Topographical - Revelation - w/Pastor Jenn Swift

We are wrapping up our series on Topographical today.

And I know, that was the last series, guys.

But it's been a really fun series, I think.

I obviously enjoy traveling and it's part of the work that I do,

but getting to visit all these places has been really interesting.

So, Kathy, bring up that first slide to take us back to where we are,

to remind us where on the greater globe we are.

We are in the Mediterranean basin.

We have been traveling many, many places in this region, road tripping around.

Hasn't it been fun?

The snacks we've brought for the trip, the playlists that we've put on.

Are you guys that person that if you're on a road trip,

the person who's driving gets to decide the playlist?

Is that a, that's some strong nods are happening there.

Excellent.

We are in our last week of jet setting the Mediterranean,

and we are ending it from the western region of Asia Minor.

So if you're looking at the map, I'm pointing here, but I should be pointing over here.

We are on the right side, if you can see where Turkey is.

We are kind of on the left coast, the west coast of Turkey.

And so the next slide will show us very specifically where we are in that region.

The book of Revelation is where we're going to be today, which can like trigger some people.

It is the last book of the Bible.

It is a wild book, and oh, let me tell you, it has been wildly interpreted.

I don't mean widely.

I mean wildly interpreted.

Every generation, every single one for the last 2,000 years has believed

that the words of the book are coming true right now.

They are happening this second.

Look at the signs.

They are clearer than they have ever been.

And I don't mean to sound sarcastic or mocking of that, but for 2,000 years, it is exactly the same.

Is Jesus coming back?

Will we get to be with him again?

Yes.

Is that happening this moment?

We don't know.

And it's okay that we don't know.

But every generation has believed it is happening right now because it is full of hard to understand things.

And it's complex, and it's layered.

And we have to be wise and aware when reading it.

Aware of what?

Context.

So much context.

Context is ever important.

I joke around about saying that when I was in school for becoming a pastor, I call it pastor school.

So in pastor school, when talking about biblical interpretation, the guide always was,

what is the passage saying then?

And then what is it saying now?

We do not start with, what is it saying now?

We start with, what is it saying then?

What is it saying to the original readers?

Always with scripture, we have to consider the world in which it was written.

We need to understand it in its time.

So let's do a little about that, a little with that today as we visit some of the places in Revelation.

So the book of Revelation is diverse in its style.

It is considered apocalypse, which is a Greek word meaning unveiling or disclosure.

It is also prophetic, which means prophetic is something that either looks forward or brings forth.

And it's also a letter.

There's a lot of literary things happening in this.

This kind of writing was actually fairly common.

Revelation is not a unique book in its style, in what it is.

This kind of writing was fairly common in Judaism in the centuries before and after Jesus.

This kind of writing belonged to its own genre.

It was a particular species of Jewish literature in which the Jewish vision of heaven and earth coming together is turned into literary artistry.

It could include revelations of the other world being the heavenly world and sometimes of the future of this world.

Jewish apocalypse comes out of a time of oppression and suffering that was inflicted by the powers that rule this world

and contrasts the present evil age with a future blessed age that will soon come through a dramatic intervention by God.

That is the style, and it was common.

It was a writing style that was common, and it is exactly what we see in our canonical book of Revelation.

The book also, because it was often calling out current oppressive powers, often uses very coded language.

In this case, it's very coded language about the oppressor, which is the Roman Empire.

There's high levels of symbolism and deep references also to Old Testament scriptures, which the readers would have all known.

But interpretation is challenging because apocalyptic language and imagery is foreign to most people today.

Can you see why knowing the context is important?

If we don't, we're going to interpret it with what we know now, and that is dangerous.

Unless the reader is familiar with those original things, the experience will be like watching the movie Shrek

without knowing any of the references to the fairy tales or the nursery rhymes that it parodies.

It can be funny, you can watch it, but if you know, if you know, then it's hilarious.

The writer piles on one metaphor on top of another in order to describe the visions and to draw out their significance.

The point of these writings was to lay out not a heavenly paradise in front of us, but a paradigm, a super reality,

attention to which allowed the working out of the crises and frustrations at hand.

It allowed the people listening and reading this to work out and to process what they were experiencing.

And then it gave hope that God was going to do something about it.

Through every generation, the belief that Revelation is about right now goes in heavier and lighter waves.

