Discussion Questions:

1. Power and Control
   • Pastor Mark contrasts “power over” and “power with.” Where do you see these two kinds of power at work in the world today?
   • When have you experienced “power with”—a kind of leadership or relationship rooted in service, compassion, or shared dignity?
2. Pilate, Jesus, and the Illusion of Control
   • Pilate appears to be in charge, yet seems controlled by fear and pressure. Where do we see similar dynamics in our own lives or leadership systems?
   • Jesus remains calm and grounded, even when his life is at risk. What do you think gives him that kind of presence and courage?
3. The Temptation of Dominant Power
   • The sermon suggests that even good intentions can be corrupted by the pursuit of control. Have you ever seen—or experienced—this happen?
   • Why do you think dominant power can feel so effective or appealing, even when it conflicts with our values?
4. Faith and Influence
   • The religious authorities align themselves with empire, declaring, “We have no king but Caesar.” Where do we see faith communities today tempted to align with power in unhealthy ways?
   • What does it look like to live faithfully without trying to impose beliefs on others?
5. Choosing the Way of Jesus
   • Jesus models nonviolence, forgiveness, and service even in the face of suffering. Which of these feels most challenging for you right now? Why?
   • Madeleine L’Engle writes about drawing others to Christ through a “lovely light.” What might that look like in your daily life?
6. Applying the Sermon
   • Where in your life this week are you being invited to choose “power with” instead of “power over”?
   • How can we as a church embody a kind of faith that reflects humility, justice, and love—especially in a divided world?

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Discussion Questions:

1. Slowing Down & Paying Attention

• Pastor Mark began by reflecting on how time can either fly or crawl. Why do you think the Gospel of John slows down during Jesus’ final week?
• What might change in your life if you intentionally “slowed down” during Lent to notice where love is needed?

2. Love in Action

• Jesus washes the disciples’ feet — a radical act of humility. Why is this moment so powerful?
• What does it mean that Jesus communicates love not just in words, but in embodied action?
• Where in your life might love require action rather than explanation?

3. Seeing Ourselves in Peter and Judas

• Peter resists. Judas betrays. Pastor Mark suggests we see ourselves in both. Where do you recognize yourself in these responses?
• The sermon invites us to imagine a love that “waits until the end of the world.” How does that image challenge your understanding of grace?

4. Love That Leads to Justice

• Jesus’ command is simple: “Take care of one another.” Why is living this out so difficult?
• The sermon connects foot washing to reparative justice and confronting systemic racism. How is justice an extension of Jesus’ command to love one another?
• What does “reordering our lives” look like in practical terms?

5. Living the Command

• Pastor Mark said, “It’s really just that simple. And it’s really just that hard.” What makes loving others hard for you right now?
• What is one concrete way you can practice Jesus’ kind of love this week — in your family, workplace, neighborhood, or city?
• How can RPPC embody love that welcomes, serves, and repairs the world?

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Our reading today comes from John Chapter 9. We have been in the Gospel of John since Christmastime, paying particular attention to the things that are unique in John’s Gospel. Today we are going to encounter one of those things for the first time so far in our journey through the Gospel, and that is what are often referred to as the “I Am” statements of Jesus, where Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” Today in our passage, he says, “I am the light of the world.”

In a couple of chapters, he says, “I am the resurrection and the life.” And these are referred to as the “I Am” statements. And so today is “I am the light of the world.” And our passage describes a situation in which we see how Jesus’ light changes our sight.

John 9: 1-41

As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” When he had said this, he spat on the ground and made mud with the saliva and spread the mud on the man’s eyes, saying to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). Then he went and washed and came back able to see. The neighbors and those who had seen him before as a beggar began to ask, “Is this not the man who used to sit and beg?” Some were saying, “It is he.” Others were saying, “No, but it is someone like him.” He kept saying, “I am he.” But they kept asking him, “Then how were your eyes opened?” He answered, “The man called Jesus made mud, spread it on my eyes, and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ Then I went and washed and received my sight.” They said to him, “Where is he?” He said, “I do not know.” 

