Expect a plot and a murder and a clever detective. Discover a community, a theology of darkness and light, a fallen and redeemed humanity, and a brilliant, best-selling Canadian mystery writer with a deeply spiritual, biblically-grounded heart and mind. Louise Penny — the series begins.
Joyce MacKichan Walker had the great privilege of interviewing best-selling mystery author Louise Penny in the eastern townships of Quebec during her fall of 2015 sabbatical. An aficionado of mystery, Joyce has read this series of ten books twice, and can’t wait for number 11 on August 30! The other thing she loves is being an educator and pastor at Nassau — her 27th year.
The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power
Thomas J. Christensen
June 19, 11:15AM
Assembly Room
Many see China as a rival superpower to the United States and imagine its rise is a threat to U.S. leadership in Asia and beyond. Tom Christensen argues against this zero-sum vision. He describes a new paradigm in which the real challenge lies in dissuading China from regional aggression while
encouraging the country to contribute to the global order.
Tom Christensen, William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics of Peace and War and Director of the China and the World Program at Princeton University, will discuss his most recent book on China (published in 2015) and the challenge navigating U.S.–China relations.
The Pastor’s Diary: How a Conventional Conservative Became a Theological Liberal
William R. Phillippe
June 26, 11:15AM
Assembly Room
“Over my life, I have learned that early myths are very formidable, but I have also learned that other people have different myths that are just as formidable. I have learned that we all do and must have myths to live by. But my early myths were no longer serving their function of helping me make sense of my existence. I had to find others. And that is what this book is about — my constant search for myths that mattered as I let my mind truly explore and analyze my experiences.”
Born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, Bill Phillippe was mentally wired to go into science and was awarded the Western Pennsylvania Physics Award. But with the encouragement of a few professors he took the road into the Presbyterian ministry instead.
Someone recently asked what the biggest adjustment will be for me upon retirement. Without missing a beat, I responded, “After 34 years? No longer having a parking space on Nassau Street with my name on it!”
While this perk will be sorely missed, it is not in any way “the biggest adjustment” to my retirement. That will be a combination of routines, sights, smiles, feelings, and of course – sounds. From our corporate worship on Sunday mornings to our intimate staff devotions each Tuesday… to rehearsals with children and youth… to the way your eyes and voices greet mine when I turn to invite you — the First Choir — to join your voices and hearts with mine and those of the choristers… those sensations are forever a part of me and will sustain me in ways I can’t begin to know. I am richly blessed.
Which leads me to some words of thanks…
To my colleagues on the staff – present and past – who have so richly blessed these years: your wisdom, your spiritual gifts, especially in combination with each other, are signs of God’s hand in our work together. This has been true for decades and will be for decades to come.
To the congregation – past and present – for the myriad parts you have played in my own faith journey. You have shown that programs and participation in worship are not only anchors of faith formation, but that they build outreach, more nearly reflecting God’s claim on our lives in this time and place.
To my beloved choristers and their families for making the choice to participate in music ministry and for your efforts to do that with regularity, diligence, and joy.
To the Session, in particular the Worship and Arts Committee, for support, guidance, and willingness to dream with me about what our congregation, with its hearts and minds and resources and voices, might do both in our building and beyond our walls.
To the organizers of the retirement event last month. How did you ever pull that off? I truly hadn’t a clue! Thank you, Dave Davis, Janet Giles, Pam Kelsey, Maureen Llort, Theresa Price, Noel Werner, and Lauren Yeh.
For the gifts presented on that unforgettable evening: musical, monetary, framed, boxed, and penned. I shall never have words adequately to thank you all. I’m still floating with gratitude.
And I am grateful that, as an unordained staff member, I can continue to worship with our congregation, for it has been my family’s church home for 34 years, with marriages, an adoption ceremony, and baptisms of our children and grandchildren. I will visit around a bit, having the freedom now to do that, but my heart will always be at 61 Nassau Street on Sunday mornings… and if ever I am not there, I will hear you singing, “Going and coming, end and beginning, always beside us, firmly in your hand, Lord.”
