November 22, 2015
When Dottie called me last August to ask me to preach, I picked November 22. I assumed that the lectionaries, and thus my topic, would have something to do with Thanksgiving; so I was surprised, and to tell the truth a little dismayed to find that, since our lectionary scriptures follow the liturgical year, this Sunday, November 22, marks the end of the year and the end of time. Apocalypse now!
The dramatic and obscure biblical images about End Times have split the church since the beginning, and some of us think it’s a subject to be avoided. But given the fearful events of the last few weeks, in Paris, Beirut, Somalia, Mali, and elsewhere and the rumors of impending even worse events, I think it’s as good a time as any to face our fears. Violent fantasies—of holy destruction, the Last Battle, Armageddon, and so on—appeal not only to the ignorant and the destitute but, at some primitive level, probably to everybody. Just this last Tuesday on the front page of the Washington Post there was a headline question: “The Islamic State Strategy: Luring the ‘Unbelievers’ into an Apocalyptic Battle?”
I don’t pretend to have a scholar’s knowledge of the theology of End Times, but I am convinced that behind and beyond the endings, we are assured of new beginnings. To use the old words: We are born again in the realm of God. In a way, our liturgical calendar affirms this. Next Sunday begins Advent, the coming of the Holy Child who will again redeem the world.
There’s a strong desire to destroy evildoers. ISIS terrorists want to destroy infidel Christians and Jews. In a mirror echo of Jihadist holy war, we in Europe and the United States are hearing calls to exterminate our enemies—to wipe them out—to overcome the evil with evil.
In all this confusion and noise, we need to carefully tune our ears to God’s call—to love our neighbors, welcome widows and orphans, give children safe places to play, feed the hungry, and overcome evil with good. Let’s not let the still small voices of our better nature be drowned out.
The ends described in Daniel and Revelations are often cataclysmic, extravagant and violent. Devouring beasts, fiery wheels, iron teeth, giant horns, flames of fire: Daniel is terrified as he grapples with what he cannot understand. He even faints from terror.
Similarly what John heard and saw as warnings to the churches and then wrote down in the “Book of Revelations” are overwhelming: Mighty torrents, eyes all around like burning flames, iron scepters, sharp swords, horses of the Apocalypse, the moon red like blood, and so on.
Daniel’s and John’s visions may refer to the tumultuous events unfolding around them: In Daniel, to events of the Babylonian captivity (remember, poor Daniel had to be rescued from the lion’s den!); Revelations may refer to the first century persecutions of the church, the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, or the fall of the Roman Empire.
Some see the biblical imagery in Daniel, Ezekiel, and John as predictions of future events. People have dated the end of the world with stubborn certainty hundreds of times for thousands of years (in spite of being wrong every time!). Wikipedia, for example, lists over a hundred predictions, some of which people staked their lives on. Certain expectations in the first-century church; many in the medieval church; Millerites waiting in 1841 on top of a mountain for the Rapture; nineteenth- and twentieth-century fundamentalist groups, sure that the Rapture and Armageddon were imminent.
In about 1971 I visited my parents at their mobile home in Florida. I was held spellbound by a neighbor of theirs who used numerical formulas—counting verses and so on; invoking a magic number 666 to explain the Mark of the Beast, and to predict the dates of the rise and downfall of the Antichrist and which of us were to escape the Great Tribulation. My parents’ neighbor was passionate in his conviction that the UN, the metric system, water fluoridation, the Soviet Union, and the specter of world government were signs of the conspiracy heralding Antichrist, Armageddon, and the End.
This sense of looming calamity is alive and well today. In this week’s issue of the New Yorker magazine, there’s a long article about the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas that describes their preparations for the end of the world: When Obama was elected, their minister preached that Obama was the Antichrist and that his presidency signaled the beginning of the Apocalypse. Westboro church members were told to move to Israel to help bring about the fulfillment of prophecy.
I don’t mean to belittle people’s fears, in fact, I am really afraid of the violent ways fear is acted out. There is much out there to give us nightmares. Liberal sophisticates are also afflicted with gloomy predictions of end times: flooding, drought, deforestation, poisonous pollution, surging exodus of refugee populations, drones, terror, suicide bombs, nuclear annihilation. In our times, scientists as well as politicians claim to be prophets. Some have an unfortunate tendency to worship their own wisdom. They are not wise enough to acknowledge that we humans don’t know much more than we do know.
Jesus did know. He told us that no one knows the day or the hour of the End except the Father in heaven.
I do believe that we as followers of Jesus are called to face our fears—of destruction, terror, desolation and death—and look to the words of hope and promise that are coupled with every prophetic threat of chaos and hell. We can pray that we will come, with each day of our short lives, to more deeply believe and persevere in our faith, and act on the promises of God’ goodness, justice, and benevolence that are the heart and soul of our faith: that God is good, God is love. Grace surrounds us. We are called to participate in God’s good. The fields are ripe for harvest, we are told. We are assured that God in Christ has prepared a place for us in Paradise, that the kingdom of God has begun and it will prevail. In fact we are amazingly given the gifts of love and beauty and joy and work and family and community that are signs of the Kingdom coming. Last Sunday we were reminded of the beauty and joy created when we share a song, take out the trash together, and make a friend laugh. This week we can share the Thanksgiving feast and give thanks together for the bounty of this beautiful Earth.
Some Biblical scholars think that Revelation does not refer to actual people or events but is an allegory of our spiritual journey and the ongoing struggle between good and evil. Perhaps the Book of Revelation is best understood as a description of the tests disciples will face along the way and a guide for how to remain faithful to the spirit and teachings of Jesus. How can we avoid succumbing to our contemporary beasts? Can we avoid being swallowed up by the Antichrists of greed and hate and fear? Can we stop worshipping celebrity, power, and money?
Is the primary agenda of Revelations to expose as impostors the worldly powers that seek to oppose the ways of God and God's Kingdom? Christians are tempted in the twenty-first century, as well as the first century, to give up the example of Jesus and instead be lured into internalizing the dominating values of our world: imperialism, racism, exclusionism, exceptionalism, self-protectionism, extremism, fanaticism, terrorism. There are a lot of deluding isms in and around us.
Jesus’ followers are told to love one another and always give thanks. In doing so, we find out that we can sing the Lord’s song together in this strange world and find contemporary wellsprings of hope when our sight is illuminated by the Holy Spirit.
Where is our hope?
We can turn again to each of our scriptures for this week.
God comforts the terrified Daniel with a vision of the everlasting sovereignty of God. Daniel 7:13: “I gazed into the visions of the night. I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven…To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. .. His kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.”
“The Lord is King,” Psalm 24 says.
The passion story in John 11 teaches us that Jesus is not the king of our fantasies. When Pilate asks Jesus: “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus tells Pilate, “Yes, I am king, but my kingdom does not belong to this world.” Jesus, our king, shares the suffering and death of human beings, and he forgives his killers. Jesus is the king of love.
To John, in Revelations, Christ says: “Jesus, the faithful witness, firstborn of the dead, ruler of the kings of the earth. The one who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom…
“Look! Christ is coming with the clouds… I am the Alpha and Omega, says the Lord God, who is, who was and who is to come, the sovereign Lord of all …. Do not be afraid. I have the keys to death and hell.”
We live in a time of uncertainty. Although we must deal with our ordinary human fears, at the deepest level we don’t have to be afraid. Let’s pray that we can live day-by-day generously in grateful thanksgiving, out of a deepening faith that God is good, God is love, and God’s will will be done in earth as it is in heaven.
Amen