A sermon by

David Roquemore

Camp Hill Presbyterian Church

July 25, 2010

Jonah 3

Revelation 21: 1-5

Matthew 5: 1-16

The Word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Having run away from his call, repented in the middle of a storm, promised loyalty to God in the belly of a fish, Jonah now hears the call a second time. He is given a new start, a fresh opportunity to obey. Here is God’s amazing grace: even as bad a prophet as Jonah gets a second chance.

The call is the same: go to Nineveh and proclaim God’s judgment on that city. God gives us mercy, another chance, time and time again, but keeps calling us to do the same thing. We might not want to do what God calls us to do, and we might disobey. God is patient, and forgiving, but does not let us off the hook until we do what we are called to do. The spiritual life involves a progression, and can’t move to lesson two until and unless we complete lesson one. That is what God is doing with Jonah: he must obey the same instruction as before. He must go to Nineveh and call for repentance.

Jonah is reluctant to go. He goes and does what he is told, but only that. There is not any enthusiasm for this project. He fulfills the letter of the commandment, but doesn’t seem to expect much or be fully committed to it. He’d still rather be somewhere else, sunning on the beaches of Tarshish.

But what results! When Jonah proclaims, “yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown,” the people put on sackcloth and ashes. They repent. The king proclaims a fast that extends even to the livestock and house pets. No animals shall have any water! The cattle are to be draped in sackcloth! This is a serious proclamation of repentace. There is a contrast here: Jonah’s own people, Israel and the city of Jerusalem, had heard the word of the Lord from prophets and had only occasionally repented, never with this degree of seriousness. The people of God didn’t take the Word seriously; the Ninevites required even their animals to fast! God’s people take God lightly, while the enemies are struck by the warning of God’s judgment.

The king proclaims this fast, and calls on everyone to turn from evil and violence. Turning back to God will save the city. The warning that God’s judgment will come in forty days is a form of grace: they have time to change and repent. When the people do repent, God does not go forward with his threatened judgment.

So there are two cities: Nineveh the violent, to which God calls Jonah to preach, and Nineveh the repentant, which finds mercy at God’s hand. We read today also the vision of the heavenly Jerusalem in Revelation, and we see the contrast between the earthly city and the city of God. Two cities, and the link between them is God’s grace and how they respond to it.

We are residents of a city even as we are part of the Church. Like Jonah, the Church has a message to proclaim to the city. The Church has a glimpse of the city of God, and brings this glimpse to bear in our common life in the city on earth.

This week you sent missionaries not to Nineveh but to Maine, to Mission At The Eastward. For our devotional thought each day we read one of the beatitudes, which is why we read them this morning. We sought to bring hope and blessing to the people of Maine. And we did – we believe we did that.

We put new roofs on two houses, one of an old friend of MATE and ours, and another for an invalid widow. We built the framework for a roof on a mobile home, so that the snow will slide off; the homeowner says that at 70-something, she is too old to climb on the roof and shovel the snow! We did numerous projects at another family’s home, to make it better for the winters. And we undertook MATE’s most daunting project ever: there was a house where the sill on the top of the foundation, the huge beam that holds up the house, was rotten. So our crew jacked up a 200 year old farmhouse and replaced the sill. All in a day’s work.

How is this a blessing? Doing this brings peace of mind to people who have no other way to get things done. Doing these things teaches people that Christians will help others because Jesus says do it. Doing these things gives people hope that the gospel is real. And in doing all of that, we learned, we receive blessing from Jesus. There is much to be said about the beatitudes, but we are reading Jonah today.

So, then – how are MATE and Jonah related? When we went to MATE, the city was not suddenly converted. The cattle did not even repent. That pesky chipmunk eating the one woman’s flowers would not stop his rampage, despite our presence. We did not see the same results that Jonah saw in Nineveh.

Yet we brought blessing to the city, to MATE. And now we ask ourselves, what about our fair city? What about Camp Hill, or Harrisburg, or Pennsylvania? How do we bring a word of warning and a word of hope and blessing to our city?

We do it just as we do at MATE: by living the beatitudes, by showing mercy and peace, by recognizing and mourning our spiritual poverty, by understanding that our ways fall far short of God’s ways. We do it by living in these ways in relationship with people, with one person or two or two hundred, and demonstrating the love of God for us.

Jonah goes and despite is reluctance, obeys. When he does, the results are astounding. Amazing. Beyond all expectation. Such is the power of God.

You may have heard that Scott Planting is leaving MATE after 35 years, so that they can find someone else to lead it before he retires. Hearing the stories this week reminded us that demonstrating the love of Christ to even one person can have astounding and amazing repercussions and results over the years. Such is the power of God.

God has the power to convert even Nineveh, even Camp Hill, even us. Do we believe it? Do we believe God will act through us, or do we think life will go along pretty much as usual? Let me tell you: God will act, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to reveal the grace of our Lord Jesus to everyone. God will act, and how does God act? Through our actions, yours and mine! Let’s get to it.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Camp Hill Presbyterian Church

July 11, 2010

Hosea 11:1-9

For two week we have perused Hosea’s prophecies. We read the stern judgment of God for the unfaithfulness in Israel’s public life. We read the call of God for allegiance to God alone, and not to lesser powers. We begin to wonder if this Hosea is all about bad news. We begin to wonder where the grace and mercy of God might be.

Hosea 11 is an answer – listen to the poignant, pleading voice of God. In the first four verses, God remembers how he loves Israel:

When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. ²The more I called them, the more they went from me; they kept sacrificing to the Baals, and offering incense to idols. ³Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, I took them up in my arms; but they did not know that I healed them. ⁴I led them with cords of human kindness, with bands of love. I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them.

Israel is God’s beloved child! God called Israel out of Egypt. With the prophet Moses at their head, the people marched out of Egypt, following the call of God to the Promised Land. They were delivered from slavery, from death at the Red Sea. All along the way, God has cared for and shepherded his people. “Out of Egypt I have called my son” is quoted by Matthew as he tells how Joseph and Mary bring Jesus back from Egypt, having escaped to hide from King Herod.

God says, cries out really, that he was the one who taught Israel to walk. What a touching and familiar image! Like a parent patiently teaching a toddler, God cared for Israel. Now, Israel is a rebellious teenager, walking away from God as fast as he can. God taught Israel to talk, to speak the language of faith, and now Israel can do nothing but sass the Lord God. “The more I called them, the more they went from me” – sounds like my dog. Sounds like a lot of children. It even sounds like us.

Well, we know how it is with these minor prophets by now. They hold nothing back. Verses 5 – 7:

⁵They shall return to the land of Egypt, and Assyria shall be their king, because they have refused to return to me. ⁶The sword rages in their cities, it consumes their oracle-priests, and devours because of their schemes. ⁷My people are bent on turning away from me. To the Most High they call, but he does not raise them up at all.

God’s people can call out all they want; he no longer listens. He is fed up. He has had enough. If they want to go back to Egypt, so be it. If they want to follow other gods, so be it. They don’t want God for a king? Fine, they can have the Assyrians! Violence will consume their cities. And God will not respond to their call.

That’s more like it! That’s the judgment we are accustomed to hearing. God is not putting up with these people and their disobedience. They have been running after other gods, pursuing the desires of their own hearts, trusting in other powers to save them, pledging their allegiance to the wrong leaders.

But wait! Does God care? Does God still care?

⁸How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. ⁹I will not execute my fierce anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and no mortal, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath.

“How can I give you up,” God cries, and you can hear the anguish of the parent who loves the wayward child no matter what. The very thought of punishing Israel makes God’s heart recoil! God’s compassion grows warm and tender. He will not execute his fierce anger. The Hebrew verbs are vivid: the verb for anger comes from a word that refers to snorting, the way a horse might breath. Think of the classic cartoon of a bull preparing to charge – that heavy breathing, that is anger. Yet the word for that warm tender compassion comes from the word for a woman’s womb: where a child is conceived and nurtured and grows, safe and cared for. That is how God longs to treat Israel. That is how God feels about his child, his son. That is how God longs to treat us.