Every millennia, whether it's the turning to 1000 or to 2000, things kind of get ramped up.

Everybody believes, oh, it's happening, as if God works with our calendar, right?

Oh, it's a thousand, it's a thousand now, it's like we're in the year 1000, God is surely coming back because that's significant to us.

That's not how God works. We do not know the day or the hour.

And so to that point, the writer of Revelation did not have Christians outside of the first century in mind.

He wasn't thinking about 1000 AD or 2000 AD or 956 or 1426.

None of that was in the mind of the writer.

It was addressed explicitly to the readers identified and the great evil identified in the book was always Rome and the Empire.

Everyone in historic leadership would have understood this to be true.

It is a book written by an author who had a relationship with the current readers who was writing to them in an empire of Rome that was the oppressor.

It was not written to us.

That does not mean that we cannot glean things from it, but it was not written to us.

It was not written for us. So who is the author?

Revelation begins with this. Verse one, the revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.

He made it known by sending his angel to his servant, John.

It was once believed that this was probably the gospel writer, John of the of the Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

And if we grew up in church, we would have likely had the image of a prisoner in a dark,

dank cell furiously writing down his visions while incarcerated. But biblical scholarship has moved away from that.

And and they think it actually offers.

I think it actually offers a broader view into the world that we are meeting the first century church in.

This, John was very likely well known to his audience and possibly a traveling preacher, teacher,

and possibly even a prophet who is steeped in Old Testament knowledge and the Jewish scriptures.

The audience identified is revealed in verse nine.

It says, I, John, your brother and companions in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours and Jesus,

was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus was on the island of Patmos is not now.

On the Lord's Day, I was in the spirit and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet,

which said, write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches.

There's our reader to Ephesus, Smyrna, Hergamon, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.

These cities were all within a distinct region interconnected in trade and even culture.

You can see it on the map.

It's hard. We're basically some of those main, the dots are small,

but where some of the main road meeting points are is where those cities are.

You can see how interconnected they were.

And they were they were very connected in one region.

It probably doesn't take more than three hours to drive from Pergamon,

which is in the bigger loop at the top down to Ephesus on the coast on the bottom.

And Patmos, you can see this little sort of thought bubble coming out from it, word bubble.

It identifies where Patmos is.

It's about 50 miles off the coast of Turkey.

Currently, it belongs to Greece and like all those little islands belong to Greece

and Turkey is everything that's mainland.

Speaking of the complexities of the Roman Empire, those complexities still exist today.

But it was a distinct region, a distinct culture, a distinct connectivity.

As such, it is thought that John had been somewhat of a nuisance in Asia,

which was probably why he was taken away.

And so because he had been a nuisance, sometimes prophets are,

and had been sentenced, he was sentenced to exile on a not too far away garrisoned island.

This was more like a military garrison versus like a hard prison out on an island like Alcatraz.

So it basically was to get him out of the region and quiet him down for a while,

and a local governor had made this choice.

When we get into the meat of the message to the churches

and understanding the world in which the message was being laid,

we can see why John would have been a troublesome presence for the local authorities.

He was held there for some time, not strictly as a prisoner that we imagine,

but more just to get him out of the way.

And then likely he was relocated to Ephesus,

which is kind of the jut out of the road near Meletus on the bottom there.

I really didn't think it would be this small on the screen.

I'm so sorry for those dots.

We might just keep this up at the end so you can like peer through the map.

So we know Ephesus. We were in Ephesus last week, weren't we?

Ephesus and Laodicea, we know them as locations that Paul visited and wrote to.

We talked about them last week.

The Book of Acts refers to Thyatira as the location where Lydia was from,

a business owner who held church in her home.

She helped nurture the early church and also bankrolled it because she was really, really wealthy.

Smyrna, Philadelphia, Pergamum, and Sardis are not mentioned anywhere else in the Bible,

but they were significant cities in the ancient world and in this first century.

We do not know who founded the Christian communities in some of these places,

but we know that they were there and, as I said,

had likely now been there for a few generations at this point.

The book was written in the later part of the first century.

So what we will call the letters, the letters to these seven churches,

includes evaluations of each community, condemnation or commendation, and a promise.

Nothing bad is said about Smyrna and Philadelphia.

They're like the good siblings that like, Mom and Dad love you the most. Eww.

