by Jan Hoffman
Anchor threads of JSH message in Sunday morning worship, July 17, 2005 at the Friends United Meeting Triennial held in Des Moines, Iowa
I am grateful for all the preparation that opened before me in bringing together this worship today. I’m grateful for the elders who helped me prepare, those who met daily with me this week, and those upholding this worship this morning both in this room and at a geographic distance—including my home meeting. I’m grateful for being forced to read Revelation and for an elder (Danelle) from my meeting offering to meet weekly with me to read and reflect on it. It is a pretty chaotic book, and I’ve discovered that in order to read it and not be overwhelmed, you need to focus on the light of Christ—it only makes sense when you read it in that light.
As Danelle said, “It comes together like a puzzle. There may be pieces missing and lots of times it gets harder at the end, even thought there are fewer pieces to look through. Regarding ‘the first shall be last and the last first’: in a puzzle it doesn’t matter if a piece goes in first or last. The puzzle isn’t done until all the pieces fit.”
When I arrived in Des Moines, I didn’t know whether God had a message for me to offer here or not. As the week progressed, some words of Fox that I have pondered often came alive for me and drew together many of the threads appearing in my almost two years of preparation. It was clear these words were the anchor threads of a message.
FOX: “It is time now for all the faithful to keep
in Christ, their sanctuary, in whom you have all peace, rest, life and salvation,
and by the testimony of Jesus,
and the blood of the Lamb.
I. Christ as sanctuary
When we’re shocked, confused, experience a too-muchness, we can indeed find in Christ a sanctuary, the “Peace the world cannot give”—the peace of obedience…
Fox’s most frequent advice: “Wait. If you’re not clear, WAIT.”
Rest—we all need times of refreshment and renewal.
Salvation a kind of sanctuary—we don’t have to carry a body of sin around us. I paraphrased the following Fox quote: “People are saved by Christ, they will say; but while you are upon earth, you must not be made free from sin. This is as much as if one should be in Turkey a slave, chained to a boat, and one should come to redeem him to go into his own country; but say the Turks, thou art redeemed, but while thou art upon the earth, thou must not go out of Turkey, nor have the chain off thee. So say Satan’s messengers, you are redeemed, but must carry a body of death about you…But I say you are redeemed by Christ; it cost Him his blood…”
FOX: “It is time now for all the faithful to keep
in Christ, their sanctuary, in whom you have all peace, rest, life and salvation,
and by the testimony of Jesus,
and the blood of the Lamb.
The testimony of Jesus
Revelation 19:10b: “For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”
(Moffatt translation) “For the testimony borne by Jesus is the breath of all prophecy.”
What is the spirit of prophecy? I’ve been inspired by Walter Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination in which he says the old model of prophet vs. king/ prophet vs. established power isn’t relevant any more. These days culture (even Quaker) is so pervasive (even globally) no “king” can change it. We need imagination to respond to social realities in ways that can be heard—beyond the ordinary and the reasonable. The essential prophetic message is: “It could be different.”
Prophetic utterance needs to move from individuals to communities—LIVING the vision is part of the message. Jesus’ life as example. He didn’t “speak truth to power” as much as he modeled that “It could be different.”
An example of communities being called to prophetic witness might be the churches in Revelation—these letters are to churches, not to kings.
And who brings the message to each church? Not “one like the Son of Man” described in Rev. 1:12-16 (NRSV)—the image of the one speaking through a given angel is different for each church. [stars in the text indicate an image used by one of the angels]
Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning
I saw seven golden lampstands*,
and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man
clothed with a long robe
and with a golden sash across his chest.
His head and hair were as white as white wool, white as snow,
his eyes were like flames of fire*,
his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace*,
and his voice was like the sound of many waters.
In his right hand he held seven stars**,
and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword*,
and his face was like the sun shining with full force.
Danelle (my elder) says again: “ Trying to apply human images and values to God is like trying to stuff a whale in a sardine can. All you can do is put a little bit in each can, but what do you know of the whole?” None of the churches sees the whole—each one sees just a piece of this vision.
In addition, what is given to those who conquer is different for each church.
