Revelation 7:9-17

First Presbyterian Church of Dutch Neck, April 29, 2007

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing,

“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying,
“Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?”

I said to him,
“Sir, you are the one that knows.”

Then he said to me,
“These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Several weeks ago I went with the confirmation class on a retreat to Camp Johnsonburg. On our retreat, we were split into small groups. In these groups, we had discussions, asked each other questions, and reflected on our faith together. In one of the small group sessions, we were asked, “What questions do you have for God? What do you want to ask God?” We wrote them down on big sheets of paper and then hung the questions from all the small groups on a wall in our common meeting room.

The theme of the retreat was “go deeper,” and the questions that these 8^th graders expressed showed that they were ready to go deeper. They asked amazing questions. Some of these questions have come up in our confirmation classes at Dutch Neck as well. The questions are so profound that I often feel like the first thing I have to say is, “That’s a really good question.” They are good questions, so it’s the first thing I think to say – “that’s a really good question.” At our last class meeting, one of the confirmands asked a question and I gave this response again – “that’s a really good question.” When I said it, another confirmand piped up, “That’s what they say when they don’t know the answer.” I was caught red-handed.

Many of the questions on the big sheets of paper at the retreat were about heaven. What will we do all day in heaven? Will my dog or cat be in heaven? Will my Muslim friend be in heaven? What does heaven look like? These aren’t questions that only kids have. Many of you adults probably wonder about heaven too, and what it will be like. To you who are wondering about heaven, I say, that’s a really good question!

The truth is, none of us knows exactly what heaven is like. We haven’t been there. We have some ideas, but most of our questions will not be answered until we are actually in heaven.

We heard a reading from the book of Revelation today. Revelation gives us a couple of clues about heaven, but that’s not the book’s main purpose. It tells us who God is for Christians who are suffering today.

In this text, we hear that a huge crowd of people praise God. We hear that God is seated on a throne. We hear blessing, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honor, power, and might ascribed to God. This God is a God who is strong and powerful, strong enough to give care and protection to the crowd gathered in heaven.

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Psalm 23 is the Psalm of today, a classic. When Revelation refers to God as a shepherd, it sounds familiar to us because of this Psalm. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff – they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.

This is such a comforting picture. God really cares for us, like a shepherd cares for his sheep. The world can be a scary place, but we are in the care of a loving shepherd God.

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

In the ancient near east, kings sometimes referred to themselves as the shepherds of their people. If a king had a strong army, he could be to his people as a shepherd, protecting them from the wolves of other attacking armies. So, a shepherd was a symbol of strength and might and protection. When Jesus taught, he referred to himself as a shepherd. His listeners may have thought, “Okay, like a king. We get it.” But then he said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” This was crazy. In fact, some of his listeners thought he might be possessed by a demon and out of his mind when he said this. This was not what a king was supposed to be like.

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Does this describe the God that we have in our minds? Well, we can definitely buy the picture of God as shepherd, caring for us. We can definitely buy the idea that God wipes away tears from our eyes. But a lamb? A cute, fuzzy, helpless lamb? This seems very different from the blessing-and-glory-and-wisdom-and-thanksgiving-and-honor-and-power-and-might kind of God.

But this is the Christian God. This is a God who is both weak and strong, both lamb and shepherd. The lamb is on a royal throne. Just this picture alone captures what our God is about. A baby sheep sitting on the throne of the universe.

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

This shepherd who is a lamb is the same Jesus who experiences both Good Friday and Easter, the same Jesus who, by dying, conquered death. This is the same God who says to Paul, “Power is made perfect in weakness.” This is the same God who uses Moses, who can’t even speak well, to lead God’s people out of slavery in Egypt. This God is a shepherd who is a lamb.

God is powerful, but God works through the weak things of the world to show God’s power. Jesus brought salvation, but he brought it by being willing to die. Because he is a weak lamb, our strong shepherd can guide us to springs of the water of life.

One of my favorite writers, Lewis Smedes, says that he would be devastated if God were not a God of weakness. He writes, “Maybe I feel this way about God because I feel very weak and want with all my heart for God to be on my side. And because I see and feel so much weakness in other people, so much pain, so much craziness, so much poorness. God has to be on our side, and he has to make sense as the God who works inside, feels inside, suffers inside, and finally triumphs in and under and through weakness. He has to, I say, because otherwise he isn’t the God of the Bible and he isn’t the God we need.” The shepherd who is a lamb is not a weak God, but a God of weakness.

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

It is because the lamb is weak, it is because the lamb was crucified that the lamb now sits on the center of the throne. It is because this shepherd is a lamb that the crowds in heaven shout, “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might!” What a paradox!