You might think we would pair this passage with the parable Jesus tells of the prodigal son, how the Father cannot reject the son even after being rejected. But the lectionary for today is the Good Samaritan. Not as clear, but there is a connection. The son who runs away God will not reject but always ever is calling, calling to return home. And here in our gospel lesson, Jesus makes it clear that the one who is praised, the one who is approved, is the rejected one. The Samaritan is the one everyone hates. The illegal alien. The enemy. And yet he is the one who obeys God’s call for compassion for the neighbor. Jesus says it is his action that matters. The good and the faithful, the righteous ones, who pass by the wounded man, are judged by Jesus because their deeds do not match their professions of faith. God desires not just righteous words, but righteous lives – a thing Hosea has said over and over.

So, God deeply desires us to live righteous lives, and God deeply desires to be in relationship to us. And of course, the two go together. When we know God, we are drawn to righteous living. When God calls us out of the Egypt – wherever Egypt might happen to be on the map of your life – God gives us the power – grace we call it – to make that journey. To follow. To be faithful. And when we fall down, because little ones learning to walk fall a lot! – then the grace of God in Jesus Christ is there to lift us up and get us going again! That is the good news.

And so we share it. That is part of this righteous living. We share it this week in two ways: with Vacation Bible School and with Mission At The Eastward. VBS starts tomorrow; we will be helping a lot of chldren learn to walk, teaching them the gospel day by day. God calls, and in some cases, speaks through us. God will teach these little ones to walk in his way by our example and teaching. That is quite a responsibility, and those who are here doing it need your prayers each morning.

Then on Saturday, the MATE group departs for a week in Western Maine doing whatever people need done at their houses. How does fixing a step witness to God’s care? It is not so much the what as the that. What we do is not so important as that we are there doing it. We will be there in the name of Christ, and seek to proclaim to people in all kinds of ways that God does love them. Pray for us as we work at MATE – for our safety, that the work we do will be well-done (I have this dream about a certain porch we built.), and that we are able to demonstrate righteous living and communicate Christ’s love to people.

Does God care? Of course God does. God cares more deeply than we can ever imagine. God’s care and love is deeper than we know. Yes, God is holy and so judges sin. But the word of judgment in these prophets, though it is a stern warning, is not the last word. The last word is God’s undending love, for Israel, for his Son, for us through his Son.

Take comfort, have hope, live in the light of God’s righteous love! Amen.

Celebrations of the sacraments of  baptism and communion

The Camp Hill Presbyterian Church

July 4, 2010

Hosea 6: 1-6

Have you been watching the World Cup, the soccer championship? If you have, or if you do, you will see the world’s most committed diehard fans. These people follow their team no matter what. Yesterday before the game between Argentina and Germany, the fans were holding a large banner that said, “God is an Argentino” – alas, God is apparently a German Lutheran. (Germany soundly defeated Argentina.)

The fans were crushed. Their hopes are undone, until next time. But we can see before us a clear display of unbending, unchanging allegiance.

Do you know the origin of the word ‘diehard’? It was used of those for whom death came with difficulty, but gradually became used to mean “do not give up, but fight to the last man, to the last breath.” It was in 1811, in Spain, that an English commander told the British 57th Regiment of Foot, “Die hard the 57th, die hard!” That regiment later became known as the Die-hards. That is allegiance; that is loyalty.

Our text today is about loyalty. Since we read the beginning of Hosea last week, there have been five chapters of warnings, judgment, and condemnation of Israel for idolatry and unfaithfulness. At the end of chapter five, God says he will wait until Israel repents and begs for his favor, using the words of chapter six. When will Israel turn and affirm its loyalty to God?

Listen again to the first three verses of chapter six,

‘Come, let us return to the Lord;
for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us;
he has struck down, and he will bind us up.
² After two days he will revive us;
on the third day he will raise us up,
that we may live before him.
³ Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord;
his appearing is as sure as the dawn;
he will come to us like the showers,
like the spring rains that water the earth.’

Did you hear that? Let us return to the Lord. The Lord God has brought this punishment upon us, but he will bring healing. He will take care of us. God will not leave us desolate. “After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him.” Does that sound familiar? Rising on the third day?

Yes, it is Jesus Christ who rises on the third day. This prayer of Israel says it will be we who rise – and Paul’s theology of baptism in the New Testament makes is quite clear that baptism is a connection to Christ in his death and rising. We rise with Christ, on the third day. We live before God, healed, with Christ. We have confidence and hope in the promises because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The prophet makes God’s complaint clear, as he goes on to say that Israel’s faith is as inconstant as the morning fog. Israel might pray for healing and repentance, but soon is off again, following another path. God wants, the prophet declares,

steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings.(v6)

God tells Israel it is not in the details of observing the commandments and rituals that they honor God. No, it is in the attitude of heart; it is their piety, their faith, their love for God and neighbor that their allegiance is found. That is what God wants, from them and from us. God wants our allegiance, first place in our hearts. It is that simple.

Today is a day about allegiances. This is the day when symbolically we threw off British rule in 1776, though actual freedom to a war to win. So today is an important national day, and will be filled with symbols and declarations of allegiance. We have a hymn today that speaks lovingly of our nation, and at the end, asks God to bless it. Nothing wrong with that at all. It can become wrong. It can become idolatrous, if we think we are declaring God’s approval and blessing on whatever we are doing as a nation. But to acknowledge God as sovereign and ask for blessing, which may mean repenting of some things, — nothing wrong at all with that.

The flag of our country is a symbol of allegiance. And some worry that it sends a confusing message about our allegiances when it is displayed in the sanctuary. Let me tell you a quick story. I served a church where the sanctuary ladies removed the flags before every communion service. I watched this for a month or two, then asked them why they did it. The answer was, the previous pastor said it was not appropriate to have the flag present during communion. Other Sundays, it was just fine. That seemed inconsistent to me, and so I told that congregation it could stay in place every Sunday, — that brought a lot of smiles especially from our veterans — it could stay, because every Sunday the nation needs the reminder that Jesus Christ is Lord, and the flag stands under the cross, the nation under the judgment of God. Not so many smiles, but they agreed.

We have allegiances that vary in importance. Many would die for their country; fewer would die for the Phillies, though some might. But who would die for the Lord? Whose allegiance and trust is first and foremost for God?

We come to the Table to affirm our allegiance, to pledge our allegiance, and to receive strength so that our faith will not be as passing as the morning dew, but will stand strong and be proclaimed with clarity and love to all our neighbors.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Camp Hill Presbyterian Church

June 27, 2010

Hosea 1

I

Here we are in Hosea. For three Sundays we will sample his work and hear his message. To hear his message, we have to understand to whom he was talking and what the situation was. Thus a bit of background and history.

Hosea preaches in the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Israel divided a generation after Solomon into the Northern Kingdom, usually called Israel, and the Southern Kingdom, called Judah. Israel lasted a few hundred years before being absorbed into the Assyrian Empire. Israel was defeated by the Assyrians in 722 BC. Hosea preaches about a decade before this. He warns the North that their faithlessness is going to be their doom. Judah maintained independence a while longer, until the Babylonian Empire, having conquered Assyria, took it into exile in 587 BC.

Israel had a king, Jeroboam II, who gets little attention in the Bible. There are a few verses in 2 Kings 14:23-29 that tell about him. He did two things: he expanded the kingdom almost to the ancient borders that King Solomon had held, and he did evil like his predecessor and namesake, Jeroboam I. So he was personally wicked, but managed to bring Israel into a time of prosperity and security. Then he died, in 746 BC. After his death, there were four kings in fourteen years, all assassinated. It was a time of great turmoil and uncertainty. There was political unrest and intrigue.

