Utopia
Commentary
Recent years have seen a resurgence of participation in public discussions of books. Some social commentators have tied the phenomenon to "Oprah's Book Club" and its many subsequent imitators on both the television and radio airwaves, but most have simply been amazed at the renewed love of printed books just when they were expected to be supplanted by electronic and digital forms of media. My own congregation has a book group called "Bibliophile Bookies." Although I am not regularly involved with the group (I want to encourage the idea that things can happen around the church apart from the pastor!), the overflowing bookcases in my church office, home study, family room, bedroom, etc., provide ample evidence that the group could have been named after me.
When my wife and I lived in Pasadena, California, we enjoyed visiting the Huntingdon Library. The Huntingdon is renowned for its beautiful botanical gardens and the world-class art collection that hangs in its opulent mansions. But what I most loved about the Huntingdon was the library itself. It has an astounding collection of books and correspondence. In the public displays of its rare book room you can see an original Gutenberg Bible; original letters and speech drafts personally written by Washington, Lincoln, and others; and numerous other treasures of the written word. I could stand there, gazing fixed-eye at the displays, and think to myself, "I'm in heaven."
That probably is the definition of "heaven" in popular culture. Not specifically being surrounded by rare, antique books; only those who are the truest of bibliophiles like myself would share that specific definition of heaven. But the more general truth is that we speak of being "in heaven" anytime we are "in our element," when we are in the place or the experience which fulfills our deepest, heartfelt longings and desires. "Heaven" in such a view could be standing in the tee box and seeing your golf ball roll into the cup for a hole-in-one. It could be standing in the midst of the world's largest outlet mall with a credit card unrestricted by a limit and for which someone else bore the responsibility of repayment. It could be the solitude of sitting on an isolated beach or alone on a mountain peak. Or it could be surrounded by the noisy chatter of family and friends gathered from long separation of time and distance. It is anything that personally brings us not only contentment but also the genuine ecstasy that leads us to exclaim, "I'm in heaven!"
Now there would be some in the church who would object that such concepts of heaven are entirely too limited. They don't begin to capture the glory and splendor of heaven that John the Seer describes in the Revelation. But if we truly capture John's literary purpose behind those descriptions -- if we catch a glimpse of the literary forest beyond the individual descriptive trees -- we may discover that being in our true element is precisely what heaven is all about.
Acts 16:9-15
This brief passage presents Luke's account of the opening of the Gospel mission to Europe. During Paul's second trip through the Roman provinces in Asia Minor (modern Turkey), he has a vision of a Macedonian man who pleads with him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us" (16:9; Macedonia was the Roman province in the northern portion of the Aegean peninsula). The author includes a brief travelogue of the route that Paul and his companions took by sea between the port cities of Troas and Neapolis by way of the island of Samothrace. From Neapolis they traveled along the main Roman road through the region, the Via Egnatia, arriving initially at Philippi approximately ten miles inland.
For such a short section, the scripture passage contains several historical puzzles. The reading is drawn from one of the "we" passages of Acts that seem to be something like the memoirs of one of Paul's associates. Whether they are the author's own memoirs or represent source material used by the author is subject to much debate. Although Philippi had been an important city in Thrace even before Philip of Macedon (Alexander the Great's father) captured and renamed it after himself, it was never the capital of the administrative district (the usual meaning of the designation "leading city," 16:12). Consequently some copyists have altered the Greek to read, "a city of the first district of Macedonia" that Paul would have come to traveling from east to west. Also, there is some question about the name of Paul's first convert in Philippi. "Lydia" was the name of the district in Asia Minor where the city of Thyatira was located, and within the context of 16:14 could simply indicate "the Lydian woman." Perhaps "Lydia" was a kind of nickname by which this woman was popularly called.
Such puzzles, while not unimportant to understanding a passage, are not usually the stuff of which sermons are made. Perhaps more beneficial for homiletical reflection is the ironic fact that the first person helped by Paul's ministry in response to his vision of "a man of Macedonia" is "a certain woman" who was from the very region where Paul was preaching when he had the vision. Moreover, while we usually think of Paul's "Macedonian Vision" as being the opening of Christianity to the Gentiles, it is clear from this passage that Paul was at this point still concentrating his efforts with the Jewish Diaspora community. He seeks out a time ("the Sabbath day") and a place ("by the river"; a common location for Diaspora synagogues during the period) where he was likely to meet Jews and more or less formal proselytes to the Jewish religion ("a worshiper of God"). Was Paul then passively resisting the true call of the Spirit in his vision even as he "immediately" sought to respond to it by the change in his travel itinerary?
