Bearers of the Vision

Sermon by James W. Crawford

November 16, 1997

Revelation 21:1-5a

I have been fascinated by events this week and their meaning for our life together. A cartoon in the Globe on Wednesday illustrates my intrigue. You may have seen it too. The cartoon shows a woman sitting in front of her television set. In the first of four little cartoon boxes she holds a handkerchief and says, "I wept for Diana." In the second box we see the woman derisively laughing, "I howled at Marv." In the third box, grim resolution on her face, a fist raised to the ceiling, she remarks, "I stood by Louise." In the last, she throws up her hands, her face quizzical, "Who says people nowadays are disconnected?" Diana, Marv, Louise: the great connectors!

Or again, I suppose we all take for granted rising in the morning to a report on the stock market results in Tokyo, Hong Kong and London. They come at the head of the news details because, although they apparently report on economic conditions on the other side of the world, we know they bear an impact on our lives here and now, the results foreshadowing jobs, or income or family security right here in Boston over the short or longer term. My own hometown, for instance, is Rochester, New York--a company town--and Kodak, in my youth and adolescence represented a benign, paternal employer of hundreds of thousands in Rochester and around the world. This week, because of what is called a strong dollar on the international scene, on the one hand, and brutal global competition on the other, Kodak said "so long" to another 10,000 employees. Who buys film in Dakar makes a big difference in who is employed in Rochester. As the woman in the Wasserman cartoon asked, "Who says people nowadays are disconnected?"

And even on a more personal level, as we turn on the faucet in our kitchens, purchase a pound of coffee, peel a potato, or broil a lamb chop, we may not think much about the full dimensions of what we do, but what goes on between the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, the Environmental Protection Agency, bean pickers in Colombia, farmers in Idaho, fertilizer manufacturers in Illinois, truckers on I-90, food and drug inspectors, supermarket staff, municipal bond investors, and the Commodities Pit in Chicago--all of this makes an impact on the quality of life around the house. Our kitchens are little outposts of the world's economy. "Who says people nowadays are disconnected?"

Yet, in spite of this incredible interdependence and connection brought to us by astounding and exponentially expanding technological change smashing communications barriers and national boundaries, a yearning for interconnectedness, I believe, continues to haunt us. Now, I don't know why you happen to be here this morning: some of you for a quiet moment, perhaps, others for music, still others for a hope that somewhere within the hour an inner chord will be touched. Perhaps some of you ask the question, is there someplace I can find a human being with whom I don't have to play one-upsmanship, somewhere I don't have to impress, or outsmart or compete with some other clown?  Is there some place or some community I can enter where my record doesn't count, my income is not a credential--and someplace they care for who I am, what eats me up and gets me down, someplace they understand I'm at my wits end with so much to do, places to go, people to deal with, money to make, things to do I can barely keep my head above water? Is there someplace I can connect with others that will nourish my spiritual hunger, reconnect me with something or someone beyond the here and now, gather me into a new companionship and company of commitment?

Each of us may ask any number of these questions--or perhaps none of them--from a different circumstance, bringing a different story, stirred by different feelings and different hopes. So I want to tell you something about church--about this church--and what, more than anything else, I pray it might be. It follows Patrice Ficken's remarks about our future, our common life in the new century, our focus for our life this year--yet what ought to be our focus next year and every year.

When the prophet of that apocalyptic polemic, Revelation, envisions a new creation, a new setting where there is no more death or crying or pain, he describes for us--and he writes amid a violent and disruptive time--he describes for us a vision for a new community. He draws an image of what God wants for human life. And when we gather here, we signal just a seed of that new city, that new order described by our visionary author. We signal in our gathering, by our care for one another, through our own breaking through the silences, the fear, the stories and dreams, the hopes and disappointments separating us--we signal in our reverence and service for, our acceptance and forgiveness of one another  the quality and depth of community only a love capable of risking the Cross can finally bring about.

And what ought we to expect in such a community? How do we show we bear the vision of that ancient seer? Let me put in the declarative mode our fondest hope: This is a community welcoming strangers. This is a community where hospitality ranks first. This a community where we seek to make a home beyond a home, a family grounded not in blood and genes, but in the risky, challenging, perfect love of the One whom Jesus called Abba, Father. You see, when we gather here we become a little piece of heaven here on this corner. We symbolize the future kingdom, dominion, realm offered in the Divine promises, described by the prophets' dreams. We become ourselves the vision acted out.

And this is why we include in our morning worship here at Old South this little rite we call "A sign of our Unity and Reconciliation." We do it because in this place we take on a new identity. We are not just the individuals who walk in here from various settings and conditions. We are now brothers and sisters bound by the love of Christ. We are not simply a bunch of people in a big auditorium come to join in religious ritual; we are a new people, claimed for a ministry of grace and healing for one another, and justice and peace for this city and world. We come here as citizens of that new heaven and new earth as outlined by that image in Revelation. Those who enter our doors for the first time this morning--you are no less a part of this body. And those of us who are "older-timers" embrace you just as you embrace us. At coffee hour this morning, a lot of us will find our friends or talk with our acquaintances or get some institutional business done. That is OK. But here--here--in worship--and yes, it should be at coffee, too--but here at worship we reach through the barriers, we go beyond our little circles of acquaintances and signal our friendship, our siblinghood, our mutual acceptance and solidarity by celebrating our unity and reconciliation in this small sacramental act of greeting one another with the peace, the grace, or the love of the one who risked everything to bind us together. And as I have remarked to some of you before, where better to greet one than at the foot of the Cross?

So, the Wasserman Cartoon surely suggests one mode of connection. It is weeping over Diana, laughing at Marv, fighting for Louise Woodward that connects us? Are you kidding? Each of us watching our television alone? But here, you become part of me, and I part of you, and each of us part of one another, as we join in a new body, as Paul says, a body where if one us suffers, each of us suffers with her; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with him; indeed a body much larger and more lovely than the sum of all our parts. In this communal gathering  we bear witness to the vision of God's future for all the world.

I invite you, then, to rise, "People of God," extend a hand to your neighbor, to a stranger, who in God's world is your neighbor, and greet him, greet her, mutually offering hospitality and welcome in your life and in ours. It bespeaks our hope in our unity and reconciliation of the world finally as the household --the city--of God.

Grace and peace to each and to all. Amen.