Remember and Repent.

Revelation 2.1-7

January 27, 2019

I.

The book of Revelation is a circular letter to seven churches in the Roman province of Asia. These communications are from Jesus Christ, and each is addressed to the church’s “angel.”  The word angel in Greek simply mean messenger.  It could refer to a leader in the church.  Or the notes could be addressed to a kind of spiritual entity, like a guardian angel, who oversees, protects, informs, and guides each congregation.

I have come to believe that every church does have an angel.  I think of it as being like a church’s personality, a spirit, a particular way of thinking and acting.  But I also think it it is a personal, even a living, presence.  My theory is that a church’s angel is assigned at birth, and bears some characteristics of that time.  I have thought about what the angel of the churches I have served might be like.  We might want to wonder together sometime what the angel of this church is like.

Whether the angel is a human leader or a heavenly entity, that is whom the Lord talks to in these notes.  Maybe that’s a way of addressing the church, not as a collection of individuals, but as a shared corporate identity that is more than merely the sum of its parts.  It is a way to relate to the heart and soul of a church, who it truly is.

The first church to be so addressed is in the city of Ephesus.  At that time it was a busy port, a center of several pagan religions, and had what might have been the most significant Christian congregation of this period.  Ephesus is the largest of the towns that the Lord is speaking to; it was the first church to receive this letter.

What Jesus says to the angel of the church in Ephesus begins with a commendation.  “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance.”  The word might be better translated as “non-violent resistance.”  It means that the Christians in Ephesus have kept the faith, worked hard at being disciples of Jesus Christ in an indifferent to hostile environment.  They have been obedient to his commands in their lifestyle and behavior.

I get the impression that the Ephesian Christians are living the gospel by building together an alternative community in light of the primal confession that Jesus, not Caesar, is Lord.  Thus their life together would be a conscious rejection of Caesar’s values, and an embrace of the things Jesus is about: acceptance and forgiveness, non-violence and equality, generosity and healing, sacrifice and humility.  They would have worked to abolish the divisive social distinctions and abusive relationships that were stoked by the Empire.  Their gospel community would have been characterized by peace and mutual love.  In separating themselves from the predations of an unjust economic, social, and political system, they would have focused on service to the poor, the sick, the stranger, the outcast, and the enslaved, just as Jesus does.

Ephesus gets good marks from the Lord.  It is essentially a strong and active congregation, offering an alternative of welcome and unity, witnessing to the life and power of Jesus Christ, anticipating in their own life the fulfillment of his kingdom.

II.

Jesus continues to commend them because they do not tolerate evildoers.  “You have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be false,” he says.  To test an apostle would have meant holding them up to the example and teachings of Jesus.  I imagine that to fail this test would mean pointing out their self-righteous arrogance, mercenary greed, or most importantly any compromise with or caving in to the evils all around them.  

There is at this time no New Testament, and probably not even any written gospels to refer to.  They would have had some of the very early writings of the church, like some of Paul’s letters.  Indeed, Paul wrote perhaps as many as 4 of his letters when he was in Ephesus a generation earlier.  So the values and viewpoints we receive in letters like Galatians and Philippians would have already permeated the lives of these disciples.  

A false apostle would have been someone who contradicted this understanding of Jesus Christ as the Messiah with whom we are clothed in baptism into a profound equality and unity with each other.  A false apostle would have been feeding them the sugary swill of compromise and accommodation for the sake of avoiding suffering.  

That’s why Christ commends their patient endurance and “bearing up for the sake of [his] name.”  They have not taken the easy way out and followed these false apostles.  They “have not grown weary,” even in the face of persecution, mockery, rejection, and harassment.

The Ephesian Christians understand and live every day the radical discontinuity between the gospel and their world, between Christ and Caesar, between the demands of discipleship and the allegiances, loyalties, values, habits, and practices that would have been expected of them as subjects of the Empire.  There would be no reason to talk about patient endurance, non-violent resistance, or bearing up, unless they were in some kind of conflict with the world as they know it.

