Familiarity Breeds Contempt
Revelation 3:15-16
"I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth."
It's the same old same old. It's been there done that. It is what it is. It's the Cliche religious world we all live in. And Jesus has heard it all before. And so have we. Everyone has their opinions, theories, and their favorite proverbs to quote. This letter to the Church at Laodicea brings to my mind a Chaucer tale.
The Tale of Melibee is a tale written by Chaucer. In short it involves a prolonged and tiresome discussion about what the consequences should be for three burglars who broke into Melibee's home and caused terrible injury to his daughter. His wife, Dame Prudence, talks him into getting advice on the matter. They seek the council and wise thoughts from a myriad of historical characters such as Job; Solomon; St. Paul; Jesus, the son of Sirach; St. Augustine; St. Jerome; St. Gregory; Pope Innocent; Ovid; Cato; Seneca; and Cicero; and many local doctors; lawyers; hotheaded youths; wise old men; and others. And what makes this tedious conversation last so long is they each bring with them a set of tedious quotations and proverbs to support their opinions.
And the result of this prolonged debate is the well-known phrase "Familiarity Breeds Contempt" . But the real point in my mind is, and it's not lost on me that I'm adding to the tedium, familiarity doesn't always mean someone is familiar with something at all. Sometimes people are familiar with things only from academic point of view. But not at all from a personal familiarity.
Why?
Right off the bat, reaching back into antiquity for wise quotes automatically brings with it a certain degree of unfamiliarity. I mean to say, a lack of context. In fact, we are immediately forced into plugging in our own context and contemplation, aka interpretation.
Why am I bringing this up?
Today we are focusing on the letter sent by Jesus, referred to as, "The Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation". A letter sent to the angel at the Church in Laodicea.
Jesus accuses them of being wretched and blind, poor in spirit, and shameful. He's making a prognosis about this sin-sick-church. Jesus is playing the role of the physician with the cure for this sin-sick virus. His cure is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the faithful and true witness to this cure. And it is in fact the witness, or lack thereof, of these people at Laodicea that Jesus is cluing in on. He's diagnosed that their testimony is lukewarm. Their opinions and many quotes have no substance, no heat, and no good for refreshing the soul either. Like the multitude of characters blathering on in Chaucer's story, they have a lot to say about everything, but nothing of any lasting substance. Their message is weak.
And why is their message weak? What should that message have been?
Well, first we should look at what the message they first received was. They had this message of the truth from the creation of the church.
Colossians 1:15-20
"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross."
And they should have continued in that messaging. They should have kept to that promise. Instead, they were neither hot or cold on this. They've wavered on Christ's dominion. They've flopped on the Godhead. They've lost sight of his divine fullness. And they've softened on the redemption found in the cross. The issue at hand is they've distanced themselves from the source of this living water. They've distanced themselves so much so that they're no longer refreshing but are a vomit inducing stale lukewarm drink that is neither cool and refreshing like ice water on a hot day, or hot and nourishing like that first cup of coffee in the morning.
They got this way through their self-reliant drinks. By drinking from their own cups and from still waters. In the beginning of the church Christ's truth was calling the church to be a social alternative to the pagan society, but the Church in Laodicea is rich and famous for their riches. They were a banking center in that culture. They were a part of a thriving textile manufacturing industry throughout the region. They were renowned for their education centers that produced doctors who treated patients in need of their healing eye salves. They had no need for becoming Christ's hands a feet in the world. Not unlike our postmodern western churches here in The United States of America.
What was the great physician's cure for this lukewarm message?
Revelation 3:18
"I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see."
He prescribes his riches for them, and his white garments, and his ointment that is for restoring the sight of the spiritually blind. They've mastered wealth, production, and science and society. But they've lost their way in Christ. They are famous for their black cloth textiles, and Christ wants to give them white garments. Their healthcare systems are renowned throughout the known world, but they are blinded by their sin-sickness. They are so successful, but their people are depressed and lazy, lukewarm good for nothings.
He warns them as well. If they do not repent and take his treatment. If they will not follow his prescribed instructions, they will be reproved.
Revelation 3:19
"Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent."
He says to them, WAKE UP!
Be zealous.
REPENT!
He's going to discipline you if you don't. He loves you like a brother. And therefore, he reproves you like a brother.
"Those whom I love (phileo)"
Phileo love involves feelings of warmth and affection toward another. Jesus is predisposed towards loving them like a brother loves his father and mother and sisters and brothers. And he doesn’t want to reprove them.
No, he doesn't want to reprove them, he wants to be with them in harmony. This isn't an angry landlord banging on the door of the house looking for the rent. This is your brother who has come over to have a serious talk with you about how much he loves you and wants to be unified in you under harmonious terms.
Revelation 3:20
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me."
He's bringing the cure. You have it in your mind that you already have everything you need. He's got the way the truth and the life. He's bringing that cure and he's knocking on the door, but no one is opening the door because they don't want any visitors. They've got their history. They've got their industry. They've got their music and their baptism. They've got their sacredness in their programs and their church culture. So, no one is opening the door to Jesus.
He's knocking on the door with his cool refreshing water to ease their thirst, and a hot steamy cup of tea to wash and sooth their spirits. But they've got everything they need in their room temperature baptismal fonts and pools. They're rich in everything they could want. Their self-dependence is their own self-deception. They're not interested in his throne. They've made their own thrones for themselves. Thrones of tradition. Thrones of social justice. Thrones of doctrine. Thrones of historical significance. Thrones of systematic theology. Thrones of the reformation and thrones of orthodoxy. Thrones of dispensation. Thrones of Calvinism. Thrones of Arminian theory. Thrones of teleological theory. Thrones of covenantalism. Thrones of science and atheism. Thrones of queerology. Thrones of iconography and idolatry. Thrones of books. Thrones of prophets. Thrones of academia. Thrones of necromancy. Thrones of baptism. Thrones of sacramentalism. Thrones of papacy. Thrones of many opinions about many things.
And Jesus, your brother, is knocking on the door. He's standing at the door waiting as a brother does.
BUT KNOW THIS!
He's the same Jesus Christ who comes in judgement.
So, hear him when he says,
Revelation 3:21-22
"The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on MY THRONE, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches." (Emphasis mine)
Sit with Jesus on his throne?
Really?
Yes...it can happen. With faith anything is possible. They can do without all their own selfish thrones of the world.
1 John 5:4
"For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith."
We, the church, are the "fullness of him who fills all" (Ephesians 1:22–23). No restraints created by human invention. No supposition. No intervention by humans at all, living or dead. It will be the complete and unopposed extension of his rule everywhere in the universe when it comes by faith alone, by a living faith. And faith, which is a gift from God, is the driving force of that power. In this life, in faith, we rule on his behalf with Him. In that sense, we sit with him on his throne. And we only receive that power when we open that door to our brother so that he can enlighten the eyes of our hearts, that we may know what is the hope to which he has called us. The work we do is the work His Spirit is doing in us. It's not from us, it's of Him.
Without his help we're nothing. Without his omnipotent help now, we cannot ever feel the wonder of what we are to become in Him. If we don't open the door for The Spirit to come in and heat up the place, we'll find that we've made our own place for ourselves in the prison of self-reliance and self-deception.
Wake up lukewarm church.
Open the door.
Amen.
