Kaleo San Diego Church > Sermons > The Garden in the City

The Garden in the City

Eugene Kim
Jan 6, 2008
Series: Topical

It is my privilege to be the first to speak in the new year. Kaleo is blessed to have many people come up and speak. Over the last year I counted over a dozen people, other than David, who have taken the pulpit. It's a blessing not only because it gives David a bit of a break now and then, but it's a demonstration of trust in the Holy Spirit working through community. The Spirit works in all of us uniquely, using our particular backgrounds, gift mixes, passions, and interests, giving each person a unique flavor. Last week my good friend Tim Cain spoke and even though we both graduated from the same theological seminary, he has a unique favor all his own. If you listen to him speak you can tell that he comes from Boston by way of Chicago, so he's got a duel flavor in his accent. I guess that makes him a Bostogoian or a Chicatonian. When Drew comes up here you'll notice he throws up graphs, pie charts and organizational diagrams. That's his kingly side using his background as a web master. When Tom speaks, his last name may not be "Nuy," but he's definitely our science guy. The Spirit of God uses his background as a neuroscientist to speak passionately about apologetics but in a very priestly way.
I have a dual flavor as you'll discover today. I've always loved studying theology. I have an M.Div, but before that I was an artist. I studied art briefly in Europe, Asia, and New York, and received my BFA from Chicago. When people hear this they think, "art school and seminary?" They don't see a connection, that's because they think seminary is a place where all the books have no pictures, and art school if they have books, is a place where they're all pictures. But there is more similarity when you think of the broad categories of "truth, beauty, and meaning." You can't study art through the ages without learning a lot about history, culture, philosophy, and religion. Often great paradigm shifts of world view were first heralded by artists. Many people who look at a Jackson Pollock splatter painting simply think, "My four year old could do that," but his paintings are a visual representation of an existentialist worldview. As you study further and learn about his pointless death, wrapping his car around a tree in a drunken stupor, you see the culmination of the existential search for meaning and truth within. When I got to seminary I found that great theologians are always drawing pictures, they search for one picture that sums up great theological paradigms and concepts in a nutshell. They're just not as good at drawing them.
Last week we ended the year in the book of Genesis, coincidentally we're going to begin this year in the book of Revelation. Revelation is a hard book to understand. John Calvin, when he wrote the first commentary on the bible, purposely excluded Revelation saying, "the knowledge contained therein is too lofty for me to attain." We're only going to look at three verses but to understand them we have to go through the entire bible twice. You can look at the bible as a running story of the organic garden themes, particularly a story of three trees. You can also look at the bible in terms of inorganic structures, particularly a tale of two cities. There are two parallel themes running through all of Scripture, which seem disconnected until you get to the last two chapters of Revelation. It's here that they paint a picture of the gospel, given to God's people in all places and times to captivate their imagination, and send them on mission to be a City of God within the City of Man. If a picture contains a thousand words I'm going to throw a thousand pictures at you in the next 25 minutes, (insert disclaimer - WARNING: The following sermon may contain Gratuitous Lego NUDITY and simulated graphic VIOLENCE. Parental discretion may be advised) after which I'm going to bring up two people to paint a living picture of what this looks like in community. Let's look to our text and begin with a word of prayer.

Revelation 22:1-2, 14: "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 14 Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates."

This is a 15th c. etching by the German painter and mathematician Albrecht Dürer. It depicts the Apostle John who was in exile on the Island of Patmos standing on an elevated plane (represented by a hill) with the angel of God revealing a vision of the glorious City of God. It looks an awful lot like something out of Braveheart, resembling a castle. On the right is a contemporary artist showing a literal depiction of the same city. Depictions of revelation historically have been either completely organic (utopian gardens, Hawaii) or completely inorganic structures (glorious cities), never both.

