“. . . AND THEY WILL BE GOD’S PEOPLES”

HOMILY FOR THE ORANGE COUNTY SERVICE FOR THE WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY

given by Valerie Karras, Ph.D. , Professor of Early Christian Theology at St. Louis University

 St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church, Irvine, California

Sunday, January 24, 1999

 Thank you for inviting me here tonight, to pray with you and to speak with you.  The scriptural theme chosen by the national organizing committee is from the book of Revelation:  “God will dwell with them . . . and they will be God’s peoples (Rev. 21:3).” Revelation is probably the single most difficult book of Scripture for a Christian to understand, whether layperson or cleric, manual laborer or theologian.  In fact, in the Eastern Christian tradition, there are no readings from the book of Revelation as part of the public lectionary cycle of the Church, and only one commentary on Revelation survives from the early and Byzantine periods.

On the other hand, the metaphorical imagery and apocalyptic visions of Revelation create a kind of Rorschach ink blot, allowing the Christian to project onto the book’s verbal canvas whatever interpretation seems most valid at the time.  This, in fact, is one of the beauties of apocalyptic literature.  At first glance, it seems specific because it arises out of a particularly turbulent historical and cultural context.  But, apocalyptic literature speaks to every time and place precisely because, in the fallen condition of humanity and creation in general, all times are times of tribulation and turmoil.

Certainly this is so for us today.  Yes, the Cold War has ended, but peace is uneasy and sporadic in places like Ireland and Israel, and virtually nonexistent in other places, such as Iraq or the Kossovo province of Yugoslavia.  The threat of nuclear devastation still exists, not from a superpower foe any longer, but from extremist terrorist organizations with the resources to purchase nuclear material on the black market.  Christians and others are persecuted in numerous parts of the world: Buddhist monks and nuns are repressed in Chinese-ruled Tibet, discrimination and harassment are facts of daily life for the Orthodox Christian Copts in Egypt, churches are torched in Indonesia, Christians are enslaved in the southern Sudan.  Meanwhile, the destruction of the Earth’s ecology continues apace.

Does this mean that I believe that Christ’s Second Coming will occur at the millennium?  No, far from it.  Now, let me make clear that I don’t claim to know for certain that the Second Coming isn’t just around the corner.  As Christ himself said, we shall know “neither the day nor the hour.”  On the other hand, the Christians of the apostolic age – even St. Paul – were convinced that they were living in the end times and that Christ’s return was imminent.

Well, perhaps Christ did not return quite as soon as the faithful of the early Church expected, but in another sense the first Christians were right.  They were living in the end times; and so are we!  In 2 Cor. 5:17, St. Paul declares, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”  You see, my brothers and sisters, the end times have already begun.  The destructive course of human history was shattered when the divine and eternal Word of God became human and entered that history.  All the centuries since His conception, birth, death, and resurrection constitute the end times.

This understanding colors our reflection on the passage from Revelation.  Chapter 21 begins, “Then I saw a new heaven, and a new earth.”  Who is to create this new heaven and new earth?  At first glance, the answer seems evident, since the Lord says from his throne, “Behold, I make all things new.”  But, making all things new is not the same as making all new things.  It is not a radical abolition of the present creation.  Rather, it is a transfiguration of creation, a transfiguration which – like Christ’s own Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor – will unleash and reveal the full essence of every living, and even nonliving, entity and part of creation.

But, then, how is this transfiguration to occur, particularly for human persons?  Again, the biblical passage itself gives us a clue. In Rev. 21:3, a loud voice proclaims from the throne, “Behold, the dwelling of God is with mortals; He will dwell with them, and they shall be his peoples.” So, God will dwell with humanity, and we shall be His peoples.  But, for God to dwell with us means for us to invite Him in.  If there is one belief which virtually all Christianity shares, it is a conviction that God never forces His way into our hearts.  In Rev. 3:20, Christ says, “Listen!  I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you, and eat with you, and you with me.”  In other words, our Lord knocks at the door of our soul and waits for us to welcome Him in.