At the same time there was great luxury and a flourishing economy. We know about this as we read Hosea, and his contemporary, the harsh prophet Amos. We see that there was a wealthy ruling class and merchant class, sustained by a large and poor working class. The rich were very well-off, while the poor toiled just to eat.

Into this situation Hosea speaks. The book is divided into two sections, a story in chapters 1 – 3, and preaching in chapters 4 – 14. What separates Hosea from the other prophets is his story. As we heard, Hosea gets married, and his wife is not faithful. That becomes an analogy, a parable, for Israel’s relationship to God.

Hosea is told by God to take a wife who is unfaithful. The story is a little ambiguous. Some say Hosea’s wife became unfaithful, and so he used their relationship as an example. Others say she was a prostitute when he married her. Either way, her straying ways are used as an example. Hosea himself is pretty harsh with her, and in some places, this harsh language is used of God against Israel. So some readers see issues of abusive relationships laying behind this text. Whatever the real story is, we can be sure that women in Hosea’s time did not have the rights that they do today. It was not easy for Gomer, especially given the things that are reported about her.

What interests us is the analogy. God declares that Israel’s lack of faith is like a straying spouse. Israel has gone back on the promise and betrayed the trust that was there. Israel has failed to keep the covenant even though God has been good for so long.

After a long period of political expansion and peace, a period of economic growth and prosperity, times change. There is economic fear, and political instability. There are rapid changes in the government. People worry that the good times have ended, and that bad times are ahead. Is any of this sounding familiar?

Jeroboam II was apparently a great king, in world-historical terms. He expanded the kingdom and stimulated the economy. All was well. But the Bible dismisses him in a verse or two, saying that he walked in the ways of his ancestor, Jeroboam I. That is, he permitted the people to turn away from the Lord God and turn to the ways of the neighboring Canaanites, who worshiped the Baals. These were nature religions. These pagan people sought to appease the forces of nature and bring good crops through fertility rituals involving temple prostitutes and even the sacrifices of children. Over the years, Israel’s great temptation was to follow these practices instead of the law of God.

And so when the good times ended, as all good times do, and the hard times came, the people were not spiritually ready. They did not know how to trust in God. They were unfaithful, and the prophets come, proclaiming God’s judgment.

II

We run into a problem as we read the prophets and ask questions about ourselves. We have seen this before. Israel had a special and particular relationship with God. God makes promises to Israel. Should we take those promises to the “nation” and apply them to our nation? We are a very different country, with very different presuppositions, different attitudes, different assumptions, and a different culture. There is a danger that we take the language of Israel being God’s chosen, favored ones, apply it to our nation, and then succumb to a prideful arrogance. We simply have to keep in mind that we are no better than any other nation as far as these promises go. That is hard to hear. It goes against our assumptions.

This is not about partisan politics; it goes deeper than that. This is a critique, a question, to our culture. If politics is the grass, we are looking deep into the soil, to the bedrock. Politics is about how we live together in the polis, Greek for city. And what is God’s law about? How we live together? So you see, faith is very political, but the questions it asked go much deeper than partisan issues.

Hosea, and Amos also, condemns Israel for the tremendous economic disparity and injustice that they tolerate. The rich wallow in luxury while the poor are barely able to eat. This violates the law, says the prophet. This is not the life God has called them to live. And we can see that this raises questions for our lives, as well. Slavoj Zizek recently observed of those television shows that show us starving children and ask for a donation, their message is “don’t think, don’t politicize, forget about the true causes of their poverty, just act, contribute money, so that you will not have to think!” (Living in the End Times, p. 4) But we must think: we must realize the causes of poverty and hear the judgment of the prophet.

Hosea condemns Israel for the religious idolatry and spiritual unfaithfulness that the people practice. The idols lead to self-indulgence and worse, even to sexual sins like Gomer’s. The people indulge their desires in the name of faith. Well, to me that sounds familiar. Perhaps you are acquainted with the church movements and television preachers who say that God wants every one of us to be wealthy, and healthy, and beautiful. Thousands flock to those churches – -and why not? Isn’t that the message we’d all love to hear?

Until we look in the mirror. I look in the mirror and say, “who is that?” What happens when we are not healthy? When we are not wealthy? When – let’s face it – we aren’t all that beautiful? Does that mean God does not love us? There are tremendous problems with that theology. It is far too easy to decide that we are being faithful to God while indulging our desires.

But James, in the New Testament, reminds us that we are tempted by desire, “being lured and enticed by; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death.” (James 1:15) Indulging our desires leads to spiritual death.

Bernhard Anderson writes, of Hosea’s time, “People thronged to the templs, not to acknowledge gratefully their utter dependence on the God who brought them out of Egypt, but to ‘get something out of religion’ – harmony, security, prosperity, and peace.” (Understanding the Old Testament, p. 287)

That sounds a lot like our time, doesn’t it? We want those things too, especially as the world gets more uncertain, our old political paradigms of the cold war no longer explain things, our economy seems on the verge of deflating or even collapsing. We want God to make all things OK, and God’s word from the prophet suggests that God is not interested in helping, that these things are the consequences of our actions, the judgment for unfaithfulness.

As we heard, Gomer had children. God said name the first one Jezreel, for God would punish Israel as Jehu punished King Ahab and then Queen Jezebel at Jezreel (2 Kings 9:30ff). God says, name the second child “Not pitied” for the Lord will not pity those who are unfaithful. God says, name the third child, “Not mine” for Israel no longer belongs to the Lord, having run away chasing after idols. The judgment of God is a terrible thing.

III

This is all very difficult, isn’t it? We ask, “what are the unfaithfulnesses of our time?” and we find it easy enough to answer. But we find that we are a part of it no matter how much we strive not to be. We are complicit in a culture that hurts others? Of course, we cannot change the system, and so we must participate in it. To take a current example, as much as we might like to stop using oil, we can’t, unless we happen to work from home and live next door to the grocery store. And even then, the groceries come to us on trucks. We are a part of a system that we may not like, but can’t be avoided without great difficulty.

What can we do? I suggest three things. The first is, hang on as we read the rest of Hosea in the next two Sundays. There is finally hope offered. All is not lost. Hosea never gave up on Gomer. God never gave up on Israel.

The second is, let us think like or with the prophets. They offer us new ways to understand or to look at the world. They offer what some call “alternative construals of reality,” in which we seek to explain and understand and live by other rules. Perhaps you have seen a bumper sticker that says, “challenge the dominant paradigm”; that is what we are doing. And so we offer hope to those who are tempted to give up and say nothing matters. We keep doing our part, however small, in the face of sytemic evil, because it is the right thing to do. Hosea never gave up on Gomer. God never gave up on Israel.

The third is, as we read the prophets, we must remember that they are preparing the people for Jesus. Gomer the unfaithful one has children named Not Pitied and Not Mine. Another woman whom God saw as completely faithful gave birth to a son and named him Immanuel, God with us. In Jesus Christ God is with us, gives us grace to be faithful, to resist the temptations of our world, to do what is right and to live according to his word. Let us never give up hope, for nothing can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Camp Hill Presbyterian Church

June 6, 2010

Habakkuk 2

Last week we read the message of Habakkuk, who questions God, asking why the wicked prosper. God’s answer is that there will be salvation, there will be a savior, there will be justice and righteousness, – just wait, it will come in God’s good time.

Today we pick up where we stopped, in chapter two, verse four, and read the balance of chapter two. We read descriptions of the ways of the wicked, who are bringing on themselves the condemnation of God through the consequences of their actions. I told you last week, these minor prophets are not always so cheery. As we read these scriptures, we hear the prophet’s word to us as well.