Before being too hard on Paul, however, we should note that it was God who prepared Lydia to hear and accept Paul's preaching. Clearly her receptivity to his message and her support of his ministry in the region (16:15) were keys to the early success of Paul's ministry in Macedonia. It is probably better to think of Lydia as an important bridge on the way of the both geographical and ethnic advance of the gospel rather than as a roadblock. Yet precisely as a bridge, she and her household are a symbol of the truth that the final goal has not been reached.
Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5
No other visions of heaven can compare with the sheer audacity of John's vision of the "new Jerusalem" that comes down from God to form the center of the "new heaven and new earth." Imagine: A city laid out not just as a square, but also as a cube. Each dimension of the city stretching out for 1,500 miles! Such a city would extend from Miami to Montreal to Regina, Saskatchewan, to El Paso, Texas, and back to Miami. And since "its length and width and height are equal" (22:16c), that means that the walls of the city reach 1,500 miles up (more than five times the orbital altitude of the international space station!).
Imagine: The only entrances to the city are twelve huge gates, each constructed from "a single pearl" and not simply encrusted with myriads of pearls as the image often comes to mind when anyone mentions "the pearly gates." Think about the size those pearls would have to be -- think about the size of the oysters!
Imagine: The city is erected upon twelve courses of foundations, each consisting of 1,500 square miles of precious and semi-precious stones such as sapphire, emerald, onyx, and amethyst. The outside walls -- all 9 million square miles of their face and to a depth of 75 yards -- are constructed of "jasper as clear as crystal." And within those walls the city itself is "pure gold." So pure that it is "clear as glass."
Can you imagine such a place? The only honest answer to that rhetorical question is, "No." No, not even in our wildest dreams can we imagine such a place -- and if we really think that we can, we are deceiving ourselves. But don't feel bad about admitting that you can't imagine such a place. In fact, that would seem to be precisely a key point of what John wants us to learn from his vision. What ultimately awaits God's people not only staggers the imagination, it reduces the human imagination to nothing.
The "new Jerusalem" is heaven because it is the place where God and humanity live in unhindered relationship with one another. In the symbolism of John's vision, it is a city with "no temple ... for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb" who are always and everywhere present with its inhabitants. It is a city that "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." It is a city that's "gates will never be shut" because there is no enemy or threat to its people either outside or within its walls. It is a city through which flows "the river of the water of life ... from the throne of God" to nourish the "tree of life" which grows along its banks.
These images of never ending day, and of waters and trees that eternally supply life, can no more to be imagined literally than the earlier ones of streets of gold and pearly gates. Their purpose is to focus our attention on two important facts. First, none of the things that characterize our current lives define our purpose for existence. We exist to be in continual and unrestricted fellowship with God. Second, while God's many and gracious gifts demonstrate the truth of the divine love for each of us, they are only the mildest foretaste of what lies ahead.
John 14:23-29
As one whose training in biblical scholarship came at a time when there was beginning a strong shift from emphasis on historical-critical interpretation to more literary and linguistic models (and influence from other disciplines as well), I am often amazed at the way the lectionary committee sometimes carves out readings without much apparent attention to the surrounding context. This gospel reading begins near the end of one paragraph, and ends one sentence short of the end of the following paragraph. It presents Jesus' answer to a question without bothering to even include what the question was in the first place.
This wresting from its context will only add to the difficulty that many congregants will have in understanding what is an already hard-to-follow text. Part of the problem with understanding this text on hearing it read rather than reading it for one's self (and if you don't believe this is a real issue here, then have someone read it aloud to you without following along in your Bible) is that the language is so internally self-referential. "They will love me, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them but not to those who do not love me" -- it is all a bit befuddling, and it only gets worse as it progresses (see 14:27).
But if we go back to that prompting question, we will see that the style of the discourse here is well suited to its purpose. One of Jesus' disciples has asked him, "How is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?" (14:22). One answer might be: by using such oblique and confusing language! The evangelist wants the answer to be somewhat unclear, shrouded in a kind of mysterious, spiritual fog. And despite the simplicity of the individual words that are used, the evangelist has succeeded perhaps beyond his wildest expectations.