Nassau believes that God calls young adults through their experiences in relationship and in serving others. Memorable mission trips as youth or as college students stir in us a desire to know God more and to see God’s world with eyes other than our own. The PC(USA) Young Adult Volunteer program (YAV) is a wonderful opportunity to do so!
YAV sends young adults to US and international mission sites to do such things as:
Engage in environmental protection work in Peru
Work on immigration reform in Arizona
Work on sex traffic prevention in Kenya
Tutor children and youth
Support art education in underserved populations
Read on below to learn about financial and one-on-one support to serve God in a variety of national or international mission sites. You can participate if you are between the ages of 19 and 30.
Early Decision: December 1 (National and International)
Round 2: February 1 (National and International)
Round 3: April 1 (National Only)
Last Call: June 1 (National Only)
Apply for Nassau’s fellowship
YAVs commit to fundraising a minimum amount to contribute to the costs of the year. The minimums are $3,000 (National) or $4,000 (International). You can apply to Nassau for us to contribute half of your fundraising goal ($1,500 for national, $2,000 for international)! The PC(USA) covers the remaining costs of the year. The total cost for a year of service is $22,000 on average, including travel costs, orientation and debriefing retreats, health insurance, room and board, and a basic living stipend.
To apply for the Nassau fellowship, send a of copy your YAV application and letters of reference to Nassau Presbyterian Church (ATTN: YAV, Joyce MacKichan Walker), 61 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ, 08542. After reviewing your application, we will contact you to set up an interview, either in person or by phone.
We hope that through YAV you will experience God’s deep love for humanity and the mission of the church as one and the same. Through you, Nassau Church will be blessed by learning about your experience and the places and people you serve.
“Grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone.” It’s a phrase, an affirmation, a sort of theological branding that runs deep in the Reformed Tradition of the Presbyterian Church. “Grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone.” As our denomination’s constitution puts it, and has put it for a very long, long time, “the Presbyterian Church (USA) upholds the affirmations of the Protestant Reformation. The focus of these affirmations is God’s grace in Jesus Christ as revealed in Scriptures. The Protestant watchwords — grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone — embody principles of understanding that continue to guide and motivate the people of God in the life of faith.” (F-2.04) “Grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone.” Not works, not the tradition, not even the church. “Grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone.” It ought to be right on the tip of the tongue. Sort of like “Walgreens: at the corner of happy and healthy,” or “Princeton University: in the nations service and the service to all nations” or “Nassau Church: on the edge of campus in the heart of town proclaiming the love of God.” “Grace alone, faith alone, scripture alone.” It sort of sums it up, right? It sums it pretty well… until it doesn’t. Because sometimes, it all stops at “grace alone.” Sometimes it’s nothing but grace.
In Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there was a pool. The pool was surrounded by five porticoes. These porticoes around the pool, they were filled with the blind, the lame, and the paralyzed. One man there among that crowd of human need, he had been suffering for 38 years. 38 years. Jesus saw him lying there. Jesus knew he had been there a long time; he had been there near the pool for a long time, he had been in that condition a long time. A long time and Jesus knew. “Do you want to be made well?” Jesus asked the sick many lying on the ground. “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps in front of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” Just like that the man was made well. He took up that mat and he began to walk.
After 38 years — 38 years — the man was now walking along with his mat under his arm. It was a Sabbath day. So the religious leaders confronted the newly well man about doing work, about carrying his mat. “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’” They wanted to know who that man was but the walking man didn’t know. It seems Jesus just sort of disappeared into the crowd. Sometime later in the temple Jesus came upon the man again. “See, you have been made well! Do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.” The man went away and announced to those who wanted to know that it was Jesus who made him well.
Thirty-eight years. And Jesus tells him to keep out of trouble so nothing worse happens. Scholars try to make that provocative statement from Jesus a bit more palatable by suggesting that sin in John’s Gospel comes down to unbelief. So the last line from Jesus is less about blaming his 38-year ailment on sin and more about exhorting him to believe and know in his heart where his newfound wellness came from, where wellness comes from, where wellness will come from. Maybe that part from Jesus is much more ordinary, much simpler: “Look, I just made you well after 38 years. You don’t want go and mess this up. Okay?!”