In verse four we read, Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith. We get focused on the second half of that sentence, the righteous live by their faith, and slide by the beginning. But this is the heading, as it were, for the next section of the book: the proud, whose spirit is not right, not righteous. Habakkuk goes on to enumerate their sins.

Look at verse 5:

moreover, wealth is treacherous;

the arrogant do not endure.

They open their throats wide as Sheol;

like Death they never have enough.

There is an interesting textual problem here, by the way. It could also read wine is treacherous, the Hebrew just isn’t clear. One has to choose. Either reading makes the point, but I think wealth makes more sense in the larger context, especially in view of what follows.

They open their mouths as wide as Sheol, the Pit, the grave, the abode of the dead. Sheol is not hell in the fire and brimstone sense; it is more a place of lonely waiting, where the dead await judgment. It is a place that is not in the presence of God. And it seeks to consume us. One Hebrew word for living being is nephesh – it is used here, translated “throats.” We are throats – endlessly wanting more poured in. Think of this in terms of desires, of consuming and wanting. A friend of mine says a person is just a “thirsty nephesh.” I think of nests full of little newly-hatched birds, throats wide open, chirping for the mother to bring more worms. Endlessly hungry. That is the way these people are described, and whether it is wine or wealth that they open their throats for, the result is the same.

Habakkuk says these people shall be taunted, and there follows a series of warnings. Let’s read.

Alas for you who heap up what is not your own!

How long will you load yourselves with goods taken in pledge?

Will not your own creditors suddenly rise,

and those who make you tremble wake up?

Now, what does that sound like? To me it sounds like our economy. It sounds like the economic crisis we have been through. I don’t mean that Habakkuk was  seeing America, but that what he says about the treacherous nature of greed applies to us quite well. What happens to those who live this way? They meet their end:

Then you will be booty for them.

Because you have plundered many nations,

all that survive of the peoples shall plunder you—

because of human bloodshed, and

violence to the earth, to cities and all who live in them.

Those who have taken the goods of others without paying will be despoiled. Other nations will plunder you – they will perhaps buy up your credit and own you? Sounds familiar!

Perhaps we can find relief by setting ourselves apart in gated communities:

Alas for you who get evil gain for your houses,

setting your nest on high to be safe from the reach of harm!

10You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples;

you have forfeited your life.

11The very stones will cry out from the wall,

and the plaster will respond from the woodwork.

Cutting off many peoples – this sounds a little bit like some of the debate we have and need to have over illegal immigration, and how and when we are to welcome the stranger in our midst. Whatever the good answer to all of that is, it is not “setting our nest on high” in order to be safely out of reach – insulating ourselves from the realities of the world, trying to hide, even pretending that things are fine the way they are – none of that works. Cutting off many peoples – this sounds a little bit like some of the debate we have and need to have over illegal immigration, and how and when we are to welcome the stranger in our midst. No, the very woodwork will condemn the ones who try to escape.

Again, we hear the taunts:

12 Alas for you who build a town by bloodshed,

and found a city on iniquity!

13Is it not from the Lord of hosts

that peoples labor only to feed the flames,

and nations weary themselves for nothing?

14But the earth will be filled

with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,

as the waters cover the sea.

Those who build their society on bloodshed and violence will meet a similar end: the fruit of their labor will be used to feed the flames as the city burns. Rather let the earth be filled not with violence but with the knowledge of God’s glory.

It doesn’t end there:

15“Alas for you who make your neighbors drink,

pouring out your wrath until they are drunk,

in order to gaze on their nakedness!”

16You will be sated with contempt instead of glory.

Drink, you yourself, and stagger!

The cup in the Lord’s right hand

will come around to you,

and shame will come upon your glory!

The first time I read this I thought of Hollywood, of our entire cultural entertainment industry, which thrives on getting people drunk, if not literally then with the intoxications of temptations and pleasures, and quite literally in gazing on another’s nakedness. These are sated with contempt: they hold no one in honor. No one is respected. And God’s cup of judgement will come, bringing shame.

One more:

8What use is an idol

once its maker has shaped it—

a cast image, a teacher of lies?

For its maker trusts in what has been made,

though the product is only an idol that cannot speak!

19Alas for you who say to the wood, “Wake up!”

to silent stone, “Rouse yourself!”

Can it teach?

See, it is gold and silver plated,

and there is no breath in it at all.

20But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him!

Idols, the prophet says, are just pieces of wood. Just rocks. Something we make with our hands. How can those things teach us anything? It is a teacher of lies – lies that we make for ourselves. There is a contemporary word here, I think, relating to our commitment to technology. We have an idea that we can do anything, because so often, we can. Our technology has made so much possible, and much of it is good, but when we begin to trust it for all answers, we make it an idol. We believe that we have powers we do not have.

So in these verses Habakkuk lists the woes of a thirsty nephesh, a greedy people: economic exploitation and ruin, social isolation, rule by violence, preoccupation with idle pleasures, and idolatry, worshiping the work of our own hands. These ways will not lead to blessing, but to ruin. These are not the ways of those who wait for the Lord, who live in hope of the promised salvation.

In the midst of all this bad news, do not despair and do not be afraid. Jesus raised the widow’s son from death, and he will raise us to new life, where the word of the prophet becomes a word of hope.

In place of economic greed, Jesus teaches us to give and share.

In place of social isolation, Jesus calls us to welcome others into communities of love.

In place of governing by violence, Jesus bids us be peacemakers..

In place of indulging bodily pleasures, Jesus asks us to deny ourselves and follow him.

In place of idols, Jesus calls us to worship in spirit and in truth, to worship the only True God.

Thanks be to God! Amen.

Camp Hill Presbyterian Church

May 30, 2010

Habakkuk 1:1- 2:4

Robin and I have decided to preach through some of the minor prophets this summer. We bounced around several ideas and decided this might be interesting. We typically use the Revised Common Lectionary, used by most church denominations, and it takes us through the Bible on a three-year cycle. It covers the life of Jesus between Christmas and Pentecost, then from today – the Sunday after Pentecost, or Trinity Sunday, — until Advent begins, it focuses on the teachings and parables of Jesus. This is a good thing but there is the obvious problem that we don’t read all of the Bible, and some of it we never touch at all.So summer seemed like a good time to step aside from that path and do something different.

In the Bible, in the Old Testament, there are a lot of prophets. The long books, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, each had their own scroll. Then the rest, the twelve shorter prophetic books, were put on one scroll; hence the name “minor prophets.” Their message is not minor nor unimportant; it is the length of the book that is meant.

We are not going to do all of them, and of the ones we read, we aren’t going to read every word. Some of it gets very repetitious. But we will try to present the main themes and messages of these works, in a way that makes them relevant to our spiritual lives today as Christians.

And so we begin with Habakkuk. I want to explore the text from Hab 1:1 to Hab 2:4. and so I am going to read it in sections and comment on each part.

The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not listen?
Or cry to you ‘Violence!’
and you will not save?
Why do you make me see wrongdoing
and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
So the law becomes slack
and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous—
therefore judgement comes forth perverted.

Here is Habakkuk’s complaint: how long do we have to wait for God to respond? How much do we have to put up with? When will there be justice? We cry out violence, and God does not save. The law becomes slack. Does that sound familiar?

Here is something we may as well get out in the open. There is in the Old Testament a certain point of view, a certain theology, that says something like this: if you live a good life, you will be rewarded by God. If you live a bad life, if you disobey the law, you will be punished. Well, actions DO have consequences, we know that. We hear this kind of simple blessing and punishment theology, and it sounds good. It sounds right, there are plenty of Bible verses that say just that. However, we also know it isn’t true; that is not the way the world is. The wicked prosper, and the good man, he goes down. The prophets often cry out, asking why the world is this way, instead of the way that we’d prefer, instead of a neat scheme of blessing and curses.

