My mother had the habit of walking with her eyes fixed on
the ground. Wherever we would go, my father and my
brother and I would be looking all around, enjoying what
there was to see, but mother would be plodding along behind
us, looking at the ground. We used to tell her, “You’re
missing it all. You cannot see the beauty of nature or the
majesty of the city just by concentrating on the sidewalks.”
She said that was the only way she could be sure she
wouldn’t stumble and fall. If she watched where she put her
feet, she wouldn’t stumble over anything or fall and hurt
herself. We went to New York once. Like you would expect
hillbilly Kentuckians to do, the three of us walked around
gazing up at all the tall buildings. Mother kept her eyes on
the ground. When we went home, the rest of us said, “New
York sure has tall buildings!” Mother said, “New York sure
has crowded sidewalks!”
Well, you can look down at the ground and be safe. Or you
can look up and see something wonderful, and run the risk of
a stumble. Which will it be? Which is it in your life? Are you
going to look down, watch your step, be safe, but miss the
glory of the sunset and the grandeur of the dawn? Or are
you going to stare at the stars and wonder what might be out
there, even if it means a misstep here and a tumble there?
The Bible counsels us to “look unto the hills, from whence
cometh our help.” Look up and live! It does not tell us to
turn our eyes downward or to focus our attention on the past.
Now I am well aware that some of us don’t have much
tolerance for novelty. We like the tried and true, not so much
because it really is true, but because it’s been tried, and we
know what it’s like. When you go to a restaurant, do you
read over the list of exotic dishes, some of which you cannot
even pronounce, and end up ordering meat and potatoes?
You like the tried and true. When you go to the library to
pick out a book, do you pick up one on a subject you know
nothing about, or do you just read one more from your
favorite author? You live here in the Washington area; when
you have free time, do you try a new exhibit at the art gallery,
do you find your way to a museum you’ve never seen before,
do you explore some out-of-the-way corner you don’t know?
Or do you just go back to the same old same old? When our
children were small, we were eager to expose them to all
there was to see and do. But the only thing they ever
wanted to do was to go up the Washington Monument! Let’s
go to the zoo today; no, daddy, we want to go up the
Washington Monument. Let’s see what’s in the Air and
Space Museum. Not unless we first go up the Washington
Monument. Always the same, no adventure in those kids!
Just like their grandmother, looking down, always looking
down. It’s safer that way. No risk, no fall, no stumble.
If that at all describes your life, you need revisioning. You
need to be led to look up and live. You need to see
something more than you’ve ever seen before. You need
new horizons, new vistas, new possibilities. Some people at
a certain age get their face lifted. Well, you and I need to
have our faith lifted. We need, in a word, to see heaven.
We need to see heaven! I don’t mean we need to hurry up
and die. I mean that we need a vision. You and I need to
catch a glimpse of heaven, so we know where we could be
headed. Now there’ll be some risks to take on the way. You
might stumble and fall. But oh, the destination! Oh, the
possibilities. I think it was Browning who said, “A man’s
reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
The great visionary John, at the very end of his Revelation,
looked up from this earthbound life and saw what is to be,
saw what God wills to be. John saw a vision of something
he’d never seen before. A place whose streets he had not
walked. A town whose towers he had never scaled and
whose gates he had never entered. John painted an
extraordinary picture for us. A scene more graphic than any
artist can imagine. A landscape more awesome than any
architect can design. It was the new Jerusalem. A vision for
us to set our sights on. A revisioning. This is what we ought
to go for. This is what we need to look for, not the ground
beneath our feet, but the wind beneath our wings. Heaven.
I
I want you to see, first, that when we start to revision, we are
going to see something old and familiar, but we are going to
see it with new eyes. When you lift up your sights and see
what might be instead of just what is, you do start with the
what is. But you see it in a different way.
John says that he saw the new Jerusalem. Well, if he
recognized what he saw as Jerusalem, it must have borne
some similarity to the old Jerusalem. If I see a map of
Washington in the 1850’s, it’s not like Washington is now,
but there is enough similarity that I can recognize where I
am. I can find Capitol Hill and the White House, I can trace
Pennsylvania Avenue and the Potomac River, I can follow
L’Enfant’s lines and Banneker’s boundaries and can figure
out where I am, even though much has changed. So when
John saw the new city coming down from heaven, he saw it
as Jerusalem, the old, familiar, dirty, crowded, mud-clogged,
sin-stained Jerusalem. But the city in John’s vision was new.
