Fairhaven Sermon 11-24-2024

So I'm aware that this is probably more a pastor thing, but I wonder if it's something that you might feel sometimes as well. And that is that I feel very spiritually tuned in with the church calendar. By which I don't mean the gala or the rummage sale coming up, not that church calendar, but the liturgical calendar, you know, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and so on. So whenever we get to this time of year, or really about two months ago, I find that I am so sick of what's called the season after Pentecost, or ordinary time, you know, whenever we got green up here and I'm wearing green.

I want Advent, right? I want something. I'm longing for this season of waiting for Christ, this season of O come, O come, Emmanuel, of darkness and light, of blues and purples and lighting the candles. And this is actually why I lean so hard into that All Hallows Eve service in October, because it's the same kind of vibe. We get to do it a little bit early.

But we get there next Sunday, finally. It's Advent, and we're already here, right? Advent is around the corner, and with it is this new liturgical year as we start the cycle of our stories one more time. But at the same time, November has a lot to offer, such that we shouldn't just jump straight from Halloween to Christmas like the Dollar General does. And something that I really appreciate about the liturgical calendar is the way that November seems to really be about eternity.

Recall that we started this month with All Saints Day. We remember those Christians who have come and gone before us from the very beginnings of the church all the way through this past year, who surround us now as that great cloud of witnesses that's described in the letter to the Hebrews. And there's such a beauty in that, I think, that we're not alone at this time, but we're serving Jesus, living as the body of Christ alongside everyone from the apostles to John Wesley to Cordelia Long-Horning, who donated this land, to your first Sunday school teacher, to the pastor who baptized you. I preached on All Saints Sunday at Hilltop, and I talked about the Reverend Walt Heyman, a name that none of them remember 50 years on, but who grew up at the Arlington Avenue Evangelical United Brethren Church, who became the first pastor ordained out of the new Hill Top United Methodist Church in 1972.

That church bought him his first stole, the red stole that he wore at his ordination. And he would go on to become my confirmation mentor in Slippery Rock 40 years after that, and he would serve as one of my first and best examples in Christian ministry. They don't remember him, but they produced him. He helped get me here today.

And it's amazing the way that we really exist in the company of all who have come before us in faith. Death and the passage of time don't separate us the way we might usually think. And you never know how your life is going to intersect with the saints of the past or the future. And so now we're finishing the month of November on Christ the King Sunday.

And we've turned to the book of Revelation, and we turn our eyes to the one who is called the Alpha and the Omega, the one who is and was and is coming. And that, of course, is Christ, our King, our Lord. And this is some of my favorite imagery in all of scripture. And in my mind, I still hear it in the King James, the one who was and who is and who is to come.

I just, I love that phrase. And here in chapter two, we begin with what is simply the introduction to the book of Revelation, the heading to the letter. And it starts, John, to the seven churches that are in Asia. And so what that tells us as we begin Revelation is that we're reading a letter here from John of Patmos or St.

John the Divine, he's known sometimes. And he may or may not be the same John as the Apostle John. But it doesn't really matter. Because John is in exile.

He's imprisoned on the island of Patmos, which is off of present day Turkey. That region is known as Asia Minor. So that's why these seven churches are referenced as being in Asia. And John was sent to the island of Patmos in exile.

It was a result of anti-Christian persecution under the Roman Emperor Domitian. So Revelation is very long for a letter, obviously. But John has a lot of time on his hands because John is in prison, a prisoner for the Lord. And now we don't know John's exact relationship with the larger church, with those congregations in Asia.

But it seems that he's a really well connected regional leader. He knows these seven churches in Asia personally. He knows their people. He knows their personalities.

Every church has a personality. He knows their situations. And his purpose in Revelation is to share what God has to say to those churches. So understand this when we're reading Revelation.

It's not intended to be some kind of hidden secret code or this piece of impenetrably complex theology. Many have obviously argued that. And it's definitely filled with symbols that would have made more sense to them than to us. So it needs some digging.

But above all, Revelation is this pastoral letter. It's a letter from a pastor to help guide seven little congregations in their lives together as they seek to follow Christ in a really hostile environment. They're having a very rough time. So John is functioning as a pastor as much as he's functioning as a prophet.