And so as we read the prophets, we find verses that seem to apply directly to us. That is, we find them describing our situation. Prophecy is less about foretelling the future, someone said, and more about “forth-telling,” telling forth, the truth. The prophet speaks a word that my be true on different levels for his time and for our time. That is what makes these books so rich. At the same time, we will want to be careful about drawing conclusions meant for God’s chosen people Israel and applying them to our nation or the nations of the world.

So, back to Habakkuk. The law is slack and there is no justice. Well, read the newspaper! That is our time. Destruction and violence are everywhere, no one wants to take responsibility for his actions, and no matter how much we cry out for help and justice, we hear no response from God!

But wait, God does respond!

⁵Look at the nations, and see! Be astonished! Be astounded!
For a work is being done in your days that you would not believe if you were told.
⁶For I am rousing the Chaldeans, that fierce and impetuous nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own.
⁷Dread and fearsome are they; their justice and dignity proceed from themselves.
⁸Their horses are swifter than leopards, more menacing than wolves at dusk;
their horses charge. Their horsemen come from far away; they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
⁹They all come for violence, with faces pressing forward; they gather captives like sand.
¹⁰At kings they scoff, and of rulers they make sport. They laugh at every fortress,
and heap up earth to take it.
¹¹Then they sweep by like the wind; they transgress and become guilty;
their own might is their god!

God has an answer – he is bringing in the Chaldeans! That is, the Babylonians. In 612 BC Assyria fell to the Babylonians, who then came south and subdued Egypt. In those days the struggle was always between Egypt and the northern empires, with Israel just a little territory along the way, like Belgium between Germany and France. As Habakkuk is preaching, all of this is happening. So, then. God’s answer to the lack of justice is…to bring the Babylonians!

Suppose that in 1954 or 1963 someone had said, there is no justice, God, America needs to change, and God had said, I will help you; I will bring the Soviets! Or today, perhaps, the Taliban. Or the Chinese. That is about how shocking God’s answer is. I am bringing in the Chaldeans, God says, and boy oh boy are they tough! You think you have seen violence? You haven’t seen anything yet!

Habakkuk is not pleased.

¹²Are you not from of old,
O Lord my God, my Holy One?
You shall not die.
O Lord, you have marked them for judgement;
and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment.
¹³Your eyes are too pure to behold evil,
and you cannot look on wrongdoing;
why do you look on the treacherous,
and are silent when the wicked swallow
those more righteous than they?
¹⁴You have made people like the fish of the sea,
like crawling things that have no ruler.

¹⁵The enemy brings all of them up with a hook;
he drags them out with his net,
he gathers them in his seine;
so he rejoices and exults.
¹⁶Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and makes offerings to his seine;
for by them his portion is lavish,
and his food is rich.
¹⁷Is he then to keep on emptying his net,
and destroying nations without mercy?

God, Habakkuk says, you are the creator. You are in control of all things and all nations. You have marked those Chaldeans for judgment; how can you use them? You are pure; how can use those evil ones? They drag up every single one of us as though we were fish in the sea. None shall escape. They have no mercy.

This is not good news, Habakkuk says. For God to answer this way, to act this way, is worse than God’s silence, perhaps. At least then we knew – or thought – that the wicked would some day perish. Now we aren’t so sure. Could God really use our enemies to teach us a lesson?

And God answers again. Chapter 2, verses 1-4.

I will stand at my watch-post,
and station myself on the rampart;
I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,
and what he will answer concerning my complaint.
²Then the Lord answered me and said:
Write the vision;
make it plain on tablets,
so that a runner may read it.
³For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
it will surely come, it will not delay.
⁴Look at the proud!
Their spirit is not right in them,
but the righteous live by their faith.

That is likely not the best place to end, but that verse, verse 4, has taken on a life of its own in the history of the church. Martin Luther in the midst of a struggle over the role of works of merit in the medieval church saw where Paul quotes this verse Galatians, and took it to mean that it we are saved by grace through faith alone, not by any work of our own. And so Habakkuk leads right into our Protestant pews, in a roundabout way.

Habakkuk takes his place on the watch-post, to see what God will say. And God says, Write the vision. Write it large so that a runner may read it. Make it big.

I served a church on a highway outside Baltimore, not unlike the Carlisle Pike. We had long discussions one summer about what our new sign should look like. It had to be large enough that it could be easily read from cars moving forty or fifty miles an hour. If you want it to be read, make it big. That is what God says to Habakkuk.

Write it big, he says, but he does not say what the vision itself is. He tells us instead that there IS a vision, that it comes at its appointed time. It will come, as surely as the sun rises, it shall come one day. If it seems to tarry, just wait. Wait, and have hope. God has not abandoned us, even though the times seem dark and the portents dire. God has not abandoned us, though there be wars on every front. God has not abandoned us though the wicked prosper everywhere. For their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith.

For us today, the message is one of hope: the people need hope to live. We live by faith in the promises of God, that is, hope, and not by the evidence of what we see and think and believe. We hear all kinds of fear-mongering from every side, but we live by faith. We see some people getting away with murder, while the good people suffer, and we live by faith. We see injustice and we are told that there is no god. But we live by faith. And we wait, for the fulfillment of our hope, for God to bring the Chaldeans, or even a Savior, knowing that what God has promised will surely come. Do not despair!

Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Camp Hill Presbyterian Church

May 23, 2010 Pentecost

Acts 2:1-21

Romans 8:14-17

John 14:8-17
The Spirit comes to the disciples as they wait in the upper room.  They have waited as Jesus directed them, remaining in Jerusalem praying. The Spirit comes on the feast of Pentecost, a celebration fifty days after Passover, remembering when God gave the Law to Moses.  God gave the Law to Moses; now God gives the Spirit to Peter and the disciples.

The Spirit comes dramatically. There is a rushing wind. There is something like fire that touches each of them. They begin to speak and preach in other languages.  Because it was a festival, Jerusalem was filled with visitors from all over the Mediterranean world, who hear their languages being spoken. How do these Galileans, these fishermen, know Arabic and Cappadocian and all the other tongues?

The reaction is mixed. Some hear and believe. Some hear and with scorn accuse them of being drunk. Peter addresses the crowds: they aren’t drunk, it’s way too early! No, this is what the prophet called for, and he tells them, and three thousand of them believed.  They believe Peter who says that God has raised Jesus who was crucified, and made him to be Lord and Messiah. That claim is reinforced by the sign, the coming of the Spirit, and they believe.

Do you believe it? Do you believe these fishermen were suddenly able to preach in Farsi? Do   you believe in miracles like this? It is a hallmark of our time to be skeptical. We want life to be controlled, reasonable, predictable. Apparently the Spirit of God is none of these.  Do you believe what Peter said? That Jesus, who died, is raised? That God has made him Lord? That is the real question, the reason for the coming of the Spirit. Do you believe Jesus Christ is Risen, and that he is Lord of all?

Be careful how you answer.  There is a line from a movie, Ever After, a retelling of the Cinderella tale. A woman is brought before the king and queen and asked, “did you or did you not lie to the Queen of France? Be careful how you answer – the words you speak may be your last!” Be careful how you answer – as a professor of mine commented once, you might say the Apostle’s Creed once too often. Do you believe that Christ is Risen, that he is Lord of all?

The Spirit comes and testifies that the answer is Yes. Yes, I believe. Yes, believing I will live in the power of the Spirit, as a follower of Jesus. The Spirit gives us the grace, the ability, the power, to believe and to obey.

