Seeds of Revival

Revelation 2:1-7

May 26, 2024 • Mount Pleasant UMC

One of the last days we were in Dublin, Ireland, I headed out in the afternoon—and I know this will be a surprise to you—to go to Starbucks and get an iced chai latte (grande, light ice, with cinnamon on top, in case you’re wondering). As I was leaving, I noticed this big circular monument, and when I got to the front side of it, there was a blank screen with this message: “Portal is asleep—back up soon.” It was strange but I didn’t think much about it until I got back to our hotel room and was catching up on the news. Many of you may have heard about this “portal” which was actually a live video link that had been installed between Dublin, Ireland and New York City. Did you see the news about it? And there it was, just a couple of blocks from our hotel room. What a great idea, to be able to somehow experience life on the other side of the planet through a real-time video feed. But it had been put to sleep because, get this—people did not know how to behave. On the New York side, there were people who flashed or mooned the Irish. On the Dublin side, people held up pictures of swastikas and one of the Twin Towers on fire. Something that was meant to bring people together ended up instead allowing people to display their darker side (https://techcrunch.com/2024/05/20/nyc-dublin-real-time-video-portal-reopens-with-some-fixes-to-prevent-inappropriate-behavior/).

The more I thought about it, that portal became a symbol of the problem we have in our larger culture—a culture where everything is about me, and it’s about shocking others, and it’s about being as narcissistic as we can be. Pushing the boundaries, crossing the lines, throwing away any standards. That’s what people did with the portal when given the opportunity. Safeguards had to be put in place before the portal could be re-opened. But even deeper than that is the problem of sin and the ways we have strayed from God. Ironically, I encountered this portal near the end of a trip several of us had taken to trace the life of the founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley, and the more I thought about the portal and what it came to represent in our culture, the more I realized how similar our time is to Wesley’s time. And yet, John Wesley led one of the most significant revivals of faith in world history. God used the people called Methodist to renew the culture, and to bring people back to him. And that got me to wondering if maybe the key to our future might be in our past. What if—what if God might do something similar again? What if he might be calling us to be involved in the renewal of our world?

It is no secret that the world is broken. Of course, as we talk about often, it has been broken since almost the beginning. I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know. Not only is sin labeled “normal” these days, people have become deeply polarized over just about everything. If there is something that offends or upsets us, we either block that person out of our lives or we loudly shout them down. We have become unable to listen to any viewpoint other than our own and unable to tolerate any difference of opinion. That’s true in politics. It’s true in friendships. And it’s even true in the church. The church, especially in our country, has become just as broken as the world. In our attitudes, in our responses to those who are different than us, in our defense of what we believe is right and just, we demonstrate our brokenness everyday. We’ve seen it in the aftermath of our own General Conference, and while very, very few of you took me up on my offer to talk or chat about those issues, I’m aware that there is still a lot of…let’s just call it “discussion” going on behind the scenes. Rather than walk forward together, the Church—not just our church, but the Church—insists on “biting and devouring” each other (cf. Galatians 5:15). Is it any wonder we find it difficult to convince anyone to join us in following Jesus? The world is broken. Christ’s church is broken.

It wasn’t all that different in the early 18th century, when a baby was born into a preacher’s family. He was the 14th child out of 19 born to Samuel and Susanna Wesley (and he was one of ten who lived past infancy). They gave him the name John, but in the family he was called Jacky because an earlier child named John had died four years prior. His father, Samuel, was the pastor of St. Andrews Church in Epworth, about 150 miles north of London. The small town still looks very much like it would have then, and the church where Samuel preached for almost 40 years still stands and is still an active and vibrant congregation. But when John was born, the religious world was in turmoil. There was stress between Protestants and Catholics, between the Church of England and—well, pretty much anyone who wasn’t the Church of England, and even within congregations. In fact, John himself was nearly the victim of what some think was congregational struggle. To put it nicely, John’s father, Samuel, wasn’t well liked. The small town of Epworth saw him as a snooty Londoner and didn’t much care for what they called his “academic” sermons. So one night a fire broke out in the thatched roof of the parsonage where the family lived, and Samuel was convinced one of the parishioners had set it deliberately. The wooden house caught fire quickly, and when they all got out they discovered Jacky was still in the house, which by now was engulfed in flames. When the boy appeared in a second-floor window, some of the townspeople made a human ladder and rescued him from the window just as the roof collapsed. It was a dramatic moment that shaped John Wesley, especially because his mother told him she believed he was a “brand plucked from the burning,” that God had saved him for a particular purpose (Hamilton, Revival, pgs. 30-31).

