LET ANYONE WHO HAS AN EAR [or God Speaks To Our Imagination & the Imagination Is What Bears The Truth Spoken By The Spirit]

1.   So Much Depends Upon “Anyone Who Has An Ear”

 

In 1923 a pediatrician wrote a poem, a simple, eight-line poem with no capitalized words and one lonely period at the end of the last syllable.   His name was William Carlos Williams and these are the words that he put to paper: 

so much depends

upon

 

a red wheel

barrow

 

glazed with rain

water

 

beside the white

chickens.

 

Now, if (after hearing me read that poem) you’re wondering what in the world “The Red Wheelbarrow” has to do with the book of Revelation, I am eager to tell you.  Or, perhaps to show  you.  First and foremost, let it be known that the last 22 chapters of the Bible are pure, unadulterated poetry.  Where William Carlos Williams sees a red wheelbarrow, the writer of Revelation sees seven golden lamp- stands.   Where the poem from 1923 notices beads of “rain water,” the exiled Jewish Christian notices “the tree of life” and “the sword of my mouth.”   And finally, where William Carlos Williams fixates on the proximity of “white chickens,” John spends his time on the island of Patmos being haunted by images of “the Lamb who was slain.”    

“Let anyone who has an ear, listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches…”

   

 

 

2.   Religious Noise Is Not The Same As Spirit Speech

 

Not too long ago, I may have told you about my experience at an African American congregation in West Philadelphia.    We had been invited to lead worship and after I had finished preaching the Right Reverend Archibald McCalister whispered something to me as the organ intoned the closing hymn.   He said something like, “I’d like you to open the doors of the church.”    So, without hesitation, I stepped down from the elevated pulpit and walked up the aisle to the narthex of the church building.   I then unlatched the big heavy wooden doors and stood there, leaning against the archway.   As the hymn came to a close, the minister could not contain his laughter.   He told the congregation that he had asked me “to open the doors of the church” and that’s exactly, literally, what I did.   But what he really meant for me to do had been to extend a verbal invitation for people to accept Jesus into their hearts.   He meant the expression as a poetic device, and it simply flew over my head.

 

Now, this is what I’m wondering this morning.   I’m wondering two things.   I’m wondering, with books like Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth and with Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series, if we’re not failing to grasp the poetry.   I’m wondering if we not watching too much Jack Van Impe Presents and Kenneth Hagee’s Countdown to Armageddon, and therefore not really distinguishing between religious noise and what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

 

3.   Commit To Listening Locally

 

“The churches,” you see, are critical to our understanding of Revelation—both the churches in Asia Minor in the first century and the churches, like Latah Valley, which are coming into existence here and now.  

 

In his book, The Intrusive Word, William Willimon tells the story about an evangelism program that went terribly wrong.   Here’s what happened: 

“…the church growth  program advocated a system of door-to-door visitation.  So we organized ourselves into groups of two and on an appointed Sunday afternoon, we set out to visit, to invite people to church…

          Helen and Gladys were given a map.  They were clearly told to go down Summit Drive and to turn right.   That’s what they were told.  I heard the team leader tell them, ‘You go down Summit Drive and turn right.   Do you hear me, Helen, that’s down Summit Drive and turn right?’

          But Helen and Gladys, both approaching eighty, after lifetimes of teaching elementary school, were better at giving than receiving directions.   They turned left, venturing down into the housing projects to the west of Summit Drive.  We told them to turn right; they turned left.

          Which meant that Helen and Gladys proceeded to evangelize the wrong neighborhood and thereby ran the risk of evangelizing the wrong people.

          Lte that afternoon, each team returned to the church to make their report.   Helen and Gladys had only one interested person to report to us, a woman named Verleen.   Nobody on their spurious route was interested in visiting our church, no body but Verleen.   She lived with her two children in a three-room apartment…  Although she had never been to a church in her life, Verleen wanted to visit ours.”