The Spirit comes and brings power, energy, life. Frequently in the New Testament the Greek has these words – power and energy. We sometimes translate them in other ways and soften their impact. The Spirit is pictured as bringing us energy – like a battery. If you have anything in your house that runs on batteries – the TV remote control, your cell phone, your cordless phone – you know that if you leave it off of the charger, it goes dead and then is useless. Just as these things need their batteries charged in order to work properly, so also do we. The Spirit charges us up.

The Spirit comes and brings confidence, courage, conviction. At eight o’clock these disciples were sitting in the room scared. At nine o’clock they were talking languages they didn’t know they knew. They were no longer afraid. They had confidence. They knew their Lord, but they also knew that God was with them, God the Spirit, and so would sustain them. The Spirit witnesses to our spirits, teaching us truth and giving us conviction so that we can make our profession without fear. You have all seen the TV courtroom dramas, where you don’t quite know how things will end, and suddenly a timid witness is filled with conviction and courage, and tells the truth. The Spirit does that to us.

The Spirit comes and brings community, brings us into relationship, gives our friendship depth.  These disciples became a community in a hurry – the group went from 120 to 3000 in that one day. Can you imagine? There were organizational struggles, but their common life centered on praying the liturgy and celebrating the sacrament, every day, or every Sunday at least, and that quickly bound them together.

Imagine you go to the movies. You enjoy the show, and you have a shared experience with the other 400 people in the theater. Do you talk to them? No. Do you discuss how great the film was, and what you intend to do now, since it has changed your life? No. It does not matter who else is there, or if anyone is. You can be the only one in the theater and still enjoy the film.

The church is not like that. Oh, you can go to a church and not be a part of the community. You can go to a larger church and be anonymous, – at times that can be comfortable – but to really live the faith fully, you must live it in community. Our society is so individualistic that we have lost sight of how vital relationships are to our well-being. The Spirit brings us into relationship with one another and with God, and through one another, we hear the Spirit speak to us. If we are listening.

A word here about the Spirit: the Holy Spirit gets talked about sometimes as though he were some kind of mojo-juice, some kind of energy or power. The Spirit of God is a person, the Third Person of the Trinity. The Spirit brings power, but is not the power itself. And so we might say, “I really felt the spirit today,” when we mean we felt a certain energy or even emotion. The way we use language matters, and we should always speak of and to the Spirit as a person, fully God.

Today our confirmands will profess their faith. They come before you to say they believe, that they want this grace, this courage, this relationship. They come before you to confirm the promises made for them at their baptism. They have been raised in the faith, taught by many of you, by the community of faith, here and in other places. They are confirming that they believe what the community believes.

As they make these promises, you are invited to make the same promises with them. You are invited to affirm and renew your commitments. You are invited to confirm your intention to live in the power of the Spirit of God.

And after we confirm those promises, make our commitments yet again, we come to the Table: here by the power of the Spirit bread and wine become Christ’s body and blood. We are fed, nourished, sustained, renewed, strengthened, empowered, made whole, given life.  Come then, so that we may go forth rejoicing in the Spirit.

Thanks be to God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

A sermon by David Roquemore

The Camp Hill Presbyterian Church

May 9, 2010

Revelation 21 and 22

We have here the vision of a city, perhaps the strangest city ever described. It is a cube, 1500 miles on a side.  And yes, the engineers in the room are already calculating that the walls are too thin to support that heighth.  Let’s let John tell us that the city is so large, there is room for everyone: again, just as we saw with all those myriads and uncountable multitudes praising God, no one is left out; everyone is there.  Jesus said in his Father’s house are many rooms; a city this size allows for LOT of rooms!

It is covered with jewels. It is beautiful. Everything about John’s description of God and God’s kingdom is beautiful. Beauty is an element that Protestants are ambivalent about, but it is central to the description of God and the way God is worshiped. In God’s presence, nothing is ugly or unworthy.

A word about those jewels. It has been suggested that here John makes a subtle reference to the signs of the zodiac and the gods of the pagan world. These jewels are the signs of the zodiac in reverse order, suggesting that God overturns and is greater than those gods.

What about life in this city? We read about what there is not: there is no temple, no sun or moon, no door on the gateway, no night, nothing bad at all.

There is no temple, because God is the temple. The temple is the place where God is worshiped. Israel believed that the temple was the place where God’s presence was localized on earth. But when God is fully present, there is no separate temple.

There is no sun or moon, because God’s glory is the light. The Lamb is the lamp – remember Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.”  One way to understand the very first chapter of the Bible, the creation story, is that Israel was saying to the other nations that the things they worshiped as divine, the sun and moon, for instance, were simply things created by our God.  In a way, the end of Revelation is doing something similar: the sun and moon understood as “lights” that illumine our way, are no longer needed.  None other than God will light our way. How? With his glory. The glory of God is frequently described in scripture as light, as a glowing aura.  When God is present, there is no darkness at all.

The gates will never be shut by day, and there is no night. Why do cities shut the gates? For safety, for security.  We don’t have walled cities anymore, but we have safety and security issues. Just this week we saw about five different security emergencies make the news. If you have traveled you know that every little thing you have with you is detected, selected, and inspected.  We have an intense national conversation how to handle illegal immigrants, about what is fair to them and to others. How do we shut the gates of our borders, or should we?

But in the kingdom of God, in this city, there will be no such need, no such debate, no such fears.  The gates do not need to be shut by day, and there is no night. Night is when robbers come, when thieves break in and steal; night is when danger is abroad. But in God’s city there is no danger.

The people who stream into the gates bring the glory of the nations.  I think of the processions that open the Olympics, when each countries’ athletes march proudly in, wearing their colors and carrying their flag. Or just few weeks from now when the World Cup matches begin, and we will see much the same thing. Each nation has its own glory. And that is brought to the city – where it pales beside the glory of God. The nations are as dust before God. Even and especially those nations that have sought empire and rule and domination, where glory turns hard and cruel.  Such glory is nothing.

The glory of the nations – each country brings its own way to honor God. Each brings its own heritage, culture, and songs. Each nation is there, which is a way to remind us that in Jesus Christ salvation comes not only to the Jews but to all people, to all nations. Christ Jesus becomes the glory of the nations, and that is what the people bring before the Lord God.

In the middle of the city, right down the street, flows the river of the water of life.  This river waters trees that bear different fruit, which in turn bring healing and peace.  These are biblical symbols every one. The water of life that flows through the street is a reference to wisdom. Wisdom, the way of life of the faithful believer, is referred to as the water of life.  A tree planted by streams of water, says Psalm 1, describing the faithful one.  These trees bear fruit, as we are expected to bear fruit.

I like the image as it literally stands: a river running through the city, lined by fruit trees. Doesn’t that describe a place of peace and rest? Isn’t that a…garden? What was God’s original design for creation? A garden! A place of lush beauty where the man and the woman would enjoy God’s goodness.  The streets of the city will be like a garden.

The title of this sermon, Where The Streets Have No Name, is the name of a famous rock song by the Irish band, U2.  They wrote the song because of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, where you are known to be a Protestant or Catholic, a Loyalist or Nationalist, by the name of the street on which you live.  Tell me where you live, I will tell you all about you. And they dream of a time and a place where the streets don’t have names, where the people live in peace, where these divisions do not matter. They dream of the kingdom of God. In the song, the singer says “I long to reach out and touch the flame where the streets have no name.” Sounds as though he has been reading our scripture, doesn’t it?

The streets of our cities are not like a garden. They are concrete jungles, full of weeds: strife, anger, hopelessness, despair, poverty, pain.  The streets of our cities serve to separate us from one another, to group us in this neighborhood or that. The streets of our cities are thoroughfares along which we fly, rarely stopping to talk to others. Years ago we visited Detroit, and were taken by Susan’s cousins to downtown, where there was an attempt to revive the city with restaurants and things. To get there we traveled a high speed freeway, literally cut through the city, with high walls on either side, a way through the slums from the suburbs. It was fast and safe, but symbolized all that was wrong with the city, with every city.