THE GARDEN
The first running theme throughout Scripture is the story of a garden. The bible begins and ends in a glorious garden, the entire story of redemption can be seen as the distance between two trees. The first tree is the one depicted most often, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The second tree is the Tree of Life. I got these next pictures from a website called "The Brick Testament." Apparently there is a Reverend out there who has a lot of Legos and a lot of time on his hands. He illustrated the entire bible literally brick by brick all with Legos. I chose this because in every painting, etching, and sculpture I've ever seen he is actually the only artist to get this picture right. He depicts a center of the Garden and the two trees right next to each other in that center.
Adam was created first and was given a one job, to enjoy the beauty God's creation. That job involved science, studying, naming, labeling, cataloguing the creatures, and tending the garden but it did not involve the frustration usually associated with labor. At that time there was only one commandment, there were no ten commandments, no 614 some odd laws in the Old Testament; the entirety of God's will was just a sentence that any child could memorize. Genesis 2:16-17: "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." As covenant head and spiritual head of his household he was to care for his wife by teaching her this one simple commandment. God was essentially asking Adam to trust in Him that as a loving God who provided everything for man's enjoyment and His own glory to enjoy any other tree but this one tree would kill him. But we all know what follows, temptation.
This famous painting comes from a panel of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. This tree became a test, a probation tree. Adam and Eve had a form of holiness, they were able to walk and talk with God, the very source of all truth, beauty, and meaning. The holiness was not lasting, it was provisional. Had they passed this probation tree they would have had lasting holiness. The serpent in his temptation questioned God's goodness and convinced Adam and Eve to look to their own judgment as a source for all truth, meaning, and beauty. What follows their failure is what theologians call a dialogical chiasm because it pivots on a center. God first confronts Man (vv.11-12) to which he says, "It's not my fault, it was the woman you gave me." He then confronts the woman (vv.13) to which she replies, "It's not my fault, it was the serpent." But God doesn't question the serpent, He knows why the serpent was there, as part of the test. Instead He curses the Serpent (vv.14-15), then He pronounces the curse on the woman (v.16), and finally He curses the man (v.17) but notice what is included in the man's curse.

Genesis 3:17: "Then to Adam He said, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it': "Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it All the days of your life."

The garden is cursed, why? Because as caretaker of both his wife and the garden, Adam failed. But notice in the very middle of this chiasm is a seed of promise. Theologians call this the Proto-evangelion.

Genesis 3:15: "And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel."

God does not cast the serpent out of the garden, as Adam should have done as covenant head and protector of both his wife and the garden. Instead God promises that it will be one of Eve's seed, a Son of Man, a child who will deal the crushing blow to the serpent. But this will come at a great price, for in the process the child will be bitten on the heel, salvation will come at the cost of the child's life.
Adam and Eve are immediately rushed out of the garden. In most depictions of this expulsion there is an angel with a sword. Here again, oddly, the Reverend with the Legos is the only one who gets it right. We are told in v.24 that it was "a flaming sword that turned every which way." Why the special effects? To keep them from the other tree.

Genesis 3:22,24: "Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever.....He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life."

Many have misinterpreted this as if God was somehow afraid that man would get to do whatever he wanted and also live forever. But this couldn't be farther from the truth. Imagine with me for a moment what would have happened had Adam and Eve eaten of both trees. Imagine a world where there was no end to suffering. Where oppression, isolation, starvation, and slavery never came to an end, where even death itself offered no release. Imagine further a world where tyrants, dictators, and men of pure evil and ultimate power never died but were allowed to go on growing in hunger for cruelty and world domination. Man would be forever separate from the love of God in a living hell on earth with no end. God kept them in His grace and mercy from the other tree as partial fulfillment of the promise given to us in the midst of our curse.
The rest of the Old Testament tells the story of what happened to the garden, what once was a lush paradise becomes a barren wilderness. This is a picture of the actual Judean dessert where Jesus fasted for 40 days and nights. The story of Israel is one of a people wandering through this wilderness longing for a promise land which they gain glimpses of but are never able to hold. The New Testament begins with the voice of one crying out from the wilderness, dressed as the part of every prophet before him, making a way in the desert for the Son of Man who will save His people. In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul calls Jesus the second Adam, and in the place symbolically where the garden once stood, like the first Adam, Jesus is confronted by Satan. Satan tempts the second Adam to doubt the love and provision of God by turning the stones into bread. Three times he tempts Jesus and each time he refuses to doubt God's love and mercy. Where the first Adam failed the second Adam triumphs, casting out Satan from the garden turned wilderness. What should follow this triumph is access to the Tree of Life, but this Adam chooses not to eat of it. Galatians tells us of a Third Tree, the cross.

