Revelation 2:12-17

Charles E. Hughes, Preaching

Mother was a great philosopher. She did not propound a formal philosophy or metaphysic that explored all of the different categories of life . But to me, she was one of the great philosophers of our time because from her I learned great truth. I wasn’t real crazy about some of her teachings. She often said things I did not want to hear. And some of them were rote sayings that we heard over and over again. When Mother’s back was turned we would mimic her. One of her sayings that I hated was, " You made your bed, now you gotta lie in it." Oh, I hated that statement. I would go to her and complain about some situation I had gotten myself into and she would say, "Now, you made your bed and you gotta lie in it." I wanted to know why I couldn’t just get up out of it? Why do I have to pay the consequences for what I have done?

One of her famous lines was "Don’t throw rocks because they don’t have eyes." No duh! I always wanted to get the courage to ask her, "Can we throw potatoes? They do have eyes and if you throw one hard enough it can hut almost as much as a rock." My brother, Martin, and I discovered this while fighting in the garden. I never asked. Discretion is the better part of valor, especially when dealing with mothers.

But the saying that I really grew to detest was, "If everyone else jumped off the bridge would you?" Oh, I hated that saying because that was usually the final words in a discussion that we were having. I would go to her and ask for something or ask her permission to do something or go somewhere. If she said no I would try to reason with her. Let me tell you, labor unions and the management in this nation missed a great opportunity. If they had my mother for a negotiator they would win more concessions. Mother negotiated from a position of strength, and that position was that her word mattered.

When all else failed she would say, "Because I’m your mother and I say so!" I promised myself as a child, "When I am a parent I don’t care what my kids do, I will never, ever say to my children, ‘Because I’m your father, and I say so.’ " I kept that promise and I’m glad that I did!

Over the years I caught myself repeating many of her sayings and maxims. I can remember saying "If everyone else jumped off the bridge, would you?" I am my mother’s son."

For good or for ill that was Mother’s way of closing the argument. Her statement reminded us in very subtle ways that in the household in which I lived we were Christians. That was bottom line. It wasn’t second nature. It became nature. We did things in a certain way because that was what we were, who we were. We were Christians. And Christians went certain places and didn’t go other places, and did certain things and didn’t do other things. There was no gray. Our faith was black and white.

I’ve thought about that a lot. When people say, "Everything is sort of gray." I question that reasoning. You can’t have gray without having black and white. There are areas where lines are drawn and borders must be maintained.

Mother was about teaching us what it meant to be Christian. My Father and Mother taught us that because we were called by Jesus Christ to be a people of God we lived a certain way. They understood that it was their responsibility to teach us how to live as Christians. I don’t know where the theory that children should be allowed to do what they want or believe what the want. That thing is not only non-Christian. It is anti-Christian. It battles against everything that people of faith hold to be true or of sacred worth.

No one stands over a little Jewish boy when he is eight days old and says, "Honey, do you want to be Jewish?" They circumcise him. He is brought into the covenant. He becomes part of the Covenant People. That is what we do in our baptismal covenants with each other. When a person is baptized that is what we do. We baptize people into the Covenant People called Christians. We make promises to those who are baptized. We accept responsibility for teaching them and bringing them up as citizens of the Covenant Community. The primary responsibility falls to the parents and to the grandparents. As a community of faith, as the children of God, as the church in this time and place, it is our responsibility to teach members of the community how they are to live

As disciples of Christ. It can not be done in the Sunday school hour or in the worship service alone! Two hours a week are not sufficient time to instill the principles, teaching, practices and ethics of discipleship. People learn by seeing and experiencing over and over again the love of God in Christ Jesus that calls us to be a sanctified and holy people.

And that is what Mother did and my Father. We lived those principles. It wasn’t something my Father preached in the sanctuary and left there when he came home. It was something that we lived day by day, that we lived in a certain way.

And very often, Mother would have to say, "If everyone else jumped off the bridge, would you?" What she was saying to me was, "Son, you have to learn to take responsibility for your life. You have to learn that there are times you can’t go along with the crowd, that you can not buy into popular presuppositions or ideals."

That is exactly what the Holy Spirit says to the church at Pergamum: "I have called you. I have bought you. I have purchased you with a price." That is what we as Christians believe. "Do you not know that you bodies are not even your own?" They belong to Jesus Christ. Your bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. And what you do with your bodies matters to God. God is interested in the intimate details of your existence: in who you are and what you are. That God is calling you. That God is molding and shaping you and bringing you into existence. And that is what God said through the Spirit to the church at Pergamum.

First, God says, "I know where you live." God is intimately aware of where we live. "You live in the city where the throne of Satan is": that was the center of emperor worship. That was the place where people came to worship Caesar Augustus and later the other caesars who declared themselves to be gods. It was a center of pagan worship. It was a pluralistic society in a cosmopolitan city where everyone did whatever he or she pleased. They were not to separate themselves from the mainstream of the society by refusing to accept all lifestyles as the legitimate choices of individuals and thus their inalienable right. They were supposed to accept everything. God identifies them as being in the throne room of Satan: in Satan’s headquarters. They live in a society that practices numerous religions and everyone is invited to take a bit of this and a bit of that

and a bit of that and synchronize a religion and god or gods to suit themselves.