We, in our time and place, have little understanding of this.  Though our experience is changing somewhat.  Many of us still remember when Christianity was a privileged religion in America; when the interests of church and State were considered nearly identical.  In those days the experience of churches like Ephesus would have been all but incomprehensible to us, which is likely why Presbyterians’ awareness of the book of Revelation was almost nil.

These days you can’t get arrested for being Christian… but it is increasingly possible to get arrested for acting out your faith.  Last week I read about a woman getting arrested for attempting to bring toys to children in a detention center.  I heard of 4 people arrested for leaving water jugs in the desert for migrants.  I know of Christians arrested for feeding homeless people in urban parks.  Municipalities used to be glad to have churches in them; now churches and other houses of worship get increasingly hassled as untaxable nuisances.  The book of Revelation is becoming slightly more relevant to us.

III.

The Lord also has some harsh words of warning for the angel of the church in Ephesus.  He says they have abandoned the love they had at first. They are falling out of the habit of loving each other, and the world, the way Christ loves them.  Perhaps this is about waning enthusiasm.  Maybe it is that their good actions are becoming rote, duty; maybe there is a hint of grudging in their acts of compassion now.

But I find that this is what can happen when our spiritual connection to the Lord wavers.  We can start to take faith for granted.  I see this in a lot of ecclesiastical meetings these days.  We become so focused on what are really good things, things the church needs to be doing, whether it be serving the needy, or advocating against bigotry, or including a more ethnically diverse group of disciples, that we neglect to maintain our connection to the Source of the love we are expressing, which is Jesus Christ.  

Prayer, worship, meditation, Psalmody, the Sacraments, study of Scripture, even an awareness of Christian doctrine… these are what keep us spiritually fed and healthy.  Spiritual practices like these keep us connected and aware of the goal and purpose of what we are doing.  By them we are reminded of who and whose we are.  I’ve been to too many meetings that were all about the good things we are doing, but which forgot, or at least did not find it necessary to explicitly mention, what Jesus Christ is doing.  If we don’t stay plugged into him as our Source, we will burn out.  This is especially true in a difficult context like that of Ephesus, which was under constant pressure.

Without this continual flow of energy from Jesus Christ, our love becomes defiled by our own self-interest, governed by our own agenda, and easily taken over by practical politics.  We can even become the spiritual or charitable arm of some political party.  And before we know it we are justifying, rationalizing, excusing, or ignoring their atrocities.  We can’t replace our loyalty to God’s Kingdom with allegiance to just another secular regime.

To prevent this from happening, the Lord urges the Ephesian Christians to remember “from what you have fallen,” and “repent.”  That is, they have to change the way they are thinking.  This happens by recovering the spiritual disciplines and practices that originally keep them connected to Jesus Christ and him alone.  They have to recover the excitement and newness of the good news.  They have to recover their life in the Spirit.  This is what will energize and inform their good actions, and reignite the love they had at first. 

IV.

If they don’t refocus in this way, their lampstand gets removed, which means they fall away from Jesus, and their place in his Temple, the Kingdom of God, is vacated.  Instead of a church, they devolve into a social clique, a service organization, a hobbyist club, mere political lobbyists.

But if they do “conquer,” the way that Jesus conquers, through his love, forgiveness, hope, generosity, and humility; indeed, if they participate in his conquest, the reward is eternal life in God’s paradise.  It is to live in union with God in God’s creation.

The Ephesians get a generally good assessment; but they are also urged to remember and repent, so that their light does not go out.  This is part of what I am doing when I encourage us to remember our baptism, as I fill the font every Sunday, and to remember his offering of his life in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.  Spiritual life is remembering the truth of God’s saving love for the world revealed in Jesus.  It has to be done daily.

The more those kinds of memories take hold in our hearts, the more our minds shift so we can perceive and therefore act differently.  Remembrance feeds repentance, as we live a new kind of life.  

May our remembrance and repentance keep us connected in the Spirit to Jesus, and may we thereby receive his life as we express his life in all we do.

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