The Great Multitude: Unity in Diversity

Readings: Revelation 7:1-4, 9-17, Heaven & Hell 56 (see below)
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Photo by Chris Linnett on Unsplash


Today we continue our journey with the Book of Revelation, a vision of the spirit that explores themes of faithful witness, suffering, human failing, and God’s vision for humanity. This morning we are considering chapter seven and John’s description of a great multitude praising the Lamb, who represents the risen Jesus Christ. This chapter is a little island of calm in between the story of the seven seals and the angels with the seven trumpets, which we will look at next week. The sever seals showed us where negative human tendencies like domination, violence, and judgment lead, and the trumpets will tell us something similar. But in between, we have the great multitude in white robes, from every nation, tribe, people, and language. A beautiful vision of shared purpose and inclusion.

For those looking to the bible for an excuse to exclude and despise, to build walls, to separate to expel to shun, to uphold a sense of superiority, and to try to say that God wants any of that - this passage of the great multitude lifts up the exact opposite. 

White supremacy, xenophobia, racism, nationalism all are dismantled in this one short verse, which is a powerful depiction of humanity coming together around a common cause. In this vision, all in the multitude are praising the Lamb, but we don’t have to understand that to mean we all have to believe in Jesus, but rather that we can all be bonded by the kind of sacrificial love that the lamb exemplifies, a love that truly cares about each other.

We note that this vision is not about assimilation but the joy of diversity. The text doesn’t say a multitude who used to be from every nation, tribe, people and language, they are from every nation, tribe, people, and language. Diversity is maintained. We will hear this again when we finally get to the vision of the New Jerusalem at the end of the Book of Revelation. The end game isn’t tolerating each other, the end game isn’t some majority giving some minority permission to be there. The end game is cherishing each other, as we are, in all our inherent uniqueness.

Now, I’m as surprised as anyone that I’m about to mention sports in my sermon two weeks running, but we have to talk about the Super Bowl Half-time show from this past Sunday. Bad Bunny provided the performance, and he is an American artist from Puerto Rico who sings primarily in Spanish, and who recently won the Grammy award for best album. As you might imagine, those dedicated to white supremacy and white nationalism were outraged by the notion of a performer singing in Spanish at the half time show, so outraged that they mounted their own alternative programming. Yet, Bad Bunny provided a joyful and meaningful show that alllowed Latin American communities to feel genuinely seen, and asked powerful and important questions about the harmful legacy of colonialism, while still also making a heartfelt statement about togetherness, solidarity, and inclusion. It ended with the statement that the only thing more powerful than hate is love.

And while some continued to complain, I also saw an overwhelming number of people connect with joy to the deeper meaning of the performance, even if they couldn’t understand the words themselves. They found delight and connection in the specific depiction of someone else’s culture and someone else’s language, and they did not feel threatened but rather, curious. That is a choice. We recall a quote from Swedenborg: 

The essence of love is that what is ours should belong to someone else. Feeling the joy of someone else as joy within ourselves — that is loving.(1)

Feeling the joy of someone else as joy in ourselves, that is loving. When we can connect with the fullness of someone else’s joy, without feeling like we need to own it or control it, that is loving. When we can connect with the fullness of someone else’s joy, a joy we may not fully even understand, without defensiveness or fear, that is loving. The reality is, with everyone, there will be things that connect us and things that set us apart, and that is a good thing. This is the best of both worlds. For people viewing this half-time show, we can know that we are connected by the universal statement that the only thing more powerful than hate is love, while also getting to experience the full gift and blessing of human diversity.

