Trinity Sunday
May 26, 2024
William G. Carter
No doubt somebody twitched when I announced the text comes
from Book of Revelation. Revelation is an unusual book. When we open this book,
we see visions and nightmares. We hear choirs of angels and bubbling bowls of
wrath. For some, it is a document that spurs speculation on the future. For
others, this is a lens to understand the Roman Empire at the time the book was
written.
What becomes clear today is that Revelation resembles most of the New Testament in that the whole book is an epistle. It was a circular letter sent to seven ancient congregations. Each of the seven churches got the whole book. Each of them received a specific letter intended just for them. As we work through those seven letters over the next seven weeks, we will be listening to somebody else’s mail.
The first of those letters sounded like this:
“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands: “I know your works, your toil, and your patient endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be false. I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this is to your credit: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.”
That is the letter. I try to imagine how it was received. The congregation had been around for forty, maybe fifty years. Chances are, it was ridiculously small, especially compared to the grandeur of Ephesus. Ephesus was a major port city on the Aegean Sea, on the western shore of what is now called the country of Turkey. It was a massive city, a crossroads of commerce and transportation. It was also a destination, for it was the home of the Temple of Diana, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The Roman Empire determined Ephesus as one of the three great cities of the empire, after Rome and Alexandria. And there was this little Christian congregation in the city.
Imagine the excitement when somebody announced, “We have big news today. Our church has received a letter.”
Who wrote it? Was it the apostle Paul? Someone replied, “I hope not. Last time Paul was here, he stirred up a lot of trouble. Besides, he went off to Rome and we never heard from him again. That was twenty-five years ago.”
Was it Mary, the mother of Jesus? Did she write the letter? A member of the prayer group said, “No, she was here for a while, at least I heard she was here. Didn’t she pass away?” Another added, “I don’t know whatever happened to her. It’s like she slipped off to heaven.”
Another said, “I bet it was written from John. Remember John? He used to be our preacher. Then the Roman soldiers came and took him away. I heard he was being held on an island somewhere.” One of the old-timers said, “Let me see the letter for a second. I never learned to read, but I could recognize John’s handwriting.”
“Just a minute,” said another, snatching the parchment away. “Yes, that’s his handwriting. I would recognize it anywhere. John wrote this down.” As he scanned the document, his countenance changed.
“What is it?” they asked. “Is the letter from John? We haven’t heard from him in some time. Did he write something for us?” And the last man said, “John wrote it, but this letter is not from him. It’s not from Mary. It’s not from Paul. This letter… is from… Jesus.”
Now, that is something. Who has ever gotten a letter from Jesus? But there it was, in ink on the papyrus. And he continued, “To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.” Yes, that’s Jesus, their Lord and ours. He holds the Light. He walks among the Light. He gives the Light. And he dictated the correspondence while John wrote it down.
Those are the preliminaries. But what does the letter say? If Jesus Christ, Risen Lord of the Universe, were to compose a note to your congregation, what would he say?
Fortunately, there are plenty of positive comments. “You are a hard-working group of people,” he says. You put in the time. You extend the extra effort. You labor long and hard, and your effort shows. You are patient, too, not expecting flashy and superficial results, but taking steady and incremental steps to further the Gospel. This is a church that endures, a church that sticks around, not some fly-by-night stage show with a lot of razzamatazz.”
Not only that, but it is also a church with a high level of expectations. No room for evildoers in the Ephesus congregation. Get your name in the police blotter of the newspaper, and they will toss you out. Post something rude, offensive, or discriminatory on the Ephesus website, and the leaders of the congregation will call you in and dress you down.
It reminds me of the meeting minutes that I read from the last church I served. One of their members had been observed on a long moral slide. Folks in town had been whispering, then murmuring, then complaining. The church elders called him in. They sat and glowered at him, while they made him stand and face the accusations. He has shown up intoxicated, and those old Welsh elders let him have it. “You are banned from this church building,” they decreed, “until you get your life together.” The old coot who told me the story exclaimed, “That’s when church was church. It counted for something.”
We could almost hear the Word of Christ to Ephesus, who says, “You do not tolerate evildoers. You test the hypocrites and determine the fakes.”
