular forms of it, and neither should we. Peter shows us the result of an open mind pried open by the Spirit. He knew he would catch complaint and criticism for a vast expansion of the audience for the Christian message. Peter’s major defense is that God was moving in a new direction. It is not Peter’s idea, but he is being faithful to this new phase in the life of the church.Peter is being pulled along by a new tide of history.
People who try to use end time, apocalyptic material in the Bible as precise descriptions about life in America seem to read it as a downward spiral that pushes God to act,as in Noah’s flood. We are getting just a hint of its power as some businesses and roads have been flooded by the river. It is indiscriminate as it threatens a levee or overflows a bike path. We have lived through a remarkable time in civil rights and liberties that emerge from a different biblical perspective the breaking down of barriers and realization that we are part of one human family. All of us here have lived ot see a large social change. Tears have been dried, and the cause of tears of prejudice has lessened in our lifetime. It seems churches are infrequently fully integrated but seem intent on spinning off into groups bound by similarity in appearance and attitude. God is nota god of annihilation of this good earth, but God continues to labor over creation, to transform it into a world suitable for life.
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