Revelation 21-22 - Sunday, May 25, 2025

a sermon by Rev. Shannon Mang, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge

The work we are always called to do as Christians, is to translate between living in the world as it is, and living by a new way, in a new realm.    The language of the New Testament, cleverly engages this sense of addressing the way things are, and our yearning for the new ways that God calls us to, by using many familiar words in new ways.

The Greek word that we translate the Kingdom of God--- or Kin-dom of God is basileia. It shows up all through the New Testament.  But this same word,  basileia was also the word that the Roman Empire used to describe itself.  So every time the very first Christians heard the word basileia they would experience it in two different worlds. Inside the community of Jesus followers, basileia would cue them to think about the Kingdom, or Kin-dom of God, the place shown them by Jesus where everyone was equal, and they were all sisters and brothers – kin, or siblings, in Christ.  Outside of their protective community, basileia was a totally different and fearsome thing: the whole Roman Empire, a place of fear where people were enslaved and used and thrown aside.

But basileia isn’t the only word that had more than one meaning for the early Christians.  Son of God was a term in their little house church gatherings that referred to Jesus, but outside those gatherings, in every city in the Empire, Son of God was Caesar’s title. Gospel was a term that referred to the good news of Jesus Christ inside the house church, while outside their gatherings, gospel was the title that Rome gave to its press releases that were announced and plastered on walls and gates and pillars in town and city centers. These words – basileia, Son of God, Gospel – experienced in our day as churchy words, were in the days of Jesus political words, and their use by the early followers of Jesus and the writers of the New Testament was intentional, setting Jesus and the rule of God over the rule of Caesar and his Empire.

In the book of Revelation this becomes even more clear. Empire is symbolized by the evil city of Babylon, while the rule of God is symbolized by the New Jerusalem.  The first readers of this book were challenged to choose which city they were going to be citizens of: would they embrace the established ways of Empire, or choose and indeed build the new home of God’s powerful love.  This question remains for every person who has read this book for the past two thousand years.

The Book of Revelation is like a graphic novel revealing the terrifying realities of the seven Churches named at the beginning of the book. Those people were trying their best to get by—to survive under Roman rule—and trying to remain faithful followers of Jesus in the messes of their lives. The writer and preacher and pastor, John of Patmos, encouraged them to not bend to Empire, even though this was a public, visible expectation.  At Roman holidays throughout the year, everyone was expected to bow down and worshipping Caesar, the Empire’s Son of God, and this forced a choice: would the early Christians just do it and not bring any attention to themselves, or would they refuse and stand out from the crowd. History tells us that when Christians refused to worship Caesar, they were first isolated, then that turned into enslavement, and finally, it turned into crucifixion, so the cost of following Jesus, the Son of God became very high.

True believers could see their world being destroyed and sucked into the vortex of the evils spread by Empire.  John’s Revelation showed how Empire, through the metaphor of Babylon, corrupted all human cities and exploited and ruined and polluted all of creation in its greed and its lust for power. But it wasn’t all gloom and doom; the book of Revelation let the people know that God knew of their suffering and loved them beyond measure. In these hard times, they were encouraged to stay in relationship with God and with one another.  Such choices might not keep them from being hurt or killed by the evil Empire, but staying in relationship with God through Christ would ultimately save them.  God would win this battle.

And Revelation doesn’t leave it at that. Once God wins, then God re-creates. God took the evil symbol of the city and redeemed it, creating a holy city, a new Jerusalem. God took the mess of the lives of the earliest Christians trying to resist Empire, and redeemed them as citizens of a New Heaven and New Earth.

It is a good thing that God loves our messes, even the ones that seem beyond redemption—for God enters our messes when invited and goes about doing what God does best: re-creating newness, right here, right now. The Book of Revelation shows how God always shows up: followers of the Risen Christ will always find the Kin-dom of God emerging, sometimes where we least expect it. We are urged to look for the New Creation already being built, and learn what it is to dwell in God’s New Heaven and New Earth.  