Galatians 3:13-14: "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us- for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree"- 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith."

Jesus eats bitterly of this third tree, taking away our curse by becoming a curse for us. He gave up His life so that by this third tree He might create a way for us by faith. The story ends in Revelation with a return to the Tree of Life.

Revelation 22:1: "on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."

The cross of Christ becomes the tree that takes away the curse of the Probation Tree so that we might gain access to the Tree of Life.

THE CITY
The second narrative picks up where Adam and Eve leave the garden, it is a tale of Two Cities. This is an illustration by Gustav Dore, illustrating the Tower of Babel, behind this figure is an enormous skyscraper reaching into the heavens. In the center is a man who seems to be raising his arms in praise. What is he doing? We'll get into that in a moment.
When I was in seminary there was a professor who would blow my mind on a regular basis. His name was Meredith Kline, he was sort of the Yoda of the Reformed world. He was short had hairy ears, wore the same beige 70's suite every day and would spout obtuse things. He asked questions I never thought to ask about the bible, but once I did, it helped make sense of the entire bible. He asked, "What would have happened if Adam hadn't failed, what if he had passed the probation tree?" Adam, as caretaker of both his wife and the garden, would have cast the serpent out of the garden, defending God's glory and goodness as only Christ the second Adam did. Both he and Eve would then have been ushered to the second tree, the Tree of Life, never tasting death, sickness, or curse, in unbroken fellowship with God. He then would have gone on to build the City of God on earth, or as Kline called it the, "Meta-tropolis," a place that existed to glorify God, where work carried no frustration, and where money and power were used to love people. Instead what you find early on is Genesis 6:5: "The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." By this it doesn't mean that we only thought about genocide, racism, hatred all the time. In man's first city we see this summarized in Genesis 11:4: "Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.'" God tells man to go out and have dominion in the earth, to cultivate the land, instead they choose to stay together to glory in themselves. We see what this man is actually doing, he's raising his hands up in mock praise, but he's not glorying in God, he's really praising himself. This man is probably the architect of the glorious structure that stands behind him. Babel becomes characteristic of every city after it, a city that is characterized by self love. The word Babel means "confusion" because it is here that God confused their languages, but it also represents the inherent nature of every city. Cities are a place of deep ethnic and socioeconomic division, places where people are used to gain power to love money. Here we have a medieval depiction of the tower of Babel. A king walks the earth in the foreground acting like he owns the place. The city center is this massive structure, and people are used to build that structure.
The next great cities are Sodom and Gomorrah. People tend to think that this is a story of God's intolerance of just homosexuality, but Sodom is not just a city of sexual confusion but of confused family relationships. We see Lot offering up his virgin daughters to the angry mob, and even after God's judgment on Sodom we see the city follow Lot. After his wife perishes, his daughters sleep with him. We see the city as a place of deep dysfunction and confusion.
That brings us to the ultimate anti-city of God, Babylon. It is here where Israel is called to worship a man, where the king erects an idol to himself. We see a recreation of Babylon's gate in modern day Bagdad, and the ancient walls that still stand. The word Babylon is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word for Babel, literally the City of Confusion. Babylon is spoken of in Revelation as the anti-City of God on earth. This leads us to the need for an anti-City of Man. Here we have another depiction of John being shown a vision of the City of God by the Angel of God. Above them we see a walled city with a prominent dome of the temple where the presence of God dwells. This is modern Jerusalem with its wall and prominent dome. Jerusalem is the earthly representation of the city of God but it never was the literal City of God in Revelation 22. These are Gustav Dore illustrations of successive attempts to rebuild the City throughout the Old Testament. I love these etchings because it shows the same West Wall in deterioration. In Jerusalem's history it has brief periods of peace where God is exalted, but the people forget God, they fall into exile, they return to the Lord in repentance, and God restores them to the city. Yet each successive return is for a shorter and shorter amount of time, and although they are restored it is never to its former glory. This continues until 70 A.D. when the temple is finally destroyed. This is a picture of the West Wall today, now called the Wailing Wall where the Jews long for the rebuilding of the temple. But this will never be. As you see where God placed Jerusalem on the map of the ancient world it was between major civilizations that were always warring with each other. If you went to the recent Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition there was an exhibit that showed the similarities of San Diego topography to Israel. Israel roughly approximates the distance from San Diego to the border of Orange County; it's not that big. San Diego rises from its coast eastward to the mountains, and what do you have east of Israel? The same. If you were to turn off the sprinklers in East County for one month, East County would return to dessert. What is east of Israel? Uninhabitable dessert. What you have then is a fertile crescent where ancient superpowers of the world regularly fight for on all sides to gain dominance as they go to war with each other. God placed the earthly Jerusalem in a place where Israel could never hold on to it without the supernatural intervention of God. The earthly Jerusalem is not the glorious city in Rev. 22; it never was meant to be. It was a temporary city always meant to point to the eternal City of God.
We know this ultimately because of what happens in the New Testament when the King returns to His city. When Jesus, the true citizen of the City of God, comes to Jerusalem he is welcomed at first as a King. Jerusalem was to be an alternate city, where God dwelt in the city with His people, a house of prayer for all nations. When Jesus enters the city and goes to the temple he cries out that instead of a house of prayer for all nations it has become a den of thieves. This medieval painting depicts every scene in the passion week of Christ. He enters the city in the far left, followed by his prayer, betrayal, and arrest in the garden, followed by His torture and three trials, His mocking and ultimately His expulsion from the city. At the top right hand side of the painting we see a distant hill outside the city, three crosses representing his crucifixion. The true King, after just one week, is expulsed outside of the city in what approximates what we think of as a brutal lynching. Why? Throughout the Bible we are told that the city represents the place where God's presence dwells, that nothing unclean can abide in the holy presence of God. If your family members contracted leprosy, they were expulsed outside the city because to approach God you had to be entirely clean and blameless. Outside the city is where you would drag sinners so that their unclean blood would not taint the City of God.
This is Golgotha, the historic site outside the city believed to be the place where Jesus was crucified. Golgotha literally means the place of the skull, they think it was named this because you can see a skull in the side of this cliff face. It is a desolate place where vegetation does not grow. Hebrews 13:12-14 picks up on this theme: "So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. 13 Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. 14 For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come." Jesus allowed Himself to be cast out of the temporary earthly city of God so that you and I could be welcomed to the eternal city. Jesus bears upon Himself our curse outside the city so that you and I could become his adopted co-heirs with a citizenship that can never be taken away. Revelation 21-22 ends with a return of God's people to this city.

