Revelation Notes (Chapter 6)

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Ted Grimsrud—April 2, 2012

[See notes on Revelation 5]

John enters the door into heaven at the beginning of chapter four and begins to describe what he sees. First it’s a vision of the throne room—which turns out to be a vision that reassures the reader of God’s on-going presence and worthiness of continued worship from all creation. This reassurance forms the first of a set of bookends that is matched at the end of the book with the vision of the New Jerusalem that returns to the image of the “one on the throne” (21:5) being worthy of praise and adoration.

It’s is essential that we keep these two references to the one on the throne’s mercy and healing love—and power—as we enter into reflection on the visions that come between the throne room and the New Jerusalem. In some ultimate sense, those visions must be seen as serving the purposes of the healing power of the one on the throne.

To emphasize that the intentions of the God of Revelation are healing, the first vision after the throne room account (chapter 5) portrays the power of the Lamb, seen in faithful witness and crucifixion followed by resurrection and vindication, to take the scroll. Because of this power, the Lamb receives that same all-encompassing worship from the entire animate creation. The power of the Lamb leads to the liberation from the powers of sin and evil of people “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (5:9). And these liberated people for a nation of the their own that stands in resistance to the nation ruled by the Beast.

So, with the context set—God as ruler, the Lamb as liberator, the nation of Lamb-followers established—we turn to a new set of visions within the broader vision of one on the throne establishing the New Jerusalem. Continue reading →

Revelation Notes (Chapter 5)

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Ted Grimsrud—April 1, 2012

[See notes on Revelation 4]

After the throne room time of praise of the one on the throne, we move to the next part of the vision of chapters four or five. If we think of this vision as a kind of worship service, at this center point we get the main content of the service that allows us to understand the significance of the worship that precedes it and follow it.

Revelation 5:1-5—Who can open the scroll?

John sees a “scroll” in the right hand of the one on the throne. That this scroll is in God’s “right hand” emphasizes its weightiness as does the fact that it is so securely secured with seven seals (“seven,” again, is the number of completeness). Though we are not told directly, we surely are to understand the contents of this scroll to be the fulfillment of God’s work with creation, a message of final and complete healing.

But the message cannot simply be given. Someone must be found to open the scroll and bring the message to its fruition. To John’s bitter frustration, given his longing that the healing come, “no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or look into it” (5:3). We can only speculate as to why this is the case. One idea, though, is that everyone misunderstands the way the scroll is to be opened. Everyone looked for the power of domination as the power to bring history to its conclusion. Continue reading →

Revelation Notes (Chapter 4)

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Ted Grimsrud—March 31, 2012

[See notes on Revelation 3]

The basic message of the seven messages to the faith communities in chapters two and three, when taken as a whole, focused on the call to those communities to maintain their loyalty to Jesus and his way in face of demands from the Roman Empire for this loyalty. These messages conclude with a promise of a place with the Lamb and his God for those who “conquer.”

The call to “conquer” is a call to Jesus’ way of persevering love. Chapters four and five now provide the bases for taking this call with the utmost seriousness and the utmost hope.

After the messages conclude, John looks and sees an “open door” in heaven (4:1). He’s taken inside and sees a throne. The appearance of the one seated on the throne is never described—confirming that this is the creator God.

So John gets a theophany in this moment of transition from the challenges to the actual recipients of the book to the terrible visions that will follow. This direct vision of God seems to be intended both to ground the challenges in the realities of the sovereign one who calls them forward and to remind the readers that the visions to come do not negate the healing intentions of the one on the throne.

Chapters four and five actually make up one vision with one main message: God is present in the Lamb who brings healing to the world. The two chapters present a kind of worship service. It begins with worship and praise from the twenty-four elders (4:4, 11), proceeds to the four living creatures (4:8), then focuses on the core content—the triumph of the Lamb. It then proceeds to more worship, including from the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders, concluding as the service began, with the elders (5:14). Continue reading →

Revelation Notes (Chapter 3)

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Ted Grimsrud—March 31, 2012

[See notes on Revelation 2]

The seven messages that make up chapters two and three continue the vision John saw and heard beginning in the middle of chapter one when he hears a “loud voice” that calls him to send the visions that make up the book of Revelation to the seven churches of Asia (1:9). These messages serve today’s readers by anchoring the book as a whole in the context of the struggles of these seven churches in the late first century.

As we are attentive to the concerns Jesus conveys to the seven congregations we will discern the concerns that the later visions will also be centered on.

Revelation 3:1-6—Message to the congregation in Sardis

In the message to the congregation in the city of Sardis, we have one of the more negatively critical of the messages. As with the other messages, this one touches on characteristics of the city itself—implying that the congregation there is reflecting its environment, mostly in problematic ways.