Nothing good is said about Sardis and Laodicea,

and Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira receive mixed verdicts.

You can just imagine like getting this letter and just being like,

what's he going to say about us? Like, we're doing good.

And then like nothing good is said about these guys.

You know, like, oh gosh.

Today, because the letters are each long, I'm not going to go through them fully,

but I will quote sections of them.

But I encourage you to go back and read them.

As always, whenever we cover a text here, we encourage you,

go back and read it yourself.

Go back and read it yourself.

Find out about the places, the people, the things, the cultures.

We learn the scriptures here together and grow in them,

but we also want to be doing that in our own individual lives as well.

So I encourage you to do so personally and do some more research

on the life of the community these words were first addressed to.

It is fascinating.

Before we go forward, let us pray.

Jesus, thank you so much for the way you have encouraged the church,

the way that you have revealed yourself to the body of believers universally

and historically, God.

We are grateful for the fact that there were churches at all

and that they made it through these first centuries, God.

We are grateful for strengthening voices that reminded people

who their first love was and to get back to it.

God, we want to continue in that tradition to be encouragers of the church,

to be encouragers through your word and to be encouragers through prayer

and to hold each other up.

Help us continue to be a church that you are alive in,

and God, may we be a church that you are pleased with.

We pray this in your name. Amen.

So as I said, the setting of the seven churches is quite diverse.

Each of them were facing different challenges,

and some of them were facing the same challenges.

There were issues among some of the affluent

and that there was temptations to compromise with an idolatrous and oppressive system.

The churches of Ephesus, Sardis, and Laodicea

were showing signs of spiritual lethargy.

To Sardis, once the capital city of the Kingdom of Lydia,

which was no small thing, it was one of the biggest kingdoms of this region.

They took on the Persians. We talked about the Persians early on.

They fought them off.

Eventually they couldn't hold, but they held their own for a number of times,

and that was significant.

They are also the kingdom that first standardized coinage in the world,

which is a fascinating little detail.

But it's a city that would have felt like they were once on top of the world

and may not have known that they weren't still.

To the church at Sardis is written,

I know your deeds, you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.

Wake up! Strengthen what remains, and is about to die,

for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.

Remember therefore what you have received and heard.

Hold fast and repent.

If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief,

and you will not know at what time I will come to you.

The spiritual lethargy was real.

Thyatira and Philadelphia were commended for their endurance in the face of opposition.

The church of Smyrna, current city of Ismere,

it's a really big city on the coast of Anatolia,

the church of Smyrna had persecution on its horizon.

And the Bible says, I know your afflictions and your poverty, yet you are rich.

I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not,

but are a synagogue of Satan.

Strong words.

Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer.

I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you,

and you will suffer persecution.

Be faithful even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor's crown.

Philadelphia was promised that though there was trials coming, they would escape.

The churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia were encountering religious rivalry

and slander from local synagogues, which was not new.

Paul was run out of a town because he was preaching the gospel in a synagogue,

and realized this message is for the Gentiles here.

I need to move on.

And so they were facing slander from local synagogues,

whereas the Jews and Sardis carried on a good relations with non-Jews in the city.

So it was different in some places.

The Christians in Pergamum and Thyatira were chastised for eating food sacrificed to idols

and engaging in sexual immorality, the hallmarks of assimilating socially to a local pagan culture.

There were different economic conditions since the Smyrnaians were poor,

whereas the Laodiceans were quite rich and really boastful about it.

The Ephesus Church was commended for resisting fake apostles and the Nicolaitans,

while Pergamum and Thyatira were rebuked for tolerating false teachers.

These were somewhat internal things each community faced,

and John, because he was probably very familiar with each of these locations,

understood that and was able to speak directly to these things.

But each of these cities also had highly complicated relationships with Rome.

And as time went by, and the empire used the network of the Hellenistic gridlines,

remember how we talked about Alexander the Great's reign?

He had sort of unified this whole region together,

and then created a place that culturally and language-wise there was a high level of homogeneity.

And so because of that, Rome had a template to work with, an infrastructure already to spread out.

And so Rome used those gridlines and then moved in to overtake the whole thing

and wanted everybody to conform.

And so all these different areas were trying to basically deal with Rome coming in as an empire.

And I just lost my place in the notes, it's probably very clear that as I'm like,

oh, I'm now just sort of riffing right now.