It is this active receptivity on our part that I wish to emphasize.  Notice that I said active receptivity.  If I may interject a bit of classically Orthodox theology into this ecumenical gathering, it is this very important notion:  our relationship to God is neither static nor passive.  God does not do things to us; rather, He does things with us.  This concept, which is an important correlate of the notion of free will, is called synergy, in other words, “working together”.  This very term is used by St. Paul in 1 Cor. 3:9, where he says:  “For we are God’s fellow-workers.

As a secular term, synergism is defined in Webster’s New World Dictionary as a “combined action, . . . greater in total effect than the sum of [the] combined effects”.  In the theological realm, we can fill in the identity of the anonymous agents effecting this combined action: God and humanity.  So, in Rev. 3:21 we have the concept of God dwelling within the human community.  But, if we reassemble this passage with the concept of synergy as the glue, we realize that the indwelling of God within the human community creates a synergistic force that is greater than that of any person acting alone, or of simply a few persons acting together.  This synergistic force is, in fact, the grace and power of the Holy Spirit.

It is this synergistic force, this work of the Holy Spirit through us, which brings about the creation of a new, transfigured earth – not simply in some far-distant end time, but here and now.  As I stated earlier, we are already in the end times, and have been so for almost two thousand years.  But, remember, two things are essential to our synergistic mix: God, and human beings, not as individuals but working together in community, as the peoples of God, as Christ’s Holy Church.  The first element of the mix, God, is of course indispensable.  We mortals are not capable of creating this new earth by ourselves.  Despite my deep respect for the visionary drive of the late Gene Roddenberry, who created the various Star Trek series, what I considered most unrealistic about his vision of the future (besides transporters and faster-than-light travel, of course) was his belief that humanity would solve its social ills without God.  In Roddenberry’s universe, alien races with a belief in God tended to be technologically inferior, superstitious and barbaric, and were contrasted negatively to humanity’s rationality and enlightened humanism.

As we all know, nothing could be further from the truth.  Although technology has provided us with new tools to combat hunger, disease, and other human afflictions, technology ultimately is amoral; it can be used for evil purposes just as easily as for holy ones.  The Nazi gas chambers, Aum Shinri Kyo’s Sarin nerve gas, and the worldwide stockpiles of nuclear and biological weapons provide us with some immediate evidence of this truth.  So do more subtle trends, such as the use of prenatal ultrasounds in India to abort unwanted female fetuses or of amniocentesis here in the U.S. to abort special needs children.

In the end, technology is neither the demon of a technophobe’s nightmare nor the panacea of Roddenberry’s vision.  It simply provides humanity with new tools to use for good or ill.  Biotechnology issues such as cloning have only served to re-focus attention on the need for a moral and ethical compass to direct the path our techno-frenzy is leading us in.  Ironically, the ideology of church-state separation in this country has made it perhaps more difficult for Americans than for any other people in the world to bring moral concerns to bear on public matters.  Nevertheless, unless we find a way to bring morality back into the public arena, we shall languish as a nation in our fallen state of greed and isolation, emotionally and spiritually anesthetized against the pain of those around us.

   This brings us to the second element of the synergistic mix – humanity in community.  Thinking, believing, deciding and acting as a community rather than as a collection of individuals may be for Americans even more difficult than bringing God into the national debate.  We tend to act as individuals.  If we do form groups and associations, they are comprised of like-minded persons, whether they are bowling leagues or political parties.

But how do we become true communities; how do we become “God’s peoples”?  I believe that we can do so only by strengthening our ties, our commitments, our relationships to each other in ever-widening concentric circles.  At the heart of these nested circles is the Church.  But where is Christ’s Church?  Where is its visible unity?  Those of us here in this church temple tonight all call ourselves Christians, yet we are separated from one another by certain beliefs, liturgical practices, concepts of authority and ministry, and even hurtful memories of past events.  How can we ask others to come together as a community when we are unable to do so ourselves?