In the turmoil of the world, in the work we are doing to discern God’s calling for our Church, in those places in our lives that need reconstruction, God is actively engaged and we are called to step into the ways of the new basileia, the new Kin-dom of God.  May it be so.  Amen. 

(c) Rev Shannon Mang, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge

Revelation 21: 1-6 - Sunday, May 18, 2025

 “I see a new heaven. I see a new earth as the old one will pass away, where the fountain of life flows and without price goes to all people who abide in the land.”

These evocative words by hymn-writer Carolyn McDade engage the imagery of the final two chapters of the Book of Revelation. While the imagery harkens to ancient conceptualizations of the earth, the waters, and a firmament, its poetic beauty transcends the mechanics of how it all fits together and has continued to bring hope to centuries of believers.

Few books in the Bible are as polarizing as the Book of Revelation.  For some, it has gained an outsized importance, somehow becoming the most important book of all, a literal roadmap of the end times and how we will be judged, with each symbol and event in Revelation analyzed and aligned with current events to calculate the end of time.  For others, Revelation is easily side-stepped and ignored because of its weirdness: too many images, too many numbers, too much like a horror movie or a fever dream. 

In between these two polar positions, is a place of curiosity.  Written by a Christian mystic named John of Patmos to seven Churches in what we now call Türkiye, the book of Revelation includes letters offering encouragement to individual Churches facing harsh challenges, but this guidance is shrouded in the secrecy of metaphor, for safety’s sake – what we might refer to in our day as “encryption” to keep the information out of the wrong hands.  John of Patmos needs for these Churches, under heavy persecution, to know that somebody out there knows what’s going on, that the everlasting God is aware of and moved by their plight, and that the power of Christ’s resurrection will eventually win the day.

After twenty chapters of rambling symbolism and heightened anxiety, we arrive at today’s reading: a vision of a new heaven and new earth.  Things were so desperately difficult for the early Christian Churches, that just tinkering with things as they were would not do.  Only a total re-set of how we relate to one another and to God would suffice: a new heaven, a new earth. And once John of Patmos named the evils of the day, in the language of beasts and dragons and the destruction of Babylon, what is said in chapter 21 contains a series of relevant, hopeful, grounded surprises.   

Starting at the end of today’s scripture and working backwards: pleasant surprise number one is what an earthy vision this is.

Verse six states, “To anyone who is thirsty I will give the right to drink from the spring of the water of life without paying for it.”  Or, in the words of Carolyn McDade, the new realm is a place “where the fountain of life flows and without price goes to all people who abide in the land.”  This new world not disconnected and dreamy; it is a place of quenched thirst, unbridled fairness, and dignity for all. A world where Shalom is the rule.  It’s a place where there is health, wholeness, opportunity and life in abundance for all, not just for the sly, the well-connected, the bombastic or the wealthy. 

The language about water is so evocative, because water is the foundation and essence of life.  Imagine with me a world where clean, drinkable water would be treated as a right for all people rather than a saleable commodity.  Imagine a world freed from drought and starvation, a world where no child dies of malnutrition or cholera or dysentery.  At present, 36 first nations communities in this land are under long-term boil water advisories; imagine what it would be like if that were fixed. These words from the book of Revelation inspire us not only to dream of a future world where all have what they need – food, water, shelter, safety, love – but to embrace those goals here and now. For what we have here is a statement of Divine intention: it is God’s ultimate intention that there be no impediments for all people to enjoy the gift of life. 

Pleasant surprise number two, is the Eternal God’s desire for new beginnings.

The unsettling part of the language of “a new heaven and a new earth” is that it seems to be saying that this earth isn’t good enough anymore, not worth fixing so we need a new one. These words may even be taken as permission to those who are destroying the earth to keep on doing so, to extract every ounce of life out of this planet without worrying about future generations because, well, God’s going to replace it with something new. 

