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SERMON :"Retrieving
Revalation"
A minister gets some interesting phone calls during the day. Last
Monday, a man from Gloucester County called. He had read the op-ed
Preston & I wrote in the Daily Press, and wanted to talk to the
minister. He is Baptist, he told me, a devout Christian from
the age of six. He had heard a little about Unitarians and wanted
to know what we believe about God, worship, and salvation. At the
end of our conversation, he asked, “what do think happens after
we die.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know. But what I do know
is that right now I’m talking with a man who is asking sincere
questions.” “And as soon as I get off the phone,” I said, “I will
prepare for a meeting with our Board President. And in every
action, and interaction, I try to praise the life I have been
given. Then I get up the next morning and I try to do it again.”
I think he was disappointed with my answer. He may have been looking
for something a little more solid.
People seem to want simple answers to complex questions:
What will happen to me after I die?
How does my
death fit into the larger story of humanity?
What part does
my individual life play in the great human story?
The Book of Revelation in the Christian Bible gives an answer to
those questions that many people find compelling. So it’s not
surprising that it has inspired one of the most popular fiction
series of all time, with each of its twelve titles making the New
York Times bestseller list. Co-authors Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins
have sold more than 62 million copies of the Left Behind series of
books. And now, Left Behind is a new video game, targeted at
young teens. Here’s the premise:
You are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group.
You are issued high-tech military weaponry.
Your mission: conduct physical and spiritual warfare to remake
America as a Christian theocracy.
The Left Behind enterprise is concerned with the end times, last
things, the completion of human history, what theologians call
Eschatology. They based their stories on one particular
interpretation of the Book of Revelation. That interpretation is
quite modern. It originated with a group of conservative Christians
in the early 19th century. They were reacting to the rise of
rationalism and liberalism in the American Protestant denominations,
conspicuously led by the Unitarians and the Universalists.
The name of the new conservative
movement was Fundamentalism, at its core was the belief that the
second coming of Jesus was imminent, and that the Book of
Revelation, as well as other books of the bible, read
literally, contain veiled messages that would predict the final
unfolding of human history.
According to fundamentalists, these messages reveal that human
history can be divided into seven periods, or dispensations,
starting with Adam and Eve. We are presently in the sixth age,
which is marked by moral decline and vast numbers of
unbelievers. Any day now, without warning, a cataclysmic event
called the Rapture will occur, during which all true Christian
believers will suddenly be taken up. At the Rapture, true believers
will meet Jesus in heaven where they will wait together for seven
years. Meanwhile, the non-believers will remain on earth, suffering
through a Great Tribulation, and living under the rule of the
antichrist in a system of one-world government. At the end of those
seven years, Jesus will return to earth with his army of faithful
believers to battle the antichrist in a holy war called Armageddon.
After winning the battle, Jesus will restore the earth to full
health, and will reign over the kingdom-- with Jerusalem as its
capital--for the next 1000 years. This will be the seventh and
final era of human history. At the end of those 1000 years, the Last
Judgment will take place, sending individual people to either heaven
or hell for eternity. The Last Judgment will be the final event in
human history.
The Fundamentalist reading of the
Book of Revelation gives people clear answers about what will happen
after they die. It also assures them that their life and death are
part of the Greatest Story, and not just a speck of cosmic dust. And
what a story it is, the one told in Revelation, a fantastic story,
full of myth and symbolism. Its bizarre images even sparked some
biblical scholars in the 1960’s to speculate whether the author of
Revelation knew about psychedelic drugs! It has inspired writers and
artists, like the one who created the sculpture pictured on the
order of service. Believers in every generation have tried to match
up apocalyptic symbols like 666 with prevailing geo-political
events, each naming the anti-Christ of their time. Today, with the
recent violence between Israel and Palestine, and the war in Iraq
continuing it seems, without end, and a war on terrorism that has
made the world feel less safe, this end-times fascination has spread
beyond the fundamentalist Christian base. A Time/CNN poll reveals
that 59% of Americans believe the biblical prophecies of the end
times will come true. And one-third say they are paying more
attention to how the news relates to end-time prophecies ((Time
Magazine article: The Bible & the Apocalypse, July 1, 2002).