THE GARDEN IN THE CITY - A picture of the Gospel
That's the bible in a nutshell twice. How do these parallel themes (of organic and inorganic structures) come together? It comes together as a picture of the gospel. We understand in our culture how a picture can change history. This is a picture of Raising of the Flag at IwooJima. It is said to be America's most cherished picture. The film "Flags of Our Fathers" tells the story of how this picture helped America rally together to end the war. It was taken towards the end of the war, America's resources were depleted, and we didn't have enough money to fund the end of the war. Its tag line "One shot can end a war" tells us how this picture was used to change the way Americans spent their money, lived their lives, and how a picture of the almost future helped bring it to reality. By the time this picture was printed in America only three of the original six men survived, and the battle went on for over 100 more days. Something about this picture so resonated with the American people that the three remaining soldiers were shipped home, some against their will, away from their dying comrades, to raise support for the buying of war bonds. Americans changed the way they lived, they scrimped and saved, and in so doing felt they helped raise that flag the last remaining few feet. One shot can end the war.
It can also change the way we look at war forever. This is a famous picture taken from another war, Vietnam. There is film footage of this same event, where the captain of the Vietcong is executed on the street like an animal. This picture captures the brutality one second before the bullet goes through his head. This picture is credited for changing the way Americans viewed war. It's not that war was ever less brutal, it was always just as ugly, but past generations had been able to view the war gloriously with songs like Over There. This photo captured the ugliness of war and changed how Americans viewed war in general. One picture can change how we view reality.
Pictures can also be painted with words. This is said to be one of America's most famous speeches. It was delivered in Washington during the Million Man March for civil rights. In it, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. prophetically paints a picture of himself as Moses leading God's people through the wilderness, looking into the Promised Land that he would never enter himself but his children might. "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." This speech is credited for motivating Americans both black and white on behalf of this vision.
If you're a fan of Tim LaHaye you may be offended by what I'm about to say. I don't believe Revelation was given for us to look at our newspaper and prognosticate the future. These aren't literal events; there is no Borg-like ship that will descend from the sky. When a story begins with the line, "Once upon a time in a far away land," we know what genre it is, it's a children's story. When a story begins, "It was a dark and stormy night," we know its not historical reporting, its prose, albeit bad prose but prose nonetheless. Revelation begins by telling us it is a vision, a dream to be translated that may at times have historical fulfillment, but it is to be interpreted by its own rules of genre.
What we have is a picture of the gospel given to all God's people at all times to capture our imagination, to jar us out of our comfort zones, to change the way we live in the present to bring this picture of the gospel to reality where we live. What unites both the organic and inorganic structure themes is the tree of life at the center of both. You have then a picture of a glorious city which at center is organic, the garden is in the city. What you have is something that strongly resembles Central Park in Manhattan. There is no place like Central park. New York which arguably is the greatest city on earth has a park around which it revolves, you can't avoid it. If you're going across town you have to navigate around it, whether to take Central Park West or Central Park East, whether to cut through the park, which way has the least amount of traffic at this time of day. This is some of the most expensive real-estate in the world, yet it's taken up by a park that makes up its center. You'd think someone would get the idea, "Lets just knock down some of the park and build more high-rises or luxury apartments or office space." No one does because they know all of New York would revolt, there would be such an outcry because New Yorkers love this park and believe its part of what makes their city so great.