Yet at the same time, the evangelist does not intend Jesus' answer to be as inscrutable as the Delphic oracle or so wide open to interpretation as to be ultimately meaningless (like horoscopes in the daily paper). The point is that understanding the true meaning of Jesus' teaching requires that we be helped by the Holy Spirit who continues the teaching process begun by Jesus. Moreover, it is precisely by the means of this on-going instruction through the Spirit that Jesus provides us with peace. We cannot make it on our own, but God has not left us alone.
Application
Too many people fail to comprehend what John's vision is really trying to accomplish in our minds. The problem is that our desires and longings are too much literal and physical, too little symbolic and spiritual. Consequently our "heavens" must likewise be "literal and physical" if they are to fulfill our deepest desires and longings. Nothing captures this reality about so much of American Christianity more clearly for me than an old gospel song that was frequently sung in the churches of my youth. "I'm satisfied with just a cottage below, a little silver and a little gold. But in that city where the ransomed will shine, I want a gold one that's silver-lined. I've got a mansion just over the hilltop, in that bright land where we'll never grow old. And some day yonder, we will never more wander, but walk the streets that are purest gold." (Ira Stanphill, "Mansion Over The Hilltop"). Rather than repenting of our culture's all too widespread sin of materialism, we seek to baptize it and thereby transform it into God's ultimate purpose for our eternal lives.
But what if God were to stoop to fulfilling this most base of human desires? What if John's vision of the new Jerusalem, our eternal abode, were literally and physically true? Would that satisfy us for eternity?
About 25 years after Columbus's arrival on the shores of the Americas, Sir Thomas More wrote a fictional novel about an explorer who had returned from a journey to the kingdom of Utopia in sub-equatorial Africa. It was a place where they had "accumulated an inestimable amount of gold and silver, but they do not keep it in the form of treasure." In the minds of the Utopians, "Iron is obviously greatly superior to either. Men can no more do without iron than without fire and water. But gold and silver have no indispensable qualities. Human folly has made them precious only because of their scarcity."
So what did these Utopians do with all their amassed gold? They used it to make "chamber pots and stools," that is, sixteenth century toilets! Likewise, "they find pearls on their shores and diamonds and carbuncles on certain rocks, but they do not search for them. If they find them by chance, they polish them and adorn their younger children with them." Eventually the children stop wearing "such baubles" because they are obvious signs of childhood immaturity. In Utopia, where gold and precious jewels are everywhere, they are also worthless.
In a "new Jerusalem" where streets are paved with gold, that metal has no more value than asphalt does in our cities. Rather than thinking of literal streets of gold and pearly gates as our ultimate reward, the spiritually minded see in John's vision the reversal of human, sinful values. The ultimate judgment upon our materialism would be to transform what we have valued above all else into worthless pavement. The curse of Midas, where everything one touches and sees turns to gold, has more in common with the seventh circle of hell than with heaven.
Are you a bit disappointed to learn that you don't have "a mansion just over the hilltop"? Don't be, for God has prepared something far more wonderful than our imaginations can ever conceive. God loves us too much to give us over to a Utopian eternity. The root meaning of "Utopia," after all, is not a place of opulence and wealth as described in More's novel, but rather "no place." We are not destined for "No-Place," but for an eternal relationship with God. It will satisfy our deepest longings; we will be "in our element"; we will be "in heaven."
Alternative Applications
1. Acts 16:9-15. Some of the great buzzwords of the current church growth movement are "multi-culturalism" and "racial and ethnic diversity." Congregations are beginning to catch a glimpse of the Spirit's vision to reach out to those who are different from them. Often, however, outreach efforts don't reach across near as many barriers as we might imagine. The range of complexions and the styles of dress in a congregation might diversify even as its basic socio-economic indicators remain largely unchanged. This passage from Acts serves as both a confirmation that the church must always be reaching out to people in different places both geographically and culturally, and a challenge not to overestimate or become too complacent in what our efforts in these directions may have accomplished so far. It is not surprising that our first successes in reaching others who are different will nevertheless come among those with whom we share some things in common. But these successes are the doorway and foundation for our ministry, not its consummation.