Usually, when I hear news like this, I just shake my head and repeat
Thomas Jefferson’s clever quip that it “does no injury for my
neighbor to say there are 20 gods or no God (or that the End is
Near). It neither picks my pockets nor breaks my leg." But this
time, I have to respectfully disagree with Mr. Jefferson and say, it
does matter. It does matter when people with this particular
worldview seek out position of authority and influence in order to
shape public policy. Because this worldview and this particular
interpretation of the Book of Revelation promotes intolerance,
violence, and destruction of the earth. The end-times worldview
cannot tolerate those who disagree. Elaine Pagels, Princeton
University Professor, explains that when a society has a simplistic
'good vs. evil' world view, “every conflict between us and them
turns into a moral conflict, so we're God's people, they are Satan's
people.” We can do anything to them, without ethical
restraint. Because all tactics are fair when fighting the devil.
The apocalyptic worldview also promotes war as necessary & even
desirable. If you’ve ever tried to read the Book of Revelation, you
remember the images of warfare and violence. The sea becomes blood,
there are lakes of fire. There are divine warriors and heavenly
armies.
Booksellers and video game makers
aren’t the only ones using end-times imagery to liven up their
products. Our political leaders have used this language, phrases
like ‘American mission’ and ‘divine appointment to rid the
world of evil’ to justify war, and to support the spread of
American empire. The end-times fascination also leads to apathy
about the current needs of the earth and its people. It says, if the
world will soon be destroyed, there is no need to take care of
it. If Jesus is coming back to restore the earth, then why be
concerned with global warming or deforestation? The end-times
mentality breeds a culture of resignation and disengagement with the
world’s needs. If people expect only the progress of evil, they will
not work for social justice. If people expect only the destruction
of the planet, they will not care about the environment. If people
hope only for their impending departure, they will not work for the
well-being of their neighbor.
The end-times ideology is
destructive, and it is an irresponsible reading of the Bible.
The Bible is a creation of humans, and as such it contains both
blessings and curses. We must read it with our capacity for reason,
lifting up those things that support a more abundant life and
rejecting the teachings that make life small and frightening.
Here is what I have come to understand about the Book of Revelation.
First most biblical scholars view the Book of Revelation as a
commentary on the Roman Empire, its domination of the world, and its
persecution of the early church. The Book of Revelation does not
predict the future. It only describes what was happening to a band
of Jesus followers in 2nd century Asia Minor. It reveals the
thinking of the author, most likely a man named John. A passionate
follower of Jesus, John was exiled to the island of Patmos in the
Aegean Sea for preaching Jesus’ message. His exile was a relatively
mild punishment, for had he been alive during his grandfathers’ day,
during the time of Nero, he probably would have been thrown to the
lions. But this was the 2nd century, when the Roman Empire was
ruled by the so-called “five good emperors.” Even so, it was
a dangerous time for followers of Jesus, since all non-Israelites
were required to worship the Emperor. In the land that is now
Western Turkey, seven fledgling groups of early churches quietly
functioned. The economy was booming and life was pretty comfortable
for those early Jesus followers. From his island exile John watched
them become attached to the bounties of the Roman Empire. He
watched them become deaf to the cries of enslaved people. He watched
them grow complacent about the poor, who lost their land when they
could not pay the Emperor’s exorbitant taxes. He watched them move
away from the essential teachings of Jesus and toward worship of the
Emperor himself.
Where Jesus taught non-violence, Rome taught war.
Where Jesus taught egalitarianism, Rome taught class stratification.
Where Jesus taught the gifts of the spirit, Rome taught the spoils
of conquest.
Witnessing the people’s complacency about the empire’s economic
exploitation, pretentiousness, and violent practices, John became
angry and frustrated. The people were so wrapped up in their
comfort. He knew he would have to do something extraordinary to get
their attention. That’s why he wrote an apocalypse. An apocalypse is
an ancient literary genre, one used by Jews and early Christians.