They brought to the Pharisees the man who had formerly been blind. Now it was a Sabbath day when Jesus made the mud and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also began to ask him how he had received his sight. He said to them, “He put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see.” Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not observe the Sabbath.” Others said, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” And they were divided. So they said again to the blind man, “What do you say about him? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”

The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight and asked them, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? How then does he now see?” His parents answered, “We know that this is our son and that he was born blind, but we do not know how it is that now he sees, nor do we know who opened his eyes. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” His parents said this because they were afraid of the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be put out of the synagogue. Therefore his parents said, “He is of age; ask him.” 

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind, and they said to him, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.” He answered, “I do not know whether he is a sinner. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his disciples?” Then they reviled him, saying, “You are his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Here is an astonishing thing! You do not know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners, but he does listen to one who worships him and obeys his will. Never since the world began has it been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” They answered him, “You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?” And they drove him out. 

Jesus heard that they had driven him out, and when he found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and the one speaking with you is he.” He said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped him. Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see may see and those who do see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees who were with him heard this and said to him, “Surely we are not blind, are we?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now that you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains. 

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

Well, right off the bat in today’s reading, the disciples pose one of the biggest, most enduring theological questions: Why do bad things happen to good people?

“Teacher,” they ask, “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” This reflects the prominent theology in the Hebrew Scriptures.

In Jeremiah 39, we read the prophet speaking to God: “You show steadfast love to the thousandth generation but repay the guilt of parents into the laps of their children after them.”

Jeremiah and the like do not have the only answers in the Hebrew Scriptures, however. The book of Job is written in response to this theology—suffering being the result of someone’s sin. Ultimately, Job rejects any correlation between sin and suffering and submits that the world is chaotic, complicated, and a dangerous place, and not everything happens for a reason.

Of the book of Job, Frederick Buechner writes, “God does not give answers. God gives God’s self to Job.”

You see, in Job, the first tragedy is what fate deals to Job—the loss of his family, his property, and finally his own health. The second, perhaps more devastating, is how Job’s friends respond. One by one, they abandon him. He says, “My friends are wholly estranged from me. I have become an alien in their eyes.”

The man born blind is John’s version of Job. The disciples see him and ask Jesus a theological question: “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” But what does Jesus do? He dismisses their question out of hand. “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. He was born this way that the glory of God might be revealed.”

Now, we don’t know how this man has been treated up to this point. But previous stories, like the man lying by the pool being ignored for over three decades, give us a bit of a clue, right? And how is he treated once his sight is regained?

No one pays him any mind. They talk about him like he’s not even there. They ask for his testimony, but they don’t believe it. They call on his parents to testify on his behalf. Then they come back to him again, but they don’t accept it.

I’m beginning to think this passage isn’t so much about the sense of sight as much as the sense of hearing.

As John Buchanan points out, there is no more powerful way to deny the very being of another than refusing to listen. There’s no better way to kill intimacy than to stop listening. And there is no better way to love, no greater gift than to listen.

But this comes at a cost.

“The trouble with really seeing and really hearing,” Frederick Buechner writes, “is that then we really have to do something about what we’ve seen and heard.”

And that’s the heart of the issue in this story. The man born blind cannot see at first, but he had no choice. What he could do was pay attention to what God was doing by listening to others. By doing this, God’s work is revealed in him.

His example stands in stark contrast to the willful blindness and deafness of the religious authorities. They refuse his testimony time and time again. They refuse to see him. Even Jesus’ disciples do not see the man at first, right?

Their blindness is less the willful kind, more the kind that maybe you and I are more likely to be guilty of—ignorance. They don’t know better. They’re simply repeating what has been taught to them until Jesus calls it into question and offers a different framework.

“Neither this man sinned, nor his parents. He was born this way that he might reveal the glory of God.”

Once they know better—to paraphrase Maya Angelou—they can then do better. But ignorance, blindness, deafness to others is the real target of this story. And we can be guilty of this too. Because, as Buechner points out, once we hear and see, then it falls on us to do something.

And so, like Job’s friends, when we are confronted with something or someone that does not fit into our neatly defined categories, we find it easier to ignore or even blame instead of doing the hard work of truly hearing and seeing our neighbors.