He could recognize it, but he saw it with new eyes. He what
God could bring out of what is now.
You know, there’s an intriguing introductory word to this
vision of the new Jerusalem. It says that the angel who
showed John the new Jerusalem was the same angel who
had in his possession the seven bowls full of the seven last
plagues. Seven plagues! Think about that: the messenger
of God who was given the assignment of announcing all of
the disaster, all of the heartache, and all of the wrong of the
city was also charged with showing John what could be.
What does that mean?
Might it just mean that you and I are called on to look at who
we are, both in the cold light of reality and in the warm light
of possibility? Might it just mean that you and I are called,
like John, to see and to understand what is really going on
around us, terrible as it is; and at the very same time to
envision what God wants to do?
Oh, look at it. The seven plagues. We can’t do justice to
this today, but if you were to go back to the and 16th chapter
of Revelation, you would see what the plagues are. They
include such things as painful sores, polluted waters, blood
flowing in the rivers, scorching heat, dark ignorance,
terrorism, and violence. Any of that sound familiar? But
consider this possibility: that as John sees the new
Jerusalem, with all of its perfection and grandeur, he sees it
against the backdrop of all the accumulated human misery
that lay behind him in the real world. Consider this
possibility: that when we catch a glimpse of heaven and we
really discover what God wants to happen, it is always set in
the context of the terrible realities that are happening now, all
around us. But we are not to get stuck looking only down at
the mess; we are also to look up and live.
Let me get to something practical. We need to revision our
own lives, our church’s life, and our community’s life. Just
as John saw the new Jerusalem as a place born out of the
old, stinking, dismal, messy, cruel Jerusalem, we ought to
envision the new Washington as a city born out of the old,
stinking politics and the dismal, messy violence of the old
Washington. Just as John saw the new Jerusalem as God’s
creation, built out of the crumbling and decrepit old
Jerusalem, isn’t it time for us to lift our sights off the ground
and imagine the new Takoma as a church and a community
made gleaming, but because we take the mess that we are
and submit it to God’s recreating power?
Think about our community. Think about what is really here.
The name of the community is Takoma; that is an American
Indian word that means “high up near heaven”. I submit to
you that we are a long way from heaven. We are stuck in
the seven plagues. For we live in a community where few
feel safe walking to and from the Metro station at night. We
live in a neighborhood that is hardly neighborly for those who
can look out their apartment windows and watch drug sales.
We live in a place where children are not always cared for
and where young people head down the wrong trail because
nobody has put up any trailblazers for them to follow. Seven
plagues? We’ve got them.
And the mess is not all out there, either. A good deal of it is
in here. Do I need to repeat my sermon of two weeks ago?
The one in which I spoke of brothers and sisters exploding in
anger at each other and slicing each other to shreds?
Maybe we ought to put sermon up for a rerun? The old
messy Jerusalem is among us as well as in the community
and the city.
But that means that when God gives birth to the new
Jerusalem, it will come out of the ashes of the old Jerusalem.
God’s new community is going to come when you and I really
see what is going on among us and decide to get on to
God’s new agenda and not our same old same old. A new
vision of what could be rising out of the mess of what is.
Look up and live!
Envision, fi you will, a city where people are brought together
as neighbors instead of as competitors. Envision a city
where people are so full of life’s joys that the buzz of drug
use isn’t even tempting. Re-vision, please, what we do for
children and for youth; it needs to be a lot more than running
a few Sunday School classes and a modest after-school
program and a Friday night youth group. All these things are
good, but my soul! Look what is out there! Lift up your
sights! See the needs and the problems, yes, but see them
as John did – see them as the raw material out of which God
will build the new Jerusalem.
I have never felt more charged up about the future. I know
people say the economy is collapsing and the old values are
gone. I know people are pessimistic about lots of things.
But I believe that our future is as bright as the promises of
God. I believe that in this old, tired, worn out, bedraggled
and besieged part of town, God will do a new thing, and will
do it at Takoma Park Baptist Church!
II
So what is this new thing that God wants to do? What really
is God about as He gives this new Jerusalem? I am
intrigued by John’s re-visioning of the population of the new
Jerusalem. And I am mesmerized by how that population got
there.
John says that the nations of the world and the kings of the
earth will bring their glory into this new Jerusalem. The
nations – plural – and the kings – more than one – will bring
their gifts and their glory to this new Jerusalem. Not just
John’s people, the Jews. Not just the Roman rulers. Not
just the cultured Greeks, not just the ancient Africans, not
just the accomplished Asians, but the nations of the world,
the kings of the earth. All peoples. Diversity.
