A New World

“A New World”

May 18, 2025 Cobleskill United Methodist Church,  Pastor Anna Blinn Cole

Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35

Fifth Sunday of Easter

Revelation 21:1-6

21 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home[a] of God is among mortals.He will dwell[b] with them;they will be his peoples,[c]and God himself will be with them and be their God;[d]4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes.Death will be no more;mourning and crying and pain will be no more,for[e] the first things have passed away.”

5 And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life.

John 13:31-35

31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. 32 If God has been glorified in him,[a] God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. 33 Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 34 I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

After making a point last Sunday that I was intimidated and less than excited about the prospect of preaching on Revelation, you can imagine my shock when I looked at this week’s text … and next week’s text and saw that our lectionary readings are staying with the book for a while.  

Those of you who were here last Sunday know that my intimidation mellowed a bit as I dug into commentaries about Revelation and shared with you all that if we take less advice from modern interpretations of the book we see that it’s actually concerned about our current and immanent struggles with the empires around us that try to co-opt the Gospel message of Christ.  

That is to say, Revelation’s revelation is that it’s in the here and now that we must face the forces that try to tear apart God’s love.  Instead of worrying about being “Left Behind” we must strive to leave behind a better world than we found.  We need to shift our thinking, as the Kanienkehaka or Mohawk people do, to the 7th generation from now.  What kind of earth are we leaving for them, instead of being preoccupied about escaping this earth ourselves.  

I don’t know what it is about reading through the book of Revelation but it makes me notice billboards about God more often.  I caught of glimpse of this one on the way to Albany as a chaperone on a bus of 4th graders going to the New York State museum.  Have you ever gone at highway speeds in the back of a school bus with rambunctious 4th graders jostling around you?  I saw this billboard and I thought pretty seriously about its implications.    

It was not a fun ride but I’m mostly kidding.  I didn’t actually fear for my life… although the thought occurred to me.  

What really got me thinking about this billboard as we drove by, was how this statement “After you die, you will meet God” is not an outlandish, fringe claim.  It’s a common statement from a version of Christianity that seeks to convert people to God out of fear of future judgement.  You will meet God and the implication is that it won’t be good.  So, are you ready?  

I take issue with this because it makes a huge assumption.  It assumes that when the little red line goes flat, that it’s then and only then that you have the privilege of experiencing God and the life with God (we often call this heaven) or separated from God ( we often call this hell) that comes next.  

I have two problems with this: 1. This kind of fear tactic is a terrible way to draw people toward God.  Judgement day is coming…be afraid!  2. To think that this life on earth isn’t already filled to the brim with opportunities to meet God is to simply ignore the core part of our Christian faith.  Ours is a God who specializes in being down-to-earth.   Our God is so down-to-earth that God sent a part of themselves here to be with us.  This isn’t judgement.  This is love.  

We, as a society, get preoccupied with the end times, judgement narrative. It’s dramatic and gives us an opportunity to exercise power over one another.  This kind of attitude like I know what’s going to happen and you better be scared.  But this isn’t really Revelation’s message.

And it certainly isn’t what Jesus preached.  Revelation’s real revelation, contrary to popular end-time interpretations, is that what happens on this earth, right here, right now, is not a separate reality from what happens in heaven.  We meet God here and now.  In the questions our children ask about life at bedtime.  In the hug we get when we’re at the end of our rope.  Around the table at the support group.  In the mystery of a butterfly emerging from a cocoon.  

If you have not encountered God in this life, you can’t hope for death to magically bring something different.  I’ve got nothing against the afterlife, God will be there, too, I have no doubt.  It’s just that we know very little about that.  What we do know is that ours is a God who actually makes it their business to be present in our lives here and now…  A God who left the transcendent, far-away places and came into this world to live our lives and know our grief and die our death.  God created this world and became part of the creation itself.  No other faith tradition in the world—in all the world faiths—believes that their God incarnated fully as part of creation.  It’s a core part of our tradition that God walked on earth in a body that was fragile enough to be loved and fed and anointed and baptized and killed.  And yet resilient enough to rise beyond even the worst that could happen and live again in spite of all that other humans were capable of doing.  

