For the healing of the nations: closing sermon on revelation 22: 1-5

Rev. Robina Winbush is director of the Department of Ecumenical and Agency Relationships of the Presbyterian Church (USA).

To the Moderator, Vice Moderators, Presidents, General Secretary and staff, delegates, representatives, observers, friends, my sisters and brothers in Christ and creation, I greet you this afternoon in the name of and with the awesome joy of Jesus--the One who is, now and forever, the Head of the Church. Would you join me in prayer?

Hide your servant daughter behind the cross, that your glory might come forth, your people might be blessed, and your healing leaves might emerge; in the name of the one who is the Living Word, Jesus the Christ, we dare to pray and I clare to preach.

Amen.

   I've known rivers:
   I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of
   human blood in human veins.
   My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
   I bathed in the Euphrates when the dawns were young.
   I built my hut by the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
   I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
   I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down
   to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in
   the sunset.
   I've known rivers.
   Ancient, dusky rivers.
   My soul has grown deep like the rivers. (1)

In this classic poem by Langston Hughes, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," Hughes writes to remind a people who had been enslaved that their history began long before 1619, when their ancestors who had been snatched from their homelands, survived the horrors of the Middle Passage and were brought in chains to the United States, the Caribbean, Europe, and Brazil. He writes to remind them that theirs is not a legacy of enslavement, but that their history began along the rivers of Africa, and that they were connected to a people and carried within their spiritual DNA the rich resources of a people and land from whom they had been separated.

As we prepare to leave Porto Alegre and the 9th Assembly of the World Council of Churches, concluding a week of phenomenal worship; edifying Bible studies; challenging plenaries; long committee meetings and business sessions; motivating offerings in the mutirao; meeting, greeting and networking with sisters and brothers of a common faith and common family; we pause for just one more opportunity to see if there is one more "word from the Lord." Something that we can carry home with us--not another piece of paper, not a wristband or souvenir, not another book or media resource, but something we can carry deep within our spiritual reservoir that wit allow the energy, the renewal, and the commitments not to be lost in the busyness and routines of our lives when we return home.

I was initially drawn to the Revelation text because of the baptismal and eucharistic images and the eschatological themes of a new and transformed world. I thought it would be an appropriate ending to an assembly that had prayed and sought to understand the transforming power of God. What greater transformation than a vision of the New Jerusalem and the eschatological promises given to us through John's vision!

John, the writer of Revelation, has been exiled to an island called Patmos. He writes to a people living under persecution and domination by the Roman Empire, telling them that their current reality is not the definitive word of God. They are part of a larger, cosmic plan, and he writes to remind them that theirs is not the seduction of the empire, but ultimately the victory of the Divine and reign of Christ. Nester Miguez notes:

   Revelation is written and originally read in a situation of
   powerlessness. John of Patmos and his readers live in a situation
   in which they are the subjects of an imperial power that admits no
   dissent ... The small communities of Christians in Asia Minor do not
   constitute any real challenge to Roman power, but if they manifest
   any kind of symbolic opposition to the Emperor's claim to unchecked
   dominion they are in trouble. And that is the case in Revelation. (2)

Miguez notes that "when read under that condition Revelation gives a message that is quite different from its use by the powerful and mighty." (3)

Miguez suggest

   the original intention of Revelation as a challenge to imperial
   power was co-opted when the Christian church became the Church of
   the Empire and the missionary enterprise became the partner (willing
   or not) of the expansion of western culture and power. (4)

So we approach the Revelation of Jesus to John on the island of Patmos, both as an eschatological promise of what is to come and as a socio-political-religious critique of the Roman Empire and the empty claims of empire over the eternal assurances of the God of creation and the resurrected Christ who reigns in victory. John writes of the collusion of systems of economic, military, cultural, and, yes, religious powers that wage war against the Divine, the faithful, and all of creation that have not bowed down to the images of the empire's temporal glory. He reminds the churches of Asia Minor and, yes, the church universal, that their primary--no, our only--allegiance must be to the Lamb who was slain, but now reigns upon the throne. We must resist the temptation to be co-opted by systems of domination and exploitation. In the midst of cosmic chaos and global imperial systems, it is a call--a reminder-that we are never to abandon our posts as faithful witnesses to the resurrected Christ--the living Lord. Ours is never to be an easy, comfortable relationship with empire, but a relationship that measures the work of empire by the self-sacrificing standards of the cross. Brian Blount suggest that