Billy Collins, former U.S. Poet Laureate, wrote a poem

about his experience teaching undergraduate students.

The title is Introduction to Poetry.

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

It is a tragic alchemy we’ve mastered. We take this holy

book—this untamed, living, breathing, sacred text—and

we treat it like a suspect. We strap it to a chair and beat

it with our agendas until it finally “confesses,” parroting

back to us what we wanted to hear.

We’ve taken Revelation—written as a ray of hope

to people in despair—and made it a roadmap to

destruction. We’ve traded an encounter with the living

God for a decoder ring for the headlines. In a rush to

find out what it means, we’ve strangled what it says.

Sometimes, the hose is turned on you. Perhaps you

know the heavy weight of a Bible verse dropped on your

chest like a stone when you were gasping for air. Maybe

you’ve heard the Word of God used to bolt a door

against you or turn you away from the table of grace.

God recast as a landlord looking to evict, not the parent

running down the driveway to welcome you home.

If that’s your story, I want you to hear this: the Word of

God was never meant to be a weapon to break your

heart. It is the bread that sustains your life.

Last week, Revelation unveiled the powers that want

to capture our souls. This morning, John receives his

commission. It’s a strange scene, a stunning scene. He

sees an angel. And I’m not talking about a Hallmark

Christmas ornament angel. This is a cosmic giant, robed

in the clouds, face shining like the sun. He stands with

one foot on the land and one foot in the sea, his voice

like the roar of a lion. This is the antidote to our tame,

domesticated God. There will be no tying this God to a

chair. The massive angel holds a tiny scroll, and John is

given his direction.

Take the scroll and eat it; it will be bitter to your stomach,

but sweet as honey in your mouth.

John takes the scroll. You’d do what this angel told you

to do as well. He chews it. He swallows it. It is sweet

in his mouth. In his gut, there is a slow burn as the

command of the angel comes. You must prophesy again.

John is called to speak. But first, he must digest the word.

Six centuries earlier, Ezekiel stood there with his

mouth gaping open. God handed him a scroll inscribed

with words of lamentation; it tasted like dessert. The

message is the same. Ezekiel, John, you are not allowed

to say a word until it becomes a part of you. You must not

preach what you have not metabolized.

Stanley Hauerwas, my teacher at Duke, used to say that

the church is a language school. We are here to learn

how to speak Christian.

It’s not our native tongue. From the moment we’re

born, the world whispers its grammar in our ears. The

grammar of the fist and the fence. Me first. Us and them.

We don’t study this language. We inhale it. It’s the air we

breathe. We’re immersed in it.

And then the gospel comes along with its upside-down

syntax. Another language entirely. In here, the rules

of grammar are different. We speak a strange dialect,

where the last are shoved to the front of the line. Where

the picture of power is a God who refused to fight back

on the world’s terms. Where strength is revealed in open

hands, not clenched jaws.

You don’t learn that kind of language from a textbook;

you learn it by immersion, sitting in these pews until the

cadence of mercy matches the beating of your heart,

until you don’t just speak Christian, you become Christian.

That’s what it means to eat the scroll. To take the words

into your body until grace becomes your mother tongue,

the only language you know how to speak.

I learned this the way any child does—by osmosis. I

spent my childhood in the third row, heels swinging

against the pew, counting the minutes until the final

hymn was over. Week after week. Year after year. While

my father preached and the saints prayed, I sat. And

I did not know I was learning a language. I was a kid.

I fidgeted. I daydreamed. I doodled. But all the while,

something was happening that I didn’t have a name for.

The rhythms of worship were getting into me, becoming

a part of me. The cadence of liturgy. The strange

grammar of grace carved its channel into my soul.

I watched what these words did to him. They were like

water over a stone. They shaped his preaching, yes,

but also his patience. His parenting. His presence with

people in emergency rooms and at gravesides. He didn’t

just memorize the word. He metabolized the word. It

made him who he is.

Eighteen years ago this week, I made my own ordination

vows. And when I did, my father handed me this copy of

the Book of Common Worship. He’d written a note inside

the cover. “Chris, sometimes we are called to speak

words in special times in the lives of others. We can

be creative, and sometimes we are, but more often we

turn to the ritual words of the church. May these words

guide you as you equip the saints with hope, comfort,

strength, and mystery. I’m so proud of you, Dad.”

He wasn’t giving me a manual. He was passing on the

scroll. Some days, son, the words will taste like honey.

But some days, they are going to burn.

He was right. That’s the truth of the bittersweet scroll. It

is a summons. The Word is honey when we talk about

love, about God’s love, about love in the abstract, but it

turns to fire when it demands you love the one who has

wronged you. The one who has broken your heart. The

one who has harmed you. It’s sweet to sing about justice

in the sweet by and by, but bitter when it demands that

we change the way we spend our days, our dollars,

our devotion. The sweetness is God’s promise. The

bitterness is its weight on our shoulders.

Now my own sons sit where I used to sit. Daydreaming

and doodling. Heels swinging against the pew. Counting

the final minutes until the last verse of the hymn. And I

cannot force-feed them this faith. None of us can. But

we can keep bringing them to the table. We can keep

giving witness to its power in our lives. We can learn to

trust the slow, quiet chemistry of Christian formation.

This faith we’ve been given, this faith we hold, it is not

an argument you win. It’s a life that captivates. It is the

long obedience of showing up week after week, year

after year, until the cadence of liturgy matches the

beating of your heart.

And let’s be clear, because Revelation is clear. The

Empire has no time for the long game. No patience for

it. It is a machine built on the illusion of manufactured

urgency. It wants instant results. One pill to swallow.

An enemy to vanquish with a single strike. Displays of

dramatic power. While the scroll is this slow medicine.

These words can enter a person and make them new.

But it will not happen in soundbites. It happens over a

lifetime. Please hear this: we become what we consume.

If we gather week after week hearing holy words,

and then we walk out those doors speaking the

same cruel language of the world, we deserve to be

dismissed by it. If we celebrate the kind of “strength”

that crushes the weak or the kind of “winning” that

discards the vulnerable, we are nothing more than the

Empire with a thin coat of holy paint. If our lives fail

to reflect the beauty of this Word, why would anyone

trust our message?

But if we truly digest the Word, our lives begin to reflect

our diet.

In a few moments, we’ll come to this table. You’ll hear

those same strange, ancient words spoken to Ezekiel

and John: Take, and eat. This is the Word made flesh,

reshaping us from the inside. Not a snack, but a

transplant. His life becoming our life. His way becoming

our way.

The bread is sweet, but the way is often bitter. The

words we are given will not let us stay silent. So, eat this

book. Come to this table. Take this bread. Drink this cup.

Until his is the only language you know how to speak.

And then, don’t you dare leave here and speak that old

tongue. Don’t you dare eat the body of Christ and leave

this place fluent in the language of violence. Because

mark my words: if you spend your life beating the Word

of God with a hose to make it say what you want, you

will eventually do the same to your neighbor. You cannot

feast on grace and breathe out fire.

So, when the world calls for vengeance, you speak

mercy. When the world demands walls of hostility, you

speak a table of grace. When they worship the power

of the sword, you bow at the foot of the cross. Do not

return to the grammar of the beast. Come to the table.

Eat the word. Then go to the world and show them what

the truth tastes like. Amen.