What I was saying, go back to the beginning, not the very beginning, I won't do that to you.

These were somewhat internal things that John is addressing.

And then there are the external things like the Empire of Rome that is coming in and trying to take over.

So Rome had played a number of these cities to its advantage.

In Pergamum, the Adalids, which was the ruling family there, became probably the most loyal to Rome.

They saw that that was what they needed to do, and so they played the game.

But when Adalus died without an heir, he bequeathed the whole region and the city to Rome

in exchange that Pergamum would be kept free and autonomous.

Do you think Rome honored that?

Right, exactly.

And we're not just talking the city, like I said, it was the whole region.

Ephesus was part of the Kingdom of Pergamum.

And so out of their hands, they all of a sudden became subjects of the Roman Republic.

Now this is before the Empire.

This is as the Roman Republic is expanding and trying to take over territory.

And so Rome certainly did with it, oh great, we have more territory.

They were literally handed territory.

And cities in that region, all of those cities that we saw in the seven churches, were basically encompassed in that.

So the city was declared free and served briefly as the capital of the province

before this distinction was eventually transferred to Ephesus.

The other cities, like Ephesus, didn't want this, and so there was major pushback.

And they ended up, Ephesus ended up having a general lead,

a campaign that killed all the Roman citizens in that region.

This did not go smoothly.

A Roman consul came and took over and brought Ephesus back under Roman rule.

And this is all happening before, like around 90 BC.

But all of a sudden five years of back taxes are called in,

which entirely weighed laced to the economic structure of this region.

So here's this background of the complex relationship this region has with Rome.

Cities could become capitals or they could lose their status.

If you wanted to become a capital, what were you going to do?

You were going to probably play your allegiance towards the biggest, the biggest bully in the, in the, on the playground.

And so all of these things were going back and forth.

Pergamum, Smyrna, Ephesus, all sort of vied for becoming the capital of the area.

When Augustus became emperor in 27 BC, the most important change was that he made Ephesus the capital of Asia instead of Pergamum.

It was just taken away.

Ephesus then entered an era of great prosperity.

Of course it did, becoming both the seat of the governor and a major center of commerce.

It was second in importance in size only to Rome.

Rome played games with its cities and in an effort for cities to gain independence or power, they became fragile to Rome's whims.

Rome always had the power and it was increasing.

And so I cannot overstate, I cannot overstate the direction of the book of Revelation as it looks as the, at the Roman Empire,

as the problem, as the oppressor, as the beast, as Babylon.

One subdued chieftain of this time period of the first century allegedly said, to violence, plunder, they give the name empire.

They created desolation and they call it peace.

John's Apocalypse is a theologically loaded critique of Rome's faunted greatness and goodness.

It's self-styled and self-acclaimed blessedness and benevolence offering an alternative perspective on how Rome looks from below.

The empire demanded loyalty, but whether you gave it or you didn't, it could and likely would always turn on you.

By the end of the first century, about first century AD, about the first, about the time of the writing of this book,

all seven cities had become a part of the empire, had been played by the empire badly,

and had all seen their favor or their disgrace played out in front of everyone.

And so all of these cities now were as the Roman Empire cities, all had cultic sites for imperial devotion.

Rome demanded devotion and it was going to get it.

Participation, rites, and rituals, whether at the dinner of a trade guild during public games or on a family shrine featuring the Roman Emperor's image,

these were all moments to demonstrate one's loyalty and gratitude towards the imperial family.

How lovely that we all get that opportunity.

This is why John singles out Pergamum, a place where Satan has his throne, since Pergamum was among the first to receive the title of Temple Warden.

They had the biggest temple of the imperial cult.

It had a temple to the goddess Roma and to the Augusti, and along with an immense altar to Zeus on top of a nearby mountain.

There is an image, Kathy, it is the one, it's the third image.

Actually, keep that wine.

This is the hillside at Pergamum.

You can see how tall the hill is there.

That theater held about 12,000 people, I think.

And the temple I'm about to talk about, you can see how towering this acropolis or city was above the lowlands.

So maybe the next image, yep, that one, on the foreground on the bottom left, that is the Temple of Zeus.

And it was kind of visualized, like those around it visualized it kind of like a throne.

And so if you were coming up from the lowlands, if you were unfortunate enough to live down below,

you had to come up the hill to do your shopping, to do a lot of major things.