But that is nonsense. Rather than hearing these words as an invitation to earth’s replacement, humanity is invited to hear these words as part of God’s gracious delight at new beginnings, second chances and reconciliation.  Throughout the Bible we see the everlasting God’s desire for new beginnings and second chances, as we encounter characters who had no right to be forgiven, people who by our standards would be beyond redemption:  Moses killed a man in anger, David had Bathsheba’s soldier husband sent to certain death at the front lines, Peter lied about his connection to Jesus no fewer than three times – yet Moses led his people from slavery to freedom, Jesus arose from the house of David, Peter was named as the rock, the foundation of the burgeoning Church.  If a by-the-book, judgmental approach had been applied to these three individuals, none of them would have had the opportunity to lead, but that’s not how God works.

Whenever the old and destructive needs to end and the new and constructive needs to begin, God is the change-agent in the midst of it.  We are called to trust the God of grace, and at the same time we are invited to put our hand to the plough. Our willingness to be the change that God intends will be a key for The United Church of Canada as we turn 100.  Can we commit to new ways of being, relative to communities of people who have typically been badly treated by the Church?  Will our commitments as a denomination and as congregations, to reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, with the queer community, and with other populations whose oppression we have been complicit in, be heartfelt or performative?  Will we continue to be vocal and visible advocates for God’s children facing oppression in other lands? As a progressive Christian presence in this nation, will we be willing to receive with joy the gifts of new Canadians to our communities and our Churches, being energized by the Canada of 2025 and 2035 and 2055 rather than lamenting the way things once were? 

While a new heaven and a new earth is portrayed by the book of Revelation as a future culmination of history, the reality is that God brings renewal over and over and over again in our lives and the life of the world, even now.  Partnering with God is not something that has to wait; it is a way of being we can enter into, any time.

Which brings us to our third point, and that is the direction of God’s activity in all of this.  This is a story of God engaging with the world, not humanity exiting this world to be with God.

Nazarene pastor Danny Quarstrom has these eloquent words for us:

“As we’re coming to the culmination of the book of Revelation we see that it’s not about us being pulled away from this earth, it’s about God drawing close to this earth! … In verse 3 we hear [that] God ‘will dwell’ or ‘tabernacle’ with them… this is the same description as John 1:14, ‘the Word became flesh and lived among us…’ 

“The Revelation of Jesus given to John of Patmos isn’t about the faithful avoiding difficulty or being raptured out of tribulation but is about God making God’s… dwelling place, in the heart of this earth. God will wipe away every tear. This is the new thing God is doing.”

The newness comes to us at God’s heartfelt initiative; God does not wait, dispassionately, at a distance.   God is in us, we are in God, and God is love; and in that assertion we realize that in our loving – whether the tender love of compassion, or the brave love of advocacy – God is known.  Not just in heaven, not just in future, but here, and now, with these people and in the midst of this world.  Or to put it another way that you may have heard, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

In today’s reading, we experience a God who is as close to us as our next breath, as present to us as our highest hopes.  The God you experience when enjoying the beauty of the orchards and vineyards and the God you engage in prayer when you are worried about the world around you, is the same God.  The God whose vision of equality you yearn for is the same loving presence that has been your companion since birth, your source and destination, your Alpha and Omega.  The God whose creative energy infuses the space between us, is the same God whose reconciling grace can energize our efforts to heal the environmental mess that thoughtless human greed has created.  There is most definitely work to do in our lives and in the life of the world, AND there is a Divine partner who loves us desperately, who meets us on the path and joins in our best efforts.

 “I see a new heaven. I see a new earth as the old one will pass away, Where the fountain of life flows and without price goes to all people who abide in the land.”  In our hopes, in our plans, in our lives, may this be so. Amen.

References cited:

Copeland, Adam J. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-adam-j-copeland/revelation-21-1-6-earth-day-god-and-the-apocalypse_b_3148811.html

Government of Canada, “Ending long-term drinking water advisories”. https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1506514143353/1533317130660

McDade, Carolyn.  “I See a new heaven”, #713 in Voices United, 1979.

Quanstrom, Danny. http://www.aplainaccount.org/#!Revelation-2116/bhul0/5714d7650cf2331db0f8217a

 

© Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge, 2025.