It is so easy for the reader, for the interpreter, for the preacher, for you and me, to come to conclusions about the man. Just a quick check on things written about John 5 and the negative assumptions about him pile up pretty quickly. He was lazy. He didn’t try hard enough. He didn’t want to be made well. He blamed others. He didn’t even care enough to learn Jesus’ name. He wasn’t grateful enough. He threw Jesus under the bus for his Sabbath carrying. He ratted Jesus out and set the persecution in motion. One preacher didn’t hold back: “He’s a real bum, that’s who he is! He had no gratitude, no faith, no humility, no guts.” Ouch! Calm down, preacher! It was 38 years. Thirty-eight years the man was not well. Those religious leaders judged him for picking up his mat on the Sabbath and the rest of us just keep judging him for not saying thank you. Thirty-eight years! Instead of saying, “Hey, look at you, you’re walking!” they said, “Hey, why are carrying your mat?” You’d think you could get a little more of a pass after 38 years. Instead, us able-bodied, healthy, pew-sitting, mostly grateful, comfortable Christians expect him to be more respectful.
It’s a theological example of “respectability politics.” The term refers to the notion that an underprivileged class, or a minority group, or disenfranchised people, or an oppressed population will make better progress if they express their concerns or protest or act out in a manner respectful to the standards of those who have the power and the privilege and the majority. In the current issue of The Christian Century a letter to the editor in response to several thoughtful pieces on the Black Lives Matter movement is a perfect example. In questioning the tactics and methods of their protests, the letter writer asks, “Was the whole point to annoy allies in the white community?” In other words, couldn’t they all be more respectful. “Respectability politics.” Respectability miracles. That man now walking — where’s the gratitude, where’s the faith!
When you psychologize the man and superimpose an attitude on him, in him, when the focus becomes how that man disappoints any expectations about how healing, miracles, and transformation are supposed to happen, it’s far too easy to miss the disturbing scene unfolding there under those porticoes. Maybe it’s a hot spring of medicinal value or it’s some kind of a spiritualized ritual that rewards the first one in the pool when the water stirs. Regardless, something about it is not working. Judging from the numbers and from at least one man’s wait time, it’s not working. You just can’t gloss over the lack of compassion and assistance that the the able-bodied might offer to those trying to get to the pool. Or there is that ageless practice of gathering the blind and the lame in a dehumanizing way. That portico practice was some kind of systemized round-up of the broken. If you set aside your disappointment with the man made well for just a second, that scene by the pool is as unsettling. The NRSV labels the people strewn around as “many invalids.” But the King James says it was a “great multitude.” A great multitude! Like the great multitudes of crowds who gathered for the Sermon on the Plain in Luke. Or the great multitude from Galilee that followed Jesus in Mark. Or that great multitude in the Revelation to John, a great multitude that no one could number from every nation. It was a mass of human suffering there by the pool. It was an institutionalized gathering of human suffering there by the pool.
There is no indictment here of that man who was sick for 38 years. The Lord’s indictment is of humanity’s chronic inability to care for the least of these. Jesus didn’t carry him down to the water and wait for the waters to stir. Jesus told him to stand up and walk. The healing bucks the system. The healing flies in the face of Sabbath law and healing pools and that guttural human yearning to avoid the sick and the aging and the disabled and the dying and the broken. Yes, one man was transformed that day but the gospel of Jesus Christ sheds light on the bigger human predicament as well.
Around here at Nassau Church, you can’t hear 38 years, you can’t think 38 years without thinking of David Bryant. In the spring of 2013, through the work of Centurion Ministries, David was released after spending 38 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commitment. After about a year here with us in Princeton, living in the Robeson House at Witherspoon Street Church and working at Princeton Seminary, a judge reversed the decision to release David and he now sits back in prison in upstate New York. A few church folks have made the Saturday drive up to visit David. Thirty-eight, now 39, 40, 41. The gospel of Jesus Christ ought to shed light on the bigger predicament of broken systems and broken institutions and humanity’s chronic inability to care for the least of these. The next time someone suggests that maybe my preaching is too political, I’m going to tell them about David Bryant and the man healed after 38 years. I’m going to tell them about Jesus, David Bryant, and the man who stood up to walk after 38 years.