John grew up, received a master’s degree from Oxford University and was ordained in the Church of England. His younger brother, Charles (younger by about 4 1/2 years), had become a student at Oxford while John was assisting his father in pastoral duties. Charles often wrote home complaining about how shallow the spiritual life was on campus, but rather than just complain, Charles and a friend decided to start meeting together to try to grow in their own faith. When John returned to Oxford to teach, he joined the two men, and then other people began to join as well (cf. Hamilton 44). This group eventually became known as “The Holy Club;” that was not a name they chose but rather one others used to make fun of them. And yet, it stuck because they really were hoping to become more holy, more like Jesus. More than anything else, these college students, living in a secular college environment, were hoping to encourage each other to grow in faith and holiness. They wanted above all else to please Jesus.

In our Scripture reading this morning, we read about another group of people who wanted to please Jesus. Or, at least, they wanted to do that at one time. At the beginning of this final book of the Bible are seven letters addressed to seven real churches spread throughout modern-day Turkey. These letters that John wrote down are from Jesus himself and they reflect the spiritual state of each individual first century church; don’t be quick to overgeneralize or spiritualize these letters. These were written to real people in the first century, not to the twenty-first. Still, there are a lot of similarities between those churches and ours today, not least with the church at Ephesus.

Ephesus was the capital of the province of Asia, an important city and one in which the first century’s most well-known preacher, Paul, had made his home for three years. It was a center for the worship of Artemis, the goddess of hunting, and probably had a population of around 250,000 people when this letter was written. It was a cosmopolitan city, with people from all walks of life, and even today if you walk among the ruined streets, you can still get an idea of what life there might have been like when John wrote the Revelation. But you know what you won’t find in modern Ephesus today? An active church. There are the ruins of a church building there where a great church council may have been held in the fifth century, but the great influence Ephesus once had in the Christian faith is gone today. And this letter in Revelation might give us a clue why: somewhere along the way, the church at Ephesus lost their first love (cf. Michaels, Revelation [IVPNTC], pg. 69; Wright, Revelation for Everyone, pg. 11).

Don’t get me wrong; Ephesus had a lot going for it. They were known for their good works, or “deeds” as the text says (2:2), which involved a lot of hard work. They would probably win an award from the Conference today for doing so many good things. They were also known for “perseverance,” or better translated as “resilience,” the strength and ability to bounce back when pushed around or beaten down. They were strong as a church and there really wasn’t anything that could stop them. And, even more, they did not tolerate “wicked people.” It seems, at least from what Jesus says here, that there were traveling preachers and teachers who claimed to have the authority of Jesus but were instead teaching things that were not true. There is a strange reference to the “Nicolatians,” a group whose identity has been lost to history, but we know at the very least they were false teachers (cf. McKnight, Revelation, pg. 45). Ephesus would not put up with that; their beliefs were orthodox and they held onto the faith they had been taught. That’s good. That’s very good. The same could have been said about the church in Wesley’s day, and even down to today, there is an ongoing struggle about what it means to be orthodox in our culture. It’s been fascinating to me to watch churches, and not just in our own tradition but also in others, who stand strong and speak loudly on issues of human sexuality, to the point where they take other churches or denominational leaders to court in order to defend their orthodoxy. The fascinating part is that the same Paul who talked about standards of sexual morality also told believers not to take each other to court. He said, “The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already” (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:1-11). To far too many today, “orthodoxy” and “being Biblical” means, “as long as I agree with it.” Or, as New Testament scholar Scot McKnight puts it, “Orthodoxy without love kills” (46).

It seems Ephesus was very orthodox, but they still had a problem. A big problem. A challenge big enough that Jesus threatens to “remove their lampstand,” which is the imagery for being removed as a church altogether (2:5). Their problem was this: they had forsaken their first love. Now, we read “love” and we think of warm feelings, romantic love, Hallmark channel. But that’s not the kind of love Jesus is talking about. This is agape love, the no-strings-attached love that God has for us. It’s not that they didn’t “feel” love toward God; if you had asked them, they would have said that yes, they loved God. They had warm feelings toward Jesus. But they weren’t living love toward God or their neighbor. Remember that Jesus said the greatest commandment was to love God and love others (cf. Mark 12:28-34). That’s why we have those two things as first and second in our vision statement: Love God, Love People, Love Life. The church at Ephesus had failed to continue to love God by loving others in their actions. Everything they believed was right, but their lives were not (cf. Michaels 71). As the pastor I had when I was growing up would often say—the gospel had failed to make the trip 18 inches from their head to their heart.

When Charles Wesley started what became the Holy Club, he had no desire to start a movement. He just wanted to love Jesus, and that group quickly learned that loving Jesus wasn’t about more Bible studies or more theological readings. It wasn’t about singing songs or having worship services. They did all of those things, and the early Methodists continued those things, but that was never the heart of who they were and who they became. It was about serving Jesus by serving others. The way you love Jesus is by serving others.

