The senior sermon of Mary Lou Cowherd Mannschreck, Class of 2007 from the Diocese of Oklahoma, given in Christ Chapel on November 15, 2006

Revelation 19: 11-21

Prayer:

Holy One,

May our speaking and hearing effect our hearts and minds and wills in ways that please you, the One we know as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN.

When I started studying for today’s sermon, the muscles above the waist and below the breast bone would get tight as I read from Revelation. I don’t like war and killing and birds gorging on carnage. It doesn’t seem right for Jesus to be leader in all of this. Help. Help literary criticism. Help contextual criticism. Help church history and theology. What are we supposed to learn from this?

I felt like I did in the 50s when I first encountered Revelation. It was bizarre and violent and hard to understand about the end times. It seemed secondary to the Gospels and so I avoided it. Revelation is scary, right?

But I can’t avoid it now. I knew, when friends and I discovered what my assigned scriptures would be for today, that I was supposed to dig in and learn from this and make these scriptures my own. I’ve had to do a lot of inner work getting ready for this sermon!

In the 70s I took a class that helped me with an understanding of Revelation that I embraced into studying for today: that Revelation is a retelling of the victory already won by Christ at the cross and how at the end-times, we share in his victory story of good over evil and our glorious being with God.

In ’82 I heard a Sr. Sermon on Revelation. It was hard to understand and I knew then that someday I was supposed to seriously study it. God, help me. The time is now to face my fears.

Revelation is like a letter written to seven churches who would hear it read aloud all at once and then follow it with Holy Eucharist. Sort of like a radio show, it was dramatic and included bizarre and violent parts, sharp contrasts and conflict; but those Christians in Asia Minor during the later part of the 1 st century had no trouble understanding the symbolism used. The descriptions were from their common life and times were hard.

They knew persecution for being Christian. Jesus and the apostles were dead (physically) and they were oppressed by state and gentiles and even some Jews for holding to the worship of our One God and that Jesus was the supreme and final sacrifice. Six of the cities where the seven churches were that received this “letter” of Revelation had temples for worship and sacrifice to the Roman Emperor, who was called the Sea Monster Beast. The Priesthood of the Imperial Cult was called the Land Beast and the False Prophet.

Those 1st century Christians understood in the heavens were God and his angles and underneath were the Devil and his demons. Humans lived in between, where these two worlds met. They knew the beastly persecution of Emperor Nero, huge earthquakes, destructive volcano eruptions, famines, social and economic discrimination with some mob violence and plundering. They were being faithful and lived with the threat of persecution. They answered: Will we be faithful to the point of dying for it? The meaning of their suffering must mean that the end-times were near. If God is sovereign, is God faithful? Revelation was written to them – a message of hope. Is there a message here for us?

Although the Revelation we have today may have included some compiling, the author was probably an unknown prophet, probably of Jewish origin who immigrated to Asia Minor like many in the 70s after the Roman War. Probably the author was a well known itinerate Christian prophet: remember a prophet is one charged to deliver a direct message from God and communicated through him. The prophet’s message interprets current living (and is not prediction) – it is a word for a new situation, a message that interprets the meaning of current living.

Now this prophet, John, writes in his letter about the revealing /the revelation /OR in Greek - the apocalyptic message about the immediate and ultimate future, (OR in Greek - the eschaton – the end-times /the end of history. The prophet writes about victory already won and victory to come. The prophet John reports what we might call Altered States of Consciousness for his revelation, his vision.

The overall story line is this: Our Risen Lord comes to John. John is caught up into the heavenly throne-room and sees Christ open a book that reveals twenty-one woes via seven seals, seven trumpet scenes, and seven bowls of wrath. John sees all of these destroying Babylon (understood as Rome) and then there is the final triumph of God as Christ returns: with Christ returning the dead are raised, the final judgment held and New Jerusalem is the capital of the redeemed and transformed creation.

Today’s reading is the final battle and judgment of God’s enemies. Prophet John’s letter is not simply chronological: I see it more as a spiral. So, there are a few more details about the battle that follow today’s reading; but basically, the Messiah /the Anointed One /Faithful and True /The Word of the Lord /King of Kings and Lord of Lords comes riding as a divine warrior with his army of angelic hosts – all riding a white victory horse. He wears a white robe of salvation and purity –splattered with his own blood and they wear fine white linen of forgiveness from being washed in the blood of Jesus’ liberating death. Like a sharp sword, the Word of God and divine judgment appear and destroy the enemies and Christ rules the nations (in Greek it says like a shepherd) with strength as strong as an iron rod.