In the healing story just at the end of Chapter 4, a royal official comes to Jesus and begs him to come and heal his son who was dying. John records that the royal official believed the word Jesus spoke to him and started home knowing his boy would be healed. Jesus had him at hello. “He himself believed, along with his whole household.” That healing story oozes faith. John 9 records the long narrative of the healing of the man born blind. When we was grilled by the religious leaders about who healed him, his answers were legendary. “The man called Jesus put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see… What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened… He is a prophet… I do not whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see… Here is the astonishing thing! You do not know where the man comes from and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners but God does listen to one who worships God and obeys God’s will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing!” Okay then! Testimony? Affirmation? Giving the shout out to Jesus. Check! One thing I know!
But here in John 5, under the porticoes, Jesus picked that guy. Jesus healed him. There amid that sea of humanity there must have been folks with more faith, more gratitude, more piety, more spiritual health. People who were more deserving. Someone who would have a better story to tell for the ages. But Jesus picked him. Jesus picked that guy. No faith. No gratitude. No shout out. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing but grace. And if you and I are honest about our sinful selves and our life in the world out there, the world in here, nothing irks you more… I better speak only for myself here… nothing irks me more than someone else getting something they don’t deserve.
Nothing irks me more, nothing saves me more than grace. Sometimes its nothing but grace. That amid this sea of humanity, this great multitude, Christ picks me. Jesus picks you.
Come to the first of what we hope will be an annual festival featuring poets and writers from the Princeton area or further away. Each week poets will read from their own work and discuss faith as inspiration for the craft of poetry.
Janet Anderson
Roz Anderson Flood
Sandra Duguid
Henry Gerstman
May 1, 9:15AM
Assembly Room
Sandra Duguid has published a full-length collection of poems, Pails Scrubbed Silver (2013) and numerous poems in anthologies and journals. She received a Fellowship in Poetry from the N.J. State Council on the Arts. For twenty-five years she taught literature and writing at colleges in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
Henry Gerstman began painting and drawing while obtaining a degree in architecture from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where painter Edward Millman encouraged him in Abstract Expressionism. Subsequently, he spent a year in Rome and two in Paris studying briefly with Sir William Stanley Hayter.
Roz Anderson Flood has published poetry in The Harvard Advocate. She studied poetry with Jane Shore, Laura Boss and Boston Poet Laureate, Sam Cornish, among others. Roz is a member of the Adult Education Committee and also of the Adult Choir.
Janet Anderson has been a researcher and copy editor and is still a writer and, sometimes, a poet. She has lived in Princeton for 27 years.
Community Poem
We invite you to submit a line of poetry that captures an aspect of your experience of faith and life in the church. We will make a single poem from all of the submissions — a Nassau community poem. Friends and family are welcome to participate. Submit your line at nassauchurch.org/poem-2016.
Elvis Alves
Vasiliki Katsarou
May 8, 9:15AM
Assembly Room
Vasiliki Katsarou published her first collection, Memento Tsunami, in 2011, and one of its poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She read her poems in the 2014 Dodge Poetry Festival, and has been honored to serve as a Geraldine R. Dodge Poet in the Schools. She wrote and directed the award-winning 35mm short film, Fruitlands 1843. Her website is www.onegoldbead.com.
Elvis Alves was born in Guyana and raised in Brooklyn, NY. A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, he is the author of the poetry collection Bitter Melon. His poetry has appeared in several journals and magazines and he writes for The Good Men Project and for The Compulsive Reader. Nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize in Poetry. Elvis teaches Religion at the George School in Newtown, P.A.
Learn Something? Share it #WritingFaith
Nassau Serving the World
The Church as Apostles: Serving the Church beyond These Walls
Joyce MacKichan Walker
May 15, 9:15AM
Assembly Room
This Body of Christ we call Nassau looks to the world God loves because Jesus sends us there. Discover the places where Nassau serves “the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner” (Matthew 25:31–46). Will you come and hear about the three significant partnerships your capital campaign gifts have created? Be prepared to be challenged to explore how your call from God and your gifts of the Spirit intersect with Nassau’s ministries — they are, after all, your ministry.
