Revelation 22.1-5 15 June 2008
“RIVULETS AND ACORNS”
As spring slips into summer, nature is busy all around us. The headwaters of the
It’s an old story, isn’t it? Rivers begin, quite literally, all over the place. A kettle pond fed by springs on the Cape; a distant mountain lake fed by other streams; a melting glacier—all of them and a thousand more contribute to the babble and rush of water, the smooth flow here, the swirling rapids there. It takes many trick-ling rivulets to form a river. Out of the many bodies of water, the river emerges.
Around my home are scrub oaks, wind-whipped from winter, among the last trees to bud leaves in the spring. The oak, I am told, originated in the tropics is easily confused about when to shed its leaves and when to put them out again. But we all know where an oak begins. Any tree begins with a single seed. An acorn falls into the earth: tiny, vulnerable, and alone. It germinates and puts out roots down into the dark earth. At the same time, it sends a shoot up into the light and air. The roots quickly diverge and probe all over the place, looking for water and nourishment. The shoot becomes a trunk, again a single upright stalk, but this then too quickly diverges. A growing oak will spread far and wide in all directions.
Why the nature lesson on a lovely Sunday morning? The river flows from many into one; the oak tree grows from one into many. We need both of these images, N. T. Wright insists, if we are going to understand the
The church is like the river in the Bible’s last book, the book of Revelation. John the visionary sees a huge throng of people from every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue coming together in a great chorus of praise. Like the river, they all started in different places, but they have now brought different streams into a single flow.
This image is helpful because it reminds us front and center that although the church is drawn from the widest possible variety of backgrounds, the whole point is that we belong to one another and are meant to flow together in one direction till the rush of who we are moves toward its destiny. Diversity gives way to unity.
At the same time, Revelation teaches, the church is like a tree. The single seed, Jesus himself, has been sown in the dark earth and produced an amazing plant. Branches have set off in all directions, some shooting straight upward, some reaching deep into the earth, some hanging over neighboring fences. Looking out over those eager outstretched branches, you would hardly know they were all from the same stem, the same acorn. But they are. Unity generates diversity.
Reading today’s text to our children on Celebration Sunday, I spoke of God’s river of spiritual life, and we attached our prayers to them. We talked about the trees that grow along the banks of the river, the leaves of which are used for the healing of the nations. That was our closing hymn on Celebration Sunday.
The final chapter of the Bible is where our rivers and trees come together to form the extraordinary picture of God’s New Jerusalem, resplendent in the heavens. This double image helps us understand what we Christians mean when we talk about the church—the people of God, the body of Christ, the household of God. The church is a river where diversity yields to unified purpose of marching toward the reign of God. The church is a tree where unity in turn creates more diversity.
As we talk about the church’s origins, we glimpse its nature. As we glimpse the church’s nature, we cannot help but discover its purpose. The purpose of the church is to make disciples, like Jesus said at the end of Matthew in his Great Commission. Go, therefore, teach, preach, baptize. We are all about transform-ing individuals and groups until we become those persons God meant us to be.
What does this mean on Sundays as we welcome new members in and bless our high school graduates as they venture outward? The prominent presence of both groups in the church these days testifies in different ways: it is not enough merely to bring people within our walls. We must feed you, nurture you, strengthen you.
If we would all together become Jesus’ disciples, then we leaders, lay and staff, had better know it’s up to the church to equip God’s people. It is our central task; everything revolves around it. If we don’t prepare you to endure the world’s tests, to face thorny challenges, to hear Jesus’ voice so you can in turn articulate his truth, giving the alternative of God’s word to answer half-truths and untruths out there, we’ve failed in our mission. We’ve cheated you out of what you deserve.
It was high school the first time I knew the church the church had equipped me. Do you know what I was doing? It’s a little embarrassing. You can’t tell anyone. A friend told me she was going skydiving. She asked if I would accompany her. I immediately said yes. I told my parents. They laughed. They didn’t believe I’d do it. Before I knew it, I was wearing the jumpsuit and the parachute with my legs dangling outside the aircraft at 5,000 feet. I was looking down at the verdant fields of
It’s revealing what goes through your mind in such a moment. In high school my head was into Eric Clapton and Peter Townsend and Johnny Winter, memorizing every riff and lyric of their songs. But that’s not where my head was as I balanced on the edge of that plane. My head floated back to grade school. Our church had announced a plan to work with any child willing to learn six central pieces of our faith: the Lord’s Prayer, the 23rd Psalm, the Beatitudes, the Ten Commandments, the books of the Old Testament, the books of the New Testament. Kids hardly broke down the gates to take up that offer. But I was mysteriously attracted to the offer. After I recited each from memory, they gave me a certificate in church.
So how did that equip me as I was entering adulthood? Sitting on the edge of that plane, I heard the words learned by heart years before rising up within me: “yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for though art with me.” I never would have made it out of the plane without those words. Because I am here today, I think you know how the episode ended.
My home church equipped me to serve and be true in more ways than they knew
Similarly, I want to equip you to face scenarios we could never imagine right now. For you respond to life-changing moments in the same way, I know that you do. In moments of loss, achievement, decision, or transition, you take the hand of another or quietly say within yourself, “Our Father, who are in heaven…”. When people come after you for reasons you don’t grasp, that last Beatitude pops into your mind, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you...” When you are tempted, the cadences of what Kathy read today rise from unexpected places in you, “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me.”
In the church we need more equipping like that to face the world, don’t you think? We said as much last winter as 20 of us shared Christianity 201. For toward the end of his book, Simply Christian, NT Wright threw out three little prayers that in-stantly made me want to memorize them so as to be ready when I needed them.
N. T. Wright calls them pathways to power. They are all of that, whether you are sitting tightly in a hospital waiting room or on the edge of an airplane, I suppose. More than words, they are patterns to repeat when you need help finding your way down deeper into the real presence of God, available to us at every moment.
Here’s the first, from the Eastern Orthodox Church, the so-called Jesus prayer. Say it slowly and easily with the rhythm of your breathing, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.” Say that when you have tried and failed. Say it when you let down a friend by your attitude or your efforts. Say it when you have given the best you have to give and it wasn’t good enough.
Here’s the second, “Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, set up your kingdom in our midst.” Say that when you feel that you have an opportunity to make a real difference for good. Say it when you desire to be an instrument of God’s purposes. Say it when your plans are broken and you need a bigger plan.
Then, the third, “Holy Spirit, breath of the living God, renew me and all the world.” Say it when your spirit feels dull, lifeless, and listless. Say it when you know you can’t see the all of the options and possibilities that are surely out there waiting for you. Say it when despair nudges your hope and you feel like packing it in.
Fellow pilgrims, I offer these for high school graduates, for new members in our church, for everybody seeking to be equipped for the uncertain journey ahead. We come here because we receive here what we can’t receive anywhere else. Here tiny brooks become a mighty river; here a burly oak extends ever outward. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.