Perhaps a more careful reading of the theme text from Revelation will help.  Notice that it says that the humans among whom God will dwell shall be his peoples, plural.  In other words, uniformity is not necessary.  Am I asserting therefore that all confessional differences are insignificant, unnecessary stumbling blocks?  Of course not; as an Orthodox theologian, I would be the last person to say that how we perceive God and his relationship to His creatures is unimportant.  However, we do not all need to agree on every iota of every phrase of every encyclical, or on every flourish of every hymn of every worship service.  There is room in God’s dwelling place (literally, his tent) for many peoples, that is, for many cultures and communities.

So, in order to transform the collection of individuals that we call a society into a true community, that it might become the New Jerusalem, we Christians need first to act as an organic community ourselves.  We cannot provide moral guidance or witness God’s dwelling among us when His presence is not evident among us as a community.  Individual persons can certainly radiate God’s love and goodness, but we cannot build our community on one charismatic person as though establishing a cult.  For Christians, there is only one “cult leader”, and that is Jesus Christ himself.  So, how do we work with Christ to bring down the new Jerusalem out of heaven?  How can we make visible the radiance of God’s holy Church, that new Jerusalem, to those around us?  How do we bring them into that Holy City?

According to Scripture, we do so by becoming a community which welcomes God into its midst.  But becoming a community, God’s people, is not an easy task.  We cling to distorted views of other churches’ beliefs, practices, and past acts the way we do to the negative memories of a quarrel or breakup with a spouse, lover or friend.  We puff ourselves up by seeing ourselves as the wronged or slighted, conveniently forgetting the roles both we and our predecessors have played in wronging and slighting others.  Even when we are not guilty of smugness or arrogance, we habituate ourselves to the pain of our schismatic ecclesial existence the way that we do to the chronic pain of arthritis or a toothache.  Oh, yes, there may be a sharp jab of pain on occasion but, for the most part, we actually become comfortable with a constant ache in the background of our daily existence.

So, we must truly become one – not just churches, but the Church.  But then, how can we invite God to dwell among us while we reject His other children, those outside the Church?  Here we must draw a careful distinction between how we understand and relate to our fellow Christians, and how we understand and relate to non-Christians who are faithful to God, those in the next concentric ring.  We cannot ignore the basic tenets of our faith.  For almost 2000 years, Christians have proclaimed Jesus Christ as God.  There is no way to relativize this fundamental belief.  In fact, I believe that those who do so risk having to account for what, in essence, is their public rejection of Christ.

On the other hand, we have not been called to judge others.  We are called only to love them and to witness to them of God’s love for them.  An early Christian writer, Justin Martyr, wrestled with this very problem.  Trained as a pagan philosopher, he was not ready to reject out of hand the good he saw in his earlier training and in the non-Christians he knew.  Instead, Justin spoke of the “spermatic Word” or “Logos”, of God’s having spread His truth throughout the peoples of the world.  Justin recognized that all peoples have a connection to God and everyone has perceived him, however dimly.

This too we must draw upon as we create a true community.  We can never ignore the serious differences we have with other faiths in how we perceive God and how we believe God relates to us.  At the same time, we should not ignore the commonalties that exist; we must search out the traces of the “spermatic Word” in every faith around us.  Joyfully recognizing our points of commonalty with other faiths while maintaining a respectful awareness of our differences will allow us to form a diverse yet genuine community, to be the “peoples of God”.

In closing, let us recall our theme: “God will dwell with [us] and [we] shall be his peoples.”  If we wish to make this a reality, we must be willing to ask God not just into our individual hearts, but into our communal heart.  We must make a place for Him there.  We must clear our communal heart of bitterness, rancor, distrust, smugness, arrogance, and hypocrisy.  We must adorn our communal heart with understanding, humbleness, attentiveness, trust, and love.  We must become a true people, not simply a collection of individuals loosely joined by a few common beliefs.  We must link our people to others to form a web of communities.  Then, perhaps, we may be ready to receive God; He may be able to set up His tent and dwell among us.  When that occurs, when we become a true people acting as one, synergistically, with God’s love and power, then truly there will be a new heaven and a new earth, and it will go far beyond anything that Gene Roddenberry could have imagined.