Joyce MacKichan Walker is Minister of Education and Mission at Nassau. She is especially eager to invite all to offer their gifts in the places where their own hearts are touched by the hurting hearts of others.
Special Session
The Syrian Refugee Crisis…and the World’s Varying Responses
Deborah Amos
May 15, 12:15PM
Assembly Room
Deborah Amos, who covers the Middle East for NPR News with reports heard on “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered” and “Weekend Edition,” will discuss the Syrian refugee crisis and the world’s varying responses. Amos has received the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting from Georgetown University and the Edward R. Murrow Life Time Achievement Award from Washington State University. She was part of a team of reporters who won a Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award for coverage of Iraq. Amos also has served as a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and a Shorenstein Fellow at the Kennedy School.
A Life and Legacy Revealed: Singing Faith—All Day Long
Sue Ellen Page
May 22, 9:15AM
Assembly Room
Singing Faith—All Day Long is a recording created to help families share songs of the Christian faith. It is a collaboration between the NPC Worship and Arts Committee and Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. In her last official public act as the Director of Choirs for Children and Youth at NPC (she retires nine days later!) Sue Ellen Page, who has served as artistic director of the Singing Faith project, will share a synopsis of the journey as well as some tracks from the recording.
Sue Ellen Page has served Nassau Presbyterian Church for almost 34 years as Director of Choirs for Children and Youth. During that time she has published a book, Hearts & Hands & Voices: Growing in Faith Through Choral Music (1995), raised up hundreds of choir members who sing in churches and choruses far and wide, led choral festivals all over the country and beyond, and most important, taught the faith through music to all of God’s children within her reach. To God be the glory!
“I think these are the best Bible studies, the ones that involve a conversation between people” —from a #NassauAdults class
Our Sunday summer schedule begins on May 29. We will have one worship service at 10:00AM, with Adult Education following at 11:15AM beginning June 12. Coffee and bagels will be available at every class.
In May we are hosting several poets who discuss faith in their work. As a way to respond, we invite you to submit a line that captures one aspect of your experience of faith and life in the church. We will make a single poem from all of the submissions — a Nassau community poem.
An evening of powerful stories
of transformation, faith and community
Join local actors to create an evening of inspiration
Saturday, May 21, 2016, 7:30 PM
Nassau Presbyterian Church
61 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ
Princeton, NJ (April 25, 2016) – Nassau Presbyterian Church (NPC) hosts an evening of inspirational storytelling with a series of stage readings or “testimonies” which are performed by professional and first-time actors within the Princeton community and members from the congregation. The testimonies are created from personal narratives that are artfully crafted from longer interviews with church members exploring moments of transformation and faith within their life experiences.
“I am very pleased to open our church doors for this first time event. Having professional actors perform the narratives takes us through the universal journey of finding faith, hope and compassion,” said Pastor David A. Davis, NPC.
The Testimonies Series is sponsored in part by the Mercer County Cultural and Heritage Commission and the New Jersey Council of the Arts. Created and directed by Adam Immerwahr, artist-in-residence at Nassau Presbyterian Church. Michael Dean Morgan serves as Assistant Director.
The result is a series of powerful, poignant personal stories performed by professional and first-time actors who are re-telling stories originally told by other individuals within the Nassau Presbyterian Church community.
A free-will offering will benefit The State Street Project, Passage Theater’s youth education program.
Admission is free. For more information, email or call 609-924-0103.
Adam Immerwahr, Director
Adam Immerwahr, former Associate Artistic Director of McCarter Theater in Princeton, brought his personal story creation process to Nassau Presbyterian Church two years ago and has created scores of profound tales of transformation, doubt and faith. The result is a series of powerful, poignant personal stories performed by professional and first-time actors who are re-telling stories originally told by other individuals within the Nassau Church community.
Michael Dean Morgan, Assistant Director
Michael Dean Morgan, a professional actor fresh from his Broadway debut in Amazing Grace, stepped in to assist in directing actors of these life stories when Adam took on the Artistic Director position at Theater J, the nation’s largest and most prominent Jewish theater company, located in Washington, D.C. Mr. Morgan, a member of NPC, also teaches at Princeton Theological Seminary.
