Turning the Page
Revelation 21:1-6a
A couple of years ago, my sister told me about this furniture store in Rochester, Minnesota. It’s called, The Amish Store. They sell wonderful furniture of exceptional quality. My sister has bought a lot of furniture from them and we’ve given some pieces to my parents too. We’re not the first to recognize the quality that these people are known for. Other groups like the Mennonites, Heutterites, and a group not too far from where I grew up, the Amana Colony people, are also known for quality and craftsmanship. These pietistic colonies have chosen a very simple life. We sometimes laugh at how simply they live. Very modest dress and very few of what we call “technological necessities” are part of their life yet they seem to get along quite well. In fact, they seem to get along a lot better than most.
Most of the time, folks in these communities fly pretty far under the radar but that all changed on October 2nd. Charles Carl Roberts IV shocked people in Pennsylvania, and throughout the world, when this milk truck driver stormed into the West Nickel Mines Amish School and shot ten little girls, killing five. Once I heard the news and got the basics, I quit listening to the story because it was just so disheartening. Another school shooting. More senseless violence.
But then one of you told me how the Amish community was responding to what one of their own church leaders called, “our 9/11.”[1] I started following the story again almost in disbelief at how these people were responding. They didn’t seem to be pointing fingers at the Roberts family. They weren’t demanding investigations and changes in school security. They weren’t calling for stricter gun laws. They were shockingly talking about forgiveness, healing, and concern for the wife of Carl Roberts and his three small children! This sick man had just killed at least five little girls from this Amish community! How could they say such things!? Did you know that around 9pm, on the same day as the shooting, an Amish elder came to the Roberts home and offered forgiveness to the family?[2] Did you know that half of the mourners at Carl Roberts’ funeral were people from the Amish community?[3] When ABC news anchor, Charles Gibson, was interviewing Rhita Rhoads, an Amish midwife who was present at the birth of two of the five murdered girls, Rhoads said, “If you have Jesus in your heart and He has forgiven you, how can you not forgive other people?”[4] Is there anyone here who would like to answer Rhoads’ question?
The skeptic in me wants to say these words are simply words. But it gets harder to be skeptical when the actions from this Amish community are backing up their words. Donations have been pouring in to help fund medical expenses for the survivors. Do you know what the Amish elders did? They set up a fund so that part of the donations could also go to Roberts’ widow and her three children. How do we make sense of this?
Our text today is from the book of Revelation – that wild and wacky apocalyptic book at the end of our Bible. Toward the end of Revelation, we have the text we’re hearing today which speaks of a new heaven and new earth.[5] John hears a voice that says tears will be wiped away;[6] death, mourning, crying, and pain will be no more;[7] “See, I am making all things new,” is the message John hears from the one who was seated on the throne.[8] Words like these seem almost as unbelievable as the ones coming out of the Amish mouths in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
When John was
writing these words, the people were going through a very difficult time. Most scholars believe the people were
experiencing persecution[9]
because they wouldn’t bow down and worship the Roman emperor. As a result, they were ostracized,
persecuted, and martyred. Families were
torn apart and heartache was replacing courage. In the King James Version of the Bible it says in Proverbs 29:18,
“Where there is no vision, the people perish…” and John’s
readers were in need of a vision of hope.
And God gives John this vision of newness, Divine presence, and hope. When you read this passage, it’s almost as
if the page has been turned and it’s time to move on. Is this possible for the Amish community in Pennsylvania to
simply turn the page and forget? Is it
possible for us?
Throughout the Bible the people of God are told to
remember. Just doing a simple word
search in the Bible for the word “remember” I found 154 verses where people are
told to remember.[10] Remembering is a very powerful part of our
lives yet remembrance of pain is major source of our tears today. In so many parts of the world, and in so
many families, memory is the major engine that keeps the cycle of retribution
going. Memory of injustice breeds
further injustices.[11]
I’m not sure the Amish community will ever forget
what happened to those little girls but they seem to be showing signs of
remembering in ways that most of our society knows very little about. They are remembering and honoring the lives
of those little girls, by forgetting. Remembering
by forgetting? What in the world does
that mean?
Well, it’s exactly what we see going on in Pennsylvania right now. It’s reconstructing a past event so you can get out of bed in the morning. It’s not focusing on the injustice of what happened but remembering that if God can forgive us for our sins, then perhaps we can take steps toward forgiveness as well. Miroslav Volf, who teaches at Yale, writes, “No final reconciliation will take place without the redemption of the past, and the redemption of the past is unthinkable without forgetting. Indeed, only those who are willing ultimately to forget will be capable of remembering rightly.”[12] I know it’s hard to wrap our minds around the concept but essentially we have to do what John’s vision describes. We have to see that God can make all things new. Sometime read about Joseph in the book of Genesis. He’s sold into slavery by his brothers[13] and he’s imprisoned when Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce him.[14] Yet Joseph stays faithful and seems to reconstruct his own past by remembering…yet forgetting. Joseph names his firstborn son Manasseh, which means, “God has made me forget all my hardship.”[15] And this kind of remembering…yet forgetting…allows him to be reconciled to his family.
A Baptist preacher from a long time ago, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, preached one Sunday that the making of a new world will come one new creation at a time.[16] Spurgeon said when we take the Gospel into the world one moment at a time, one encounter at a time, one conversation at a time, one opportunity for forgiveness at a time, then the world is transformed. We need to pray for our brothers and sisters in Pennsylvania. But we also need to be praying for ourselves. Let’s join the Amish community by turning the page and letting God make all things new.
Amen.
[1] www.winnipegsun.com/Comment/Editorial/2006/10/08/pf-1984783.html article from 10-9-06.
[2] Dwight Lefever, a Roberts’ family spokesman, told CBS News national correspondent, Byron Pitts, this information.
[3] Mark Scolforo, “Amish Mourn Gunman in School Rampage,” See www.cbsnews.com.
[4] This quote comes from an article by Larry Lilly, “On Amish Forgiveness,” at http://faithwriters.com.
[5] See Revelation 21:1.
[6] See Revelation 21:4.
[7] See Revelation 21:4.
[8] See Revelation 21:5.
[9] It’s traditionally believed that the Christians were being persecuted by the Roman emperor Domitian (AD 81-96).
[10] This word search was done using the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible in the BibleWorks 7 software program.
[11] William H. Willimon, “Blessed Are the Forgetful,” Pulpit Resource, Volume 34, Number 4, October-December 2006, p. 26.
[12] William H. Willimon, “Blessed Are the Forgetful,” Pulpit Resource, Volume 34, Number 4, October-December 2006, p. 27.
[13] See Genesis 37:12-36.
[14] See Genesis 39:1-23.
[15] See Genesis 41:51.
[16] Charles Haddon Spurgeon, “A New Creation,” This sermon was delivered at the Metropolitan Tabernacle on July 15, 1915.