2. Acts 16:9-15; John 14:23-29. Sometimes even with the teachings of Jesus himself and the guidance of the Holy Spirit we are still not able to understand the full import of what God is doing within our world or how we fit into that plan. Yet these scriptures help us not only to understand how God is working in the world through us, but also provide us with comfort and assurance that God continues that work despite our frustrated and halting efforts. We catch a glimpse of the scope of God's redemption, but fail in our efforts to reach out and embrace it. God transforms the limits of our reach into the base on which we stand to reach out once more. Rather than being troubled and afraid at our failures to understand, the Spirit gives us peace that God continues to abide with those who love God.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 67
The opening verse of this psalm echoes the blessing of Aaron found in Numbers 6:24-26: "The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace." The presence of the blessing in this psalm signals a theme that will be expanded in the remaining verses. The priestly blessing celebrates the presence of God and what that presence means to God's people -- and to others!
The psalm was probably originally composed to celebrate the harvest. The blessing of Aaron was invoked to remind worshipers that the true source of the harvest was God. The fruit of their labor and the land should be seen as a reminder of God's desire to bless God's people and care for them. The harvest is a symbol of God's bountiful care.
But this bountiful care is not just for the people of Israel alone to celebrate. God desires that all the people of the earth praise his goodness (v. 3).
The people of God have a vital role to play in making this praise possible. With the bountiful harvest comes a reminder of God's commitment to justice. The psalmist reminds us that God "judges the peoples with equity." In the context of Aaron's blessing, this equity takes on the force of an ethical imperative.
God blesses his people with a bountiful harvest. There is enough to eat, and more than enough. As a result, God's bountiful harvest allows God's people to accumulate wealth and substance. Unfortunately, there are always present in the world those who are hungry and homeless. We enjoy our prosperity in the sight of their poverty.
God's equity indicates that God desires all people share in the bounty God provides. In the same way Israel sees the harvest and is moved to praise God, so may those who benefit from our bounty come to believe that God has blessed them through us. As the poor experience God's bountiful harvest, they are moved to praise.
That means, of course, that our failure to share God's desire for equity has both economic and spiritual consequences. If we keep the harvest all to ourselves, either by force or by means of economic arrangements that favor us while allowing poverty and hunger to exist, not only do we deprive the poor of food, but we may also deprive them the opportunity to experience the fullness of God's bounty. Our greed obscures the goodness of God and deprives God the praise of the poor.
Aaron's blessing in this psalm serves as a challenge to us. The "you" in the blessing becomes more than just the nearest member of our own kin or community. The "you" of the blessing becomes our neighbors that live on the edges of or outside our community. May the Lord bless "you."
When my wife and I lived in Pasadena, California, we enjoyed visiting the Huntingdon Library. The Huntingdon is renowned for its beautiful botanical gardens and the world-class art collection that hangs in its opulent mansions. But what I most loved about the Huntingdon was the library itself. It has an astounding collection of books and correspondence. In the public displays of its rare book room you can see an original Gutenberg Bible; original letters and speech drafts personally written by Washington, Lincoln, and others; and numerous other treasures of the written word. I could stand there, gazing fixed-eye at the displays, and think to myself, "I'm in heaven."
That probably is the definition of "heaven" in popular culture. Not specifically being surrounded by rare, antique books; only those who are the truest of bibliophiles like myself would share that specific definition of heaven. But the more general truth is that we speak of being "in heaven" anytime we are "in our element," when we are in the place or the experience which fulfills our deepest, heartfelt longings and desires. "Heaven" in such a view could be standing in the tee box and seeing your golf ball roll into the cup for a hole-in-one. It could be standing in the midst of the world's largest outlet mall with a credit card unrestricted by a limit and for which someone else bore the responsibility of repayment. It could be the solitude of sitting on an isolated beach or alone on a mountain peak. Or it could be surrounded by the noisy chatter of family and friends gathered from long separation of time and distance. It is anything that personally brings us not only contentment but also the genuine ecstasy that leads us to exclaim, "I'm in heaven!"
Now there would be some in the church who would object that such concepts of heaven are entirely too limited. They don't begin to capture the glory and splendor of heaven that John the Seer describes in the Revelation. But if we truly capture John's literary purpose behind those descriptions -- if we catch a glimpse of the literary forest beyond the individual descriptive trees -- we may discover that being in our true element is precisely what heaven is all about.