 

Acts 9: 36-43 - Sunday, May 11, 2025

 

This morning is the fourth Sunday of the Easter Season, a season of resurrection. 

As we are encouraged by an amazing spring, with the flourishing of the orchards, we are reminded of God’s deep-down commitment to new life; we see resurrection.

In Jesus, crucified and risen, the lives of those committed to following in his way are shaped by resurrection.  Marcus Borg (pp.16-17) put it beautifully as he wrote, “Beginning with Easter … Jesus as the risen living Christ could be experienced anywhere and everywhere [and] so it has been ever since…. In the experience, worship, and devotion of Christians throughout the centuries, the post-Easter Jesus is real.”  The mystery of Christ’s resurrection is central to our identity as Christians and as Church.

And the Bible speaks of resurrection, not just in relation to Jesus. In scripture there are nine additional occurrences in which ordinary people, often children, are said to have been raised from the dead.  Long before Jesus, the Israelite prophets Elijah and Elisha were said to have enacted resurrections; in the years after Jesus, the apostles Peter and Paul did likewise.  Jesus himself was said to have three times raised people from the dead, and in Matthew’s gospel the moment of Jesus’ death was said to be a moment when the faithful departed came back to life.  

To those of us of a modern scientific mindset, resurrection can be, um, problematic. As a metaphor, no problem, as we’ve all seen positive turnarounds in people’s lives that are nothing short of rebirth, but taken literally it’s much harder. Especially in the past decade, living in the era of “alternate truth,” speaking of the death and resurrection of Jesus can be extremely tricky, and it gets even trickier when we think about these nine additional Biblical instances in which someone other than Jesus Christ moves from being dead to being un-dead.  Paul Tillich, writing in the mid-1950s, famously stated that faith is not certitude; faith by definition, includes doubt, and in our time and place we really need to grapple with the relationship between belief and doubt, as we consider difficult concepts like resurrection, and do so in ways that are open, vulnerable and credible.

Where, then, do we go with this? Since human, bodily resurrection – actual death to actual life – does not align with my experience of life, I need to process it through faith. Faith is a place of mystery and contradiction, where legends and allegories and actual occurrences interact with one other, a place where the luxury of certainty is unavailable.   And for me, the life of faith must go beyond binary thought; it is a place where I find myself much more drawn to “both/and” than “either/or,” where the question, “did it happen this way or that way?” is answered by the word “yes.”  

When we come to this account in the book of Acts, about the raising of Dorcas, my concern is much less about the factual event as described, and much more about the truth that it illustrates.  For rather than getting caught up in a debate about whether Dorcas/Tabitha actually, physically died and then became alive once again, I confidently proclaim that Dorcas did rise, and not only once, for in actions carried out in her name, she arises time and time again.

What we know about this woman is somewhat limited, coming almost entirely from the 9^th chapter of Acts. As somewhat of a fun fact, we know that her name, in its Aramaic version, Tabitha, and its Greek version, Dorcas, means “Gazelle”, an animal associated with beauty, grace, agility, swiftness and love.  But more relevant to today’s reading, the Dorcas of Acts chapter 9 is, in the words of the Bible Hub website “a disciple living in Joppa, a coastal city in ancient Israel [within modern-day Tel Aviv]. Her life was marked by her dedication to good deeds, particularly her efforts in making garments for widows and the needy.

“Dorcas fell ill and died, causing great sorrow among the believers in Joppa. The community, deeply affected by her passing, sent for the Apostle Peter….Upon his arrival, Peter was taken to the upper room where Dorcas' body lay. The widows stood by, weeping and showing Peter the garments Dorcas had made. Moved by their grief and the testimony of her life, Peter sent everyone out of the room, knelt down, and prayed. Turning to the body, he said, ‘Tabitha, get up.’ She opened her eyes, and upon seeing Peter, she sat up.”

