Mystic visions, a whole series of them—that’s what’s recorded in the
book of Revelation. The person who experienced these visions was an
elder of the church named John, who lived in the last decade of the first
century A.D. And he wrote down these visions in the hope that they would
help sustain followers of Christ like him through their time of “hell on
earth”—their time of persecution and death at the hands of the Roman
emperor Domitian [81–96 A.D.].
In this morning’s First Lesson, read so well by Natalie Wyatt, John
has a vision in which the world as we know it, this place of violence and
warfare, of pain and torture and humiliation—a vision in which this sorry
old world of ours is transformed radically. For a totally new kind of
city descends to earth from heaven above, a city not at all like our New
York, or Baghdad, or today’s Jerusalem. No, it’s envisioned as a
radically new Jerusalem, one in which God and the peoples of all
nations live together, face to face, in the same place, in a unique
community of praise and joy where all hurt and pain are gone and death is
no more. And it is the features of this new City of God that are so
powerfully symbolized for us in the rituals of baptism.
For flowing forth from the majestic throne shared by God and Christ and
flowing onward through the very middle of this City of God are the
sparkling, crystal-clear waters of the river of life—the same waters we
receive at our baptism, the same waters Natalie has received today. And
standing on either side of this bright, shining river, at which the people
of God are gathered, are trees of life, bountiful with fruit—trees whose
very leaves are sources for the healing of the nations. Yes, here on the
banks of this river, “with its crystal tide forever flowing,” the nations
gather and are illumined by the light radiating from the face of God—the
light of God’s glory, the light that is symbolized by the candle we give
to baptized persons, as to Natalie today. Yes, here at this heaven-sent
river, the nations gather, standing with the name of God emblazoned on
their foreheads—an emblazoning that is symbolized by the sign of the cross
that we mark on the foreheads of baptized persons, as on Natalie today.
This vision of John’s—of the City of God come down to earth—is one in
which the prayer offered in today’s Second Lesson, Psalm 67, has at last
come to a perfect fulfillment—the prayer that God’s face will shine upon
the peoples of earth with such grace and blessing that all nations will
sing for joy (vss. 1, 4).
How desperately our world today needs John’s vision to become a
reality—John’s vision of a healing for all nations. How desperately we
need a healing for Iraq. How desperately we need a healing for our own
nation, the United States. How desperately we need a healing for our own
city, New York. Yes, how desperately we need the new order envisioned by
John to become a reality here on earth. How desperately we need the pain
and grief, the sorrow and misery, the shock and horror of recent events to
somehow be overtaken by God’s grace and by God’s blessing of joy.
Must we humans really wait until the end of time for this coming of a
new order, of a New Jerusalem, with its leaves of healing and its waters
of life? Or is it possible for us right this very moment to be working
with God to bring about here on earth communities of joy and love that
embody, within our own time and space, a coming of God’s reign on earth,
as it is in heaven?
Well, as you heard Cheryl report to us during this morning’s Moment
for Mission, we were offered a vision just last Thursday of how the various
faith communities of our city can join hands to help build New York up into
a community of healing and joy, a community of blessing, where God’s
scriptural command to provide houses for the homeless poor (Isaiah 58:7) is
taken seriously. And you will have a chance to begin the work of
implementing this vision by attending next Sunday’s 9:45 a.m. adult class,
led by Laura Jervis and Lili Bohan, or by individually inquiring of Cheryl
or Laura how you can contribute to the work of the Interfaith Assembly on
Homelessness and Housing—contribute to their projects of advocating
additional low-income housing, of finding jobs for those recovering from
homelessness, and of registering low-income voters.
So helping to end chronic homelessness by “building the blessed city
together”—that’s one concrete way we can work with God to found a New
Jerusalem here on earth before the end of time. And let me share with you
still another vision offered to us by a different group of Christ’s
followers who are at work to establish right here—in the midst of this world
of sorrow and pain—communities of healing and joy, communities of God’s
blessing. I offer this second example not because I’m suggesting that we at
Rutgers engage in this group’s particular ministry. Rather, I offer it
because I think their story will help to convince us that, when working with
God to build a blessed community, a community of healing and joy, nothing is
impossible, and everything is possible!
“L’Arche” is a French word meaning “the Ark,” as in Noah’s “Ark.” And
“L’Arche” is the name of a federation of over 120 communities of faith, in
30 countries, where people with a mental handicap and their helpers work
together to establish a home, a community, in which all share a
common lifestyle of work, play, prayer, and meals—a lifestyle that
places a priority on developing relationships and creating a family of
mutual care and concern.
L’Arche began in France in 1964, when Jean Vanier and Father Thomas
Philippe invited two men with mental disabilities, Raphael Simi and Philippe
Seux, to come share their life with them in a warm, loving home, in the spirit
of Christ. The four soon discovered that living out a shared lifestyle of
utter simplicity leads to a great joy and a mutual transformation of hearts.