And you had to come up to the hill to do your community sort of things.

And so you came up this very steep hill and slowly rising in your viewpoint was this huge, huge altar.

It was massive.

It was the first thing you were going to see on the main road coming up from the low part of the city.

And so this is what John is calling the seat of Satan, the throne of Satan.

It wasn't just, it is dramatic language, but it was directed, it was very specific.

He writes, to the angel of the church in Pergamum, right, these are the words of him who has sharp double-edged sword.

I know where you live, where Satan has his throne, yet you remain true to my name.

You did not renounce your faith in me, not even in the days of Antipas, who was a martyr in this city.

When somebody is martyred, it's a pretty scary thing, and you think to yourself, do I want to be this devout to the faith,

or do I just want to look like maybe I'm a little bit more loyal to Rome?

They had that in their midst, and here they are being commended for not renouncing their faith.

So not even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your city where Satan lives.

And so you can see here, go to the next slide where it has been remade at the Pergamum Museum in Berlin.

This gives you a sense of size as well. It was a formidable altar.

As I said, Pergamum was built high in a hill, and so everybody also from the lowlands could see this from the ground.

Pergamum, as it was, as I said, was one of the capital cities for a while, and so you would have had to come to Pergamum.

Everybody in the region reading this would have known this is what we're talking about here.

And so if you did not turn up to sing and cheer and eat and celebrate, it would have been noticeable.

Your absence would have been noticeable and would eventually have roused suspicion about your loyalty

and your devotion to the local deities and to the imperial regime.

And the chastisement of accommodating, and the chastisement of accommodation was to the Roman imperial way of life for upholding the empire.

The problem was too many in the church were upholding the empire. They were holding the empire above the kingdom.

The churches had become too Roman. There was a divided heart to the lordship of Christ and to the lordship of Caesar, and it had happened over generations.

Rome would also try to buy out its cities, so if they were having trouble gaining their loyalty, they would try to buy them out.

All of these locations, go back to the map, Kathy, all of these locations in this region were subject to extensive earthquake damage.

If you remember back to February, the earthquake that happened in southern Turkey, that was pretty significant.

That was not uncommon. It's not uncommon for this area.

And so all of these locations, when they would suffer extensive damage, Rome would send money to rebuild the city,

and as it did, would influence the design, the identity, what was important to rebuild or what wasn't,

and would never let the city forget that it was its benevolent benefactor.

After a destructive earthquake in 178 A.D., Smyrna was rebuilt in the Roman period under the emperor Marcus Aurelius.

Aeolus Aristides wrote a letter to Marcus Aurelius and his son, inviting them to become the new founders of the city.

Wasn't that nice of them to just so casually install new founders of this new, fancy Roman city?

And because of the history of devastating earthquakes in the region, it's believed that the commendation to Philadelphia is in response to this.

John writes, to the one who is victorious, I will make a pillar in the temple of my God.

Never again will they leave it. A pillar in the temple of my God.

Well, a pillar in the temples was a familiar sight, and if you were going to experience an earthquake,

those pillars were the ones that were going to fall.

But to be a pillar in the temple of God meant that whatever happens, whether the world shakes or it doesn't, that's going to stay firm.

It will not fall. This pillar will remain standing. Rome will not need to rebuild you.

Laodicea was also wealthy. Let's go to the image of, I think it's probably the one after, yep, that one right there.

Speaking of pillars, Laodicea had at one point experienced a dreadful earthquake, and it is what ended it as a city later on in the centuries.

But it was incredibly wealthy, and it prided itself on its wealth.

This is the marketplace, and as far as it goes down, you can see where it crosses over, and on the other side, those pillars keep going back.

And it goes back to the right side of the screen, I don't know, another hundred plus feet.

It was massive. It was a massive, massive marketplace.

Laodicea kind of sits atop of this outcropping.

We can go to the next image, I think is, you can see the mountains here.

This is a roadway, and go to the next one. Yep.

So Laodicea is on a hill in a valley with mountains like this around it.

So it kind of stood tall, and everybody could see it. It was easy to get to.

It was a well-developed city.

And so it's also very close to the cities of Hierapolis and Colosse.

The Book of Colossians was written to them.

Hierapolis was across the valley.

And so many communities in this valley would come here to do their dealings, doing their trade.

And so it made them very, very rich.

