Circular Letter

ENTRANCE

GATHERING & ANNOUNCEMENTS Rob

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GREETING Liturgist

L: May the Lord be with you!

P: And also, with you!

OPENING PRAYER Liturgist

Breathe the breath of new life into us, O Lord, that we may fully feel the power of your love and the awesome glory of the resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ. Prepare us to receive your blessing and then to go from this service to be a blessing to others in your name. AMEN.

HYMN: #64 Holy, Holy, Holy

PROCLAMATION AND PRAISE

PASTORAL PRAYER WITH LORD’S PRAYER Liturgist

LORD’S PRAYER Liturgist

Scripture

Revelation 1:9–20 NRSV

I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, “Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.” 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 his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame 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. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades. Now write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place after this. As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

HYMN: Revelation Song

Prayer for Illumination: Rob

Introduction

I hope you read the sermon warm up because there was some information on the Book of Revelation that I have reviewed twice recently and I did not want to bore you with that again, but I wanted to make it available as a refresher as we start this series. If you do not receive our sermon warm and want to please private message us with your email address and you will be added to our list as soon as possible. If you go to our you tube channel you will find this material in the comments section for today’s sermon as well.

I have called this series Revelation: Not your Daddy’s Buick, because there is much misunderstanding interpreting this book. You cannot take it literally and it was never meant to be taken literally. And I hope that through this series you will see this marvelous book for what it really is: a book of God’s triumph over evil and the beginning of God’s reign or the Kingdom of God. I mention often that we are tweeners, that is we live in the time of the Kingdom here, but not yet. The end of Revelation is the Kingdom now come.

I am not going to cover much of the book because apocalyptic writing is so foreign to us it would do nothing but bog us down. So I will take a 50,000 foot view of what John was trying to communicate to the seven churches and what it means for us today.

Background

The Book of The Revelation of Jesus Christ (that’s its full title) was written by John (most likely not the apostle) to 7 churches in Asia Minor who were experiencing great persecution under Emperor Domitian (81-96). He was demanding that he be worshipped as a god. Of course Christians were refusing to do this, thus the resulting persecution. Irenaeus, one of the church fathers wrote about this. He lived from 130 to 202 AD. So he was writing about this a little less than 100 years after the persecution.

Our text today follows the introductory part of the letter. John explains the occasion of the letter, a Revelation of Jesus Christ, that Jesus gives to his servant to tell them what is going to take place. That is to take place in their time. If it wasn’t to take place in their time, what use or value would it have been to the 7 churches? If it was about 2000 years in the future, why would they care? No it was written for them during a certain period in their history. Here, look at

Revelation 1:3 NRSV

Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.

The time is near, not thousands of years in the future.

However, this is like any other writing we have in the Bible it was written for a certain audience at a certain time in history, but it is still applicable to us today because it is the Inspired word of God.

Ok now let’s turn to today’s text.

Exegesis

The stars that Jesus holds in his right hand can represent two things. First, most people of John’s day believed each church had a guardian Angel that worked for and protected that church.

Secondly, the star can also represent the leadership of each church. The Greek in the text can be read either way. Either way I like it.

I like to know that there is an angel, a guardian angel assigned to look out for McEver Road. I also like the idea that the leadership of this church is in Jesus right hand. Notice, though that the hand that holds the stars also touches John. How can one hold and touch at the same time? For me this says that Jesus is in me and I am in Jesus.

Now as I said Jesus is among us, but we can’t see him. He will be revealed at his return. In the meantime Christian life is a tension filled time of tribulation and kingdom which will at the end of time usher in the Pure Kingdom of God!

We don’t all agree, we are broken, but in spite of that fact Jesus works through us to be ready for when he arrives with his Kingdom. This means we must be people of patient endurance with our eye fixed on the day of his return. And what do we do in the meantime? We love God, we love our neighbor, and we go into the world making disciples. Loving Christ, Loving People, Helping People Love Christ.

Application

Patient Endurance, what does that mean? One scholar describes it this way: “the patient endurance of tribulation is the way into the kingdom of God. If, then, John encourages his friends in the churches of Asia to stand firm, he is not cheering them on from the sidelines; he is involved with the same struggle.”

More importantly, Jesus is involved in the struggle. And the struggle is the time we are prepared and we learn and the risen Jesus is in the midst of all this holding us in the palm of his hand.

Church will be much different as we come out of this pandemic. I think what we will see is a church that was already in decline, that will have sped up. Many UMC churches have an average age over 65, how will they be able to reopen? I am afraid this will speed up the closure of UMC churches. Recent research has shown that most churches when they’ve re-opened see attendance figures as low as 10% of regular attendance before the pandemic. This coupled with already falling attendance numbers across all denominations, does not bode well for many churches.