Because we can’t love them without seeing them, without listening to them first. It is the first step—and maybe the hardest.

“Christ never promises peace in the sense of no more struggle and suffering,” writes Buechner. “Instead, he helps us to struggle and suffer as he did, in love for one another. Christ does not give us security in the sense of something in this world—some cause, some principle, some value—which is forever. Instead, he tells us that there is nothing in this world that is forever. All flesh is as grass. He does not promise us unlonely lives.”

His own life speaks loud of how, in a world where there is little love, love is always lonely.

Instead of all these, the answer that he gives, I think, is himself. And if we go to him for anything else, writes Buechner, he may send us away empty, or he may not. But if we go to him for himself, I believe that we go away always with the deepest of all our hungers fulfilled.

Friends, this week we saw one of the most powerful people in our country willfully ignore the victims of abuse.

Every day for months, we have seen federal agents dragging people of color from their homes and their cars without warrant, but merely the suspicion that they don’t belong here.

We hear the cries of our queer and trans siblings asking just to be accepted for who they are.

And we see our own planet show signs of distress and climate change.

Are we listening? Can we see?

Do we see those in our own midst whose abilities lie outside of the norm? Do we value them and their unique gifts? Do we celebrate them? Do we see God’s work revealed in them?

Our world is a messy, chaotic, challenging, and dangerous place. There are no easy answers as to why some people suffer while others prosper.

But there is a response. We have the same thing to offer that Christ gives us.

We can offer ourselves to each other.

We can see and hear each other. We can believe the testimony of others, not dismiss it. And we can avoid the mistake that Job’s friends and the religious authorities make—compounding the tragedy by adding our judgment or fear or dismissal to an already difficult situation.

There’s no more powerful way to deny the very being of another than refusing to listen to them. There is no better way to love, no greater gift than to listen.

If you’re daunted by the world’s suffering, if you’re overwhelmed with grief, it’s okay. Because it means that you care. And caring can hurt.

But don’t let it turn you from seeing and hearing.

Do not willfully ignore because you’re afraid you can’t solve the world’s problems. Because guess what? You can’t. We can’t.

But we do have something to offer.

And that is exactly what the world needs.

It needs you. And me. And us.

And the glory of God revealed through us.

Amen.

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We have been, for the latter half of the summer, looking at the last book of the Christian Scriptures—the last book of the Bible—the book of Revelation. A very misunderstood book, a very misinterpreted book.

We have been reading Revelation, as Eugene Peterson says, not as prediction but as perception. It is a book about what the people of God at that time were experiencing, but it’s also a book of hope—that the way things are now is not necessarily the way they’re going to be, or that they have to be.

One of the reasons the book is so misunderstood is because it’s so heavy into the use of symbolism and metaphor. There are talks of dragons and lions and lambs and all of these kind of fantastical things. But these are really symbols that are pointing to realities that the people of that time would recognize and—as we’ve hopefully seen through this series—that you and I might recognize as well.

Just a quick word or reminder, as always—and I know some of you are like, “Mark, you say this all the time, we got it”—but our culture is so strong in the opposite message. And that’s just simply that this word apocalypse, this word revelation, it’s not a big scary word. It doesn’t mean the end and judgment and fire. It actually refers to—kind of just what I was joking about a little bit—those little miracles that pop up that we can claim, that give us a glimpse.

That’s what the word apocalypse means. It means kind of like—it’s the idea of pulling back a curtain to reveal something that you didn’t see. It’s been there, but you didn’t see it. So that’s literally what the word apocalypse means: a pulling back of the curtain or veil to show us something.

And so the idea is that these little miracles, these little things, are instances of us getting a glimpse of grace, a glimpse of God’s reality kind of infusing our own. And it gives us hope, even in the midst of some difficult circumstances, to keep on going.

And with that, we will be reading toward the end of the book of Revelation. This whole thing has been building—there have been battles and all of these things—and then it’s kind of a nice surprise ending.