After suffering a terrible earthquake, Rome wanted to do what Rome does and send money out to Laodicea.

And Laodicea refused.

They refused. They took great pride in this.

But Revelation calls them out.

Chapter 317 says, You 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.

That was a direct hit.

In fact, the writer calls them out even further and jabs them at a weak spot.

Because they were on this hill, water doesn't run uphill.

Guys, gravity doesn't work that way.

Across from the valley from them, as I pointed out, there was a city of Hierapolis, which was known for its hot springs.

And if you – I didn't have time to put it in, but they have these extraordinary, like, travertine, cascading pools.

And they were filled with hot water.

People would come from all around to experience these thermal springs.

Down the road, Colosse experienced the coolness of a natural spring.

And through the center of this valley ran a large river, the Meander River.

And it's where we get our word, meander, from.

And it had rich, cool water.

So Laodicea had to have their water brought up to them.

And, you know, the envious hot water of Hierapolis, the envious cool water of Colosse,

they got the lukewarm water, didn't they?

Because it had to be brought up.

It was neither hot nor cold.

And that affected them.

They did not love that.

And so, to the angel of the church in Laodicea, right, these are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness,

the ruler of God's creation, I know your deeds, that you are neither hot nor cold.

I wish you were either one of those.

So because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth.

You are – you have not connected to a source.

You've not connected to a source which can give you fresh water.

You have become like your water, which was, again, this was a weak spot for them.

They were sore about this.

They took pride in so many things, and they tried to be like, please don't talk about our water, though.

So the context for all these things matters, doesn't it?

It brings great clarity to understanding not only how direct and important and specific the words were to these communities,

but what they meant to them and what the admonitions, the encouragements, or even the, you know, the words of condemnation,

what it meant.

All of that makes a great deal of sense when you understand it in its context.

It also makes it much more a book of its time, doesn't it?

It makes more sense why it's a book specifically written to these people.

Now, as I said, when you read, when you read scripture, you ask, what does it mean to the readers?

What does it mean to the hearers?

And what does it mean to us?

John's words are a call to persevere and get back to your source when it looks like the beast is winning,

when it looks like the empire is taking over.

It's an encouragement that the empire does not have the final say.

The oppressor does not have the final say. In this first century context, Revelation is a pervasively anti-imperial document.

It is undeniably about Rome.

But if this is what Revelation meant then, what might it mean now?

We still have empires.

We still have empires that are seen and unseen.

Our loyalty is still asked to be compromised all the time.

We all the time have to reconcile, which kingdom am I aligned with?

Who am I serving?

Where does my attention go?

Where does my worship go?

Who am I facing?

This is still a valuable document now as a call, as a call to remember that though the empire is in front of you,

it is everywhere you look.

It is demanding everything from you, but it is not real.

It is a facade.

Revelation reminds us of the more that is not just beyond the here and now,

but the fact that the kingdom is here and now.

Remember to look for the kingdom.

Remember the kingdom.

Remember Christ in front of you.

The empire is not your identity.

The empire is not your home.

You belong to something more.

And as the generations get further and further out from the original message, the gospel,

as it was alive in the day that it was produced, as we get further and further out, that call still stands for us.

Come back home.

Do not forsake your first love.

Remember.

Remember.

Remember.

So let's let the book of Revelation be a word to us for that, to remember,

to help us remember to check ourselves and to get back home with the kingdom that is not hidden,

but is present here and now today.

Let's pray.

God, I'm thankful for this word.

I'm also thankful, God, for the unique and specific ways you spoke, directed these things to these communities

and ways that they were going to understand them and in ways that were going to get close to their hearts.

And I love that you do that to us today.

Your word, when you speak to us, gets close to our heart.

You know us well.

You know that the things that I deal with and am challenged by and need to be re-centered away from

are different than what another in this community might experience.

And so you speak that truth directly to me, but what you speak to all of us is to remember to get back home.

And we can help each other with that.

While you are dealing with the internal issues, we are all dealing with the external ones and the challenges

and the constant cries from the both proverbial and literal empire around us to draw our attention away

and focus on that.

And help us remember that the kingdoms that we see in front of us alive in the world are not real.

They are facades, but that there is a very real kingdom we belong to, and you are the Lord of it, God.

And so we look to you.

Bring us back to you.

Pray this in your name. Amen.