And along comes these Christian people and they say, "We can not do that. We can not go along with the crowd. Thank you, we will not jump off the bridge with you. We have to listen to a higher authority and a different calling."

You see Pergamum was the center where the proconsul lived. The symbol of the proconsul was the sword because the proconsul had the power of life and death over people. But the Holy Spirit says to the church, " You have been faithful, even when you witnessed Antipas’s death." Tradition tells us that Antipas was slowly roasted in a bronze pan because he refused to worship the emperor. He died for his faith.

And in the middle of that turmoil and that hurt and that pain and that suffering and that wondering, "Where is the God of deliverance? Why isn’t Antipas delivered?" Even in the middle of all that God’s Spirit works in the church and the church finds the strength to be faithful and to stand for God. God commends them for that.

But then God says, "I hold something against you. You tolerate the teaching of Balaam." Not ‘participate in’ but ‘tolerate’. Balaam was the prophet in the Old Testament who tried to defeat the children of Israel. He summoned Balak and he asked him to get Israel to turn away from God to the gods of the world, to the gods around them. He tried to entice them away from God and to teach them that they did not have to follow the old teachings or the old standards. Balaam becomes the symbol of all the false teachers.

In the first letter to the congregations in Asia Minor we are told to beware of those who claim to be apostles and are not. In the second letter we are told to beware of those who claim to be the people of God and are not. In this letter we are told to be wary of those who claim to be teachers and are not. I thank God for the teaching office of the church and for those who teach classes in our church. I thank God that you study the Bible so that you can come open the Word for your students. You are given the responsibility of teaching. But you are also given the responsibility of bringing forth truth.

The problem was that some in Pergamum had decided that it was easier to compromise. "Oh you can still believe in Jesus Christ, you can still do this, but, you know, we don’t have to be fuddy duddies. We can blend in with society. We can make ourselves comfortable. After all, we have to live with these people. How does it look if we stand off in the distance and say, ‘We don’t do that because of our faith?’ How does that look to everyone else around us? Do we blend in? Do we fit? Mustn’t appear ‘holier than thou, now must we?"

And so they began to teach, "You know, since we are saved by Jesus Christ, since that is the root of our salvation, and Jesus has saved us and called us to redemption, it doesn’t matter what you do. After all, isn’t’ God going to save your soul? Your body doesn’t matter any more. So, do anything you want to with your body. It doesn’t matter if you eat the meats offered to idols, if you participate in a little idolatry. It doesn’t matter if you blend that in with your faith. It doesn’t matter if you don’t keep sexual purity, if you don’t uphold the standards that you have inherited from the Jews that sex was a gift from God and is to be celebrated and shared only in the bonds of marriage. It didn’t matter. We have to get along. We have to agree. We’re part of this society."

And yet, the Spirit of God says, "Repent." The word repent is a strong word: turn away from. It comes from the same root as the word that describes the changes from the egg, to the pupa, to the larva, to the caterpillar, to the cocoon and finally to the butterfly.

That transforming power of God was at work in the church at Pergamum changing lives. And that is the transforming power of God that is at work when we yield ourselves and take our stand as the people of God in this time and in this place. That is what God desires. And that is what the Spirit says to the church then and now, there and here.

There are also gives the promises to those who overcome. In all seven letters there is a word for those who overcome, to those that conquer, to those that are faithful, to those who stand for the truth, to those who persevere. The word for overcomers in the Greek does not mean to conquer once and for all. It refers to an ongoing struggle against evil in which we live the gospel, an ongoing process during which we are being changed and conformed to the image and perfection of God. It is Wesley’s concept of sanctification, being sanctified, going on to perfection.

The promises are given to the overcoming ones: to eat of the hidden manna, that blessed bread, the bread of life. Jesus said, "I am the bread of life." It fills and satisfies and meets our needs.

The overcoming ones are given a white stone. A white stone is the symbol of purity. Jurors were given a white and a black stone. A white stone meant acquittal. The black stone meant guilty. These people receive a white stone. They are forgiven.

They are given a new name: Remember how God changes people? Abram becomes Abraham. Sarai becomes Sarah. Jacob becomes Israel. Saul becomes Paul. When God changes us, God changes everything about us. God begins to transformation process. God begins to change us to a new image. The white stone that we are given and the bread of life that we are given and the new name that we are given as those who are overcoming promise eternal life.

There is the promised name that no one else knows. It promises an intimate and personal relationship God: God who knows us, knows everything about us, knows every thought, knows every problem, knows every burden, knows every struggle. That God calls us by name and says, "My child, I love you."

To the ones that are overcoming, God gives the promise. Amen.