About Passage Theater
Integral to our mission is our commitment to the local community and we serve the young people of Trenton through our education mentoring program, The State Street Project. This program empowers young people of inner city Trenton who may otherwise be at risk of being caught in urban delinquent life. The Project creates opportunities in the theatre arts where each person’s self-worth and diversity of imagination are realized. For more information go to www.passagetheatre.org.
I am writing to let you know of my sabbatical plans for this summer of 2016. With deep gratitude for the support of the Session and our Human Resources Committee, I am marking the conclusion of my 15th year as pastor of Nassau Presbyterian Church with my second sabbatical. Sabbatical 2016 will begin after Pentecost worship on May 15 and will last until Labor Day weekend.
I have accepted a month-long appointment from the Church of Scotland to serve two small congregations on the Island of Islay this summer. Plans for us also include a pilgrimage walk along the coast of Wales, our 30th wedding anniversary celebration, and a graduation each for Ben and Hannah.
We have a wonderful array of preachers lined up for the summer that will include Lauren McFeaters, Joyce MacKichan Walker, Jacq Lapsley, Tom Kort, Cindy Jarvis, and Lisa Nichols Hickman. Either Lauren or Joyce will be here for pastoral coverage all summer with support from some other friends and colleagues.
I continue to thank God for this season of life at Nassau Church. I invite your prayers for my renewal and inspiration in the weeks to come even as I remain fully confident that our life together will be as robust and life giving upon my return.
Revelation 7:9-17
Lauren J. McFeaters
April 17, 2016
Let’s start at the beginning. The entire Bible is a library and its different types of literature appeal to us through different avenues.
Some books, like the Psalms, touch our emotions.
“Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and all that is within me, bless God’s holy name.”
There are also books of law and commands that speak to our will, requiring us to respond in obedience.
“Thou shalt!” “Thou shalt not!” “Thou shalt!”
There are books of letters, like Paul’s that send us to our intellect, our brainpower, and we patiently move through theological reasoning.
“Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.”
And then there’s the Book of Revelation or more correctly:
The Revelation of Jesus Christ
to John the Theologian,
imprisoned on the Isle of Patmos
off the coast of Turkey.
It is Revelation that takes us straight to our imagination. The Revelation to John is one colossal extravaganza of dreams and creatures and angels. It’s an enormous and spectacular poem full of shocking visions, countless beasts, and ruinous verdicts.(1) A book innumerable people have tried to de-code.
So let’s pause and start where we really should start — with a corrective: We need to forget about trying to decode Revelation. It can’t be done. Trying to translate that this particular beast means a future calamity, this seal signifies the doom of a particular part of the world, this prophecy indicates a cataclysm event.
All of this de-coding of beasts and disasters and seals is swirling around our heads not because of translation with integrity, but because of the Doomsday Industry: the Left Behind series, Doomsday gaming, Armageddon publishers, Judgment Day apps, and big-screen, end-of-the-world Hollywood productions.
It’s all modern day marketing, playing on fear, anxiety, and panic, and using the Revelation to John as a time table for the rapture — the very end of the world. The word “rapture” never appears in the Bible. It’s all to make a buck on the backs of people’s upset and distress. The Doomsday Industry, although it’s made billions, is nonsense. Garbage. All of it. Every bit of it can be left behind. Wiped away. Bye. Bye.
And why should it be left behind? Because Revelation, first and foremost, is a book of comfort and hope, not desolation and despair.(2)
Revelation is a letter written to seven churches experiencing unimaginable persecution and it depicts a consummation toward which the whole biblical message of redemption is focused. It’s a letter of compassion and empathy. And rather than catastrophe it encompasses what it is to be an Easter people serving a Risen Lord.
It’s written by a fellow Christian, John. He offers:
Pastoral encouragement for Christians confronted with tyranny and cruelty
A soulful guide in times of fear
A daily devotional for the renewal of hearts
An inspiration for discipleship
Sustenance for our work with the Holy Spirit.(3)
And the One who is seated on the throne will shelter them.
They will hunger no more,
and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat;
for the Lamb at the center of the throne
will be their shepherd,
he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
On the western coast of Scotland is an island called the Isle of Iona. I know some of you have been there. It’s magnificent. It’s quite small and calm and surrounded by the sea.