Let us pray:

You are our God, and we are Your people. And in Your kingdom, every place is holy. We pray for hearts open to see Your face reflected all around us, not only here. Even now, already, Your glory shines, and You bid us taste and see that You are good.

Give us a glimpse—even a moment—that we may be strengthened for the living of these days. Amen.

Revelation 21:1–6, 22:1–5

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. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 

“See, the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them;

they will be his peoples,

and God himself will be with them and be their God;

he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

for the first things have passed away.”

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.” 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.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him; they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

For the Word of God in scripture,
For the Word of God among us,
For the Word of God within us,
Thanks be to God.

***

The very first verse of the very first chapter of the very first book of the Bible—Genesis—reads: “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” In Revelation, the last book of the Bible, we read about a new heaven and a new earth. In Genesis 2, we read about the Garden of Eden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the river watering the garden flowing from Eden. In Revelation, we read of the river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, and the tree of life on its shores. Clearly, the author of Revelation wants us to hearken back to the beginning—that original vision of paradise.

In many ways, that is the story of the Bible. It’s the story of getting back to the Garden of Eden. That first ideal. That original wholeness and completeness. Generations have been asking, “How do we get there?” Is it through power and might, by conquering neighboring kingdoms? Is it through obedience and faithfulness? How do we get there?

And it almost seems like the harder we try, the worse it gets. First there’s the flood—where things are so bad, God wants to restart. Just like a malfunctioning computer or device: “Have you tried turning it off and on again?” Now, initially this seems to work, but then more trouble comes. In Egypt, the golden calf. Wandering in the desert. Exile in Babylon. And on and on.

But then for us Christians, eventually Jesus arrives on the scene with a direct link to the divine. And he shows us what is possible: loving God and loving neighbor, sharing our bread, caring for the widow and the orphan. But these are the very things that put him in opposition to the empire. His message of love and justice is a direct threat to the status quo and the powers that be. So eventually, they arrest Jesus, and they put him on trial for sedition. And at this, the crowds—who had once gathered to hang on his every word and welcomed him into town with shouts of “Hosanna!”—lose hope yet again. Their shouts of praise turn to cries of “Crucify!” As one hymn puts it: “A murderer they save, the Prince of Life they slay.”  All of our attempts to return to the Garden—to get to God—fail. In large part because we prefer the empire and the status quo to the Kingdom of God.

One way of understanding the book of Revelation is that it is kind of a retelling of this biblical narrative. A fantastical reworking of salvation history, with the Roman Empire as the beast and with Jesus as the Lamb, and the people of God caught between these two ways of being in the world. Revelation portrays the battle between these forces, where everything seems to be at stake.

And this is the thread most often picked up from Revelation—this eternal battle between good and evil, along with its vivid imagery. This is why Revelation is such an inspiration for so much art—for paintings, for music, for movies, for novels.

Though it’s interesting that many of these artistic interpretations—as well as regular interpretations—suppose, like those first crowds who followed Jesus, that love and justice are ultimately no match for the ferocity and power of the empire. We just—just cannot imagine, in the language of Revelation, the Lamb outlasting the beast. If this were a video game, the beast wins 100 out of 100 times.

And I’m guessing that most of us, if asked about Revelation, might say something about the final judgment, about the end of the world. But as we’ve hopefully learned over these past several weeks, Revelation is not about the end of the world. Rather, as the band R.E.M. put it in the ’80s—maybe early ’90s—“It’s the end of the world as we know it.” To get that distinction—it’s so important. It’s not the end of the world. But it is the end of the world as we know it.

As we just read, Revelation doesn’t conclude with destruction, but new birth. New creation. It is about that return to the Garden. The reunion of God and humanity. But instead of us finding our way to God, God comes to us. “Behold, the home of God is among mortals.” Turns out we’ve had it wrong all along.

Richard Rohr describes this theological reality when he writes: “Most of us have been taught that God would love us if and when we change. In fact, God loves us so that we can change.” Turns out we don’t need to prove ourselves. We don’t need to earn God’s love. It’s been with us all along. We just have to trust that love to guide us. And most of the time, you and I do not believe that it’s powerful enough to overcome all that we face.