So Jean and Père Thomas undertook to establish other homes where the mentally
handicappedwould live in community with their helpers and in relationships
rooted in their abiding trust in God. Now there are 120 such communities.
“The secret of L’Arche is relationship: meeting people … heart to heart;
listening to people with their pain, their joy, their hope, their history…”
(Jean Vanier, quoted at www.larcheusa.org/about.htm) And these communities
seek “to be a sign that society, to be truly human, must be founded on
welcome and respect for the weak and the downtrodden.”
This past January, Pope John Paul II delivered a message to an
International Symposium on the dignity of people with disabilities. And in
it, the pope said: “People with disabilities … can teach everyone about the
love that saves us; they can become heralds of a new world, no longer
dominated by force, violence and aggression, but by love, solidarity and
acceptance.” End of quote. (As quoted in Jean Vanier’s 2004 Easter message,
issued from Trosly, France)
People with disabilities are the “angels,” if you will, who can show to
the contemporary elders of the church a vision of a New Jerusalem descending
to earth from heaven. They are, if you will, the “leaves on the tree of
life” who can heal and transform us, if we but enter into relationship with
them. For it is as we create networks of friendship with and around the
world’s weakest that “we learn to love and carry one another, to share our
life together and thus become a sign, in a world of competition and
individualism, that love is stronger than hate.” (Vanier’s 2004 Easter
message)
As this modern seer, this modern John, Jean Vanier, tells it: “On the
one hand there are those motivated by the accumulation of riches, by the
need to possess, and by the need to dominate and be above others. On the
other hand there are those who live in involuntary poverty and misery and
who are in some way marginal to society (the aged, the handicapped of all
kinds, … the mentally ill, … [the homeless], those who live in misery in
the developing countries). Is not the great challenge of the day to create
communities which by their joy and simplicity of life draw the ‘rich’
towards a life of greater simplicity and self-gift, and that draw the
miserable towards a new hope?” (quoted in Bill Clarke, S.J., Enough Room
for Joy: Jean Vanier’s L’Arche, A Message for Our Time [Toronto:
McClelland and Stewart, Ltd., 1974], p. 15)
A Canadian Jesuit, Father Bill Clarke, S.J., spent a considerable
period of time living and working with the L’Arche communities in France
not long after their founding. He was struck by the joy that pervaded
these homes, and he tells this remarkable story (pp. 20–21).
“Claude has the most illogical mind that I have ever encountered …
He may ask such questions as ‘What time is orange?’ or ‘How was tomorrow?’
But still he does have a wisdom all his own…. Well, one day Claude was at
the beach with Jean-Pierre and several others of the Ambleteuse community.
The ocean was at low tide so there was an immense stretch of flat, sandy
beach. They began making designs in the sand. Claude drew a big circle
with a couple of marks inside that could have been facial features. ‘What’s
that?’ asked Jean-Pierre. With a big smile Claude replied: ‘It’s Madame Sun.’
‘That’s good’ Jean-Pierre said, ‘Now let’s see you draw joy.’ Claude took a
look around him at the wide beach that stretched out in both directions as
far as the eye could see, then he turned to Jean-Pierre and said with a huge
smile but in all seriousness: ‘There’s not enough room!’”
John the Elder must have felt somewhat the same way as Claude. In Christ,
John had experienced an enormity of joy that surpassed, and indeed canceled
out, all the troubles and travails of this world. Yet he had no idea at all
of how to describe or portray such joy by using the normal words and images
of language and art. It was only by turning to the words and images of
mystic visions that John could gain enough room, enough expanse of spirit, to
draw the enormity of joy he felt in Christ, by depicting this city of
sparkling clear water and burgeoning trees of life, this city in which God
and the peoples of all nations live together, face to face, in a community of
shared life and light, where hurt and pain and death are no more.
Must we really wait around until the end of time to experience within
ourselves such an expanse of joy? Well, the experience of Claude in the
Ambleteuse community of L’Arche suggests that we don’t need to wait that
long. The experience of Claude suggests that if, right here and now, with
God’s help, we establish communities focused on developing quality
relationships between the world’s weakest and strongest and on sharing a
simplicity of lifestyle with those around us who are in need—if we can do
these two things, sharing quality relationships and sharing a simplicity of
lifestyle, then we, too, can experience an enormity of joy—joy like that of
a New-Jerusalem-come-to-earth long before the end of time.
Let us pray:
O God, grant us a vision of how best each day to live out our baptism in
the river of life that flows from Your throne. And grant us a vision of how
best to work with You both to plant here and now those trees whose leaves can
heal the nations and also to build here and now those blessed communities whose
way of life embodies Your New Jerusalem. This we pray in the name of Christ,
with whom, in baptism, we have risen. Amen.