Blessing the Banners: Crown and Chi Rho
Friends, this is the third of four sermons on symbols of faith based on the new banners that were quilted for us by Sunne Brandmeyer. Although Sunne would rather her name not even be mentioned, the Apostle Paul says in 1 Timothy 5:18 that laborers should be paid for their wages. Since Sunne did all this for free, then her payment for me to say “thanks be to God for you.” Before I go any further, I want to remind you that the most important symbol in the room is you. The symbols on these banners are here to remind us of the truth we proclaim together, but when you leave this place, you become the representation of God’s love that someone else needs to see. If you don’t hear anything else, hear me now on that.
Now, the symbols on our banners and the scriptures that inspired them were all shared and confirmed through the Worship committee, we also gave Sunne a lot of room for her creativity and the work of the Spirit within her. Out of all of these symbols and the scriptures that go with them, I have to say that I find today’s to be the most challenging.
They are challenging because they point to the truth. Part of that truth is the contribution of the church to violence and subjugation in the name of holiness. We are going to focus on the truth of God’s amazing love and what it means to be “more than conquerors,” but part of truth-telling is to tell the whole truth. The whole truth includes not only the grace and mercy of God but also the reason that we need the grace and mercy of God.
It’s like my old seminary professor once said, “In worship, we always start out with confession of sin and acknowledgment of salvation because the gospel message of redemption is front-loaded into our liturgy.” In other words, we need to acknowledge our need and God’s promise to fill that need before we come to God’s word.
As we approach God’s word, I usually caution against taking things out of context or cherry-picking a verse instead of reading the whole section and looking for the greater message. Likewise, when a verse starts out with “they”, I usually say that we have to pump the breaks and figure out who “they” is. Y’all. Today's reading from Revelation is like trying to pick a 30-sec video clip with clean language out of the movie “Erin Brockovich.” Several years ago my wife and I were leading a “Faith and Film” class for Sr Highs. Erin Brockovich came out and we thought, “Yes. This movie is all about justice and righteousness.” We could not find a 30-second clip that was clean. That said, it’s a great movie and if you have a good conversation with your kids about the appropriate use of language there’s a lot to be learned from it.
Likewise, with the book of Revelations, it’s hard to find a chunk that seems to make sense, except that most scholars believe that Revelations was more likely an allegory to the Roman Empire under Niro than an ecstatic vision of things to come. There are some great books I could recommend on Revelations if you are interested, but unfortunately, it would probably take a book to unpack most of the symbolism. For example, “They” in this passage are the ‘Woman of Ill Repute’ and the ‘Beast’ with seven horns, each with its own mouth and crown. Elain Pagles, amongst other scholars, notes that these represent the Roman government and the seductive culture of Rome.
What matters to us out of all of this, here and now, is that the character and nature of God stand in opposition to power and corruption and demonstrates love and mercy and governance and the truly incorruptible power of sacrificial love. The crown of royalty is incomplete without the crown of submission. As it says in the old hymn, “blood and love flow mingled down,” and as it says in scripture, “The Lamb will conquer, because he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings, and those with him are called chosen and faithful.”
It’s pretty easy to feel good about all of those words and phrases when we think about the freedom that we have to worship as we choose. As members of the majority religion and the faith that has the most influence on our society, the language of conquering in the name of Jesus feels pretty natural and good, but I can’t help but wonder about the longing of a person who doesn’t experience Christian faith the way that we do – like a Christian from another country seeking asylum in ours.
I can’t help but wonder how the language of ‘Lord’ and ‘King’ even applies to those of us in the Democratic Republic who can’t even agree on the findings of lead researchers in a public health crisis! Yet, if we are to understand ourselves as “chosen and faithful” then we must follow the way of Jesus, who is both the Lion of Judah and the Lamb of God.
That brings me to Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. Now, this is definitely one to look at in the context of the reading. Paul’s letter to the church in Rome was kind of his Magnum Opus, even though it’s placed pretty early in the New Testament. This passage starts with “in all these things.” What things?
So many things. So far he’s talked about the nature of sin and the role of the law and the importance of grace and even being adopted into the household of God and elected by God for salvation – and that’s just the wind up for this passage! In Vv 31-32 he starts with “If God is for us, then who is against us?” and follows with “God did not withhold his own son, what else would God withhold.”