Acts 16:9-15
This brief passage presents Luke's account of the opening of the Gospel mission to Europe. During Paul's second trip through the Roman provinces in Asia Minor (modern Turkey), he has a vision of a Macedonian man who pleads with him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us" (16:9; Macedonia was the Roman province in the northern portion of the Aegean peninsula). The author includes a brief travelogue of the route that Paul and his companions took by sea between the port cities of Troas and Neapolis by way of the island of Samothrace. From Neapolis they traveled along the main Roman road through the region, the Via Egnatia, arriving initially at Philippi approximately ten miles inland.
For such a short section, the scripture passage contains several historical puzzles. The reading is drawn from one of the "we" passages of Acts that seem to be something like the memoirs of one of Paul's associates. Whether they are the author's own memoirs or represent source material used by the author is subject to much debate. Although Philippi had been an important city in Thrace even before Philip of Macedon (Alexander the Great's father) captured and renamed it after himself, it was never the capital of the administrative district (the usual meaning of the designation "leading city," 16:12). Consequently some copyists have altered the Greek to read, "a city of the first district of Macedonia" that Paul would have come to traveling from east to west. Also, there is some question about the name of Paul's first convert in Philippi. "Lydia" was the name of the district in Asia Minor where the city of Thyatira was located, and within the context of 16:14 could simply indicate "the Lydian woman." Perhaps "Lydia" was a kind of nickname by which this woman was popularly called.
Such puzzles, while not unimportant to understanding a passage, are not usually the stuff of which sermons are made. Perhaps more beneficial for homiletical reflection is the ironic fact that the first person helped by Paul's ministry in response to his vision of "a man of Macedonia" is "a certain woman" who was from the very region where Paul was preaching when he had the vision. Moreover, while we usually think of Paul's "Macedonian Vision" as being the opening of Christianity to the Gentiles, it is clear from this passage that Paul was at this point still concentrating his efforts with the Jewish Diaspora community. He seeks out a time ("the Sabbath day") and a place ("by the river"; a common location for Diaspora synagogues during the period) where he was likely to meet Jews and more or less formal proselytes to the Jewish religion ("a worshiper of God"). Was Paul then passively resisting the true call of the Spirit in his vision even as he "immediately" sought to respond to it by the change in his travel itinerary?
Before being too hard on Paul, however, we should note that it was God who prepared Lydia to hear and accept Paul's preaching. Clearly her receptivity to his message and her support of his ministry in the region (16:15) were keys to the early success of Paul's ministry in Macedonia. It is probably better to think of Lydia as an important bridge on the way of the both geographical and ethnic advance of the gospel rather than as a roadblock. Yet precisely as a bridge, she and her household are a symbol of the truth that the final goal has not been reached.
Revelation 21:10, 22--22:5
No other visions of heaven can compare with the sheer audacity of John's vision of the "new Jerusalem" that comes down from God to form the center of the "new heaven and new earth." Imagine: A city laid out not just as a square, but also as a cube. Each dimension of the city stretching out for 1,500 miles! Such a city would extend from Miami to Montreal to Regina, Saskatchewan, to El Paso, Texas, and back to Miami. And since "its length and width and height are equal" (22:16c), that means that the walls of the city reach 1,500 miles up (more than five times the orbital altitude of the international space station!).
Imagine: The only entrances to the city are twelve huge gates, each constructed from "a single pearl" and not simply encrusted with myriads of pearls as the image often comes to mind when anyone mentions "the pearly gates." Think about the size those pearls would have to be -- think about the size of the oysters!
Imagine: The city is erected upon twelve courses of foundations, each consisting of 1,500 square miles of precious and semi-precious stones such as sapphire, emerald, onyx, and amethyst. The outside walls -- all 9 million square miles of their face and to a depth of 75 yards -- are constructed of "jasper as clear as crystal." And within those walls the city itself is "pure gold." So pure that it is "clear as glass."
Can you imagine such a place? The only honest answer to that rhetorical question is, "No." No, not even in our wildest dreams can we imagine such a place -- and if we really think that we can, we are deceiving ourselves. But don't feel bad about admitting that you can't imagine such a place. In fact, that would seem to be precisely a key point of what John wants us to learn from his vision. What ultimately awaits God's people not only staggers the imagination, it reduces the human imagination to nothing.
The "new Jerusalem" is heaven because it is the place where God and humanity live in unhindered relationship with one another. In the symbolism of John's vision, it is a city with "no temple ... for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb" who are always and everywhere present with its inhabitants. It is a city that "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." It is a city that's "gates will never be shut" because there is no enemy or threat to its people either outside or within its walls. It is a city through which flows "the river of the water of life ... from the throne of God" to nourish the "tree of life" which grows along its banks.