Part of the Easter story that we hear today is that Jesus told his disciples, after all of this had happened, that there would come a point when they would see him no more.  But that didn’t mean God wasn’t still with them.  The new commandment Jesus gave was the key to invoking God’s presence.  If you want to meet God and know God, “you must love one another.”

This commandment is a key Jesus gave us before he physically left this world.  And the door it opens is a door on earth that accesses heaven itself.  We have what it takes to meet God right here and right now.  We have what it takes to see a new heaven and a new earth come down and the old fade away.  Jesus gave us everything we need.  

The problem is, we can come up with a pretty long list of excuses for why that door between earth and heaven is still locked shut.  

Here’s one: Jesus didn’t mean that we need to love everyone.  He really only meant your family and those close to you. There are some people who it would be inconvenient to love and therefore we just… won’t.  We’ll treat some parts of God’s creation, humans who aren’t enough like us and the earth itself, as disposal and expendable.  And the shocking part is that some Christians justify this behavior.  When we pick and choose who deserves our love and care we couldn’t be further from God.  Instead, it’s the keys to hell itself we hold in our hands and the door stands wide open. 

Where is God in the midst of all that?  It’s into hellscapes like this that we may actually want some sort of rapture event.  A sweeping supernatural God that beams down from on high and takes us to a heaven far away that’s perfect and loving.

But even then, escaping is not the solution. Eco-theologian Catherine Keller, in her book Facing Apocalypse, claims that Revelation lays out a different solution, a collective transformation.  She says, “collective transformation takes place with the dramatic shift away from the picture of God ruling, Caesar-like, from above…making-new takes place not as a replacement but as a renewal…not a supernatural substitution."[3] Thus, “a new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1) signifies Christian hope for all things new, not just that God will sweep in an make all new things.[4]

This means that if the door to heaven is ever going to open here on earth, we have a responsibility to help see it and unlock it.  It begins when we shift our own understandings.  When we notice that the God who lives in me is the same God who lives in you.  God is already here, in you and in me.  Is it possible that we could start treating everyone as though that’s actually true? 

This is regenerative hope.  The belief that something different, a new world, can be made from the present situation by generating a new reality of seeing the God that is right in front of us.  

We start with what is and from there we build what will be.  We do what we can with what we have.  Renewal doesn’t happen overnight and it won’t always look sparkling new, but every effort we put into generating something new with our love that wasn’t there before moves the needle.

I’ll be honest and say we live in a world right now that feels like our path forward is lined with scary billboards. And yet every day we’re faced with real-life tasks of raising children and holding our communities together; finishing our to-do lists and fitting in the things that keep us grounded.  But the message doesn’t change.  We start with what is and from there we build what will be.  If we want to put one foot in front of another in a path lined with fear, the solution is within us where God’s fierce and stubborn love has already met us and sustains us.  This is not the God of some future judgement day.  This God is messy and real and down-to-earth.  And to meet God is to dig deeper into the practices that grow love in the face of fear.  To have dirt under your fingernails because you believe in the power of growing food.  To show up at the table for important committee meetings that help organize community.  To stick with your child’s many questions about life and love even when it’s past their bedtime.  To make art and cook food and resist the temptation to live in a disposable culture.  To make time to learn new ways of building peace- yes we have to be intentional about learning new practices- because we know the solution to anger is not more anger.  And then in the midst of all of these everyday ordinary steps we take to generate a new future, we must remember that even so things sometimes still fall apart.  Something will not go as planned and you’ll have to dig deep into the truth you know within.  Start with what is and build what will be.  God is with you in the present.  God will be with us in the future.

Love is regenerative.  A new world is always possible.  God gives us the keys to heaven on earth.  Open your eyes and see that it’s there.  It’s always been there.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Anna