Throughout this series, I’ve made some unusual comparisons to help us dive deeper into the message of the book of Revelation—and maybe to demystify it a little bit. You might remember in one of the first sermons in this series, I said that Revelation was like the children’s book Goodnight Gorilla. A few weeks ago, I equated it to a New Yorker cartoon that appeared in the magazine shortly after 9/11, in which a man was standing on a street corner holding a sign—and instead of “The End Is Near,” he proclaimed the message: “It’s All Going to Be Okay.” Then last week, I used the example of an uptight college admissions counselor from an elite private college to remind us that God’s grace is not stingy, but sweeping.

Today, in my final sermon in this series, I want to offer one last comparison: The book of Revelation is like one of those Hallmark movies that my wife loves so much. She agrees with me that they’re a bit cheesy and predictable. In fact, that’s the reason that she loves them. With so much in our world that is complicated and depressing, it’s nice to escape from that reality to one in which love does, in the end, always win.

I sometimes tease her about how predictable these movies are. Here’s the typical plot:

Two people meet in some unexpected fashion, right? And there’s a spark—an attraction—but it can’t be. Circumstances are preventing it. They’re from two different parts of the world. Perhaps one’s already in a committed relationship. Inevitably, one’s from a small, quaint, picturesque country town, and the other is from the big city. Am I doing okay so far? Yeah? I’m doing okay.

The person from the big city has big dreams. But the person from the small town also has big dreams—although they seem a little bit more humble and quaint. Despite these differences, circumstances just keep somehow bringing these two people together—until eventually they can no longer deny their attraction. But still—still—their circumstances prevent them from seeing a future together. But then, finally, in the end, something changes. The opportunity presents itself. And they can both live out their dreams together in some previously unforeseen way. And eventually, love wins. And the movie ends—usually with the two people getting engaged, or maybe there’s the beginning of the wedding—and almost always with a kiss.

Sometimes I lovingly joke with my wife that just once—just once—I’d like to see a sequel that goes back to this couple years later when they’ve been married for a while. Maybe when they have kids and a mortgage. Maybe when their careers don’t quite pan out the way that they had hoped. But that never happens, because of course, that would ruin the fantasy, wouldn’t it?

Did you notice that Revelation ends with a wedding? The wedding of the Feast of the Lamb.
It’s this metaphor that we’ve encountered many times throughout the Bible— The marriage, the unification, of God and God’s people. Ultimately, the book of Revelation is like a Hallmark movie. It’s about hope and the perseverance of love. Not hope that life is without struggle or that the battle is easily won. Not hope that the empire never wins anything—only that those wins are short-term. The long-term—the end—belongs to our God who loves us and promises never to leave us to our own devices. Hope that all of this is only the tip of the iceberg, and that beyond this reality, there is a benevolent way of being where truly love and justice do reign.

Hope, on the one hand, writes Walter Brueggemann, is: “An absurdity too embarrassing to speak about, for it flies in the face of all those claims that we have been told are facts.”

(This is on your bulletin cover, by the way.) “Hope is the refusal to accept the reading of reality which is the majority opinion, and one that does that at only great political and existential risk. Hope,” Brueggemann says, “is defiant and insists that God is not finished writing the story.”

Throughout this series, we’ve been saying Revelation is not about prediction, but perception. The truth of the matter is: the author has no special insight into the future.

Rather, he has a vision. And it is a vision that we, as fellow Christians, are invited to adopt as well: The belief that love is stronger than hate. That life is stronger than death. And that in the end, all will be well. So if it’s not well, it just means it’s not the end. And if it’s not the end, then you and I have work to do.

Now, it is my understanding that in the Jewish tradition, when they come to the end of a set of biblical readings, they always end by going back to the beginning, where they read the first sentence of the first reading of the next year. In this way, they remind themselves that the end is not really the end—but just a new beginning—and that everything is in this continual loop. Likewise, next week we will begin again at the beginning, in Genesis chapter 1, where God invites us to join in the work of creation—to be co-workers and co-creators with God—because God is not done with us yet. The story is still being written, and the promise is that the best is yet to come.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

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