Hope (3): Desire’s Reward

Revelation 22:12-21

It’s Mother’s Day.  And it strikes me that every mother is a practicing psychologist.  She might not have a degree in psychology.  She might not be licensed.  But she has hours of clinical practice.

They don’t tell you this before you have children.  But one of the most vexing daily issues for mothers will involve a rather profound question: How do people change?  Do they change when some kind of force or barrier bends them in another direction?  Or do they change only when in their own freedom they choose a path and follow it for their own good?  Put differently: How do you get little people to poop in the potty?  Or to stop throwing their food?  Or to stop biting other kids?  Or to pick up their clothes?  What works better at getting results – fear or reward?

 

This is the age old motivational question of carrots and sticks.  If you want your stubborn donkey to do something – go left, plow the field, etc. – what works best?  Should you dangle a carrot in front of it or should you beat it with sticks?

I’ve told you before about a slight shift we had to make in our approach to parenting.  Prior to having kids, we had developed a nuanced and sophisticated approach to raising children.   When we were growing up, our parents made some mistakes, and we weren’t going to do that to our children.  We both felt pressured to perform.  There were high expectations about getting good grades.  And so we would raise kids who are free to follow their natural curiosity, to learn at their own pace about things that mattered to them.  Book learning and classroom learning isn’t all that importan, we told them.  Just be yourself and follow your passions, question everything, and read books about things that interest you.

We had chosen the “carrot” approach. Their motivation would be the joy of learning.  Now one of the small problems with our approach is that it didn’t work.  Our little asses – I speak of donkeys, of course – they didn’t respond to the carrot.  And so we neatly folded our motivational theory and tucked it away.  We use sticks now.  It’s not pretty.  But it works.

How does motivation work in your family?  Was it carrots or sticks?  Rewards or threats?  Benefits or punishment?  In almost every walk of life, there is some theory of motivation at work – in family life, in school, in places of work, and in the political realm.  When you want people to vote for you in a presidential campaign, do you appeal to what’s best in people, calling them to collaborate in hope?  Or do you appeal to their simmering anger?  Their fear of a dark and diminished future?

Or let’s say you’re doing a food drive to share with a local food pantry.  Do you simply appeal to the joy we receive from sharing with others?  Or do you something divisive like pitting one congregation against another?  Or even dividing the congregation against itself, threatening the losers with public shame?   

In my health plan, I am rewarded for taking the initiative.  Each year, I get an online checklist of exams and physicals.  And if I can submit proof that I’ve had them done, my healthcare deductible goes down a little bit for the coming year.  If I take care of myself by getting regular check ups, I save a little money.  They’ve chosen the carrot approach.  Apparently they’ve decided that saving money motivates people.

At school there might be pizza parties for certain accomplishments, or recognition for not missing school.  But there are also punishments for unacceptable behavior.  At work, there might be a bonus for performance, or promotions or prizes for exceptional effort.  But again, you can also be fired if you embezzle the company’s money, or take a picture of your rear end on the office copier.

So how do you hear these readings from Revelation?  Do you hear them as threats of punishment for all those unwilling to play on God’s team?  Or do you hear them as promised rewards for the faithful?  Or a little of both?

I have been arguing that Revelation is primarily about hope.  The thread of these sermons has been that the Revelation was a Spirit inspired, imaginative poem written for seven struggling little congregations who were considering giving up.  In the face of Rome’s violent power and lust for wealth, these congregations were having a hard time seeing how the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus made any real difference.

And so God gives to the writer named John a vision of the stunning and decisive victory that has already begun to take shape in the world because of Christ’s resurrection.  It might look small now, compared to global economies, slavery, drug cartels, terrorist networks, violent and oppressive dictatorships, tribal hatred and the savvy manipulation of consumers by marketing firms.  But this resurrection has already begun what will be a full scale victory for the way of Jesus Christ, and for all those who belong to him and who persevere in difficult times.

So maybe I’ve emphasized the carrot side of Revelation.  But there are sticks, I suppose.  There are dreadful and frightening beasts and monsters throughout Revelation.  They maul and devour people’s lives.  They gather followers because their violent control looks like success and peace.  But these beasts and their followers will lose.  That’s a threat.  Anyone, and anything, that opposes the love of God, will lose.  God will destroy whatever destroys God’s good plans for the world.  God will remove anything that attempts to set itself up as an obstacle to the full dawning of the kingdom of love.

Yes, the hope expressed in Revelation is breathtakingly wide in scope.  Everything and everyone is included.  This will be a new heaven and a new earth.  Every tribe and nation and language will be welcomed into the new city of light with the throne of God and the lamb at its center.  Everyone is invited to come and drink from the crystal clear waters of life, and to eat from the trees of life that grow on its banks.  The gates of the city are never shut.  Who wouldn’t want this for themselves and for the whole world? 

But there are some who don’t.  There is a list of people in our reading today who cannot enter the kingdom of God.  It is a jarring, and even threatening, reminder that God’s new world will be exactly what God wants it to be.  There will no longer be any contradiction to what God wants.  The new city is a place where everyone and everything has come to want what God wants: complete healing, complete reconciliation between people and even nations, and flourishing, thriving life for all.

So this list of those barred from God’s new world – what are we to do with it?  Is this a list of really bad sins?  Some sins don’t matter but these do?  Are these people just too bad for God to forgive and heal?  These are the kinds of people on God’s “no fly” list?  Are these the behaviors for which God sends people to hell?

No, something different is going on here.  Sin doesn’t keep you from God and God’s new world.  The resounding victory of the crucified Jesus is that now nothing can separate us from the love of God: not our sin, not the evil that harms us, and not even death itself.  Sin isn’t the problem anymore.  Desire is the problem.  If the Holy Spirit cannot bring you to want what God wants, then you will be allowed to walk into the dark and destroy yourself.  That threat is real.  But this lake of fire isn’t punishment from an angry God.  It’s God’s refusal to coerce us.  If you don’t want the path of healing, you will be allowed to walk the path of destruction. 

In our reading today, Jesus promises that he is coming "soon," and that he will bring a "reward" given to all "according to what they have done."  This isn't a threat (i.e. "your reward is really a punishment for all you've done wrong”).  It's rather the promised reward to those who have hung in there, refused to quit, loved when it was hard, sacrificed for others, and struggled with life's challenges.  This is good news.  The risen Christ knows your life has been hard.  And he will reward you for your labor.  And how “soon” is “soon”?  Well, it could happen any time.  Or in a few billion years when our sun fades.  Just be ready.

But there are costs.  There are parts of us that cannot enter this world of love.  And so we might as well begin now to consider our desires, and to let go of all that must be burned away from us.  Jesus says, "Let those who are thirsty come and drink freely the water of life."  What is it you want?  

If you want to be healed.  If you want to be forgiven and loved.  If you want to be welcomed along with all the others who thirst for the waters of life like you do.  Then you pray with the end of this amazing poem.  Come, Lord Jesus.  And until he does, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.  Amen.