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

It is because the shepherd is a lamb that this shepherd can wipe every tear from our eyes. God knows what it is like to be human, and the God who rules over heaven and earth is a God who can sympathize with us in our weakness. God experiences our pain with us and then wipes the tears from our eyes, because the shepherd is a lamb.

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

So, what does this have to do with our questions about heaven? We know something of who God is – God is a paradoxical God who is both lamb and shepherd, both weak and strong. If heaven is ruled by a lamb at the center of the throne, then heaven is a place for those who are weak. If heaven is ruled by a lamb at the center of the throne, then heaven is a place for us. We can rest in the arms of our heavenly shepherd now, and we can hope in the assurance that those arms will hold us forever.

The Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Luke 2:36-38

PR261 Exploring Women's Traditions in Preaching Not delivered

There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

Anna is a minor character in the gospel of Luke. Our text today is only 3 short verses. Jesus, as a character in this story, gets pretty much the whole book. Simeon, whose story is told right before Anna’s, gets 11 verses. It’s not just men who get more verses than Anna, though. Mary gets 32 verses in the first chapter of Luke. So if Anna only gets 3 verses, why is she even here? What is Luke adding to his gospel by telling Anna’s story that he couldn’t have just said in Simeon’s story?

After all, Simeon puts into words what Anna seems unable to express. We hear that Anna “praised God” when she encountered the infant Jesus, but we get to hear what Simeon actually said in praise of God. This song, the Nunc Dimittis in Christian tradition, has survived for centuries of evensong services. From Anna, we have no words – only the fact that she praised God and spoke (something) about Jesus to those who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.

Luke does this with a lot of stories, actually – pairs up a story about a man and a story about a woman. Zechariah gets an announcement about the birth of his son John, and then Mary gets an announcement about the birth of her son Jesus. Mary sings a song, and then Zechariah sings a song. Jesus tells a parable about a man losing a sheep, and then Jesus tells a parable about a woman losing a coin. In the same way, a man, Simeon, greets the baby Jesus with joy and then a woman, Anna, greets the baby Jesus with joy. Perhaps Luke wanted a complete gospel, one that included both halves of humanity. This isn’t just about men responding to Jesus; it’s about women responding to Jesus also.

But still, why Anna? The Zechariah/Mary pair of stories in Luke chapter 1 makes sense, because both Mary and Zechariah have something important to contribute to the story. But Anna? What does she contribute in only 3 verses? She doesn’t even say anything.

Well, let’s read these verses more carefully to see what we can figure out about Anna in these verses. We know that she is a prophet. We know the name of her father, Phanuel, and the name of her tribe, Asher. We know that she was once married, but that her husband died after they had been married for 7 years. We know that she is 84 years old. We know how she spends all of her days and nights: she is in the temple, praying and fasting as a way of worshipping God. That’s a lot of biographical detail for just 3 verses. Most of the space in these verses is taken up by this biography of Anna, and the actual story seems sort of like a footnote at the end.

Because of all this detail in such a short passage, I get the feeling when I read it that Anna was a real person. She wasn’t a generic woman who happened to meet Jesus when he was a baby. She was a real woman who met Jesus and was impacted by the experience.

Maybe Anna is here to show us that Jesus wants to meet real people. We talk a lot about how Jesus is here for the whole world, not just individual people. Jesus saves the whole world, not just individual souls. But I think there’s a difference between saying that Jesus saves the whole world and saying that Jesus saves the whole world generically. Jesus saves the whole world, which includes distinct individuals whom Jesus longs to love and know.

This is part of why we baptize in the Christian church. The baptism doesn’t do something magical for the person’s soul who is being baptized. Their salvation occurred in Jesus 2000 years ago, not in the sprinkling of or immersing in water. But the salvation that occurred in Jesus is not generic. It is specifically for that person who is being baptized. And so when we baptize, we address the baptized by their first name, their individual name. Sometimes we say also to this infant, child, or adult, “For you God created the universe. For you God sent Jesus Christ to be born in Bethlehem. For you he lived. For you he died. For you he rose from the grave.” For you. And for the whole world, certainly, but he did not do it because it sounded like a good way to spend some time. He did it for you.

Jesus was only a baby when he showed up in the midst of Anna’s real life. But even this infant encounter prompted the old woman to praise God. She also spoke about Jesus to those who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem. Did she know that Jesus was the one who would redeem Jerusalem? Who knows. Maybe she had a suspicion, and she wanted to ask others what they thought. Whatever the case, Jesus showed up in the midst of her life, and she couldn’t help but respond in praise.