The city of Sardis had a reputation of being invulnerable, safe from outside attack. However, in fact, several times in the past its boundaries had been penetrated by Sardis’s enemies, leading to disaster for the city. Likewise with the congregation. Jesus’ makes an extraordinarily cutting remark: “You have a name of being alive, but you are dead” (3:1). Continue reading →

Justice in the New Testament

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Ted Grimsrud

In the Christian tradition, “justice” has often been seen as something far removed from Jesus’ life and teaching. However, when we posit a polarity between Jesus’ message and justice we undermined both our ability to understand justice in more redemptive and restorative terms and our ability to see in Jesus a political approach that indeed speaks directly to the “real world.”

Jesus and God’s Healing Strategy

Several Old Testament terms describe God’s healing work—shalom (peace), hesed (loving kindness), mispat and tsedeqah (righteousness/justice) prominent among them.  These terms often cluster together in a mutually reinforcing way.

Just a few examples include Micah 6:8 (“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness?”), Psalm 85:10-11 (“Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; justice and peace will kiss each other.  Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and justice will look down from the sky.”), and Psalm 89:14 (“Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne; steadfast love and faithfulness go before you.”).

Jesus understood himself (and was confessed thus by early Christians) to fulfill the message of Torah.  He makes the call to love neighbors, to bring healing into broken contexts, and to offer forgiveness and restoration in face of wrongdoing central.

As he began his ministry, Jesus clarified his healing vocation in face of temptations to fight injustice with coercion and violence.  He made clear that genuine justice has not to do with punishing wrongdoers nor with a kind of holiness that cannot be in the presence of sin and evil. Rather, genuine justice enters directly into the world of sin and evil and seeks in the midst of that world to bring healing and transformation—a restoration of whole relationships. Continue reading →

Anabaptism as a Hermeneutic

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Ted Grimsrud

Paper Presented to Anabaptist Seminar — Eastern Mennonite University — April 8, 2006

My introduction to Anabaptism came nearly thirty years ago when I first discovered that there was a Mennonite congregation in my hometown, Eugene, Oregon.  I had just started reading John Howard Yoder and was anxious to learn to know actual Mennonites.  The pastor of Eugene Mennonite Church, Harold Hochstetler, loaned me several of his books. I especially remember Guy Hershberger’s The Way of the Cross in Human Relations and the festschrift for Harold Bender that Hershberger edited.

Not too long afterwards, I ended up at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary and studied Anabaptism with Yoder and C. J. Dyck.  A couple of years later I was able to teach Anabaptism for the first time in a congregation.  I served as interim pastor at Trinity Mennonite in Glendale, Arizona, and taught a course mainly for people new to the Mennonite faith.  Several senior members in the congregation, including Guy Hershberger himself, also sat in on the class.  Strong affirmations I received from Guy meant a great deal to me.

Anabaptism as a resource for ethics and pastoral ministry

From the start, my main interest in the Anabaptists was ethical and pastoral.  My interest in Mennonites came out of a desire for faith that underwrote peacemaking and community-building.  Yoder and Hershberger directed me to the 16th-century Anabaptists as an important resource for embodying those concerns.  I have always been interested in the connections between the events told in the Bible, the events of the 16th century, and our own quest to live faithfully.  I never felt comfortable with the idea that one could approach the 16th century in a fully objective way.  The questions I have asked of the 16th century (as of the Bible) have always been self-consciously along the lines of what might I learn for today from those events. Continue reading →

What is God Like?

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[This is the fifth in a series of sermons in interpreting America in the 21st century in light of the Book of Revelation. The series will continue, monthly for about two years.]

Ted Grimsrud

Revelation 4:1–5:14—Shalom Mennonite Congregation—February 19, 2012

The book of Revelation is a mystery, right? Scary, intimidating, fantastic, wacky, off-putting—maybe, also, fascinating and even inspiring. I think it’s worth wrestling with, and it may even have special importance for us as we who live today in the center of the world’s one great superpower.

When we take up Revelation, though, just like any other religious text, so much depends on what we are looking for. The date of the rapture and the identity of the Antichrist (ala the Left Behind books)? Or the lunatic ravings of a hallucinating first-century fanatic (that’s what D. H. Lawrence thought)? Or words of encouragement in face of a vicious authoritarian state (like South African theologian Allan Boesak 30 years ago)? Or a challenge to American imperialism (the great American prophet of the 1960s and 70s William Stringfellow)?