In following verses all the symbols of evil: beasts /death /Hades /dragon go into their final home -- the lake of fire -- and are annihilated / the absolute end of evil. Those 1st century Christians knew about the pagan fire rites and the valley south of Jerusalem called Gehenna. This lake of fire metaphor would make sense to them.

Just prior to this though, is where today’s reading ends: the birds are all called, not to the messianic banquet but to eat the carnage of all the other dead enemies: kings and captains, free and slave, small and great – examples of greed and lustful desire for power and control, prestige and possessions. Here my mind keeps returning: to birds gorged with this carnage. Here the carnage becomes relevant to me, today; the carnage today W.J. Harrington calls cruelly impersonal, rampant capitalism and the carnage of our shamelessly selfish, consumer culture. And even more relevant to me today: my desire for certain possessions, for prestige among peers and supervisors, for the power of knowledge – these could become problems and enemies – and therefore carnage –they are all temporal. I’ve often heard the rhetoric before; now I’m beginning to see anew. I can embrace revelation. Telling you about my transformation may not touch your heart and will but there are two men who might: their stories are like images of the New Jerusalem, lives transformed. They have fought battles with their carnage.

Looking at my bed list, I stepped off the elevator and turned left toward the south wing of 5th floor. Looking down the corridor I saw only a man in his room doorway, in a wheelchair. Without moving his feet from the floor, he was rocking a quarter turn into the hallway and a quarter turn back into his room – in and back, in and back. I decided he was basically unavoidable; so regardless of my agenda, I might as well see him first. We talked in his doorway. He stopped rocking. He told me his grandmother had taught him to believe in God; that he had been in a lot of foster homes; he had numerous siblings: a sister he had lost contact with, several brothers far away and several brothers in his same town. He had been a transportation aide for handicapped people, been a cook, was retired military. He voluntarily told me he had always loved God and tried to be a good neighbor. He said, “I got sick and got divorced and lost my house. They said it was gout. Then I couldn’t walk so I used a walker. Then when that didn’t work, I learned how to lock my knees and use crutches. When I couldn’t lock my knees anymore, I crawled like my dogs. Then I lost everything, except my little dogs.”

(You know he reminded me of Jesus: you know, those renaissance paintings of how people then thought Jesus might look like - even in his hospital gown I could tell he was tall and slender – he had told me he was 6 ft -- with his hair brushed straight back with a little natural wave to it and touching his shoulders.)

He told me how he had given his brothers all his food, except the cans with pull tabs, which he could manage to pull open. He said: “I don’t understand why they don’t help me some. I asked them and they said, well, they were ill and had their own problems. I don’t understand, but I still love them. I have always loved God and tried to be of help to my neighbors. Now, I’m homeless. I do not know what I will do when I get out of here.”

He looked up at me and said: “You know, when I lost everything, it was just stuff;” (then he tilted his head and looked down) “but my little dogs are, well, they are life, not stuff. Now I have lost even my little dogs.” I watched a tear roll down the bridge of his nose and drop off the end. After awhile we talked some more. “I still love God,” he said. “You inspire me, Mr. A.” I told him he reminded me of Job in the Old Testament who had a lot of severe losses and still loved God. When I left him I went off 5th floor pondering what all he had said and wondering if “to inspire” was his purpose right now.

The next time I saw Mr. A, I stopped breathing for a moment: I was just coming around the corner and into the lobby of 1st floor. As I looked into the expansive lobby I saw Mr. A across the way, still in his hospital gown and wheelchair, brightly chatting with the attendant across the gourmet coffee bar, bringing some sunshine to her day. I silently prayed: “Thank you, dear God, for being near, for battles won and for a glimpse of the New Jerusalem.”

I continued across the lobby and across the parking lot and into the Dialysis Center, one of the best of its size in the country. In the first bay were about twenty-five treatment chairs. In one of them was a 30-year-old trucker who was eager to talk as he received his treatment. He, too, offered without my asking that he loved God and always tried to help his neighbors. He said, “You know, I have had a lot of time to think: If all the people out there (motioning to the outside world) who love God, truly loved God, not one of us in here would be waiting for a transplant.”

Let us pray: Come, Lord Jesus. Help us fight our battles. Be our vision. Come, Lord Jesus. Transform us into the New Jerusalem. AMEN.