On Being Lukewarm -- Revelation 3:7-22 (6th Sunday After Pentecost)

Scott Clark
Jul 20
12 min read

Photo credit: NT Gallery, used with permission via Unsplash

To listen to the sermon, you can click here.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE:

Two weeks ago, we began our exploration of the book of Revelation. As a reminder: The writer, John, is exiled on the tiny, barren island of Patmos, where he experiences a vision – what he describes as an apocalypse – a revelation – of Jesus Christ. A voice tells him to write down on a scroll what he sees, and to send the scroll to “the seven churches.” These churches are in what we know as southern Turkey. John of Patmos likely had some relationship to these seven churches – they were communities he knew, and likely loved.

Today, we’re turning to the part of Revelation that contains seven letters to those seven churches.^[1] Each letter conveys a specific message to a specific church. In the letters, some churches are commended, some critiqued, some get a little bit of both.

We think that the book of Revelation was circulated as a whole – with the seven letters as a part of that. The scroll would have arrived at a church, and someone in the community would have stood up – (like I’m doing) – and read the letter – the letters – the scroll out loud.

We are going to read two of those letters this morning – I’ll read one to the community at Philadelphia, and then Courtney will read one to the community at Laodicea. See what you notice. As they say, see what the Spirit may be saying to the churches:

⁷“To the angel of the church in Philadelphia write this:

These are the words of the One who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What they open no one can shut, and what they shut no one can open. ⁸I know your deeds. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut. I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. ⁹I will make those who [claim to tell the truth], but are liars—I will make them come and fall down at your feet and acknowledge that I have loved you. ¹⁰Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth.

¹¹I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown. ¹²The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it. I will write on them the name of God and the name of the city of God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from God; and I will also write on them my new name. ¹³Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

And now hear what John of Patmos has to say to the church in Laodicea:

¹⁴“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write this:

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. ¹⁵I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! ¹⁶So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. ¹⁷You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. ¹⁸I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

¹⁹Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent.²⁰Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.

²¹To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I was victorious and sat down with my Parent on their throne. ²²Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”

SERMON:

When we first stepped into the Book of Revelation, we noticed its wild imagery: “Apocalyptic writing [like Revelation] uses big images to address big suffering caused by big powers. For the people who are suffering, its apocalyptic wildness needs to be bigger and more powerful than the powers that are holding them down.”^[2]

Amid the swirl of that wild imagery, these seven letters to these seven churches keep us grounded. They remind us that Revelation was written to real people, in real communities, facing real problems. As real as us, as perplexed as us, as in need of hope as us. Eugene Peterson – whom you may know from The Message version of the Scriptures – he describes the seven letters as pastoral.^[3] John of Patmos knows these communities – their struggle, their suffering, as they live under the authoritarian rule of Rome.

And so, Revelation begins with a fundamental assurance that Jesus is sovereign even over empire. And then, John turns to these seven churches and says, this Sovereign Christ sees you, has a Word for you, and Christ appeared to me in a vision and told me to write it down.

The seven letters follow a pattern:^[4]

1. They begin addressing the specific church and by saying something about Christ – repeating something about the Sovereignty of Christ.

2. Then the letters address the specific church, “I know you...”, often adding a word of commendation – I see how you are enduring suffering, how you are following the way of Jesus.

3. Sometimes there is a word of condemnation, or critique – I see how you are falling short – wake up – snap out of it. (Some churches get commendation, some critique, some a bit of both.)

4. And no matter what – whether there is more commendation or more critique --- the letters always offer encouragement and a blessing.

Now, Philadelphia gets only commendation. (Yay, Philly! – now remember, this is the Philadelphia in southern Turkey.) The folks in Philadelphia have likely been thrown out of a bigger community.^[5] At the time, Christianity is still an offshoot of Judaism, and the bigger community has said, “Enough!” and thrown them out. And so John of Patmos says, The one who holds the keys, and who opens what no one can shut... that One says, “I see you, I know you, and I put before you an open door.” Under the worst that the powers can throw at you, you have patiently endured and kept my Word. You have lived my witness [Christ’s witness] in your own lives.^[6] It’s not just an open door that I’m giving you. I’ll make you a pillar in the midst of me. You are not going anywhere. I will etch in stone God’s name, my name, your name.” Can you imagine that. What a word of hope.