And then Bible Hub writes this: “Dorcas is celebrated as an exemplar of Christian charity and service. Her life and resurrection underscore the power of faith and the importance of good works as a testimony to one's faith in Christ. Her account highlights the role of women in the early Church and their significant contributions to the Christian community, [and her] legacy continues to inspire Christian charitable organizations and individuals dedicated to serving the needy. Many churches and groups have been named in her honour, reflecting her enduring impact as a model of compassion and service. Her account is a reminder of the transformative power of love and kindness, and the hope of resurrection through faith in Jesus Christ”.

A year ago, when we arrived in the south Okanagan, we quickly learned of the intimate connection between the Dorcas group in Osoyoos, and the United Church Thrift Shop.  The Dorcas group in Osoyoos states “the purpose of the Dorcas Group should be that of Dorcas herself: a disciple helping others through charity acts of kindness and support” and we see that in action, important outreach happening as some forty volunteers from the Church and community make affordable clothing and housewares available to all.  It is a great meeting place for people of all ages, stages and life circumstances.

A bit of digging informs me that the beginnings of the Thrift Shop reach back to 1962 when a group of women of Osoyoos United Church helped address community needs by providing clothing available and, eventually, linens, housewares and other items.  By 1973 Thrift Sales took place regularly in the church basement, by 1974/75 the Thrift sales became weekly, eventually expanding to its current pattern of four days per week.  

A bit more digging reveals that beyond our local context, dating to the 1860s, there have been Dorcas societies doing good works in the UK, in Australia, along the eastern seaboard of the United States, and in Canada.  Many Anglican Churches, in particular, have Dorcas societies affiliated with them, including a very active one on Vancouver Island at Duncan.  The tireless work of our Osoyoos Dorcas group is, then, part of a global movement, and we are so appreciative of everything their efforts mean to the Church and community. 

When I put all of this together, what comes clear to me is quite remarkable, even miraculous.  The simple, selfless things that Dorcas of Joppa did with a needle and thread and with a spirit of generosity, date from the days of the early Church and have been relived time and time again.  Virtually every congregation I have served since 1981 can point to faithful women and groups of women – the WA, WI, WMS, UCW and Dorcas groups – whose hard work and fidelity, often underappreciated, have saved the Church from ruin.  The spirit and legacy of Dorcas comes alive in human actions, are resurrected if you will, as good works are done in the name of Jesus Christ.

Something I have found this to be true over the years, is the way that the positive legacies of those who have gone before us find a home in us.  As we act on those urges, life is born again.  Mother’s Day is, I hope, a day when those legacies come to mind with gratitude, as the lives of our foremothers find life in our lives.  “We Rise Again” is a beautiful song from Cape Breton, composed by Leon Dubinsky and popularized by The Rankin Family, and it puts it like so: “as sure as the sunrise, as sure as the sea, as sure as the wind in the trees: We rise again in the faces of our children, we rise again in the voices of our song, we rise again in the waves out on the ocean; and then - we rise again.”

The glories of the south Okanagan shout out their witness to God’s pattern of growth, death and rebirth.  The life, death, resurrection and presence of Christ even now, bear repeated witness to God’s desire to free all of her children from anything that limits life and dignity.   The durability of the story of Dorcas, not only in the ministries bearing her name, but in the actions of anyone who provides practical assistance for people in need, reminds us of all those ways that our lives express resurrection. In all of these, we sing alleluia to the God of new life and new birth.  Amen.

 

References cited:

Bible Hub. https://biblehub.com/topical/d/dorcas.htm and https://biblehub.com/topical/g/gazelle.htm

Borg, Marcus. Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. SF: HarperOne, 1994.

Dubinsky, Leon. “We Rise Again” found at https://genius.com/The-rankin-family-rise-again-lyrics

Got Questions website. https://www.gotquestions.org/raised-from-the-dead.html

Tillich, Paul. Dynamics of Faith.  NYC: Harper, 1956.

Trueman, Alice. https://faithtides.ca/joyous-gifting-by-the-dorcas-ministry/

 

© 2025, Rev Greg Wooley, Osoyoos-Oliver United Church Pastoral Charge