A reading from the Revelation of Saint John, chapter eighteen. And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.
And hear one verse from the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter six. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret.
Two rooms, beloved. We are going to speak today about two rooms, and about the walk between them.
Start with Babylon. When we hear that word we picture a great city, towers, gold, noise. And the text does give us a city. But read further into the chapter and you find what the city is for. It is a market. The merchants weep when she falls, because no one buys their goods any more. Then the text lists the goods. Gold and silver. Fine linen. Cinnamon, wine, oil, wheat, horses and chariots. And at the very bottom of the list, the last thing on the shelf: slaves, and souls of men.
That is Babylon. Babylon is any place where a person is turned into a thing with a price. That is all it takes. It does not need towers.
So we say something in this church that may sound strange. Babylon is not only a city. Babylon is a bedroom. It is any room where someone was used. It is the room where a body was treated as a purchase, or a payment, or a prize, or a secret. And it is the room that came afterward, the one inside you, where the shame is kept with the door locked and the light off.
Some of you know that room very well. You have lived in it for years. You can describe the wallpaper.
We must be honest about the plain sense of the text. In Revelation, Babylon is pictured as a woman dressed in scarlet, and the voice says, come out of her. For a long time that picture has been used to say that the woman is the evil. In this church we read it differently, and we tell you plainly that it is our reading. We believe a frightened age hung the name of the market on the one who was sold in it. We read the Scarlet Woman as Mary Magdalene, wrongly named, and still looking for the one she loves. You do not have to share that reading to hear what follows. But you should know where we stand. We stand with the one who was called the wrong name.
Now come to the Gospel according to John, chapter eight. It is early in the morning. Jesus is in the temple, sitting, teaching. And the scribes and Pharisees bring in a woman. They say she was taken in adultery, in the very act. They set her in the midst.
Think about what that means. In the very act. The text does not describe the room, but there was a room. Someone opened a door. Someone pulled her out of it and marched her through the morning streets into the most public place in the city, and stood her in the middle of a crowd of men.
And notice who is missing. It takes two people for that act. The text never mentions the man. Nobody dragged him anywhere. He went home.
The text does not give this woman a name. We do not say she was Mary Magdalene, because the text does not say so. But we know her. Many of you have been her. Some of you were caught, and some of you were only blamed. Either way you ended up standing in the midst while the other one went home.
The text tells us why they brought her. It was not about her at all. They wanted to trap Jesus. She was bait. Even in her judgment she was being used. That is Babylon inside the temple, a person spent like a coin to buy something else.
And what does he do? The text tells us he stooped down and wrote with his finger on the ground. We do not know what he wrote. The text does not say, and we will not pretend. But look at what the stooping did. Every eye had been on her. Now every eye is on him, down in the dust. He took the staring off her. Before he spoke one word, he gave her that.
Then he stood and said, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
And he stooped again. He did not even watch them. He let them leave without an audience. The text tells us they went out one by one, beginning at the eldest. The old ones went first. They had the longest memories. They knew their own rooms.
Then there were two people left. He said, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
Hear the order of that. Neither do I condemn thee comes first. He does not say, clean yourself up and then I will not condemn you. The mercy is not a wage. It is given while she is still standing there with the morning on her and the dust of the street on her feet.
Now we need to speak frankly, because some of you have had that last line thrown at you like one of the stones. Go, and sin no more.
If you were used, if someone took what you did not give, if you were a child, if you were afraid, if you were paid because you had to eat, if you said no and it did not matter, then hear us. What was done to you is not your sin. There is nothing there for you to repent of. The shame you carry belongs to someone else, and it was left in your room like a coat. You are allowed to hand it back.
And if you did do something you grieve, if you broke a promise, if you used another person yourself, then the same voice speaks to you, and it is not a harsh voice. Go. That is the first word. Go means you are free to leave this court. Go means you have a future. Sin no more is not a threat. It means you do not have to live in that room any longer. The door is open now.
Come out of her, my people. That is the voice from heaven, and we believe it is the same voice as the one in the temple. It is not telling anyone to come out of their body. Your body is not Babylon. Your body was the thing Babylon tried to sell. Come out of the market. Come out of the story that says you are worth what someone paid, or what someone took, or what someone said about you afterward.
And where do we go, when we come out?
Here is the second room. Enter into thy closet, Jesus says, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret.
Think how that sounds to someone who has been hurt behind a shut door. A small room. A closed door. Someone who sees in secret. For some of you every part of that is frightening. We understand.
But this is the other room. In the first room, you were looked at and not seen. In this room you are seen and not stared at. In the first room someone else shut the door. In this one, the hand on the door is yours. Thou hast shut thy door. You close it. You can open it. Nobody is sold in here. Nobody is weighed. The one who waits there is the one who stooped down in the dust so that the crowd would stop looking at you.
You do not need fine words in that room. You can sit on the floor. You can say nothing. You can say, I am here, and I am tired. That is a prayer.
And if the weight is heavy, tell a living person too. A counselor, a doctor, a friend who has earned it. The closet is not a place to hide from help. It is a place to remember who you are before you go and ask for it.
Babylon is fallen, the angel says. He says it twice. For some of us it has to be said many times before we believe it. So we will say it again next Sabbath, and the one after.
Let us pray.
Holy One, who sees in secret and does not look away. We bring you the rooms we cannot speak of. Where we were used, take back the shame that was never ours. Where we did wrong, say again, neither do I condemn thee, and teach us to walk out. Stoop down beside the ones who are standing in the midst today. Shut the door gently behind us, and stay. Amen.