But then, the Risen Christ says, “Yet I have this against you…” And all the oxygen leaves the room. The Christ who affirms their strengths also sees their weaknesses. Or at least, this one overriding weakness: “I have this against you, that you abandoned the love you had at first.” Whew… Apparently that church was so good at being good that they turned their back on the glue that held them together: the love of Christ for them, the love they had for Jesus, and the love they used to have for one another.
Were they efficient? Absolutely. Regularly updated their manual of operations. Did they make an impact in the wider community? Despite the size of that opulent city, everybody knew about that little church. Everybody knew about the Jesus that they worshiped. Did they resist the indifference of the wider community? Did they hold fast to what they believed? Did they confess that Christ is risen, and God is rescuing the world that is beloved of heaven? Of course they did.
The problem seems to be that perfection has become more important than connection. As someone observes,
Christ was annoyed because the church has developed some sort of ‘works litmus test’ to determine which efforts were worthy and which were not…Preoccupation with the work of love for the lordship of Christ overwhelmed an allegiance to the first love they had one demonstrated toward each other. In the same way that a healthy sell can metastasize into a cancerous one, their commendable insight degenerated into discrimination… Once known as a loving community, they had suddenly become a policing one. Ephesian faith had become a matter of Ephesian quality control. Assessment became more important than love.[1]
How does this happen? How does a community constituted by love lose its love? Good question. All I know, all we know, is that it can happen.
All of us remember what it is like to fall in love. There was that moment when the sparks flew, the pulse quickened, the breathing paused. All you could do is think about this incredibly attractive soul that God had created just for you. The flowers bloomed, the clouds parted, the birds sang. You did whatever you could to make yourself available to appear when that person appeared. You rearranged your life and made yourself available.
Sadly, that hot fire of passion can sometimes turn cold. Maybe there was a betrayal or breach of trust. Or a huge mistake that could not be corrected. Perhaps it wasn’t a crisis so much a sequence of small decisions that frosted the heart and made everything practical. Rather than give yourself away, you hold something back. Rather than share you negotiate. Instead of asking what you might do, you consider what you must do. What are my duties? What are my obligations?
And when the relationship gets to that point, it’s a short distance before you reduce it all to a transaction. What must I do to get something out of it? This is what the risen Christ calls out in the Ephesian church, that they have abandoned love, pushed away from love, whether it’s love for Christ or love for one another. In this letter, Jesus doesn’t specify. He simply asks, “Where’s the love?”
That’s a fair question. During his days on earth, the Gospel stories portray Jesus as a deeply attractive person. The fishermen dropped their nets to follow him. A sick woman pushed through a crowd to touch him. Some tore the roof off a house to get to him. All the apostles couldn’t stop talking about Jesus, just like the newly engaged couple can’t stop telling their friends about the one who wants to claim them.
Yet, as somebody notes, “Before the New Testament was even done being written, the church's wild desire for Christ had become domesticated and organized duties had to be assigned. Arguments and conflicts had to be negotiated. Now, the Christians were doing their work, and the risen Christ affirms that ‘You’re hard at work, I understand your toil.’ The Christians were ensuring that the mission of the church would go forward. The church was even continuing to grow, but some couldn't remember, ‘Why are we working so hard? Why are we so committed?’”[2]
So, Jesus writes a letter to say, “Remember me? Remember how much I love all of you? Remember how I showed you how to love one another? This is the heart of everything I am and everything I call you to be. Remember how love is the glue that holds heaven to earth. Remember that love of God plus love of neighbor is our one holy mission.”
I was wondering, on the day when we ordain and install our church officers, what I might say as a matter of charge to them as they begin their work. We are constitutionally bound, as some of you know, to ask them a checklist of questions. They are not open-ended questions. There is only one right answer to each of the questions. If you listen carefully, I will feed them all the correct answers. Presbyterians make good Ephesians. We want them to get it right.
But really, what do we really want from elders, deacons, and pastors? The same thing we want from one another: to love their church, to love their neighborhood, and most of all, to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. That is the invitation of Jesus. It is all we expect.
If I were ever invited to rewrite the ordination questions,
which I’ll never be invited to do, I would replace them all with a single
question: What will you do to keep the love alive?
Let anyone who has an ear to hear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.
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