I played with trying to get a sense of what this would be like by substituting some of the Yearly Meetings of Friends United Meeting (in reverse alphabetical order) for the churches in Revelation. What part of the Son of Man would they have seen and what would be given those who conquer?
- Wilmington YM would hear the words of “him who holds the seven stars in his right hand and walks among the seven golden lampstands.” Everyone who conquers will be given “permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.”
- Western YM would hear the words of “the first and the last, who was dead and came to life.” (not related to the Son of Man image given above) Those who conquer “will not be harmed by the second death.”
- Vokoli YM would hear from “him who has the sharp two-edged sword.” To those who conquer “I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give a white stone, and on the white stone written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.”
- Vihiga YM would hear the words of “the Son of God who has eyes of flame, feet of burnished bronze.” Those who conquer will be given “authority over the nations to rule them with an iron rod…. also…the morning star.’
- Southeastern YM would hear from “him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.” Those who conquer will “be clothed in white robes and I will not blot your name out of the book of life; I will confess your name before my Father and before his angels.”
- North Carolina YM would hear the words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David; who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.” (Again, unrelated to the image above.) “If you conquer, I will make you a pillar in the temple of my God; you will never go out of it. I will write on you the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem that comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.”
- New York YM will hear “the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the origin of God’s creation.” (Again unrelated to the image.) To those who conquer “I will give a place with me on my throne.”
Again, no one sees the whole picture and the gifts for overcoming are different.
Fox: “And this know,…though the way [in which people are guided] seems to thee diverse, yet judge not the way, lest thou judge the Lord, and knowest not that several ways hath God to bring His people out by; yet all are one in the end.”
Revelation emphasizes communities working with Jesus. “King of kings and Lord of lords” (in the Triennial theme verse) does not have “worldly sense” here. In Revelation 1:5-6 (KJV): “From Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father: to him glory and dominion.”
So Jesus is “prince of the kings of the earth,” but he has made us kings and priests in a spiritual realm—we’re all in this work together, though Jesus is “head.” New meaning—King of kings, Lord of lords, Priest of priests…. Like “First among equals.”
FOX: “It is time now for all the faithful to keep
in Christ, their sanctuary, in whom you have all peace, rest, life and salvation,
and by the testimony of Jesus,
and the blood of the Lamb.
III. The blood of the Lamb.
I have always wondered, “Why do robes washed in the blood of the Lamb come out white, and not red?” Wrestling with Revelation gave me the answer—which shows how Revelation cannot be understood using “rational” categories.
Thomas Merton: “The wine of the psalter and the wine of heaven are the same, and they are ours, because whether in heaven or on earth there is only one chalice, and that chalice itself is heaven. It is the cup Jesus gave to his disciples on the night when he said to them: ‘With desire have I desired to eat this Pasch with you.’ There is one mystery in the kingdom of heaven, which is the light of that kingdom, replacing the sun, moon, and stars. It is the light also of the psalter and of the church on earth, though it shine in darkness. Its light is wine. It was of this wine that Jesus said, ‘I shall not drink the fruit of this vine again until I drink it with you now in the kingdom of my Father.’ He had just chanted the psalm of the Hallel with his apostles. He knew his blood would flow like silence through our psalter.”
What this says to me is that the cup Jesus gave his disciples was the kingdom of heaven and the wine it contains is the light of the kingdom of heaven. Therefore his blood is light—that light that has no shadow of turning, but surrounds us always in that kingdom. So if Jesus’ blood is light and those robes in Revelation are washed in light (the blood of the Lamb), of course they would turn white!
This is also the light of which Merton speaks when he says, “The light in which we are one does not change.”
The mystery of the kingdom of heaven (which Jesus said was in us, too) is a cup containing light, which, like Jesus’ blood, can be poured out—it flows forever and stays as bright…ever flowing. Is this the ocean of light Fox saw flowing over the ocean of darkness and death?
Revelation 3:8—“Behold, I have set before you an open door which no one can shut.”
Way is open.
[After standing in silence waiting for further guidance, a vocal prayer flowed through me for about 10 minutes.]