Vv 33-34 goes into the salvation we have through the judge who is the redeemer. This is the verse we look to when we say, “It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or what’s been done to you. It only matters what’s been done for you in Christ Jesus.”
Then V 35-36 lists every category of loss conceivable to say that nothing has a greater claim on our souls than God, and God’s love for us is the one thing that we can never lose!
V 37 is where it gets really interesting to me, and particularly relevant for the Chi-Rho on our banner, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
More than conquerors...so much of Christian history has been connected to war and violence that many have said that were it not for religion we would have no reason to go to war. I don’t believe that for a second, but I do know that the first great expansion of the Christian faith was under the banner of Christendom – which is essentially the idea that one day every knee will bow and tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. Unfortunately, the way that early church confession from Philippians 2:10 has been applied has not been with the humility of Christ that same passage describes, and the Chi-Rho has been both a symbol of the supremacy of Christ and a symbol of tyranny.
Legend has it that this symbol, or some version of it, appeared to Emperor Constantine of Rome with the phrase, “With this sign, you will conquer.” The symbol is sort of a monogram made out of the first two letters of the Greek word “Christos,” which we all know means, “God’s anointed one.” Without going into great detail, this was a timely event for the young emperor who realized that he needed religion to unify the empire.
The Christian faith had survived years of oppression and was gaining both sympathy and support for the way they demonstrated love and mercy in communities of believers. The faith had grown among non-Jewish and mixed communities, and there were sects developing that either denied or affirmed the Divinity of Jesus. The story goes that Constantine had this symbol painted on his shields and called the council of Trent, in which he basically locked all the faith leaders in a room and said, “work it out.” That’s what eventually lead to the Council of Nicea and the Creed that we read as a part of our communion liturgy.
Cool backstory, right? Why does it matter? It matters because for centuries the role of the church has been mixed up with the expectations of people in various cultures, communities, and nations with the idea that following Jesus is how we win when nothing could be further from the truth. Christian faith is not about winning. It’s about so much more, and sometimes it’s about losing for the sake of love.
Vv38-39, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Loss is a part of life, and if all we want is to conquer – to win and never lose – then we’ll never know the joy of loss for the sake of love. The victory of the Lamb is in the love that conquers death and fear and loss and replaces it with hope and joy and expectation!
The Crown of Thorns becomes the Crown of Glory. The symbol of conquest becomes a reminder of the power of letting go for the sake of love. Both of these symbols come from an ecstatic vision that some say never even happened. Truly there is no way to know, but I believe there are still ecstatic dreams and visions that await. In this congregation, I had no idea that we would raise almost $3,000 for the Grand Caillou/Dulac band of Biloxi Chitimacha Choctaw – I didn’t even know who they were – but God did.
What’s next, people of God? How will you paint the Chi-Rho on your shield for the One who rules out of love? Will you become active with meals on wheels? Will you join a study group? Will you reach out to someone of another culture or faith and find some way to welcome them? Will you say a comforting word to a parent whose child is having a fit in the grocery store? There are so many things you can do.
There are so many things that we already do, but I can tell you that there is always room for more. I’ve had church members mention everything from line dancing to an urban bee farm as ways of developing community and demonstrating responsible care for God’s good creation – and we can do all of these things and more, as long as we remain faithful to the one who has called us into a community for the sake of love!
One last thing on that, both passages spoke about those who were “chosen” or “elected”. I want you to tell me if you believe that there is anyone who you can look in the eye and not see someone that God loves. I don’t believe that you can. What I do believe is that you and I might, at some point this week, be the only version of God’s love that someone is able to receive. As I said at the beginning, you are a symbol of the love and mercy of God, and thanks be to God for that!
Let’s pray and ask for God’s blessing on these banners: Gracious God, your word tells us that you have conquered sin and death through love and mercy. Bless these banners that those who see them may be reminded that, because of your love for us, we are more than conquerors. We are your people, and we are called to do everything – win or lose - for love’s sake, and all for your glory, in the name of the One who Creates, Redeems and Sustains all that is was and ever shall be. Amen!
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