As we approach Jesus today, we don’t bring lives that are perfectly ready to approach him. Anna probably wasn’t looking for a little baby to redeem Jerusalem, and we are not always looking for Jesus in the places he shows up in our lives as well. But we approach Jesus nonetheless, not with the lives that we think we should have, but with the lives that we actually do have.

At the beginning of our worship service, we say a prayer of confession. This is not some way of changing ourselves before we can approach God. It is a way of acknowledging who we are, after which God allows us to approach anyway! Jesus is the one who changes us. There is nothing we can do to change ourselves before we encounter him. He encounters us as we are.

If there were 3 verses in the Bible telling your story, what would they say? As Anna’s story did, your story might include your career or job title, the names of people in your family, your “tribe” or ethnicity, your past history of relationships or life circumstances, and even the way that you spend your time day to day. If it took up a few verses, you yourself might even read it and say, “Why is this in here? It’s so short, and it doesn’t really have anything to do with Jesus, does it?” But what if, right after this little biography, there was a story about how Jesus suddenly showed up to you? Right in the middle of your career as an accountant, Jesus showed up? To the daughter of Doug, Jesus showed up? To someone from an Italian-American family, Jesus showed up? To someone who has been divorced and remarried, Jesus showed up? To someone who spends their days watching television in the nursing home, Jesus showed up?

Your life story has everything to do with Jesus, because it is right in the midst of a life like yours that Jesus might just show up. Like Anna, you might not know exactly what it’s all about when it happens. But like Anna, you might just also be prompted to praise the Lord.

Proverbs 31:10-31

PR261 "Exploring Women's Preaching Traditions" Princeton Theological Seminary

April 23, 2007

A capable wife who can find?
She is far more precious than jewels.
The heart of her husband trusts in her,
and he will have no lack of gain.
She does him good, and not harm,
all the days of her life.
She seeks wool and flax,
and works with willing hands.
She is like the ships of the merchant,
she brings her food from far away.
She rises while it is still night
and provides food for her household
and tasks for her servant-girls.
She considers a field and buys it;
with the fruit of her hands she plants a vineyard.
She girds herself with strength,
and makes her arms strong.
She perceives that her merchandise is profitable.
Her lamp does not go out at night.
She puts her hands to the distaff,
and her hands hold the spindle.
She opens her hand to the poor,
and reaches out her hands to the needy.
She is not afraid for her household when it snows,
for all her household are clothed in crimson.
She makes herself coverings;
her clothing is fine linen and purple.
Her husband is known in the city gates,
taking his seat among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them;
she supplies the merchant with sashes.
Strength and dignity are her clothing,
and she laughs at the time to come.
She opens her mouth with wisdom,
and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.
She looks well to the ways of her household,
and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children rise up and call her happy;
her husband too, and he praises her:
‘Many women have done excellently,
but you surpass them all.’
Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,
but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.
Give her a share in the fruit of her hands,
and let her works praise her in the city gates.

A is for acrostic. Proverbs 31:10-31 is an acrostic poem, or a poem in which each line begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. We can’t tell this when we read the poem in English, but this way of organizing Hebrew poetry pops up here and there in our Old Testament. Psalm 119 is one of the better known of these acrostic poems.

B is for boy, and the book of Proverbs, including this passage about the capable wife, was probably written for boys. The book gives an education in wisdom and practical living for young men in ancient Israel. For that reason, this passage about the ideal woman in ancient Israel is not meant as a suggested schedule for a day in the life of an actual woman. I told a friend that I was preaching on this passage, and his response was similar to mine when I read Proverbs 31. He said, “That woman, I don’t think she ever sleeps.” Indeed, if Christian women today were to try to be like this ideal woman in every way, we would probably be driven to do some very unchristian things out of sheer exhaustion.

I do believe we have a great deal to learn from this woman. But when we read this passage today, we want to go deeper than what it says to an ancient Israelite boy and see what it has to say to C, the Christian community today. How does it guide us on our way of D discipleship? The answer to this question comes only through a careful reading of this passage in conversation with the community of believers. We seminarians know this word – E is for exegesis.

So, let’s look at this picture of the ideal woman. What are our F first impressions of her? I’ve already said that she leaves G giant shoes to fill. But what, more specifically, does the book of Proverbs take care to point out about her?

Well, for one she has H: a hot sense of fashion. “She seeks wool and flax…all her household are clothed in crimson. She makes herself coverings; her clothing is fine linen and purple…She makes linen garments and sells them; she supplies the merchant with sashes.” These clothes are not just the clothes of an Israelite housewife; they are the clothes of royalty. This woman looks great.