And, then there’s the letter to Laodicea. Oof. Ouch. It seems there’s nothing to commend. The community in Laodicea is wealthy. They live in a rich city, at the hub of lucrative trade routes. They’re known for banking and trade – a special, shiny wool that they sell, an expensive eye salve. They have a few problems – they have a water-problem – their water comes from hot mineral springs up in the hills, and by the time it arrives in town it is tepid and sometimes nauseating. But relatively, for a city colonized by Rome, they are doing OK comfort-wise. They have just enough wealth to keep them relatively pain-free... numb. They think they are OK – that they’re wealthy enough – but they’re really not.

John of Patmos, delivering this message from Christ, lays it out. This city of bankers is poor. With all their fancy wool, they are naked. Their expensive eye salve doesn’t keep them from being blind.

This morning’s Scripture presents the problem of being lukewarm. All seven of these churches are living in the clutches of Empire – living in the tangled web of power-over. Rome requires allegiance to Rome – and participation in the systems of power-over that keep the powers in power. The way of Jesus requires staking one’s life on the way of Christ – the Lamb who is sovereign by entering into the suffering of humanity, and bringing us all into a world of mutuality, justice, and peace. You have to choose. Rome insists that you do. So does Jesus.

The community in Laodicea – they are neither hot nor cold. When it comes to empire, they go along to get along. They are lukewarm – and the message that arrives from Christ, “I’m going to spit you out like that tepid swill that passes for drinking water in Laodecia.” This morning’s Scripture presents the problem of being lukewarm.

There’s a moment in the musical Hamilton – in Act 2 – when Alexander Hamilton surprises everyone in “The Election of 1800,” by throwing his support behind his sworn enemy Thomas Jefferson instead of his sometimes friend Aaron Burr.^[7] Hamilton does this, he explains, because over the years, he has determined that Burr stands for nothing – he is neither hot nor cold – as Hamilton sings, “When all is said and done. Jefferson has beliefs. Burr has none.”^[8] Burr is the one who has advised Hamilton to keep his head down, to “talk less, smile more” that “fools who run their mouth oft wind up dead” – to which Hamilton asks Burr: “If you stand for nothing, what will you fall for?” ^[9]

When the powers rage and stakes are high – there is immense pressure to keep one’s head down. It’s the way of things – it’s the way power-over stays in power. It is the easier way – more commonplace than we’d like to acknowledge. Lin Manuel Miranda – the genius playwright of Hamilton – has said, “I feel like I’ve been Burr in my life as many times as I’ve been Hamilton.”^[10]

In the past months, we’ve seen so many of our institutions set aside things they have said they valued to avoid the pain of confrontation. There are law firms who once opposed the current regime, who have capitulated to threats and agreed to provide millions of dollars of free legal work in support of the regime.^[11] Columbia University has agreed to compromise its commitment to equity from fear of having millions of dollars of funding cut off.^[12] Major corporations have quietly deleted DEI policies – because the regime has insisted that equity is no longer a social good, but an evil plague.^[13] The powers are raging. Let’s keep our head down. It seems easier to stay out of the line of fire. Neither hot nor cold.

I’m thinking of lawmakers who have been candid about what it is like to be caught in this ethical tangle. Senator Lisa Murkowski was very open about the evils she saw in the mega-bill that gave tax breaks to the rich, while cutting off health care and nutrition-assistance for the vulnerable.^[14] She was also candid about the pressures that were at work – “the retribution is real... we are all afraid.”^[15] But the powers threw money – lots of money – at her state of Alaska – exempting that one state from the pain that much of the rest of the country will feel – all to secure her vote. It was – as Tony Soprano might say – an offer she couldn’t refuse. And she voted for the bill – and immediately started to plead with the House to defeat the bill that she had just voted for. “Do I like the bill? No.” she said.^[16] Did she vote for it? Yes. That’s not really yes, and not really no. Neither hot nor cold.

