I’ve been studying the book of Revelation for some time now in order to prepare for a class I’m going to teach this fall. As I studied it, I found this recurrence of doors in chapter 3 and 4, in part due to my commentary written by Craig Koester – which is a good little commentary on Revelation if you’re looking. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll be able to use this particular collection of thoughts in the study or sermons, so I’ll post on it.
The multimillion dollar advertising campaign for the United Methodist Church used to read, “Open hearts, Open doors, Open minds.” I found myself thinking of the “open doors” portion of our advertising slogan as I studied portions of Revelation.
In the final two letters to the seven churches in Asia minor, found in Revelation 2 and 3, we find two references to doors. The church in Philadelphia is told that Christ has the keys of David, and that he has placed before them an open door that no one is able to shut. The church in Philadelphia is one of the two churches that receives a favorable report in these chapters. They have remained faithful to Christ alone, and because of this life is difficult for them. The strong implication made by the language regarding Christ’s having the keys of David and opening things that cannot be shut is that Christ controls entrance into the Kingdom of God. Consider this: if the Christians in Philadelphia abstained from participation in the trade guilds, and if they were persecuted by the pagans and Jews for their beliefs, then they would have suffered in many various manners. It must have seemed for them that the keys to the kingdom (at least the kingdom in which they lived) were in the hands of the wrong folks. However, they receive the good news that things are not necessarily what they seem. Christ has opened a door for them leading into the real kingdom, and there is no one who can shut it. In this letter and open door symbolizes admittance of the faithful into the Kingdom of God by the gracious work of Christ. Open door.
In Laodicea the door situation is vastly different. Here the door is shut and Jesus stands outside knocking. Laodicea did not receive a glowing report from Jesus in regards to their faithfulness. In fact, the letter to Laodicea is pretty harsh. They are told that they don’t even realize that they are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. Things in this church are not going well. However, the startling thing we learn from this letter is that the church appeared to be doing well. They had wealth, looked good, didn’t really offend anyone. It is a good guess that their relative comfort came at least in part from their willingness to compromise with the culture around them. With this door we learn that Jesus himself is an outsider in this church, and that it appears that the Laodiceans are the ones who shut the door on him. The encouragement to open the church doors here is an encouragement to open them to Christ as opposed (at least in part) to conforming to the culture. Closed door.
In chapter 4 the scenario shifts and a new vision occurs where John is invited to, “Come up here.” He sees an open door in heaven and in the next two chapters we are treated to a view behind the veil as John records what he sees in heaven. Here the open door is an invitation to see what God is up to. It is an invitation to worship. It is an invitation to contemplate the deeper reality of history. It is an invitation to see that the one who conquers is really the Lamb who has been slain. The open door is another invitation from God to John and in a way to the reader of the book of Revelation. Open door.
In these three door scenes which appear so close to each other in Revelation we can see some things. First, God and Jesus Christ are the ones who have opened doors. The open doors imply an invitation to participation in the Kingdom of God, whether by entering or by observation. Even in these brief scenarios we can pick up on a contrast between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world. Second, it was the human church in Laodicea that closed the door. Furthermore, it was Jesus himself who was shut out.
The advertising campaign run by the denomination strongly implied open doors first into worship services and then by that into the church community. The goal of a marketing campaign, by definition, is to get more customers. The open doors in the campaign are then opened by the church people for customers to enter and join in community. At this point some may protest that the real message was that Jesus opens the church’s doors and we should not shut them. I would respond in two ways. First, the commercials emphasized that it was “the people of the United Methodist Church,” and that in order to make that point the advertising campaign would need to at least mention or hint at the existence of Jesus. It is interesting that our denominational message about doors was the church opening doors for people of the world to enter, yet in this scripture it is God opening the doors for humans to enter into his Kingdom. Or, in the negative sense it is the church shutting Jesus out of their community. It is not only Revelation that has this image. Consider the Gospel of John where Jesus proclaims that he is the door in chapter 10. Granted, the denominational advertising campaign was not written after a study of Revelation, so it is not fair to hold them to that. But, it is fair to ask from what paradigm the slogan was written.
What does it mean for us if God and Jesus are the ones opening doors? How should we understand the message to Laodicea that they have shut Jesus out? What would it mean, from the vantage point in Revelation, for us as a denomination to be a church of the open door? What should we make of this difference in the door image between the denomination’s slogan and that found in Revelation?