The slides for this sermon are available to download here.

As we enter another tumultuous political season, it is all too easy to get caught up in headlines, polls, and the divisive rhetoric everywhere on display. Amid all the frenzy of campaigns and candidates, an unlikely Biblical text calls us to pull back the curtain on reality, and to center ourselves in a way that truly makes for peace. The Book of Revelation—much misunderstood, much misused, full of visions of dragons and beasts—is actually a subversive, political text, calling the church to resist the siren call of Empire, and to stay faithful to the Lamb-like way of Jesus. In this series, we will seek to understand this text, not as a timeline of supposed future events, but as an unveiling of civic life, helping form our imagination and discernment in our political, religious, and economic life together. Our hope is to lower election anxiety, and turn instead to the hope of a city that is like a garden at peace.