May I be very abrupt, very precise? If it is not open to all
people, of every tribe and race and background, it isn’t
heaven. It isn’t the Kingdom of God. You can have a “just
us” club, but it will not be justice. You can have a “No blacks
need apply” attitude, but you have forfeited your right to be
called Christian. You can take a “black like me” posture, but
the new Jerusalem needs all nations, all peoples, without
exception.
What is it that God wants to do in this new Jerusalem? Who
is invited? Who may come? Is it based on race? Surely
not. Frankly, I have a lot of trouble with churches that invite
only one brand of folks to come in. It may be a club, but it
isn’t church. It isn’t the new Jerusalem.
Or is it based on education and scholarship? Let me see,
can I find in this text something about that – the Ph.D.’s will
come into it, and the lawyers will bring their glory in, along
with their billable hours? No, don’t see that here!
This new thing that God wants to do is to create a reconciled
community, a new Jerusalem where those who once
competed with one another will come and deal with their
differences. They are still different, mind you. They are not
homogenized. They are not all the same. Let us admit it:
black folks are not just white people with a permanent
suntan! My daughter went through the grocery store
checkout line with our granddaughter this summer, and the
clerk said, “Well, I see you’ve been out in the sun!” Just
couldn’t think about a biracial child. But in real time, there is
a different culture, there is a different history. But if we can
give our gifts to each other, how we are enriched! How we
are more like the new Jerusalem! And let’s face it: people
from other lands are not just sorta kinda Americans with
funny accents and unpronounceable names. They have
their own unique customs and cultures. But, I tell you, and
we have experienced this right here -- Christians from other
cultures bring us so many gifts! Their faith and their fervor is
something sorely needed in tired old American churches.
Oh, brothers and sisters, let each one of us bring our own
glories and contribute our own gifts to the new Jerusalem.
“The nations of the world will bring their glory.”
I need to help you see what I am talking about. I need to
make this concrete. Four score and three years ago our
fathers and mothers brought forth in this community a
church, dedicated to the proposition that all men are created
equal. The very first sermon preached in this house was
preached on the text, “My house shall be a house of prayer
for all peoples.” It was easy enough to do in 1919, when the
whole community was white and when it was clear that those
who wore the trousers ruled the world. But things changed.
The community changed. And the church changed. Praise
God, the church of the 1960’s decided to stay and to serve
and to proclaim that whosoever will may come. The first
African-American members came in 1964. I do not know
when the first international members came, but what a joy it
is today to embrace in our membership people from a score
of nations and from several continents! All nations, all
peoples, whosoever will! There is no other way to be the
new Jerusalem than to be a reconciled community.
A little more history. Later we became a church that
embraced the full participation of women in the life of the
body of Christ. We took seriously that word that in Jesus
Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male and female.
More than that, we became a church that could embrace
people from the upper reaches of our world to the most
challenged places in life. I take great joy in looking out over
a congregation that holds together homeless people and
people with several homes; that holds together people whose
physical needs are overwhelming and people whose health is
robust! I take great joy in how God has worked among us.
But – we are not finished. We are a long way from complete.
There are plenty of people out there who have not been
reached. There are young people who need to be guided.
There are older people who need to be comforted. There
are professional people who feel uneasy about their success.
There are struggling people who need help to get on their
feet. The new Jerusalem has not yet received its full
population. How will it be done? How will they get here?
John says it. John saw it. How simply he said it!
“People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.”
People will bring in the nations. People, you and I. Wait a
minute, now, how does this work? I thought you had to have
contemporary music to bring them in. Cymbals and high
sounding cymbals. Doesn’t that do it? How about stirring
preaching? How about preachers who charge you up and
turn cartwheels on the platform? Won’t that bring them in?
How about a comfortable building? One where it is warm
when you need it to be and cool when you need that, and the
pew cushions feel so good? No. No, I’m sorry, folks, but
God has ordained it that the only way the Kingdom is built is
if and when you and I build it. We are to bring people. The
Kingdom grows, the new Jerusalem is populated only when
“people bring in the nations.”
Bring in whom? The nations. Have you said, about your
neighbors, they’re Hispanics? They would be almost the
only ones at our church. Won’t invite them. Shame on you!