So what do we do? What can we do? Can we do anything for our streets, to make them like that heavenly street?

A few sermons back in this series, I mentioned the dispensationalist approach to Revelation that you hear about a lot these days. Before that stuff came along, say one hundred years ago, there as a consensus among Protestants that the kingdom of God would come, that these visions would come true, as men and women worked hard with the help of God’s grace. The social gospel movement arose; we can make the world a better place! We can fix what’s wrong! That gave rise to missions and to all kinds of social movements.  You want a classic example, look at hymn #420, “God of Grace and God of Glory.”  All of this is of a piece with the original vision of the American experiment, to bring in the kingdom of God on earth.  America was to be the place where religious freedom would bring the holy city.  But as we know, even though we hear that rhetoric in our politics, it is not to be.

Of course, we are called to feed the hungry and care for widows and orphans. But the dream of bringing in a new and better world on our own died in the trenches of World War One, inEurope. In our country it lasted a lot longer, but it has slowly died here too. Human sin and corporate evil are too much for our efforts alone, or even our efforts with the “help” of God’s grace.  The myth of inevitable progress, which has driven so much of the history of our country and our time, is just that, a myth.  Just to give you one name, a theologican you hear about now and then who at first believed in this idea that we can bring in the kingdom of God, but who later powerfully explained how sin makes that impossible, is Reinhold Niebuhr, perhaps the greatest American theologian of his generation.

I believe these visions will come true, but they come true in the wisdom of God’s plan and God’s work, the future that God has for creation. We continue to work faithfully at the work to which we are called, but with a realistic appraisal of what we can do.  Our efforts come to naught unless and until we understand that the good we do is a gift of God’s grace working through us.  When we see that, then all kinds of work becomes the work of God, not simply religious work.

As we read this chapter, and all of these chapters in Revelation, we have seen that the overwhelming message is good news: it is hope. In Jesus Christ we have the hope of God’s good and perfect future, which will come to pass.  Hope is not simply wishing for something. It is not simply expectation.  Hope is faith leaning into the future. Hope comes from the promise of God and leads us to the mission of God.

We have before us the promises of God. When we read them, in this chapter or anywhere in scripture, we may stop and say, how can this be?  These promises can be believed because of the resurrection of Christ Jesus.  As we have reminded ourselves this Easter, the promises of God can be taken seriously because of the reality of the resurrection of Christ. And in the resurrection we see that the things Jesus taught are the agenda for the mission of Christ to the world. We are as Christ’s Church a part of that mission. The promise then gives rise to hope for the world in God’s future, the future that God promises he will bring.

Which is a theological way of saying, we are here to bring hope to people in the name of Jesus. When we walk the streets, rather than flying by in our SUVs, we meet people who have no hope, who are in despair (literally, the opposite of hope.)  We meet people who are labelled by the street on which they live, in one way or another. We meet people who cannot get a break. We meet people who see no beauty in the street, and find no peace or healing.  And to them we bring the good news of Jesus: that there is a place where the streets run with living water, where the fruit of the trees brings healing, where the streets are a garden. We bring the promises of God to people who need a drink of that living water, who long to be washed in that stream, who yearn for healing and peace.

That is the mission. This vision gives us hope, so that we can continue to work, against all odds, in spite of the ugliness, in the face of trial and terror.  Live the hope, so that those who see your life may see the hope, and know Jesus Christ.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

A sermon by David Roquemore

The Camp Hill Presbyterian Church

May 2, 2010

Revelation 21: 1-6

If you had to imagine a new heaven and new earth, what would it be like? Remember that old camp song?

If all the raindrops
Were lemondrops and gumdrops
Oh, what a rain that would be!

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Maybe rivers of chocolate over near Hershey? And of course, no pain, no suffering, no disease, no violence. Enough for everyone.

We all have our ideas of what paradise might be like.

Here today John has a vision of a new heaven and new earth. We will see more details next week, but for now, imagine, a new heaven, a new earth, and a new Jerusalem. Since we left him he has seen many more scenes of destruction, and of worship in heaven. He has seen cosmic battles between good and evil. Now begins his last vision, of the promised future.

For a people with nomadic roots, Israel has always been interested in cities. The city is the place where the temple is. The city is where God is worshiped. You may recall Jesus and the woman at the well, when she raised the arguments about where – in which city – God was to be worshiped. God’s home on earth is in Jerusalem.

The ancients thought of the countryside much as we sometimes do. If you remember the New Yorker magazine cover that had the view of the world from Manhattan, where there 8^th Ave, 9^th Ave, The Hudson, then Jersey, then nothing, well, that is not far from the way the ancients thought as well. The Roman word ‘pagan” orginally referred to country bumpkins who had no knowledge or sophistication when it came to culture and worshiping the gods. You might recall the place in the gospel when Jesus and his disciples are dismissed as “Galileans” — what good can come from there? The city is the place of knowledge and culture and sophistication.

Think of one of the primal tales in Genesis: the tower of Babel. These human beings decide to build a city with a tower that reaches heaven. Far from being the place where God is sought, the city becomes a monument to human achievement without God, and so it is judged.

And so it still is: the city is often a place where we find all kinds of sin and corruption exemplified. When I was a college senior, several of us came to New York for few days; my mother was convinced that we would all die. New York City was full of switchblade-wielding thugs. Well, maybe it was, but we survived.

In some ways cities concentrate human misery, and the concentration of misery amplifies it, I think, and all kinds of bad things result. So the contemporary city, whether we mean New York, or Harrisburg, or this paradise we call “the West Shore,” has its troubles.

What would the city become if this scripture came true? If God lived in the midst of the city, in the midst of the people?

The home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them (v3)

God will live among the people, among us. The urban problems so familiar will be no more. That is the promise of the future, a promise which is made alive today.

How does God live among us? Remember the name Jesus was given, Emmanuel, God with us? Jesus was God incarnate, God living among us, as one of us. We couldn’t stand it, so we had him killed. But he rose again, and still lives among us. He ascended to the Father, but sent the Spirit who dwells in us. The more we understand that the Spirit is a person, one of the Trinity of persons in God, the more we see that God dwells among us, right now.

And so the promise is that God will quite literally, visibly, be among us in a new creation, but God is among us even now. God is with us in our every moment, knows our every thought, word, and deed, and constantly draws us to himself, away from selfishness and evil.

In those days, God will wipe away every tear. Death will be no more. Pain and sorrow will depart. For these days, we wipe one another’s tears. We proclaim the hope that death is not the end of life, and we bear one another’s pain and sorrow and suffering. God acts in us and through us to bring comfort and strength and truth to one another.

Today we ordain and install leaders who guide us in our life together. So many times that service becomes task-oriented, and loses sight of the big picture. At other times, that service follows the patterns of business and culture, and forgets whom it is we serve. At its best, leadership in the church keeps this vision of God with us firmly in view. We serve Christ Jesus, who came to live among us, sharing our sufferings and joys. God comes and intends to make all things new, beginning even now, beginning with us.

And so to the officers, this word. When you are swimming in the details, or in the midst of debate and disagreement over what is the best way forward, remember this vision: we serve God in his city, which is coming, but which is already among us by his Spirit. In the long run, God will make all things new, for God is the beginning and the end.