Now, I don’t mean to pile onto Senator Murkowski. Her candor lays open for us what is going on here – how things work. (She's candid about that when so many other lawmakers trot along as if nothing is amiss.) We are living in an emerging authoritarian regime. The regime is consolidating its power. And ethical tangles like this are only going to become more frequent – for senators, and for us.

This is how the powers work – how the domination imagination works. Remember, the powers imagine and seek to coerce a world that they control. They do that using the tools of power-over. Domination systems are built on violent assertions of power over – on threats and bullying. They are built on unjust economic systems that keep the rich rich, and so many others vulnerable. The system uses that accumulated wealth not only in its threats (“We’ll impoverish you”), but also in its efforts to dull folks into complacency, with just enough wealth to keep us quiet.

This is how power-over works. The folks in the seven churches knew that in their world of authoritarian rule, and we see it in ours. The Book of Revelation isn’t about some dusty old past, and it’s not a detailed road-map of a future violent upheaval. It’s about the world as it is now – the suffering and the struggle – and through and above and surrounding it all – the ultimate sovereignty and love of God on the move to imagine and create nothing less than a new heaven and a new earth.

This summer, we are talking about an imagination different from the domination imagination – the prophetic imagination, the healing imagination, the revelatory imagination – the Spirit-given human capacity to envision and create a world better, brighter, and more beautiful than the struggle and suffering we are experiencing now.

In these letters – and in the whole of Revelation – the Spirit is speaking to the spirit of the seven churches – not ignoring the present struggle, but seeing and speaking it plain, and then seeing and speaking something more. Grounded in the daily dust and complexity of real life, these letters see a world loved by God from the very beginning until the end – the Alpha and Omega – God’s love as the very first word, and as the decisive Amen.

These seven letters offer an assessment – word about things as they are – commendation and critique. But also – in each one they offer a word of encouragement and blessing.

For Laodecia, take your temperature. What is it that you have come to believe in Jesus Christ? What are the things that matter most? Where are those places where you see that being challenged? What would be the cost of standing where you know you need to stand? How might you turn the temperature up just a bit?

These letters offer encouragement like that in last week’s text from Philippians. Remember? God is near. That image of Jesus standing at the door and knocking. I read several writers who say that is really about communion.^[17] In Laodecia, they are gathering at the table – going through all the motions – but they’ve gathered there without the real presence of Christ. But Christ is near. “Behold I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you, and you with me, the whole world will feast together.”

One of the ways that the powers keep their power is by keeping us separate and apart. We can’t see beyond the dominant imagination because we can’t imagine that we are not alone. These seven letters see something more. The letters aren’t written to any one individual. They’re written to communities. And not just one community, but 7 communities, to real people, living real lives together – sometimes getting it right, sometimes wrong, more often a little bit of both. These letters aren’t written just for one moment, but they’ve been written down, and sent out into the whole wide world – in the hope that they – that we might rise in the wild hope of imagination and live into the fullness of all we are in Christ.

May all of us, with the ears of our heart, hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches – then and now, here and everywhere, from the beginning on into forever. To the one who sets before us an open door, the Alpha and Omega, the one who was dead but has risen to life, the first Word and the ultimate Amen, to Jesus Christ be all glory, honor, and praise. Forever and ever, Amen.

^[1] For background on these letters and the Book of Revelation, see Brian K. Blount, Revelation: A Commentary (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009); Catherine Gunsalus González & Justo L. González, Revelation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997); Eugene H. Peterson, Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination (San Francisco, CA: HarperOne, 1988); Barbara R. Rossing, The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2004); Christopher C. Rowland, “The Book of Revelation,” New Interpreters’ Bible Commentary, vol. xii (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1998).