Love is always worth it

Revelation 7: 9-17
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
May 8, 2022

Photo of a red rock cave hollowed out in the rough shape of a heart.

Whenever we read the Bible, whether it is the Hebrew scriptures or the early Christian witness, it is important to remember two things. One, it was written by human beings who were oppressed and marginalized, who in their own turn at some point in their history, oppressed and marginalized others. And two, from Genesis to Revelation, it is a library of books that condemn the domination system called empire. It is a series of writings intended to comfort those deeply afflicted by the domination system and afflict those who are comfortable in the domination system.



The domination system has four main characteristics. Maybe the tensions they describe sound familiar. One, the system is ruled by a few and those who could be a political majority are politically oppressed. Two, the system is designed to economically benefit the top 1 to 2 percent, hoarding most of the wealth, hence, why the poor are always with us. Three, chronic violence is used to maintain order, as well as warfare between ruling elites to acquire and increase wealth. Four, all of this is legitimized by the religion of those in power, that everything is as it is because of the will of God.

Tweet by Carlos A. Rodriguez, May 8, 2022:
"When I criticize a system, they think I criticize them - and that is of course because they fully accept the system and identify themselves with it." ~ Thomas Merton

The book of Revelation is an apocalypse (which means revelation, an uncovering), a dream, an ecstatic vision for those who have come through a great ordeal, whose robes have been washed and been made bright in the blood of the Lamb. If we find such language repugnant, remember that this good news wasn’t written for us but for those who suffer, who are afflicted by the domination system. The book of Revelation is a resurrection story for those who, like Jesus, have been marginalized, criminalized, and executed by the state for their refusal to submit to the domination system. It is a resurrection story for those whose blood has been shed, whose bodies and lives have been broken so that empire may continue unbroken.



When John of Patmos had his vision, Jesus-followers (they were not yet Christians) were being hunted down by the Roman empire and the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Then a few centuries later the movement that began in non-violence joined with empire, thinking that if the emperor was a Jesus-follower, a Christian, empire could be a force for good, for God. And yet one of the most insidious qualities of not only empire but of humanity is hubris, thinking that within the same power system, we can do a better job than those who caused so much suffering before us. This is one of the reasons why empires fail, because of the unwillingness to examine and correct oneself.

Photo of blue sky and puffy clouds with this quote: "I cannot talk about much of anything I have learned over the years without acknowledging what it asked me to unlearn. In so many ways that matter, transformation is its own act of giving and receiving. Something liberative is offered to us by way of friends, lovers, writers, activists, poets, experiences, the earth - and something is given from within, in return. Given up. Given over. Given into. Handing over to Love what does not serve life."
- Rev. M Barclay

When we are post-Easter I think it is easy for us to forget that Easter hinges on Good Friday. The empty tomb comes only after the aching void of Saturday. Revelation reminds us that though we have resurrection hope, we still live in a Good Friday world, the void of Saturday.



This resurrection hope has been weaponized against those who suffer because of empire. If you believe in this hope, your suffering will be redeemed, you will be welcomed into eternal life, your righteous reward will be given to you after your death. And yet the kingdom, the kin-dom that Jesus preached and taught and lived was in this life, in this world. Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within you and among you. The kingdom of God was and is both a personal reality and a political reality. God, what is good, holy, and true, is the authority, the guidance under which we live. The kingdom of God was and is about economic justice for all, peace and non-violence, everything that flies in the face of empire and domination.

Facebook post by Mark Davies, Dec. 31, 2021: "The Nicene Creed does not offer one word of hope for liberation of the poor and oppressed in this life. Empire approved Christianity directs all hope for liberation to life after death."

Jesus died on the cross of empire because he refused to live in a realm other than the kingdom of God, because love was the authority, the rule by which he lived. Each of us knows something of the cost of such love. Sometimes we can feel cheated by such love. We have it for only so long or not even at all. The depth of our grief, the aching void, is the measure of our love and our hope. And yet what is grief if not love persevering, hope persevering? We reform and renew and revitalize Church, only to witness it change sometimes beyond our control. We fight for change, we invest our lives, our hope, only to witness the erosion of justice, the reversal of rights.



And yet the fight for rights, for justice, is nothing new, has always been present in the lives of those who suffer, who are afflicted by the domination system. Only now in this moment do perhaps more of us realize how we are also harmed by our participation in a system that is death-dealing rather than life-giving.



A system that refers to potential children as a “domestic supply of infants”.



A system that has over 420,000 foster children without permanent homes.



A system in which a corpse with transferable organs has more rights than a person who is pregnant.



A system that requires you to pay thousands of dollars to give birth, in a nation with the highest maternal mortality rate, with not enough paid leave or none at all for either parent.

Screenshot of a tweet by Susan of Texas: "Only the US forces you to give birth while forcing you to pay tens of thousands of dollars to give birth while not letting you have time off to give birth."

A system that requires you to work at the same level of exertion that you did before the pandemic, with limited access to mental health care.



A system that isolates and stigmatizes people with disabilities, mental health struggles, and chronic illness.



A system in which all of this is so much worse if you are indigenous, a person of color, queer, transgender, poor, unhoused, a religious minority, or all of the above.



A system that benefits a small minority but has the potential to end humanity.



That’s the Good Friday world, the one in which we question, is it worth it? We long for the springs of the water of life, for every tear to be wiped away, no more pain, no more suffering. And yet evil and injustice persist. Death looks like and feels like failure. Resurrection stories are not easy, because they come through Good Friday. They come through an ordeal.

Salmon colored poster with white letters that read "Controlling people try to control people, and they do the same with God--but loving anything always means a certain giving up of control. You tend to create a God who is just like you--whereas it was supposed to be the other way around." - Richard Rohr

Easter is the resurrection hope, is God’s “yes” that love is always worth it. Even when we lose. Even when it looks like failure. Even when we can only move forward one tiny increment at a time. Even when to all appearances we aren’t going anywhere.



You have heard it said that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice. Trouble is, those who seek to limit the rights of others also think that they are on the side of justice, a twisted sense of justice. What if the moral arc of the universe was to bend toward love, but really it only does that if more and more of ordinary people decide to bend it that way.



Choose to bend it toward the climate and the earth. Choose to bend it toward non-violence. Choose to bend it toward all children, especially the most helpless. Choose to bend it toward all parents, especially those at risk. Choose to bend it toward the vulnerable and marginalized. Choose to bend it toward those who have been fighting for rights their whole lives. Love is always worth it when we choose to bend toward it.

Photo of Eleanor Roosevelt with a big smile and this quote by her: "We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it as not as dreadful as it appears, discovering that we have the strength to stare it down."

Benediction —Seamus Heaney, stanzas from “The Cure at Troy”


History says, Don't hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.


So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.


Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
if there's fire on the mountain
or lightning and storm
and a god speaks from the sky.


That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of new life at its term.