John used this particular form because he knew his audience. He
knew they would not have been shaken out of their complacency by a
simple letter or poem. He used frightening and fantastic images to
chastise and alarm his audience. John wanted them to choose. He
wanted them to choose God over the Emperor, a life of service to the
afflicted over a life of material comfort, a life of spirit over a
life of possessions, and passion for peace over lust for war. But he
knew he was asking them to step up to possible persecution and
hardship. He knew he was asking them to put their lives at risk.
So he promised them glorious future rewards. He gave them a way to
make meaning of their mortal death by making it part of an eternal
life. Protestant Fundamentalism isn’t the only faith that looks to
the future as the great end. Religious Liberalism has its own
version of a great end, and it too is set in a chronological future.
The two hymns we’re singing this morning both hail the future
vision. You’ll find them in the section of the hymnal called “In
Time to Come.”
We understand the human desire for
our individual lives to be part of some greater cosmic meaning. And
we look for it in the glorious future. But unlike the story of the
End-Times Left-Behinders, our version of the time to come does not
involve violence acts of destruction by a wrathful God. Our Golden
City will be built by human will, and human hands. What Unitarian
James Freeman Clarke called, in 1886, “the progress of mankind
onward and upward forever.” (“Vexed Questions in Theology,”
1886, James Freeman Clarke). Religious Liberals, especially in
the late 19th century, had a profound sense of hope the future. But
then came WWI, and the Holocaust, Hiroshima, Vietnam, the World
Trade Centers, Abu Ghraib.
We have seen the
limits of human progress and we have seen the persistence of human
evil. We have seen too much and our eyes cannot be closed. We can
no longer rely on hard work and determination to save us.
So where will we
find hope?
How will we be saved from a life that has no meaning?
I believe we
find the most meaningful life when we stop gazing outward to the
future, and start gazing downward to the present.
Here, we find
that the world is always ending and is always being born.
Love arises and
fades away. The end is always with us. And so is life.
As human beings,
we are co-creators of that life. If we are able to connect to that
holy truth, we are able to see the world as the poet sees it.
In Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town, a young woman dies in
childbirth. She is allowed to relive just one day, and in that day,
she is struck by the beauty of the ordinary: clocks ticking,
freshly-ironed dresses, hot baths, food and coffee, sleeping and
waking up. “Oh, earth,” she exclaims, “you are too
wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever
realize life while they live it?” The narrator in the play
answers, “No--the Saints and Poets maybe.”
Czeslaw Milosz
is one such poet.
In this morning’s reading, he gives us images of ordinary life on
the Day the World Ends. The final line of the poem consists only
of these startling words: Warsaw 1944. Warsaw in 1944 was the site
of one of the most tragic events of WW II. For 63 days in the
autumn of 1944, the people of Warsaw fought against the Germans who
had occupied their land. By the end, 65,000 residents had been
executed, 55,000 civilians were in concentration camps, 150,000 were
transported to labor camps in Germany, and every civilian was forced
to leave the city. German soldiers then began a systematic looting
campaign stripping every house of furniture and personal
belongings. Afterwards, these empty houses were set on fire.
Monuments were destroyed and government buildings blown up. Even in
the midst of this unbelievable devastation, Milosz was able to feel
joy. He was able to make a transformative connection with the
infinite. Lifted out of his finite misery, he was able to see the
miracle of creation. Seeing beauty in the simple act of binding his
tomatoes, he says to himself, there will be no other end of the
world. There will be no greater purpose in life; there will be no
grander end than to tend to these tomatoes, to notice the bee
circling the flower and to hear the voice of a violin.
“Does any human being ever realize life while they live it?”
Is the narrator in Our Town right that only poets and saints can
transform the way they see the world?
Ours is a faith
that dares to proclaim that this transformation is available to
everyone. It is not limited to the first 144,000 customers, and it
is not limited to those who profess a particular creed.
The end of the
human story is present in the here and now.
Realize your
life now, love deeply, take care of the earth, and if tomorrow
comes, do it again.
Resources:
“Unveiling
Empire” by Wes Howard Brook & Anthony Gwyther, Orbis,
1999)
“Up Against
Caesar” by John Dart, February 8, 2005, Christian Century.
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