And to the rest of us, this word. When we are struggling in sorrow or suffering, when sin seems to reign over us, when we cannot find peace, when there is no joy, when it seems that God is nowhere to be found in the modern city, there is hope. There is hope, for he says, To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.. The water of life – water gives us life, we are born in it, baptized in it. John Chrysostom taught that when Jesus mentions water of life, he means the Holy Spirit of God. God will send his Spirit, who gives us life, who will strengthen us in our weakness, see us through our suffering, comfort us when we are alone, and bring joy in the morning. That we can count on; that word is trustworthy and true.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

A sermon by David A. Roquemore

The Camp Hill Presbyterian Church

April 25, 2010

Revelation 6 and 7

Once again the lectionary reading contained a few verses from chapter 7, but I decided to continue reading straight through. I don’t expect to keep this going through the entire book. Two week ago, we looked at chapter 1, last week, chapters 4 and 5. Today we will read chapters 6 and 7 closely.

So, Revelation chapter 6. Here we see the first in a series of visions. John typically sees things in sets of seven. He alternates between describing events on earth and events in heaven. He gives us vignettes and glimpses, couched in apocalyptic language, with mysterious symbols and numbers. In part this is simply to disgiuse the text: in a time of Roman suspicion of Christians, a book that condemned the empire would be dangerous, but one with a lot of weird animals would simply be …weird! Not a threat. As John describes these visions, we learn things about our world and about God that apply not just to some “end time” but to all times: among other things, John is teaching us about human history.

The Lamb begins to break the seals on the scroll, and as he does, riders come forth on horses. These are the famous “four horsemen of the apocalypse.” A rider on a white horse comes to conquer, followed by a red, a black, and a pale green horse! The white horse comes to conquer. The red brings bloodshed, the black, famine, and the pale green, death. What can this be? First of all, there are commentaries that will say the first rider, on the white horse, is Christ, the conquering Lord. Later in the book Christ is pictured on a white horse, and so folks take this one to be him as well. But it makes no sense, really, for all these bad things to follow him. Another reading is this: the white rider represents conquering armies, like Rome, which always come with glory and pomp, promising liberation. But what follows an army? Bloodshed. The red rider shows the reality of an army’s arrival. There is fighting, combat, bloodshed. This rider takes peace from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another.

Conquering armies come with slaughter and bloodshed, and what happens? Economic turmoil, inflation, scarcity, famine. There is little to eat, and what there is costs an enormous amount: a day’s pay for a quart of wheat. Some of you will remember the rationing during World War Two: if you don’t remember, ask someone. That was pretty mild compared to what we read here. And finally, after the black horse, a pale green horse, whose rider is Death, and who kills one-fourth of the earth with famine, disease and pestilence. Between the destruction of war and the shortage of food, there is much death. It sounds terrifying for one-fourth of the earth to die, but it has happened. In 1348 the Black Plague killed between 25 and 50 percent of the people of Europe. The 1918 flu pandemic attacked one-fifth of the world’s population, and killed 50 million people. AIDS threatens large numbers of people in Africa today. This kind of death rate is possible, and would be especially likely in wartime. So far, then, we have a description of the way things go in history, as nations fight against nations, and people suffer. It has been this way in every age.

When the fifth seal is opened, the view changes. John sees the souls of the martyrs under the altar of God, crying out, asking how long until judgment and justice would come. These have died for their faithful testimony to Christ. In John’s time there were already persecutions against Christians in some areas. The Roman government demanded a pledge of loyalty, that “Caesar is Lord.” Christians refused to say that, saying instead, “Jesus is Lord.” The conquering army wins the day, and Christians are executed for their faith. John’s readers knew this was happening in some places, just as it happens today in some places. The martyrs are given a white robe and told to wait. Wait for God’s justice for it will surely come.

Then there is a sixth seal: here it gets strange. The very cosmos begins to come apart. The stars fall out of the sky. The sun turns black and the moon, red. The mountains and islands were moved out of place. All people great and small run and hide, asking the very earth to hide them from the great and terrible day of the Lord. In scripture there are many places where the day of God’s coming is described in similar terms. And so this is not only a review of the way that history runs its course, This book says that history has an end, a purpose, a goal toward which it moves, and that God is sovereign. God is in charge of the unveiling of history, and moves it to its end. For those who wait and suffer, this is good news. For those who rule and exploit others, this is very bad news.

That is chapter 6. The rest of Revelation has many such scenes, all reinforcing that basic message: be not afraid, for even now, even in this suffering, God has not forgotten the faithful.

Chapter seven. First there is described a group of those who are sealed with the mark of God. There are 144,000 who are included. Now, there are groups out there who claim that only 144,000 people are going to heaven. I am afraid, if that is true, that we are born too late, and the number is already full! But I am also certain that this is not a literal number: it is 12 from each of the 12 tribes, times 1000. In other words, remembering that numbers here are symbolic: twelve tribes, the whole people of Israel. Twelve from each, again emphasizing the sense of completeness: everyone is there who should be there. No one is left out. And multiplied by 1000: again, making the emphatic point: all are there.

I am certain of this because of the second group in this vision. John writes, 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. Far from being limited to 144,000, the number of those present is too great to count. They too are robed in white, and come from every tribe, every place, every land, even here. They come and gather and do what we have seen before in this book: they sing praise to God and to the Lamb.

Now, there is a certain way of reading Revelation that many people have learned in popular books, especially the Left Behind novels, but also other books. This is a very detailed description of how things will be at the last times, and what every item in Revelation means. Many times, this is what people want to know about when we read Revelation. And they ask why Presbyterians don’t teach this stuff, implying that we don’t teach “the Bible.” The truth is, that entire way of reading Revelation and a few other Bible texts, was created pretty much from scratch by one minister in Great Britain in the 19^th century. He had a lot of odd beliefs aside from his dispensationalist teachings, but it is those teachings that have become widely repeated as regards Revelation. Many of the details of his scheme had been denounced as incorrect by the church through the centuries. My primary objection to this whole approach is that it tends to be based on fear, and God is not a God of fear. God is to be properly feared, oh yes! But the Risen Lord Jesus does not call us to believe and follow out of fear, but out of love. The text of Revelation is richer and deeper than these prophecy schemes would tell.

Enough of that. Chapter seven continues with another vision of the multitudes praising the Lord, praising God on the throne and the Lamb, singing the same choruses we saw in chapter one and chapter five.

One of the elders asks John who are these multitudes robed in white, and John says, “you tell me!” The answer is, they have come out of the great ordeal. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. The great ordeal refers to suffering and tribulation. That whole scene with the horsemen coming forth and wreaking havoc on the earth is an ordeal that produces suffering. There are many ways we can suffer in life. That we know. And there are many ways to suffer for Christ Jesus.

In a way, the great ordeal can refer broadly to life – we suffer and struggle with sin. Notice: those who came through the great ordeal are those who washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. We have been forgiven of sin and saved from death by the death of Jesus on the cross, by his blood, we say. And so we have come through the trial and will one day receive white robe.

What is their response to this, other than singing the eternal hymn? The chapter ends with a beautiful poem, a vision of how things will be.

¹⁵For 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.
¹⁶They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat;
¹⁷for the Lamb at the centre 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 ones in white robes, the redeemed of all the ages, who forever sing to the glory of God, they worship God day and night. There is no end to their praise.

They are sheltered and protected by the one on the throne. Rather than being “liberated” by conquering armies, the One Who Conquers shelters them. Rather than suffering from scarcity of food, where a little wheat costs a day’s wage, they hunger and thirst no more, receiving their daily bread from the Lamb. The cosmic calamaties of the coming of God will not threaten them, not the moon nor the sun, for they will be led to springs of the water of life as a shepherd leads the flock to water.

The Lamb will be the shepherd. Jesus says he is the Good Shepherd, and indeed, he is, for in his flock there will be no danger, no threat, no need. God himself will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And all will be well.

And so let us not be afraid. Let us do right without fear of the powers of this world, for they will finally be defeated. Terrors may come, armies, famines, plagues, economic and political upheavals; all of these may seem overwhelming. It may be a great ordeal but in the end, God’s peace will reign.

And with the choir we shall sing,

Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honour
and power and might
be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.