dcrau001412001.wav / Margaret B. Via - "The Deepest of All Riddles" (May 17, 1992) / Duke Digital Repository

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I will be at work for two more weeks,

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and so I will not say goodbye yet.

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Thank you Deborah, for those kind words.

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As our ship approached the sun-baked isle of Patmos,

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the scene was charged with the air of expectancy.

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We would see the place where a man named John

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wrote the most unusual book in the New Testament.

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The contrast of ancient Greek Orthodox monastery,

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contemporary church and world somewhat distorted our view.

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We were surrounded by an assortment of people.

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Tourists on holiday, scholars and pastors

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on study or religious pilgrimages,

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and a beautiful TV evangelist from Texas

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with her entourage who profaned the holy places

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with their glaring camera lights,

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and her smooth, easy comments.

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Yet even for the early church,

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it was a time of contrast between the old and the new,

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between believers and non-believers,

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between the political intrigues and loyalties,

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among the Roman government, the Jewish authority,

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and the ever-growing church who was hammering out

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its mission and message, and differing theologies.

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The writer in his solitary confinement

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on that remote prison island seemed to have let

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his imagination run away to the margins of sanity.

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Or was it that coupled with his deep Christian conviction,

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his literary and religious genius gave birth

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to the most awesome of revelations

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concerning the mysteries of God's kingdom,

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of what had been, what was, and what was to come.

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Was it the intensity of the light of the sun

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reflecting on the blue Aegean Sea

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that played mind tricks on his thinking,

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which formed his visionary shapes, and nightmarish images?

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Was it partly illusory hopefulness

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that stirred John to write as he did?

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Or was it sheer madness, as some have concluded,

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stating that his writings make little or no sense at all.

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Even some of the greats in church history

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failed to value what is there.

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Luther states, "My spirit cannot accommodate

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"itself to this book."

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And Jerome admits that the book

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has as many secrets as it has words.

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In a place like Duke Chapel, or in most Protestant churches,

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we find it hard to appreciate a book

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with references to a horned, seven-headed dragon,

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and creatures covered with eyes.

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Were it not for a few good scholars,

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and the fact that the new heaven and new Earth language

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seems appropriate for graduation,

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and for this politically uneasy time,

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I would not have attempted

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to preach on a text from Revelation.

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Politics and religion had put John where he was,

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separating him from his Christian friends,

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who were under siege by the powers

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of the Roman state, and civil religion.

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The colliding of church and state

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can be dangerous, even deadly.

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Paul the Apostle on more than one occasion

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was thrown into prison because of his strong conviction

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that Christ was the God who met him

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on a lonely road one day, and to whom

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he thereafter gave his complete allegiance.

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The early church father, Athanasius, five times was hounded

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into exile by three different emperors.

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Augustine as a pastor found himself

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in the midst of the chaotic breakup of Roman order,

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and following the charge that Christianity

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had set the strength of Rome, he wrote a defense

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of Christianity called, "City of God."

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Joan of Arc, after her conversion,

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plunged into the 15th century

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French political religious arena,

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and at the early age of 20, died a martyr's death.

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Bonhoeffer, before he was executed, at the age of 39,

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led a fugitive existence in Nazi Germany.

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Bishop Romero battled with the El Salvadorian government

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and the church hierarchy for reforms which would

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save his people from cruel persecution and death,

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and ended up one day riddled by an assassin's bullets.

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Virtually unknown, American missionaries

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named Becky McKinley, David Jean Dickman, and Ann Neal

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made a place among the people of Yemen, Gaza, Nigeria,

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and Zimbabwe, often being caught in the crossfire

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of political revolution, religious conflict,

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and church reform.

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Without these, and countless other men and women,

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we would be far less able to understand our faith,

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and our life, and our role in the ongoing saga

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of the Christian church.

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The task of these, and any of us who are brave enough

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to do so, was and is to

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demonstrate a gospel which orders

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a new heaven and a new Earth in the chaos of evil.

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Sin, defeat, suffering, persecution,

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and politics are thrust into our worlds

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over against the realities of God and Christ,

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holiness and healing, heaven and hell,

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victory and judgment, beginning and ending.

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Recently there have appeared in our newspapers and journals,

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articles about the disintegration of our society.

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Corruption in politics, loss of values,

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and the low morale which has swept across our land.

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Hear the voices of the people.

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We're experiencing a floating anxiety,

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a nameless, shapeless dread.

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Washington shares the disgust with Washington.

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We have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy.

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Our writers and artists help us see our pain,

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and our defeat, our heaven, our Earth, our hell.

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Gail Godwin, one of our current Southern novelists,

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shows us a picture of the state of things.

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In "Father Melancholy's Daughter",

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Margaret, a senior at the University of Virginia,

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is described as being absent of all energy and desire.

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Unable to go back to her studies to her final exams,

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to puzzle out a few more pages of Chaucer,

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she ponders. The man who had written it had perished,

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so had Shakespeare, and Thomas Jefferson, and Jesus,

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yet she continues, these great ones had perished,

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and the sun went on rising and setting without them.

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And the current crop of living bodies

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shuffled through the shopping malls of their lives,

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coveting, and spending, and wasting,

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and always wanting more.

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The more powerful and greedy among them

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tearing down whole mountains, and causing landslides

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and traffic jams because they wanted more.

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More, more.

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"What good was it to try to do anything?" she said.

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Christ had died to prove that his kingdom was not

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of this world, and the world had taken him at his word.

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The hopeful pictures from our text of the new heaven

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coming down to Earth, of the new creation,

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of the old passing away, of the ministry of reconciliation

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given to us are not visions of a fanatic

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or a madman.

