ABSTRACT
This sermon attempts to encourage hearers to name and then confront instances of sexual violence and domestic abuse. Too often such violence is strategically downplayed in public discourse and quietly swept underneath church carpets. The book of Revelation provides a compelling framework for this sermon. I have chosen to center the sermon on Revelation 21:1–5 (NRSV), primarily because of the passage's homiletic possibilities as well as its climactic content, namely the announcement of God's intended wholeness for creation. In other words, by emphasizing the position of Revelation 21:1–5, which follows very disturbing imagery, the preacher can encourage hearers to actually do what much of the literary structure of Revelation does—to first confront the reality of violence, and then to put violence on notice that its reign in the world and in peoples' lives is penultimate. The theme of “Our New Earth and God's New Heaven” is that God is deeply concerned about human suffering. So great is God's concern for our suffering that God cannot rest comfortably in heaven, but must transform heaven and earth so that all instances of violence, crying, and pain and death are no more! Thus, the sermon suggests that, as God's children, each of us have a responsibility to resist violence and orient our lives toward nonviolence in our families, in our friendships, in our relationships, in our churches, and everywhere under this earthly sun.
Notes
1. Revelation 12:1–4.
2. Revelation 13:1.
3. Revelation 13:11.
4. Revelation 18:1–2.
5. Revelation 19:11.
6. Revelation 19:19.
7. The New Interpreter's Study Bible, Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 2003, p. 2211.
8. Ibid., p. 2211.
9. Ibid., p. 2211.
10. Ibid., p. 2211.
11. Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981, p. 17.
12. The New Interpreter's Study Bible, p. 2213.
13. Ibid., p. 2239.
14. Ibid., p. 2239.
15. Revelation 22:20.
16. Isaiah 11:8.
17. Isaiah 40:4–5.