And this is exactly how Swedenborg talks about heaven, as we heard in our reading today. He tells us that true heavenly unity is a function of diversity. Sameness may seem like a unity on the surface, but what is there actually to Unite together from sameness? There is no uniting in sameness. It is simply sameness. The joy, the goal, the purpose of unity is that it incorporates things that are different. Which of course, takes work, so much painstaking and steadfast work. And crucially, it demands the divestment of power and privilege. Unity does not occur when those with power deign to simply allow the existance or the presence of those who are different. Unity occurs when all those who are different to each other are made to fully belong in a spirit of shared curiosity, worthiness, and love. Swedenborg writes:

…the whole society in heaven becomes a unity, and that all the societies of heaven together become a unity, and this from the Lord alone by means of love.(2)

And where there is love, there is also delight, as also heard in our reading: variety gives delight. If we are unable to feel delight when we encounter the diversity within humanity, it is worth considering what we are feeling instead. Fear of being left out, defensiveness about our own worthiness, an addiction to feeling superior to others, a need to control everything around us. As we continue in this list, it begins to sound remarkably similar to the four horsemen of last week, who road forth to conquer, kill, and judge, and they don’t lead anywhere good. Being fearful is human indeed, but it is also an expression of our divinely given freedom to choose not to be.

We can see in Bad Bunny’s half-time show a modern depiction of the themes found in our text for today. A shared vision for the common good, and the joy that occurs when people come together in service to that. In principle, if not always in practice, the United States was a country founded in the shared principles of freedom, equality, and self-determination, welcoming those who shared that view, rather than only those who shared the same culture, linage, or religion. And as as country, we have failed to uphold those principles in full many many times, and there are ways that we still fail. But our continued failure, does not erase the power of the original intent as something to continue to strive for, that disparate people can be drawn together by a mutual commitment to human freedom, dignity, and thriving.

When the mulitude looks to the Lamb, they are looking to the ways that Jesus embodied these principles, living a life for others, being willing to sacrifice for others, guiding people to become the fullest version of themselves in whatever context they inhabit. This is a goal worth working and striving for, even as we fail, even as we become discouraged, because we know that is the best way to be human together.

As we look at the multitude praising the Lamb and waiving those palm branches, they probably didn’t speak each other’s language. They were connecting with each other because of a shared commitment to the Lamb’s values, again not a unanimity of faith, but unanimity of the principle of love. The only thing more powerful than hate is love. Whenever people unite under that banner, it is an re-enactment of the multitude in our text.  

The final verses in our text today provide a powerful vision of what unity and common purpose actually looks like. We have to “come out of the great tribulation” to get there, we have to surmount great difficulties both personally and universally, to get there. But we read:

Never again will they hunger, never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat down on them, nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be there shepherd;
he will lead them to springs of living water.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

This is what we are working towards, for everyone. These verses are often read at funerals, to help us rejoice that those who have passed on will finally feel the reality and the fullness of these words. But they are not only words for the afterlife; they are words for now. They are a call to action, a call to create a world that fulfills these words for all, and a call to dismantle any structures that prevent that fulfilment, including both in our hearts and in the world around us. 

The only thing more powerful than hate is love. Let us live this, my friends, with our whole hearts. Amen.

1. Emmanuel Swedenborg, Divine Love & Wisdom #47
2. Emmanuel Swedenborg, Heaven & Hell #405

Readings:

Revelation 7:1-4, 9-17

1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree.
2 Then I saw another angel coming up from the east, having the seal of the living God. He called out in a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm the land and the sea:
3 “Do not harm the land or the sea or the trees until we put a seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.”
4 Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.


9 After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.
10 And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
11 All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God,
12 saying: “Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!”
13 Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”
14 I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
15 Therefore, “they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.
16 ‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,’nor any scorching heat.
17 For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’


Heaven and Hell #56
 …Every unity has its existence from diversity, for a unity that is not the result of diversity is not anything; it has no form and therefore no quality. When, on the other hand, a unity comes into existence from various parts, and these various parts are in a perfect form in which each attaches itself in series, like a congenial friend to another, then the quality is perfect. So heaven is a unity resulting from the arrangements of various parts in the most perfect form, for the heavenly form is the most perfect of all forms. That this is the origin of all perfection is evident from all the beauty, pleasantness and delight that affect the senses as well as the mind. For these exist and flow from no other source than the concert and harmony of many concordant and harmonious parts, either co-existing in order or following in order, and not from a unity apart from plurality. From this comes the saying that variety gives delight, and it is known that it is the nature of the variety which determines the delight.