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The message here is true.

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God's salvific power will be in our future,

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and is in our present.

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The new Earth mentioned here is one we all long for.

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A world of no more human brutalities,

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a world of no more miscarriages of justice,

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a world of no more war in the Middle East,

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in Ireland, in Eastern Europe.

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A world of no more riots in Los Angeles, or Atlanta.

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A world of no more hatred, cruelty, and murderers.

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A world of no more greed,

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of no more bloated stomachs of starving children,

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of no more paralyzing and debilitating drugs,

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of no more separation from the saving power of God.

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A renewed Earth, a renewed heaven,

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renewed cities, the reality of God with us.

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How is that accomplished?

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In this life we enter heaven

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not by escaping what we don't like,

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but by the sanctification of a place

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in which God has placed us.

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Heaven is formed out of our dirty streets,

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our murderous alleys, our adulterous and embattled bedrooms,

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our corrupt courts, our greedy politicians,

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our ruthless managers and CEOs,

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our lukewarm and divided churches.

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Christ's blood makes it possible.

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Our blood makes it possible.

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In a recent book, Dominique Lapierre

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tells a remarkable story, recently made into a movie.

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It's a true story taking place in a wretched,

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overcrowded slum in Calcutta, called the "City of Joy".

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This place is a microcosm of the worst

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and the best in all cities.

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Dispossessed persons from city and countryside,

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undesirables, the mentally and physically ill,

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criminals grinding what little life there is

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out of desperate people by their thievery and manipulation.

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Yet in the midst of all of the filth, the murder,

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and corruption, something eternal is happening.

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The new heaven is breaking in to renew the Earth.

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A small number of doctors, priests, pastors,

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and nurses have come to live among the sea of humanity.

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A community of love, in that most unhabitable place,

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has been and is being formed.

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The response to this story two years

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in the writing has been overwhelming.

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Mr. Lapierre writes that one day as he was leaving

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his apartment in Paris, the doorbell rang,

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and standing at the door was an old woman with a travel bag

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who said, "I've just arrived buy train from Toulouse."

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"I've come to write my will

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"in favor of your heroes of light."

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The vision of John breaks the barriers of time.

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It speaks a word of hope to all people in all times.

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It's message has to do not only with God's eternal kingdom

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in the great beyond, it has to do with a renewed Earth.

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In a slum in Calcutta, a ghetto in New York,

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a gangland in Los Angeles,

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a decaying inner city in Durham.

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Thank God for visionaries.

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For writers, for prophets, for artists,

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for old women who support our heroes of light.

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Thank God for churches, whose musicians,

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organs, stringed instruments, soloists, and choirs

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stir our spirits to the grand and glorious things

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which God has spoken through a man named John,

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through a savior named Jesus.

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The riddle of the present, over against eternity,

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is the deepest of all the riddles of time.

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Every moment reaches into the eternal.

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Eternity is part of the air we breathe.

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It breaks powerfully into our consciousness,

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and gives us a certainty that God is alive,

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that resurrection is real, that Christ's blood

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and our blood, shed for the world, makes all the difference.

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Within history, we live in an ambiguous world.

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The forces of evil spread their nets

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to enslave and to entrap us, but there are time warps,

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where redemption and hope light up a city,

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light up a despairing heart.

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There is transformation in our time and space world,

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when members of our graduating class go out into the world

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with impossible dreams that become realities.

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When politicians care enough to risk losing votes

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and party favor to offer moral leadership

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for the task of building a new future

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for our nation and world.

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When churches preach and live the gospel.

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The new heaven and the new Earth

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is a vision where there is no vision,

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but people perish.

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The new heaven and the new Earth

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is also a reality.

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Thanks be to God.

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(organ music)

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(audience members singing softly)

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The Lord be with you.

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And also with you.

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Let us pray.

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Oh God, we come before you this morning

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with hearts full of hope and longing,

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for a new heaven and a new Earth.

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The theme of life for so many of us

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has been fear of the future.

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Fear that we would be inadequate to the demands.

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Fear of ill health, loss of independence, or death.

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Fear that there will be no place for us.

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Fear that we will not have enough.

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Fear that the mess that we've created

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has stolen our children's future.

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Fear of a world spinning out of control

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with corruption, violence, and greed.

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Truly we have been in the grips of a floating anxiety,

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overwhelmed with the pain and suffering we see in the world,

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but not sure how to handle even our own

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pain and suffering, much less that of others.

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God of the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end,

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remind us that no part of our past, our present,

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or our future is separate from you.

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You break into our lives to sanctify them.

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You call us into the future that you have

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envisioned for us, by transforming our present.

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There is no need to fear the future

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when we live with the sure knowledge that you are with us.

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Give us the courage, oh God, to follow the example

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your disciples have set in every age, of faithful living.

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Give us the faith to believe in the transforming power

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of your love and grace, manifested in the lives

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of committed men and women.

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Give us the vision of a new Earth invaded by your heaven,

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where all places become cities of joy.

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A world where the unhappy, discouraged, ill clad, ill fed,

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thirsty and desperate multitudes

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will have their hunger satisfied, their tears wiped away,

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their thirst quenched, and their longings fulfilled.

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Give us the compassion, the will,

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and the grace to work for such a world.

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Remind us Lord, that in reaching out to others in love,

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we too are transformed by love, and we become

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new persons who have been touched by the divine.

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Remind us that we do not reach out alone,

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that you work through us as we open ourselves to your power,

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and that you fill us and those we serve with living waters.

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It is in your power and your love

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that we hope for a new heaven and a new Earth.

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In the name of Jesus Christ,

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who made the eternal visible among us, amen.

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