I have recently been reading a book by Rowan Williams, a former Archbishop of Canterbury, entitled Grace and Necessity: Reflections on Art and Love. In this book, Bishop Williams is exploring a theology of aesthetics. He suggests that, in the sacramental life of the Church, most notably in the Mass, “God makes himself other; the world is a world in which things make themselves other or are made other (they are more than they are and give more than they have.”[1]
What an astounding claim this is. Because God took on human flesh, the material world—this world in which we live and move and have our being—can represent, indeed can be so much more than it is or seems to be.
Now, remember that, because we’ll come back to it. But before we do, I want to offer a tale of two cities. The first city I want to describe is the city described in the Revelation to John. If we were to include some verses of chapter 21 that were omitted from this morning’s lectionary excerpt, we would get a vivid physical description of this city. It’s a perfect cube, and the foundations of its wall are bedecked with jewels. It sparkles in the light. It has twelve pearly gates, and the names of the twelve tribes of Israel are inscribed on these gates. The single street that runs through this city is pure gold but also transparent, like glass.
We hear in today’s reading that this city’s gates are always open. It is lit only by the glory of God; it needs no artificial light. There is no darkness; nothing is hidden there. Everything is exposed and brought into the full light of day. There is no need for secrets; there is no room for secrets. And in the middle of that gold, transparent street is a crystal-clear river, flowing from the very throne of God. Along its banks is a fruitful tree, whose leaves are intended for the healing of all.
The denizens of this city are continually worshipping God. It is their only business and their supreme joy. They see the very face of God, something forbidden until one arrives in this city. And all these citizens are marked with the name of Christ.
But there are other qualities of this city that we can assume, knowing that this is the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem. In this city, there’s no fighting or violence. Even though people there bear the painful markers of their past experiences in another less heavenly city, in this city, the suffering and violence are gone. All are now at peace. And there are a variety of people here, from all races and nations. This city is heaven itself.
To use Rowan Williams’ words, it’s a city in which things are other, or have been made other. Things are more than they seem. The vision of this city is something that literally seems unreal to our minds and imaginations.
But the second city that I want to tell you about is much more familiar to us. You will recognize it. It’s a place where things seem to be precisely as they meet the eye.
In this city, there are no definable boundaries. Rather, the boundaries, size, and shape of this city seem to mutate frequently, like an amoeba, based on human whims. And its gates are routinely closed in the faces of those who seek entrance, for whatever reason it may be. Even once inside this city, if you’re lucky enough to pass through its gates, there are usually more gates to navigate. And if your circumstances are too unfortunate, those gates will be closed to you. You can bet on that.
This city is full of light, but that light alternates with darkness that covers all kinds of sordidness, shame, and evil. The light, though, must come either from the sun itself or from the artificially produced light of human technology; it is not constant. When overconsumption and human greed dominate, the power fails, and the light goes out. If people can’t pay their electric bills, the lights are turned off.
There are many streets in this city. Depending on where you live, some are maintained better than others. There are certainly rivers here, and there is plenty of water. But in some locations, the public water supply is contaminated.
Trees abound in this city, at least if they haven’t been cut down or died because of extreme climate conditions. But their fruit is usually controlled by regulations and rules. The fruit is not available without a price. And rarely do the leaves of these trees lead to the healing of all. Usually, the frenetic pace of this city impedes healing. Stress, exhaustion, and poor health are common.
The citizens of this vast city worship all manner of things. Some purport to worship God. Others refuse to worship God. Some worship multiple gods. Many say they worship God, but they really worship a variety of things: status, success, affirmation, money, material goods, power. You will find some people in this city who are covered with tattoos, but these markings commonly proclaim the names of earthly idols and Pelagian claims to achieve happiness and success on their own.
Unsurprisingly, there is a diversity of people in this city, but too often, they don’t get along. Peace is rare, violence is more common. People are shot in grocery stores, schools, and churches. Wars are waged simply because national leaders lust for power. Children starve. Pandemics rage. Death is unavoidable. What you see is really what you get. Even if the image isn’t appealing, it’s not a surprising one. We know what this city looks like.
And I dare say that the first city, what Scripture tells us is the city of God, seems less real to us. It’s something like a theological Disneyworld. We imagine that we can take trips to it in our minds, but such a city can never really exist. Whether we like it or not, the second city is the stuff of our world. It’s the unavoidable reality of our daily existence.
And sadly, much Christian preaching has led us to believe that these two cities can never meet. We are told to pray that we will be a part of that heavenly city, which is our ultimate destiny. If we do all the right things and if we are well-behaved, one day, we might be fortunate enough to walk through the pearly gates of that holy city. Meanwhile, we toil through the city here below, praying only to escape it.
But in a world that God himself deigned to enter and inhabit, in what has sometimes been called a sacramental universe,[2] things are “more than they are and give more than they have.” While we may settle for less, and while our expectations might be detestably low, isn’t something more possible?
And isn’t this the good news in St. John’s vision of the city of God? Far from being a theological Disneyland or a hallucination prompted by a laughable naivete, it is a glimpse of what can be realized but what so often isn’t due to human sin. And this sin is usually a failure to dream and hope. It’s a failure to see that things “are more than they are and [can] give more than they have.”
Contrary to the ways in which St. John’s Revelation is usually interpreted, the heavenly Jerusalem is not something to which we escape. It’s something that God will bring to us, if we will bother to let him.
St. John’s vision of God’s kingdom will never be fully experienced by us in this life. But the city that we currently inhabit, the one I have described in such sobering terms, is not all there can be. We should thank God for that. It’s God in Christ who gives us the hope to believe that we live in a city where things are so much more than they are and can give so much more than they seem to give. Our faith is one where things are never what they seem. Things are, can be, and should be so much more.
It’s not exactly true that the world has needed the Church now more than ever. It has always needed the vision of the Church. And it does need it now. Things are not and do not have to be what they seem. God gives us another vision. Visions of two cities are before us: one we can only see in our mind’s eye, but we walk the streets of the other each day. With God’s help, we have a choice to make. The question is this: what city will we choose?
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 22, 2022
[1] Rowan Williams, Grace and Necessity: Reflections on Art and Love (London: Continuum, 2005), 82.
[2] A phrase used by Archbishop William Temple