The City Without a Temple

Scripture Lessons: Genesis 1: 1-5 and Revelation 21: 10; 21:22-22:5 Sermon Title: The City Without a Temple Preached on May 22, 2022 I’ve never driven past an old church without wanting to go inside. Are you the same way? As a seminary student, I often had the opportunity to go out to rural churches to preach. Their standards weren’t very high, so they kindly invited me to go out and struggle through leading a worship service as I learned what being a preacher is all about. I remember a little country church called Friendship Presbyterian way south of the airport. They had about a dozen members, all faithful and kind. One told me how her husband was a Gideon and had dedicated so much of his time to making Scripture available to those who didn’t have a Bible in the home. Another was the man who lived across the street from the church. He met me when I drove up, and it was his job each Sunday morning to unlock the building. He also handed me the bulletin. The first time I preached there, I looked through it, saw the place where I’d give the sermon, and asked about how to call for the offering and a couple other details. I also noticed that there’d be a choir anthem, only the choir hadn’t shown up yet. That was ok. It was still early. I walked around the old graveyard and reviewed my sermon notes. Then, when it was time to get the service started, I sat in the big chair up front and noticed that there was still no choir in the choir loft. Without them, I went on with the Call to Worship and the Prayer of Confession, though the closer we got to the anthem, the more nervous I got. Well, when we got to the choir anthem, the congregation in the pews stood up, went into the choir loft, and sang the anthem. When it was over, they went back to the pews, and the service went on. Can you imagine? The barrier between the choir loft and the congregation is reassuring to a lot of people. It feels like a healthy boundary. So long as you’re not on the other side of that wall, it’s ok if you need to mumble through the hymns or can’t read music, but the folks over there in the choir loft, they can really sing. They can. In fact, they’ve given me a false sense of my own ability. Someone once told me that the best thing about being a pastor is that you never have to sit with your children in church. Our children would say that the best thing about their dad being a pastor is that he rarely sits with them in church. The last time I sat with our girls, and we got to the hymn, they just couldn’t believe what they were hearing. “Dad, why are you singing so loudly? We don’t do it like that where we sit!” Well, I’ve grown so used to singing up here where I’m so close to the choir that no matter how loudly I sing, I can hardly hear my own voice. I mostly hear theirs, so the volume on the self-awareness has gone down, and the volume of my singing voice has gone up. When I get out there in the congregation, I do it all wrong. I do it the way the choir does behind the wall that separates the choir loft from the congregation, just not as well as they do. Still, we all must get ready to sing as though we were in the choir, for in heaven, there will be no such wall. There will be no wall between the choir loft and the congregation. There will be no wall between what we do in here and what we do out there. When we’re in heaven, some say, we’ll all be issued harps and wings, and we’ll sit on the clouds to sing hymns to the glory of God day and night. That’s how Aunt Becky said it would be in Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. If you remember, when Tom Sawyer heard about it, he decided he’d rather not go. Do you remember that? He decided upon hearing about all the singing required that he’d rather go to the other place to be with his friend Huckleberry Finn, who everyone said was not good enough to go the Good Place. Of course, we have no jurisdiction over who will go and who will not. In this Scripture lesson from the book of Revelation, the Book of Life and whose names are written in it are clearly the jurisdiction of the Lamb and not us. We just oversee membership rolls, which isn’t the same thing, though sometimes we think it is. Back in Columbia, Tennessee, unlike in the New Jerusalem, there is a church on every corner. You couldn’t go anywhere without bumping into one, and when I first started as a pastor there, when I was getting the lay of the land, I wanted to walk down the sidewalk to meet the nearby pastor at West Seventh Church of Christ. It was just down the street from First Presbyterian Church, where I was the pastor, so we were neighbors, only before I could get down there to meet the pastor at West Seventh Church of Christ, someone said to me, “But Joe, you know they think we’re all going to hell.” “Really?” I asked. “They do. We have instruments in our sanctuary and women preachers. They don’t like that. They think we’re going to hell.” I thought that was strange, and I wanted to know more. Maybe I was I little scared they were right, so I went and asked the county historian, a knowledgeable man and a good Presbyterian, “Bob, is it true what they say, that the folks at West Seventh Church of Christ think we’re going to hell?” “Not only do they think we’re going to hell, the folks at West Seventh Church of Christ think that the folks at Greymere Church of Christ are going to hell for that fancy electric sign they put up out by the road, and the folks at Greymere think that the folks at Highland Church of Christ are going to hell because their kids are all in public school, and all of them think that the folks at Maury Hills Church of Christ are going to hell because in one of their services each Sunday, they started using guitars.” “What?” I asked, “Are you serious?” “I am,” he said. “The only place they don’t judge each other is when they’re in the liquor store. They all go there, but they can’t tell anyone who they saw in there, or they’d be giving themselves away.” Here on earth, we have these barriers. We draw the line between the congregation and the choir. We draw a line between different churches and denominations. We pay attention to whose name is on which membership role, though in the New Jerusalem, there will be no membership role. There’s only the Book of Life. There also will be no churches. None. Did you see that? All the walls of the churches will come down that we might sing one loud “halleluiah” to the King of Kings. Think for a minute, though, about how far away from that we are. This is what we read from the 21st and 22nd chapter of Revelation: I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And 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. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Did you hear that? The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. All the nations doing this one thing. All the kings of the nations using their glory to honor the King of Kings rather than themselves. That sounds wonderful, for in this world we can’t even compromise on what words to say in the Lord’s Prayer. In Tennessee, there was another country church I loved. They were a Presbyterian church, but the closest church was a Methodist church, so they worked out a deal. The pastor at the little Methodist church would come down to lead services at the Presbyterian church, and by the time I got to know them, they were saying “forgive us our trespasses” instead of “forgive us our debts” when they prayed the Lord’s Prayer. Well, that was ok, but they were excited at the idea of having a Presbyterian preach. They talked me into preaching there once a month and celebrating communion with them. I’d go and do that, except for when it rained. When it rained, they didn’t have church because the roof leaked so badly. Can you believe that? It’s true. That leaky roof reminds me of something else that happens in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Maybe you remember that Tom Sawyer didn’t die and go on to playing a harp on a cloud in Mark Twain’s novel. No, he didn’t reach the end of his days in the course of that book. However, a lot of people thought he did. So many feared that he had died after Tom and his friend Huckleberry Finn faked their deaths so that they could run off and live on an island in the middle of the Mississippi River. Eventually, once the two of them got bored on their island, they made their way back home and found that everyone was in the church, assembled for their funeral. Tom and Huck climbed up to the attic of the church and listened in on what all everyone said about them. They heard about how loved they both were. They heard the preacher talk about how maybe they got up to some mischief, but they were good boys. That’s how the town thought of them. Maybe Huck’s name wasn’t on a church membership role; surely, his name was written in the Book of Life. Can you imagine what the world would be like if the church treated people that way while they were living? Can you imagine what it would be like if we all went out into this world loving our neighbors the way we know God loves us? It happened this way to a preacher named Louie Giglio. He was traveling for a conference and went into a diner late at night. It was a diner on the wrong side of town. That didn’t matter to him. He was hungry, and he sat down and ordered a slice of apple pie and a cup of coffee. While he was there, a group of women sat down nearby. They were dressed as those women who make their livings on the wrong side of town late at night often dress, and as they talked, this preacher learned that the next day was one’s birthday. They got up and left, and the preacher asked the owner of the diner if those ladies often came in at this time of night. The owner said they did. Would they come in tomorrow night? The owner said they would. Would it be ok to bring the lady a birthday cake? The owner said it would be fine and that he’d be glad to put up some streamers and things. The plan came together. The next night, the preacher brought in the birthday cake. The group of ladies came in, and everyone there sang. The birthday girl looked at the cake and said, “I’ve never had a birthday cake before,” and the owner looked at the preacher and asked, “Who are you, anyway?” The preacher said, “I’m a preacher.” “At a church?” the owner asked. “Yes, at a church,” the preacher said. “What kind of a church is it?” the owner asked. “The kind that celebrates all God’s children,” the preacher said, “even the ones who aren’t on the membership role.” The owner said, “I don’t believe it. If there was such a thing as a church like that, I’d go, but I don’t believe it exists.” My friends, it’s when we take what we have in here out there that we so truly live as His disciples. It’s when we act as though the walls of this church have fallen that the Gospel escapes into the world. There’s no church in the New Jerusalem. There is no sun either, for the light of hope and the light of God’s love will shine all over that place, and we, as the first fruits of this coming Kingdom, are charged to live as though it has already come. This summer, as you go on vacation, walk around your neighborhood, call on your friends, or just live your life around Cobb County, I commission you to proclaim this Good News. The day is coming when names on the church roles won’t matter. The day is coming when God’s love will shine brighter on us than the noonday sun. The day is coming when all God’s children will know His love. I ask you to stand and to be commissioned for such service in the world: Friends, God has called you to a particular service. Show your purpose by answering these questions. Is Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior? If so, say, “He is.” Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying His Word and showing His love? If so, say, “I will with God’s help.” Do you welcome the responsibility of this service because you are determined to follow the Lord Jesus, to love your neighbors, and to work for the reconciliation of the world? If so, say, “I do.” Will you serve the people with energy, intelligence, imagination, and love, relying on God’s mercy and rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit?” If so, say, “I will with God’s help.” Let us pray. Faithful God, in baptism, You claimed us; and by Your Holy Spirit, You are working in our lives, empowering us to live lives worthy of our calling. We thank you for leading us to this time and place. Establish us in Your truth. Guide us by the power of the Holy Spirit, that in Your service, we may grow in faith, hope, and love and be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. Amen.