And what kind of God do we expect to find “revealed” in this book? We all tend to try to find what will reinforce our already existing beliefs. We don’t always look very kindly toward images and ideas that threaten what we think we know. I’m reminded of one of my favorite quotes, from the social thinker John Kenneth Galbraith: “Sometimes we face a choice, do we change our minds or do we prove that we don’t need to. When faced with such a choice, most of us most of the time get busy with the proof.” Continue reading →

A refreshing reading of Revelation

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A review of Nelson Kraybill. Apocalypse and Allegiance: Worship, Politics, and Devotion in the Book of Revelation (Brazos Press, 2010).

Ted Grimsrud—published in The Conrad Grebel Review 29. 3 (Fall 2011), 107-109

Nelson Kraybill, New Testament scholar, former missionary in Europe, former president of Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and currently pastor at Prairie Street Mennonite Church in Elkhart, Indiana, has written a fine book that displays abilities honed in each of his roles just mentioned.

Apocalypse and Allegiance combines solid scholarship, an accessible style, theological depth, spiritual encouragement, and social critique. Kraybill packs an impressive amount of content in a relatively small space, addressing both general readers and scholars with a refreshing perspective on the book of Revelation.

Kraybill’s scholarly strength is his understanding of the historical setting for the book of Revelation, with particular expertise in political and economic dynamics. So we get information and visuals that put us back into Revelation’s first century environment.

In particular, Kraybill does an excellent job in presenting Revelation as resistance literature that challenges the imperial ambitions of Rome with a vision of a humane, peaceable alternative politics. And, to the reader’s benefit, Kraybill does not simply describe a fascinating ancient document but also makes perceptive applications to the present day. Continue reading →

Weakness in Power

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[This is the fourth in a series of sermons in interpreting America in the 21st century in light of the Book of Revelation. The series will continue, monthly for about two years.]

Ted Grimsrud

Revelation 3:1-22—Shalom Mennonite Congregation—January 22, 2012

So, what is the book of Revelation really about? Since it has been two months since my last sermon, you all have probably forgotten….Let me suggest one word that I believe is at the center of the book: Power.

We may read Revelation as a book of conflicts—the Beast vs. the Lamb, the Holy Spirit vs. the False Prophet, Babylon vs. the New Jerusalem. The question is: Who is more powerful? Which is actually the question: What kind of power is more powerful —the power to conquer through domination or the power to conquer through self-giving love? On this question hangs the fate of the earth, perhaps we could say. Certainly, for John the writer of Revelation, on this question hangs the fate of the churches.

The seven messages that make up chapters two and three, the first of Revelation’s many visions, set the book’s agenda. In my last sermon, I talked about “power in weakness”—how the little church in Smyrna, besieged, suffering persecution, with little visible power, actually was praised above all the other churches and proclaimed to be rich indeed.

Today, I will focus on “weakness in power”—how the big church in Laodicea, wealthy, comfortable, lacking in nothing, actually was condemned above all the other churches and proclaimed to be “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” Continue reading →

John Howard Yoder and Contemporary Anabaptist Theology

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Ted Grimsrud – June 2011

Is there such a thing as “Anabaptist theology” for the present day? Is seeking to construct a distinctively Anabaptist theology an appropriate task for the 21st century?

John Howard Yoder did not consider himself a systematic theologian, and as far as I know would not have called himself a constructive theologian. However, his work certainly directly related to the task many Mennonites, and others who would also think of themselves as spiritual descendants of the 16th century Anabaptists see as vital for the viability of Mennonite and other Anabaptist communities—namely, self-conscious work at articulating their theological convictions in ways that might provide sustenance to their tradition.

Yoder’s model I will call “practice-oriented” theology. To help understand Yoder’s approach, and why it’s an exemplary model for those of us engagement in the work of constructive Anabaptist theology for the 21st century, I will first look at a quite different model for contemporary Anabaptist theology and reflect on the differences between these two models.

Tom Finger, like many other Mennonite writers wrestling with the challenge of working within the Anabaptist tradition (notably a marginal perspective in the history of Christian theology), seeks to find links of commonality with more mainstream traditions. In doing so, he takes an approach I will call “doctrine-oriented” theology.

Finger’s work has many characteristics unique to his own perspective, certainly, yet in relation to the key points I will focus on, his approach is at least somewhat representative of the general approach taken by Anabaptist-Mennonite theologians seeking rapprochement with mainstream theologies.

I understand the central characteristics of “Anabaptist theology” to be centered in an integration of theological convictions with ethical practices.  The ethical commitments of the sixteenth century Anabaptists such as their pacifism, their emphasis on economic sharing, and their rejection of the subordination of the church to nation-states, reflected a distinctive theology that placed central importance on commitment to the way of Jesus in costly discipleship. Continue reading →