I'd like to use Central Park as an analogy for the Garden in the City, looking at how its placement in the city changes how the city relates to it. I'd like to contrast two men that changed the face of America. This is Fredrick Law Olmsted and Daniel Burnham, they were contemporary men of great influence and vision who happened to be friends. In fact they worked together in the Chicago World's Fair in the last 1800's. Both men designed parks that reflected their personal philosophies. Olmsted was a journalist and landscape designer, Burnham was a city planner and architect.
Burnham designed San Francisco. This early city plan shows his name at the bottom. Burnham came up with one of the first ways to build a foundation that allowed skyscrapers to be built higher than ever before, ushering in the age of modern urbanization. He also designed the Chicago Worlds Fair just after the great fire, D.C., and is the subject of a New York Times Best seller The Devil in the White City which tells true story of this beautiful city of white Burnham designed for the Worlds Fair and how out of the same city arose a modern day serial killer surgeon/pharmacist who went on a rampage killing young girls like Jack the Ripper.
This is Grant Park in Chicago. I walked through this part every day on my way to school at the Art Institute, Grant Park's only structure. You may recognize this fountain from the show Married with Children. Buckingham fountain lays at the very center of the park. Although the park is made of organic material, it doesn't resemble nature. Every tree is spaced the exact same distance apart, row after row go on like this with anal precision. The grass is cut to an exact height so animals cannot hide, they have no cover. Every plant, every tree, every bush that Burnham planted over 100 years ago remains there today, there has been no spontaneous organic growth. The only wildlife that call the park home are these ugly stupid grey squirrels with ratty tails. They will literally come right up to you when you call them and you can kick them. The park takes up the entire city front of Chicago along Lake Michigan, but other than the occasional blues festival, Chicagoans can ignore the park.
This is Central park. When Olmsted designed it he made it to reflect the beauty of nature. There's a vast Lake, open fields, parks, and trails, and when you're in it you can forget the fact that you're in this vast Metropolis. There are hundreds of private places in the park where you can stand and actually think, "Maybe I'm the first person who has ever stood on this very spot." Olmsted designed Central park to reflect his worldview. This is a portrait of Olmsted painted by one of my favorite American artists, John Singer Sargent. Central Park was commissioned at the start of urbanization; Olmsted feared that in this new city filled with skyscrapers people would lose humanity. Olmsted was also an abolitionist, and Central Park opened five years before the Civil War. As a journalist, Olmsted gathered support with his articles all over the Northeastern United states for the abolition of slavery. The CENTRALITY of this park created accessibility to all socio-economic groups and ethnicities. This centrality affects even how the city relates to it today. Out in the city you maybe a Wall Street broker or a city street sweeper, but when you're in the park you're just a fellow citizen enjoying a Saturday afternoon in the park. People began to define themselves not by who they were chugging along in the futility of their workplace throughout the week but by what they did on their weekends.
This is Pale Male, a red tailed hawk that the city has fallen in love with. He arrogantly decided to take up residence in Central Park West, in a multi-million dollar high-rise over looking 5th Ave. He has single handedly populated the park with 26 offspring with four mates. There are books written about him, documentaries, and even a movie. Because Olmsted designed it to reflect the beauty of God's creation, the park also afforded everyday spontaneous interaction with organic life. Here he is with a random New Yorker on a park bench. There are hundred of species of bird, animal and flora that Olmsted never planted or put in the park. There are parts that resemble the rain forest in their spontaneous flourishing of organic life, that's because there is organic freedom within the boundaries of the park.

