The Mad Parson

And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. It has a great, high wall with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates are inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites; on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

The angel who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width; and he measured the city with his rod, fifteen hundred miles; its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall, one hundred and forty-four cubits by human measurement, which the angel was using. The wall is built of jasper, while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel; the first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth cornelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass.

I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city 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. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. People will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations. But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practises abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book 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 for ever and ever. –Revelation 21: 10–22:5

Understanding that we are always in the presence of God can be a challenge. You’d think it would be a snap for a Professional Churchy Dude like yours truly, but for those of us who are full time clergy, it’s easy to think of faith as a to-do list: Visitation, check. Sermon outline, check. Worship bulletin, check. Blog post, nearly.

It’s equally daunting for those of us not in vocational ministry. No sooner have we stepped out of the sanctuary–that’s the nave, for all you Episcopalians out there–than our own to-do lists set in: Get the kids to soccer, finish that sales presentation, fill that Coumadin prescription, meet the plumber, make the staff meeting on time, email the report, go to the teacher conference, and so on. It’s no wonder that the Harvard Business School finds that religious intensity spikes on Sunday, but is pretty average the rest of the week.

That’s where John and his holy acid trip come in. Revelation is an exotic book full of monsters, numbers, angels, symbols, war, and much more. It’s a real Tim Burton movie waiting to happen. (Hey, we could cast St. John Depp! Gawww!) But once we get past all the bizarre hallucination stuff, the messages therein are really pretty simple. And one of those messages is absolutely crucial for getting through the week.

“I saw no Temple in the city, for the Temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb.” We get caught up in thinking that the building in which we worship is the Church. We even say we are ‘going to church’ or raising capital to ‘improve the church’ or having a spaghetti dinner ‘at the church’.

The building ain’t the Church. The people worshipping are the Church. Yes, there is something special about the worship gathering on Sunday. It is where we hear the Word preached and we receive the Sacraments and we commune together in a way that we cannot during the week. But for that hour (or hour and a half if you’re a non-denom, or three hours if you’re Pentecostal, or. . . .), we are simply the Church gathered.

Then we become the Church dispersed. We get shoved out into the thrust and parry of the workaday world, continuing our worship as sales execs, stay-at-home spouses, ministers, doctors, retirees, bookkeepers, retail clerks, students, and even Crimson Tide fans. What we do in this week is ripe for worship, perfect for offering up to a holy and gracious God, perfect for using to help out someone else, perfect for commending the faith that has been given us.

The singer/songwriter Bob Franke has a marvelous, marvelous song called “Thanksgiving Day” in which he sings, “What can you do with each day, but work, dream, and hope? Let your dreams bind your work to your play. What can you do with each moment of your life? But love till you’ve loved it away? Love till you’ve loved it away. . . .” Being in the presence of God beyond the walls of a building and beyond the hour or corporate worship means letting the Gospel bind our work to our faith. There is no Temple. Everywhere is a sanctuary. Every hour is worship. You are in the presence of God right now. You are praising him right now.