What does this mean for us? Well, we will have the data from the survey questions on Monday, well at least the electronic ones. We had about 10 we had to mail. So we will wait on those. I know our younger members with children will continue to worship on line. I know some small groups will continue to meet virtually and some will be a hybrid of virtually and face to face.

Now, we can treat this things as obstacles or opportunities. And I believe these are opportunities. We had 5 guests last week 2 at drive in and 3 virtually! That’s opportunity right there. Our worship attendance between our three, yes three services, drive-in, facebook live streaming and our taped contemporary service was over 200! Thats 40 more than we were averaging before we had to go virtual.

We need to remember that Jesus said this:

Matthew 16:18 NRSV

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

The church prevails in spite of it all.

PhyllisTickle a Professor of Religion who died in 2015 wrote a book called: “The Great Emergence” published in 2008. In it she argues that Christianity is currently undergoing a massive upheaval as part of a regular pattern that occurs every 500 years, in which old ideas are rejected and new ones emerge. Ultimately, the old expression of Christianity is refurbished and revitalized, while a new, more vital form also is created, she says.

She identifies these periodic upheavals as the Great Reformation, the Great Schism, the Great Decline and Fall, and the Great Transformation, and says they stretch back into Jewish history as well.

We are 500 years after the Reformation.

She writes in this book:

“Denominations aren’t going to cease to exist. Protestantism isn’t going to cease to exist. It has never been true, and it won’t be true this time. The faith will spread. It will be spread primarily by emergence Christianity as it flows out from our culture to embrace more of the world or more within our culture. But denominations will stay. But, those denominations are going to have to change the way they do business. Protestant Christianity is going to have to regroup and reconfigure in the same way that Orthodoxy had to, in the same way Catholicism had to, in the same way apostolic Christianity had to, monastic Christianity had to -- so Protestantism is going to have to. It will be a response to the changes that are the Great Emergence, more than to emergence Christianity itself.”

Change is not easy and boy have we had our share here! Deciding to follow the Spirit’s lead, sell our campus, buy new land, then in the middle of all this a pandemic which totally changed the way the church gathers. Now, we are dealing with a new hybrid church that may very well be a hybrid of more online folks than “in house” worshippers! That hybrid church is here to stay. Since we are not in a building, this means we can design a facility for this new kind of church. We will not be stuck with a building that wasn’t designed for the future! So when we present a design to you for our new building we were taking acoustics into consideration, now we have to think about it being a broadcast studio as well!

When the exiles returned from Babylon they had to rebuild their temple and their complete religious culture. In Nehemiah chapter 7 after the exiles have returned, they have rebuilt Jerusalem, and Ezra has found the 5 books of Moses (They had lost the Law!) and in a city wide service he begins to read from the book. The priests began to walk among the people and translate for them what was being read. The people were excited and scared at the same time. They were excited that they had the word of God once again, they were scared when they realized they weren’t doing what they were supposed to do! They began to mourn and cry. But the priests said No! This is not the time to be sad. God is giving you a new beginning, go home and celebrate that you now know what to do! This is a good and joyous occasion. It requires that you change some of the ways you are doing things, but remember God is in this, God has rescued you and gotten you back on the road. The road, the road church.

Never forget that Jesus is among the lampstands and his Spirit is guiding the church into a new future. Some will survive and some will not. I think it is obvious we will survive and thrive. I mean guests when we are not in a building? Who knew?

John Ed Matthison writes "The truth is, most people aren't converted by sermons or Sunday School lessons. Those things help. But most people come into the faith because somebody else simply looks them in the eye and shows them a changed life”.

That’s doing church. And you do it without a building.

Let me share with you a poem by Sir Frances Drake

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves

When our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little

When we arrived safely because we sailed to close to shore

Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst for the abundance of life

Having fallen in to love with life

We have ceased to dream of eternity

And in efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision

Of the new heaven to dim

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas

Where storms will show your mastery

Where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars

We ask you to push back the horizon of our hopes

And to push us into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love

I read this poem my First Sunday here. Ten years ago next month.

The Lord has surely disturbed us. But in that disturbance is where we grow, not numbers, but in faith. We need to dream big, we need to dare more boldly, and venture on wider seas. Let us push into the future with strength, courage, hope and love! Let us emerge, as Phyllis Tickle says, out of this period of history a new church on a new road, with the eternal gospel. With Jesus walking among us, with us being the stars in his right hand, what have we to fear?

HYMN: If outside This Little Light of Mine, If Inside: #536 Precious Name 1,2,3

SENDING FORTH

BENEDICTION Liturgist

Let the trumpet sound! Let the voices be raised in celebration! Go into God’s world with joy, knowing that God’s love goes with you. Be at peace!

Go in peace to Love Christ Love People and Help People Love Christ

AMEN.