And he's helping to guide them through the tough times they find themselves in by way of these visions that he's received from God and transmits to them. And he does that by writing this letter in the form of what's called an apocalypse. And we have an idea of what apocalypse means. But in Greek, that simply refers to the genre of writing that means unveiling.

Apokalyptos in Greek means just the curtain is open. You see behind the veil. And what John is doing is he's unveiling by pointing the church's attention upwards to things that are true but can't necessarily be seen easily in the everyday muck and difficulty of life. And chief among these is Christ's victory over sin and death, his imminent return, his kingship.

Even though it seems at that time, like the Roman emperor and so many others, are much more powerful. John's point is that things are not as they seem. As dire as it appears, Christ is king. Christ will come in victory.

Christ has already won. We're not going to dive into the whole book of Revelation over the next few weeks. We've got Advent stuff to do. But there is enough even in these four brief verses to get a sense for what God is trying to impress on these seven churches and now what he's got for us.

And that is that Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again. Christ is king over all the universe. And John opens these two dozen chapters of Apocalypse with these first few revelations, these first few affirmations. And one of them is that the eternal monarchy of Christ includes now.

Whether it feels like Christ is in charge over our world or not, it's now. Because he is the one who is and was and is coming. There's a famous saying, Don't believe everything you think. I think it's very helpful in a lot of ways.

And that is so wonderfully true here. We might think, we might feel that we're far from God's kingdom. It might not feel like God's running things. It certainly doesn't feel like Jesus is reigning over our world.

But through John, through Revelation, we're reminded of what God says and what the church affirms together. And that is that his glory and power is forever and always. Amen. Jesus is everlasting and constant.

And our present moment is just that. It's just a moment. And again, I don't know about you, maybe this is a me thing too, but for me, it certainly doesn't feel like we live in the midst of eternity. It's hard to get that big picture.

To me, it feels like we live in this just eternal now, where we're just barely able to see forward a month or so. We can't see past the next work week, the next major holiday, the next due date for the gas bill. And, you know, here in the church, the next finance report to church council that causes us to collectively go, Hmph! But Christ our King is hidden behind a veil if we're unable or unwilling to take that longer view. And I've said this before, but I still believe it.

Those of you who are born and raised here, I don't know if you feel this or not, but there's this sort of spirit, I think, that hangs over Pittsburgh, over the South Hills, that I've never experienced anywhere I've lived before. There's kind of this resignation that things will stay the same or get worse forever. When things are tough, we kind of spiral. We catastrophize, we're sure the end is near, and not in the good revelation kind of way.

And we in the church fail to remember when we think like that, that we stand in the same lineage of these churches that are in revelation, and in the lineage of those that will be standing at Christ's return. It's a long timeline. And who knows, maybe we're one of those churches that will be standing at Christ's return. This is all so much bigger than us and our tiny imaginations, our brief lifespans, because so is Jesus.

You would think this would be easier for us to grasp when parts of our scripture are well over 3,000 years old. This is a long game. The gospel reading from Matthew 6, I have to talk about that, because I think it pairs so perfectly here. In addition to the reality of his reign till and beyond the end of time, Jesus affirms that there's no reason to worry about tomorrow, because God will provide.

Short-term, long-term, today, forever, Jesus reminds us that God is sovereign over the whole thing, from clothing the lilies of the field to feeding the wild birds. God is the God of all creation, and Christ is the King, while we're very much not. We're not powerless, to be sure, and we're called to serve God with the best that we have, with generosity, the best of our abilities, our gifts, but we're certainly not in control either. And that hurts a little bit, but it should be an incredible relief, too.

It makes us free to recklessly love and serve and give of ourselves without making God reliant upon us. There's a real freedom in that. What a relief that we do what we can, but it's all really in God's hands. Our job is to come alongside, using all that we have and all that we have been given by God to help build the kingdom, but when it comes down to it, we're not the ones driving.

We're helping. Faith in Christ the King is recognizing that he has got it, and we just do our best today and every day. And so we can give of ourselves without any reservation about failing or worrying about whether it's enough, because we're putting our lives, our faith, in God's trustworthy hands. And we know how the story ends, in the victory of the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the King who is and who was and who is to come.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.