Iona is known to the locals as a “thin place.” A “thin place” is named not because of slight size or high altitude, but because it is believed within these places the distance between heaven and earth is slender, and in its “thinness” you can perceive something of heaven itself.
Nora Tubbs Tisdale puts it like this: The ancient Celts, sensing the deep spirituality of this place built many of their worship places on them, some still marked today by circles of stone. Later Christians also built churches and monasteries and cemeteries there. And people who visit today sometimes say they lose all track of time and space, and they know, deep down, they are on holy ground. For in thin places, boundaries of time and space fade away.(4)
We need thin places. I’ve been to Iona and indeed it is a place where the confines of time and space melt away; where the veil between heaven and earth grows marvelously slight. I’ve experienced this in places like Kyoto, as a child, looking up to the sky from under the cherry trees; in Quebec City overlooking the vast St. Lawrence, inside New York City’s Signature Theater, and here at the font and table.
And I wonder: do you have thin places in your own life? Places where the confines of time and space melt away; where the veil between heaven and earth grows marvelously slight; where you have the sure sense you’re grounded in the holy?(5)
The Revelation to John is a thin place. The Revelation to John is where we step through the ethereal veil and glimpse something of God’s dream for us.
I looked and there was a great multitude
that no one could count, from every nation,
from all tribes and peoples and languages,
standing before the throne and before the Lamb,
robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.
“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
Prof. Tisdale says she recently heard someone say we’re were going to be very surprised by the people we meet in heaven, and if John’s vision is an accurate one, it will definitely be so. John says: We’re all going to be surprised about heaven and certainly about people we consider deplorable. People who have mightily wronged us. People we’ve had an eagle eye on; from homelands we consider to be enemies. And people we’ve had no eye on because of poverty, sickness, or class.
They will all be there: all genders, all colors, all abilities, all gifts, and all liabilities. No matter how inclusive we think we are; heaven, according to John’s vision, will be infinity times more so. Inclusivity will not be the only surprise awaiting us in heaven. We’re also going to be surprised by the scope of healing.
I know that most of us already think of heaven as a place of personal healing. And what a comfort it is to know that our loved ones, many of whom have suffered great illness in this life, will be completely whole in the life to come. But as John lifts up the veil and lets us glimpse into heaven, we witness a healing that is substantially more than our personal lives and the lives of our loved ones.(6)
We witness the rebuilding of the nations and the homelands and the nation-states. We witness the restoration of humanity scared by warfare and missiles; starvation and disease; rape and viciousness. We witness the healing of dreams deferred and childhoods postponed.
Heaven is the place where the injustices of this world will be made right and “neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free” will be held hostage. Neither rich nor poor, employed nor unemployed, neither citizen, nor immigrant, nor refuge will be held in captive. There will be a new homeland for the vulnerable, the meek, the righteous, the merciful, the peacemakers.
All are embraced. All are welcome. All are healed. All find home.
People of God, hear the Good News:
The One who is seated on the throne will shelter them.
They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat;
for the Lamb at the center of the throne is their shepherd,
and he is guiding us to the water of life.
And God; well, God is wiping away
every tear,
every sob,
every wail.
Let us pray: Lord God, you have given us a glimpse into the heart of love. We praise you. Your promise is full of healing and hope. Show us how to participate in this mystery, and transform us to be your faithful people. We thank you for a life in the Spirit. We thank you for this vision and for your infinite peace. Amen.
(1) Bruce M. Metzger. Breaking the Code: Understanding the Book of Revelation. Nashville, KY: Abingdon Press, 11-12, 106, 1993.
(2) Thanks to Susan W. Thompson for this reference from a class taught at Princeton Theological Seminary by Bruce M. Metzger.
(3) Metzger, 106.
(4) Nora Tubbs Tisdale. “Glimpsing Heaven in Thin Places,” Revelation 7:9-17. Day 1, Alliance for Christian Media. Atlanta, GA, www.day1.org/1117-glimpsing_heaven_in_thin_places, November 2, 2008.
(5) Tisdale.
(6) Tisdale.