These images of never ending day, and of waters and trees that eternally supply life, can no more to be imagined literally than the earlier ones of streets of gold and pearly gates. Their purpose is to focus our attention on two important facts. First, none of the things that characterize our current lives define our purpose for existence. We exist to be in continual and unrestricted fellowship with God. Second, while God's many and gracious gifts demonstrate the truth of the divine love for each of us, they are only the mildest foretaste of what lies ahead.
John 14:23-29
As one whose training in biblical scholarship came at a time when there was beginning a strong shift from emphasis on historical-critical interpretation to more literary and linguistic models (and influence from other disciplines as well), I am often amazed at the way the lectionary committee sometimes carves out readings without much apparent attention to the surrounding context. This gospel reading begins near the end of one paragraph, and ends one sentence short of the end of the following paragraph. It presents Jesus' answer to a question without bothering to even include what the question was in the first place.
This wresting from its context will only add to the difficulty that many congregants will have in understanding what is an already hard-to-follow text. Part of the problem with understanding this text on hearing it read rather than reading it for one's self (and if you don't believe this is a real issue here, then have someone read it aloud to you without following along in your Bible) is that the language is so internally self-referential. "They will love me, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them but not to those who do not love me" -- it is all a bit befuddling, and it only gets worse as it progresses (see 14:27).
But if we go back to that prompting question, we will see that the style of the discourse here is well suited to its purpose. One of Jesus' disciples has asked him, "How is it that you will reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?" (14:22). One answer might be: by using such oblique and confusing language! The evangelist wants the answer to be somewhat unclear, shrouded in a kind of mysterious, spiritual fog. And despite the simplicity of the individual words that are used, the evangelist has succeeded perhaps beyond his wildest expectations.
Yet at the same time, the evangelist does not intend Jesus' answer to be as inscrutable as the Delphic oracle or so wide open to interpretation as to be ultimately meaningless (like horoscopes in the daily paper). The point is that understanding the true meaning of Jesus' teaching requires that we be helped by the Holy Spirit who continues the teaching process begun by Jesus. Moreover, it is precisely by the means of this on-going instruction through the Spirit that Jesus provides us with peace. We cannot make it on our own, but God has not left us alone.
Application
Too many people fail to comprehend what John's vision is really trying to accomplish in our minds. The problem is that our desires and longings are too much literal and physical, too little symbolic and spiritual. Consequently our "heavens" must likewise be "literal and physical" if they are to fulfill our deepest desires and longings. Nothing captures this reality about so much of American Christianity more clearly for me than an old gospel song that was frequently sung in the churches of my youth. "I'm satisfied with just a cottage below, a little silver and a little gold. But in that city where the ransomed will shine, I want a gold one that's silver-lined. I've got a mansion just over the hilltop, in that bright land where we'll never grow old. And some day yonder, we will never more wander, but walk the streets that are purest gold." (Ira Stanphill, "Mansion Over The Hilltop"). Rather than repenting of our culture's all too widespread sin of materialism, we seek to baptize it and thereby transform it into God's ultimate purpose for our eternal lives.
But what if God were to stoop to fulfilling this most base of human desires? What if John's vision of the new Jerusalem, our eternal abode, were literally and physically true? Would that satisfy us for eternity?
About 25 years after Columbus's arrival on the shores of the Americas, Sir Thomas More wrote a fictional novel about an explorer who had returned from a journey to the kingdom of Utopia in sub-equatorial Africa. It was a place where they had "accumulated an inestimable amount of gold and silver, but they do not keep it in the form of treasure." In the minds of the Utopians, "Iron is obviously greatly superior to either. Men can no more do without iron than without fire and water. But gold and silver have no indispensable qualities. Human folly has made them precious only because of their scarcity."
So what did these Utopians do with all their amassed gold? They used it to make "chamber pots and stools," that is, sixteenth century toilets! Likewise, "they find pearls on their shores and diamonds and carbuncles on certain rocks, but they do not search for them. If they find them by chance, they polish them and adorn their younger children with them." Eventually the children stop wearing "such baubles" because they are obvious signs of childhood immaturity. In Utopia, where gold and precious jewels are everywhere, they are also worthless.