In this letter to the church at Ephesus, Jesus gives three instructions to help the church come back to its first love (cf. McKnight 49). Now, I’m reluctant to say these are “three steps to revival.” Let’s just call them “three seeds for revival,” and as we move more into the Wesley and the early Methodist story in the weeks to come, I think you’ll also see how these three things are also a part of that story. Imagine that—Biblical principles that work in the real world! So…three seeds for revival. First: “Consider,” Jesus says to Ephesus, “how far you have fallen!” (2:5). In the recovery movement, in groups like our own Celebrate Recovery, the first step in conquering any kind of addiction or bad behavior is to admit that you are powerless over whatever it is. It has power over you. Now that is counter-intuitive. Our culture’s idea of “pull yourself up by your own bootstraps” teaches that you need to have strength and willpower to overcome any kind of addiction or whatever is challenging you. We hate to admit that we are powerless. But all the willpower in the world will not overcome something that has taken over your life. Of course, for the Ephesians it’s not an addiction necessarily. But they have fallen from where they should be. They have given themselves to a lifestyle that is not honoring to Jesus, and so the first thing Jesus calls them to do is to “consider” or “remember” what they used to be. See how far you have fallen away. See how much power this new lifestyle has over you. Admit that you are powerless. Because admitting that we can’t conquer whatever it is is actually a movement toward conquering. See? It’s very counter-intuitive. Consider how far you have fallen.

Then, Jesus tells the Ephesians to repent. The word there is “metanoia,” which literally means to turn around. Go the other way. Make a different choice. Make a conscious different choice. We sometimes reduce “repentance” to saying “I’m sorry for what I’ve done,” but if all we do is say or feel sorrow, we’ve not really repented. Repentance in the Bible is about making a decisive change and going a different direction. But, again, we tend to think this is something we can or will do on our own. It’s hard when we discover we can’t. Yes, the intention of our hearts can and should be set toward repentance, turning around, but without the strength of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit, there’s no chance we can follow through.

One morning during our travels in Ireland, we got to attend a demonstration of the way sheepdogs herd sheep. The farmer had one dog in the field and five sheep. There were a lot of things I noticed about how he handled things, not the least of which were the different whistles that meant different things to the dog and how quickly he switched between the sounds. But two things in particular jumped out. One was that the sheep were generally in danger if they were left to themselves. They would wander off or get lost and not know how to get back home. Sound like anyone you know? But the other thing I noticed was how utterly focused the dog was on the sheep. She watched them every single moment, even when the sheep had no idea she was around. And when the sheep were ready to be moved, the dog sprung into action, using her strength and abilities to move them down the hillside. Just like Jesus does to us, enabling us to repent, turn around, and go in the direction he intends us to go. Oh, and I kept thinking about the fact that Jesus calls us his sheep (cf. John 10:27-28). Not a random coincidence, I think. Consider how far you have fallen. Repent.

And then he tells the Ephesians to “do the things you did at first” (2:5). This is another way of Jesus saying, “It’s not enough to believe the right things. You have to live them out. You have to love them out. You need to get back to loving people because when you do, you’re loving me.” So do what you did at first. Love people. And love them well enough that they want to know why. How do they do that? Jesus said it would look like feeding those who are hungry, visiting those who are in prison, giving the thirsty something to drink, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked and caring for the sick (cf. Matthew 25:35-36). It might look like giving an elderly friend or a relative a ride to the doctor’s appointment, or mowing the yard for a neighbor who is struggling. It might look like reading to a child or helping an addict find hope or delivering cookies with a special needs friend. The ways to love are as innumerable as there are people. I’m willing to bet that right now, God has begun to spark a thought in your mind about someone you know who needs to be loved. Consider how far you have fallen. Repent. And do the things you did at first, when you first believed. These are the seeds of revival. They were seen in the Ephesian church, in the early Methodist movement, and they are desperately needed today in the church and in the world. Again, that’s why our vision is what it is: love God, love people, love life. Because I believe such a way of life could radically change the world, just as it did in the days of John Wesley.

The world is broken, but it is not without hope. Nothing we talk about over the next few weeks, though, including Jesus’ instructions to the church at Ephesus, will result in an immediate fix. That’s why I’m calling them “seeds” of revival. Back in the days when I planted a garden, I remember going out in the spring with my seeds and putting them in the ground. I would carefully put them in rows, and I tried to pay attention to what plants liked each other so as to plant accordingly. And after everything was covered up and watered, I would wait. I could have run out the next morning and said, “What? The seeds haven’t sprouted?” And then I could have torn everything out, since it didn’t happen instantly. But that’s not the way planting (a favorite metaphor of Jesus, by the way) works. You plant the seeds and you wait. You tend the seeds and the seedlings and you wait. And sometimes you wait longer than you think you should or longer than you want. But you wait. Because at the end of the process, the produce is so, so good. And it will be the same with the healing of our world. It may be broken now, but if God’s people will earnestly and honestly and faithfully plant seeds of revival, the way John Wesley and his followers did in the 18th century, I believe God will allow those seeds to grow and make a real difference in our world. These seeds will bring healing to the world. Paul described the same kind of process in his letter to the Corinthians: “I planted the seed, Apollos [another preacher] watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow” (1 Corinthians 3:6-7). Our job is to plant the seeds and let God send revival. And I believe he will. Let’s pray.