The Kingdom is about all the nations. Have you said, about
your friend, “He’s poor. He wouldn’t have the clothes for
Takoma. He really ought to go to one of those little
storefront churches.” Double shame on you! If you think
your friend would be uncomfortable, put on your own
grubbies and bring him along! Have you said, about your
family member, “Well, our pastor is white. I don’t know if
they’ll accept that.” Shame, double shame, thrice shame
upon this pastor if he does not work at making everyone
welcome. The gospel can come through any vessel! I read
in the Old Testament we that once God spoke through an
ass, and I guess He can do it again!
The new Jerusalem is going to be. It is going to be
populated by every race and condition and class and nation.
Lift up your sights from where we are now, and see what a
rich future our God has in store for us! The new Jerusalem.
III
The new Jerusalem. That shining city that God is waiting to
create. It’s for whosoever will may come. But, sadly, some
don’t stay. Some don’t make it. Some don’t take up
residence in the city. Some fall away. Some drop by the
wayside. Some get caught in things that destroy. Some get
trapped in things that corrode. And so John, sadly,
concludes his revisioning with a somber note:
But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices
abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the
Lamb’s book of life.
Nothing unclean, no one who practices abomination or
falsehood. You know, we cannot speak about heaven
without also speaking about hell. You cannot toss the coin
and look at heads without also seeing tails. God’s word
declares that His holy city will not admit to its precincts those
who practice abomination or falsehood. What does that
mean? Does it mean that if you have sinned, you are shut
out forever? By no means! That would be a mighty empty
heaven, wouldn’t it, since all have sinned and come short of
the glory of God!
No, it says, no one who practices abomination; that means
no one who just keeps right on willfully contradicting God’s
will. No one who presumes on God. Do not expect to tell
Him you’ve been baptized and He’s got to let you in. If you
presume on God and practice falsehood, holding up holy
hands on Sunday but plunging them into mire and muck the
rest of the time, do not expect to show God your church
attendance records and your tithes and offerings report as if
it were a ticket to His heaven. That won’t wash.
But for me that is not something to cheer about. That is
something to weep over. One of my very first preaching
opportunities came in a little storefront church in Louisville.
The pastor was the elevator operator in the government
office building where I had a little job. He asked me to his
church -- just a dinky little place with one light bulb dangling
down right in front of my nose. But just before I stood to
preach, Brother James said to me, “I don’t know what you
are going to preach, but just remember: never speak about
hell unless there is a tear in your eye.”
Some are not going to make it. That is nothing to cheer
about. That is something to weep about. What will heaven
be if my brother, my wife, my children, my grandchildren are
not there with me? How can I enjoy the new Jerusalem if I
have allowed somebody who has been in trouble just to
languish and fall back into mess.
Our court system often sets up ex-offenders to fail; here in
the old Jerusalem we need to help them so that they will not
fail to get to the new Jerusalem. Our entertainment system
seduces people into sexual offense; here in the old
Jerusalem we need to show them what love feels like in the
new Jerusalem. Our financial system traps people into
crushing debt and allures them into fraud and failure; here in
the old Jerusalem we need to teach honest finances and the
value of genuine work, so that they’ll know there’s more to do
in the new Jerusalem than sitting on a cloud twanging on a
harp!
We need to lift up our sights and stop doing church the way
we’ve always done it. We need a new and fresh and wide
vision of what it means to follow Christ. We need a vision of
a church that just plain helps people. Doesn’t judge them,
doesn’t crush them, doesn’t write them off. Helps them.
Oh, “Last night I lay asleeping; there came a dream so fair, I
stood in old Takoma beside the church right here. I heard
the children singing And ever as they sang, Methought the
voice of potential angels from heaven in answer rang,
“Takoma church, Takoma church, Lift up your gates and
sing, Hosanna in the highest, Hosanna to your king.”
And then methought my dream was changed, The streets no
longer rang, Hushed were the glad Hosannas, The little
children sang. The homes grew dark with child abuse, Their
lives were lonely and hard, they hurt, they struggled, they
fought, they argued – But – but, right there in the old
Jerusalem, the shadow of a cross arose upon a lonely hill.
“Takoma church, Takoma church, hark how the angels sing,
hosanna in the highest, hosanna to your king.”
And once again the scene was changed; new earth there
seemed to be. I saw the Holy City beside the tideless sea.
The light of God was on its streets, the gates were open
wide, and all -- ALL -- who would night enter, and no one –
no one – black or white, young or old, rich or poor, learned or
ignorant – no one was denied. No need of moon or stars by
night, or sun to shine by day. It was the new Takoma
church, that would not pass away. It was – by the grace of
God, as we lift up our sights and look and live, it will not pass
away.