But for this passage, that’s not the whole story. As wonderful as her literal clothing is, it’s something else that really defines this woman’s hot sense of fashion. After describing all of these fine royal garments, the writer tells us that “Strength and dignity are her clothing…” Far more beautiful than any royal garments are the strength and dignity which surround this woman like clothing.

A second thing we notice about this woman is that she is I industrious. Her hands are mentioned frequently in this passage. Her hands work, they plant, they spin, they are opened to the poor, they reach out to the needy. We see that in addition to taking care of her own wealthy household, the woman also has an interest in J justice. Her hands are capable of great things.

Besides the hot fashion sense and the industriousness, there’s one more important thing about this woman that I want us to K know. L is for Lord, and the ideal woman fears the Lord. In fact, it is for this reason that she is praised! Charm and beauty are not what this woman is all about. Her power and her value are drawn from a deeper well than that.

It’s interesting to notice that this Lord whom she fears is different from an M man. This is the Lord, the God of Israel, the God of this woman’s ancestors, the God who delivered God’s people out of slavery in Egypt. A man, the woman’s husband, is referred to throughout the passage. We read that the husband is proud of his wife. Hopefully she is proud of him as well, but he is not to be worshipped by her. This woman fears the Lord, and the Lord alone.

After talking about the woman’s industriousness and her strength and dignity, it may seem strange for the text to suddenly jump in with this statement about how she fears the Lord. After all, this is the only time that God shows up in the entire passage, isn’t it? Well, we’re talking about an ideal woman. In an ideal world, the work that gives this woman so much joy would be her God-given vocation. In real-life ancient Israel, I assume there were many women who were not thrilled with their work and who were not able to do what God called them to do. As we read this passage and think about the ideal world, this woman would be performing these tasks not out of compulsion, but as a natural result of her fear of the Lord. In this case, the whole passage, including the strength, the dignity, and the industriousness, would really be about the woman’s fear of God.

N is for now. If someone were to write this passage for the ideal modern American woman instead of the ideal biblical woman, what would it say? In 21^st century America, who is the woman of worth?

O is for oh my, what a contrast! Well, I suppose there are some things that are the same. The woman of worth today is P pretty just as the woman from Proverbs was, but I don’t think that fashion magazines often run articles on how well strength goes with denim, or how dignity is the new black this season. The ideal woman of today is clothed in physical beauty, and strength and dignity often take second place to this outer beauty. This physical beauty is not celebrated for all types of women, either, but is celebrated when it is in the form of a woman who is thin, usually white, and wearing expensive clothing.

Q is for quiet, because when a woman or a girl is so focused on this picture of ideal womanhood, her voice cannot be heard. She is literally seen but not heard. Her strength, her dignity, and her industriousness are of no importance, since her body is the most valuable thing that she has to offer.

This is the world in which we are raising our daughters and the daughters of the church. It’s more than sad – it’s frightening.

Friends, the good news in the middle of this bad news is that R is for redeem. God is redeeming our world and is redeeming us as women and men. For the ideal woman in Proverbs, the world saw her as a possession, a prize to be gained by the husband who was wise. But the Lord, whom she feared, redeemed her. The Lord, whom she feared, saw her as a woman of strength and dignity. The Lord, whom she feared, did not see her work as “only woman’s work” but as strong leadership of her household and a valuable contribution to the society.

For women of today, the world sees us and our sisters and daughters as bodies to be analyzed. Is she thin enough? Pretty enough? Rich enough to wear the right clothes? But the Lord, whom we fear, redeems us. The Lord, whom we fear, sees us as women of strength and dignity. The Lord, whom we fear, calls us beyond the culture’s expectations of us and into the diligent work of which we are truly capable. S is for strength and T is for thanksgiving, and it is in strength that we respond with thanksgiving to the God who has redeemed us.

Our thankful response to God includes helping our daughters and the daughters of our church to U understand the source of their strength and dignity. Their strength lies not in matching up to someone else’s ideal of physical beauty, but their strength lies in a God who loves them. Our thankful response also includes an understanding of our V vocation. Whatever women do, in the workplace and in the home, we can do it not because of what the culture tells us we are allowed to do, but because of our thankful response to a God who loves us. If a woman is a full-time mom, let her do it out of a sense of God-given vocation. If a woman is a professional athlete, let her do it out of a sense of God-given vocation. If a woman runs for president or is a teacher or is an orchestra conductor or is a retired volunteer, let her do it for no other reason than that God has called her to do this thing, and her industrious work in this area is her thankful response to the Lord whom she fears. W is for woman, and a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.