What can we learn from Revelation's vision of Garden in the City?
When we look at this vision of the Garden in the City we see the culmination of redemptive history. The garden in the city...

1. Is a place where there is no more probation tree. All blame, accusations, and guilt are gone forever. This is good news, because don't we all live as if we can still do something to screw it all up? Even though I've been a Christian for a long time I still feel this way. As if one little mistake, one bad decision, one wrong turn and we could lose our good standing with the one from whom all truth, beauty, and meaning come. There is no other tree because Christ has given us once and for all access through the third tree, the cross.

2. Is a place of deep ethnic diversity yet no confusion or alienation. We have in this City of God, a reversal of the ethnic confusion of Babel. The City of God is a place where no matter what ethnicity or socioeconomic background you come from, all have equal access to the Tree of Life.

3. Is a place where money and power are used to love people. We have a reversal of Babylon, the city of confusion. It's a place where money and power are used to love people. Sodom and Gomorrah are reversed; it's a place where no one in the family of God is confused in their relationship, a place of ultimate healing.

4. Is an eternal city, of which you are NOW a citizen by faith, where nothing can separate you from the Love of God. Though on earth we have no lasting city, this vision of the reality we are a part of, which is now and not yet, gives us security to be the City of God in every City of Man. Lastly...

5. Is a city that loves Jesus. Jesus is the second Adam, the true citizen, the true King who brings us back to the garden to a glorious city.

Revelation gives us a picture of a city that we all want to live in, which all of history both organic and inorganic points to. It is this picture of the gospel, given to all God's people through out all time to capture our imagination, to change how we live in the present, it is what is meant when we pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it IS in heaven." It is the means by which we are able to be the City of God now in the City of Man, to love the city, and to use money, resources, and power to love people to God's glory.