4^th December 2013

Rev Warren Clarnette at St John's UCA Mt Waverley Sunday 17 November 2013

Readings -- Revelation 18:1-24; Luke 21:5-19

My colleague Dr Max O'Connor tells how some years ago a librarian came across a book by the great bishop St Augustine, The City of God, written during the twilight of the Roman Empire. In it Augustine compared the city of God with the city of man. It was never intended for bedtime reading.
It contains 1100 tightly argued pages. Augustine wrote that 'the two cities (of God and of man) are intertwined in this world, mixed up with each other until they are finally pulled apart at the last judgment'.

The librarian did not know where to place it on the shelves, so this great work of theology ended up in the section on 'Town Planning'.

The librarian may have been right. Town planning aims to improve the lives of communities, and so did Augustine and so does the gospel. We sometimes forget that Christianity is concerned with human happiness, even though
many see the Church as a source of misery.

The imagery of Revelation is not to be taken literally. It declares that the arrow of history flies towards technology and civilisation. From Genesis to Revelation, human development moves always to the city. From the first city Enoch through Sodom, Babylon, Nineveh, Jerusalem and Rome,
the Bible differs from all other scriptures.

Most religions look for a return to nature: a garden, paradise, or wilderness. From the beginning the Bible is different. It declares that man comes into his own through technology and industry. Read about it in Genesis chapter 4. Lovers of nature and wilderness, and enemies of the world economy should think about it. Civilisation, for all its corruption, is approved by God.

But the city stands in need of judgment. Cities are raised on the principle of human self-sufficiency. Babylon, symbol of all cities, must be destroyed.

That is why in Revelation 14 one voice stands out from the voices of
angels: 'Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great . . . ' it says. In chapter 17 Babylon is called the great mother of harlots and earth's abominations; she is portrayed as a woman ‘arrayed in purple and scarlet, bedecked with gold and jewels and pearls, holding a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her fornication'. She is the archetype of the prostitute, but not only of sex workers, for prostitution is the example of the corruption of love and self-giving through the loveless use of another person for gain and gratification. Babylon's harlotry is more than sexuality. Every part of life is prostituted through manipulation of others and misuse of the goods of daily life. This has nothing to do with puritanical gloom or dislike of pleasure.

Babylon is no city in particular; it stands for all cities, mankind's supreme creation. Without them civilisation as we know it would not exist. Babylon is Rome, London, Paris, Moscow, Beijing, New York and Melbourne.

Every city is the home of demons, the haunt of foul spirits, the place of inflamed passions where prime ministers and presidents practise
corruption, merchants grow rich and God's people are found.

When judgment falls there is no escape, no dilution of divine wrath, no last-minute reprieve. Destruction is total: dormitory suburbs, skyscrapers, casino complexes, industrial regions and docks and the mansions of the rich and famous.

Judgment is not based on imagination or fiction. The catastrophe of Pompeii would be seared into the minds of first century thinkers and the vision of chapter 18 could have been the template for many of its aspects.

Kings weep and wail over the city; merchants, importers, retailers all mourn and cry out; as do ship owners and seafarers; citizens who want only to play and hear music, work at their crafts, buy and sell, marry and raise families. Music is silenced, food is prepared no more, lamps are extinguished. A deathly calm settles over the vibrant metropolis.

All cities stand under judgment because they contain so much evil. Of course they inspire pride, loyalty and dedication; they promise greatness and glory, especially to Lord Mayors and city fathers; but they never fail to prostitute human dignity by 'sorcery and enchantment'. In ancient Rome that meant bread and circuses -- today it means consumerism, television and sport. Where would we be without them?

Babylon's downfall is a sober assessment of the fate of every good
project: the corruption of wealth, misguided policies, dishonest argument
and crime in all its sordid forms.

Two groups of people dwell in Babylon.

One group weeps at the destruction. The other group are God's people. They are told not to weep but to rejoice!

This is a hard saying. Should God's people really gloat over the city's downfall? Does God not will for mankind to dwell in cities? How could nations flourish without the productive power and energy of the great metropolitan centres. How then could we rejoice in the collapse of
industry, the economy, businesses and governments?

Why should God's people rejoice? Because they see what judgment really means.

They see that every grand vision of human glory is ephemeral, fragile and penultimate. Such visions depend on manipulation, advertising, hypnotic control and social conditioning -- all the techniques by which we are bullied and prodded in ways we never wanted to go but were told were good for us; all the stupid fashions invented to encourage envy and discontent; all the false promises of politics, all the schemes to make us rich, or healthy or happy. All these fictions are exposed and broken. God's people are to rejoice because the truth is revealed and righteousness is
vindicated.

And what of those who weep over the burning city? They are not destroyed.

They also escape the fire storm. Believers and unbelievers alike are saved. Just and unjust, righteous and unrighteous, moral and immoral.
What is lost is their glory, their pride in achievement, their security in material goods, their dependence on status and celebrity, their pretence of independence and their distinctions of race, colour, culture, religion and politics, their sense of superiority through their privileges and connections. These are destroyed. But they escape with their lives.

The judgment of Babylon is not the end of the story. More will be
revealed: a new city that comes down from heaven. But that city can arise only out of the ruins of the old. Never let us assume as a matter of course that the new Jerusalem will magically appear as if by remote control. The new city comes only when the power and fascination of the City of Man is broken.

Of course the City of Man will endure. God has not finished with his world. Cities will remain despite every corruption we can devise. They will remain whether we face global warming or a new ice age. They will
remain until the long history of mankind comes to an end.

But already we may know that the power of cities over our minds and imaginations is broken. That is the message of the last book of the Bible.

Though nobody's life is destroyed, judgment is real. It is remorseless yet
full of mercy. Nobody and nothing in history is beyond redemption.

Nobody is cast out from the presence of God -- except those who want to be cast out, who want only to fall into the abyss of nothingness. That is why we may say that judgment includes grace. Judgment includes grace. Grace is the silver lining of judgment.

In case we fall back into careless indifference, in case we imagine that none of this can touch our lives, remember that while judgment includes grace; grace also includes judgment.