 

Now the dynamic of this story that I truly love is how it meanders from the general and the generic to the particular and the peculiar.   What starts off as an ideal program for getting a certain caliber of people to come to church leads to Helen and Gladys not really listening to the program, but to something else, to something happening locally. 

 

4.   Don’t Submit To Outside Experts

 

“The next Sunday, Helen and Gladys proudly presented Verleen at the eleven o’clock service, along with her two feral-looking children.   Verleen liked the service so much she said that she wanted to attend the Women’s Thursday Morning Bible Study…”

 

Which she did.   Pastor Willimon was leading a study on Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness.  He asked this question,

“Have any of you ever been faced with temptation and with Jesus’ help resisted?”

          One of the women told about how, just the week before, there was some confusion in the supermarket checkout line, and before she knew it, she was standing in the supermarket parking lot with a loaf o bread that she hadn’t paid for. 

          ‘At first I thought,’ she confessed, ‘why should I pay for it?  They have enough money here as it is.’   But then I thought, ‘No you are a Christian.’  So I went back in the store and paid them for that loaf of bread.’

 

Pastor Willimon, the expert, made an approving comment.   And then it was time for Verleen to speak:

“A couple of years ago, I was into cocaine really big.  You know what that’s like!  You know how that stuff makes you crazy.   Well, anyway, my boyfriend, not the one I’ve got now, the one who was the daddy of my first child, that one, well, we knocked over a gas station one night—got two hundred dollars out of it.  It was as simple as taking candy from a baby.  Well, my boyfriend, he says to me, ‘Let’s knock off that Seven-Eleven down on the corner.’   And something in me, it says, ‘No, I’ve held up that gas station with you, but I ain’t going to hold up no convenience store.’  He beat the hell out of me, but I still said No.  It felt great to say No, ‘cause that’s the only time in my life I ever said No to anything.  Made me feel like I was somebody.”

 

And, you see, when Verleen feels like somebody—when she feels her worth as a child of the Living God—so much depends upon “anyone who has an ear.”   So much depends upon us listening to our local situation and not deferring our imagination to so-called experts.   Revelation 2, verses 7, 11, 17 and 29 all repeat this egalitarian refrain.   Anyone.   Let anyone… listen…  Anyone.   Listen.  

 

5.   Latah Valley Amplifies   

 

I am not complaining.   In fact, please believe me when I say that I am so grateful for the men, women and even children who have made a big effort at preparing our future Latah Valley site for worship.   It’s truly going to be an awesome place from which we might listen for God’s voice and begin to follow his call.   Amen.   But, in the interim, I must admit, it’s noisy.   With all the walls being ripped out, and the new doors being installed, and the plumbing pipes being re-routed—it’s been hard for me to think.   With all the boards being measured and cut, and all the holes being drilled and all the dirt being moved—solitude has been in short supply.   So, in the midst of all the carnage and the mayhem, I glanced at this poem by W. S. Merwin.   It’s called “Thanks,” and begins like this: 

Listen

With the night falling we are saying thank you…

 

Over telephones we are saying thank you

In doorways and in the backs of cars and in

          Elevators

Remembering wars and the police at the back door

And the beating on the stairs we are saying thank

          You

In banks that use us we are saying thank you

With crooks in the office with the rich and the

fashionable

Unchanged we go saying thank you thank you….

 

Anyway, based upon what’ I’ve heard over the previous month and (I expect) into the next month, I’d like to offer you these locally expressed words.  Let anyone with an ear listen to the way we amplify:

 

“Hey, turn off the water.  Turn off the water.”

Thank you.

“Howard, I think we’re gonna have a problem here.”

Thank you.

“Aren’t you done with that job yet?”

Thank you.

“Harry, check to see if we’re level.”

Thank you.

“Al, are you down there?”

Thank you.

“The sandwiches are ready.”

Thank you.

“I have just the right tool for that.”

Thank you.

“Is anybody gonna need the toilet in the next hour?”

Thank you.

“God, I can’t figure out what this guy was trying to do here.”

Thank you.   Thank you.   Thank you.

 

Amen.