In a "new Jerusalem" where streets are paved with gold, that metal has no more value than asphalt does in our cities. Rather than thinking of literal streets of gold and pearly gates as our ultimate reward, the spiritually minded see in John's vision the reversal of human, sinful values. The ultimate judgment upon our materialism would be to transform what we have valued above all else into worthless pavement. The curse of Midas, where everything one touches and sees turns to gold, has more in common with the seventh circle of hell than with heaven.
Are you a bit disappointed to learn that you don't have "a mansion just over the hilltop"? Don't be, for God has prepared something far more wonderful than our imaginations can ever conceive. God loves us too much to give us over to a Utopian eternity. The root meaning of "Utopia," after all, is not a place of opulence and wealth as described in More's novel, but rather "no place." We are not destined for "No-Place," but for an eternal relationship with God. It will satisfy our deepest longings; we will be "in our element"; we will be "in heaven."
Alternative Applications
1. Acts 16:9-15. Some of the great buzzwords of the current church growth movement are "multi-culturalism" and "racial and ethnic diversity." Congregations are beginning to catch a glimpse of the Spirit's vision to reach out to those who are different from them. Often, however, outreach efforts don't reach across near as many barriers as we might imagine. The range of complexions and the styles of dress in a congregation might diversify even as its basic socio-economic indicators remain largely unchanged. This passage from Acts serves as both a confirmation that the church must always be reaching out to people in different places both geographically and culturally, and a challenge not to overestimate or become too complacent in what our efforts in these directions may have accomplished so far. It is not surprising that our first successes in reaching others who are different will nevertheless come among those with whom we share some things in common. But these successes are the doorway and foundation for our ministry, not its consummation.
2. Acts 16:9-15; John 14:23-29. Sometimes even with the teachings of Jesus himself and the guidance of the Holy Spirit we are still not able to understand the full import of what God is doing within our world or how we fit into that plan. Yet these scriptures help us not only to understand how God is working in the world through us, but also provide us with comfort and assurance that God continues that work despite our frustrated and halting efforts. We catch a glimpse of the scope of God's redemption, but fail in our efforts to reach out and embrace it. God transforms the limits of our reach into the base on which we stand to reach out once more. Rather than being troubled and afraid at our failures to understand, the Spirit gives us peace that God continues to abide with those who love God.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 67
The opening verse of this psalm echoes the blessing of Aaron found in Numbers 6:24-26: "The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace." The presence of the blessing in this psalm signals a theme that will be expanded in the remaining verses. The priestly blessing celebrates the presence of God and what that presence means to God's people -- and to others!
The psalm was probably originally composed to celebrate the harvest. The blessing of Aaron was invoked to remind worshipers that the true source of the harvest was God. The fruit of their labor and the land should be seen as a reminder of God's desire to bless God's people and care for them. The harvest is a symbol of God's bountiful care.
But this bountiful care is not just for the people of Israel alone to celebrate. God desires that all the people of the earth praise his goodness (v. 3).
The people of God have a vital role to play in making this praise possible. With the bountiful harvest comes a reminder of God's commitment to justice. The psalmist reminds us that God "judges the peoples with equity." In the context of Aaron's blessing, this equity takes on the force of an ethical imperative.
God blesses his people with a bountiful harvest. There is enough to eat, and more than enough. As a result, God's bountiful harvest allows God's people to accumulate wealth and substance. Unfortunately, there are always present in the world those who are hungry and homeless. We enjoy our prosperity in the sight of their poverty.
God's equity indicates that God desires all people share in the bounty God provides. In the same way Israel sees the harvest and is moved to praise God, so may those who benefit from our bounty come to believe that God has blessed them through us. As the poor experience God's bountiful harvest, they are moved to praise.
That means, of course, that our failure to share God's desire for equity has both economic and spiritual consequences. If we keep the harvest all to ourselves, either by force or by means of economic arrangements that favor us while allowing poverty and hunger to exist, not only do we deprive the poor of food, but we may also deprive them the opportunity to experience the fullness of God's bounty. Our greed obscures the goodness of God and deprives God the praise of the poor.
Aaron's blessing in this psalm serves as a challenge to us. The "you" in the blessing becomes more than just the nearest member of our own kin or community. The "you" of the blessing becomes our neighbors that live on the edges of or outside our community. May the Lord bless "you."
