This sermon was preached at Glenwood and Canoe Ridge Lutheran Churches, Decorah, Iowa on May 26, 2019. It’s based on Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5. If you’d prefer to listen to it, find it at https://soundcloud.com/stacey-nalean-carlson.
Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5
10And in the spirit [one of the angels] carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.
22I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. 23And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. 25Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. 26People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. 27But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
22:1Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; 4they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.
How can hope be as tangible as despair?1 This question, posed by preacher Barbara Lundblad, is a question I’m wrestling with these days. Despair seems somehow more real, more clearly seen and touched and felt and experienced. What does hope look like?
Our reading this morning from Revelation offers us a portrait of hope. As Barbara Rossing describes it, this vision would have been radical and transforming for the first century Christians who received this prophetic letter: [Revelation] pulls back the veil of everyday reality…so that they can see true reality…Like Scrooge waking up from his visions or Dorothy waking up in Kansas, everything is different now because of their life-changing apocalyptic journey. The street on which they live is still just as narrow and crowded as before, but they now see their narrow street transfigured in light of the street in God’s holy city. They now see the Lamb standing in the middle of the street, looking at them with eyes of love. In the scrawny little tree at the end of their street they catch a glimpse of God’s tree of life with its healing leaves…Most important, they now see that God’s home… is in their midst.2
Once we’ve seen this reality—God’s reality—our experience of everyday reality is transformed. We can see hope where before we saw only despair. We can point to hope, name hope, witness to hope even in the midst of suffering. Rossing writes, Hope is surely Revelation’s most profound contribution to our world today. Revelation teaches us a fierce, urgent and wonderful hope—not an easy comfort, but a hope that knows the reality of terror and evil and still can testify to God’s love in the face of that terror.3
In the weeks following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks at the World Trade Center, a surviving tree was discovered at Ground Zero. Severely damaged…the tree was removed from the rubble…[for] recovery and rehabilitation. Now, the Survivor Tree stands as part of the 9/11 Memorial, a living reminder of resilience, survival and rebirth. Hope.4
Kindsum is described by creator Sebastian Terry as the meeting place for human kindness, connecting people who NEED help to people who CAN help. Recently, a father in Oregon reached out to ask for help building a tree house for his surviving children after the tragic death of his eldest son. Over one weekend, twenty volunteers flew to Bend, Oregon and helped this man build the most amazing tree house for his kids. Hope.5
Megan Phelps-Roper, as a member of Westboro Baptist Church, joined her family on the picket line for the first time at age 5. She was clutching a sign she couldn’t read yet, a sign with such hateful language that I will not repeat it here. When she and her sister decided to leave Westboro, they were shocked to find the light and a way forward in the same communities [they’d] targeted for so long. In a Jewish community in Los Angeles, they were invited to stay in the home of a rabbi they had previously protested against. Megan says: They treated us like family. They held nothing against us, and…I was astonished. Hope.6
In her TED talk, Megan discusses four steps that make it possible to do the hard work of talking and listening to people with whom we disagree. 1) Don’t assume bad intent. 2) Ask questions. 3) Stay calm. 4) Make the argument. This fourth step seems especially important. Megan says, As kind as my friends on Twitter were, if they hadn’t actually made their arguments, it would’ve been so much harder for me to see the world in a different way…If we want change, we have to make the case for it.7
We are able to see the world in a different way, because God has given us a vision of a world redeemed, a world where all are welcome, where all are fed, where all are healed, where God is at home, where hope is more real than despair. This is the vision we are called to share with the world. This is the case we’re called to make: the leaves of the tree of life are for the healing of the nations.
We are not called, as followers of Jesus, to merely sit back and wait for God’s will to be done. Instead, we pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. We look around through the lens of God’s vision, and we see life, and hope, and healing, and God’s presence beside us now. We gather for worship to have our vision checked, so we can see clearly as we go from this place each week—so we can see the tree of life in every flowering crab apple, every burr oak, every scrawny seedling watered by commitment and nourished by hope.
Each year, the 9/11 Memorial gives seedlings from the Survivor Tree to three communities that have endured tragedy in recent years. Here are just a few of the communities [that] have committed to nurturing these trees to serve as landmarks symbolizing resiliency and hope: Fort Hood, in honor of the 16 victims and survivors of the shootings on November 5, 2009 and April 2, 2014, and in acknowledgement of the continued sacrifice of the men and women who serve and their families; Newtown, Connecticut, in memory of the 20 school children and 6 adults who were killed on December 14, 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School; Charleston, South Carolina, in memory of the 9 people killed in a shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church; Puerto Rico, after the catastrophic Hurricane Maria, which left an estimated 2,975 people dead in its wake.8
These Survivor Tree Seedlings, planted in places of sorrow and strife around the world, honor our collective grief and witness to our collective hope. Let this be a vision to hold alongside the vision given to us in Revelation.
As Easter people, followers of the crucified and risen one, we plant resilience born of suffering; we plant life in the face of death; we look for hope emerging from deep despair. God’s vision enables us to see clearly hope that is tangible and real.
May God’s vision become our own. May the Tree of Life inspire us to be agents of healing. May the love of the Lamb embolden our love. May God give us blessing, and may all the ends of the earth stand in awe. Amen.
1 Thanks to Pastor Melissa Bills for tweeting this question, posed by Rev. Dr. Barbara Lundblad during her presentation at the 2019 Festival of Homiletics.
2, 3 The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation by Barbara R. Rossing. Learn more here: https://books.google.com.
4 https://www.911memorial.org/survivor-tree
5 https://kindsum.com/ I learned about Kindsum by listening to Jen Hatmaker’s podcast with creator Sebastian Terry. Listen here: https://forthelove.libsyn.com/practicing-kindness-for-a-healthier-life-sebastian-terry.
6, 7
8 https://www.911memorial.org/survivor-tree-seedling-program