Retrieving Revelation

By Jennifer Youngsun Ryu
January 21, 2007

READING
Song on the End of the World by Czeslaw Milosz

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A Fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it it should always be.
On the day the world ends
Women walk through fields under their umbrellas
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.
And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.
Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet,
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
No other end of the world there will be,
No other end of the world there will be.
Warsaw, 1944

A minister gets some interesting phone calls during the day. Last month, a man from an adjacent town called. He had read the op-ed my co-ministry partner & I wrote opposing the Virginia Marriage Amendment, and he wanted to talk to the minister.

He is Baptist, he told me, a devout Christian from the age of six.
He wanted to know what Unitarian Universalists 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 think anyone knows. But I have faith that whatever happens, it will be just right. So I try to pay attention to what I’m doing in this life. And in every action, and interaction, I try to praise the life I have been given. I try to treat others as I would like to be treated. 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 a Great 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.
It’s 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 and poets.
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. 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 Endtimes 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 and even desireable.
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.

f 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 Agean Sea for preaching Jesus’ message.

This 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 was a 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.
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, Institutionalized Racism, 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.
It may not.
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. 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, 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. Everyone.

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.

Allelujah & Amen!

Resources Used:
“Unveiling Empire” by Wes Howard Brook & Anthony Gwyther, Orbis, 1999)
“Up Against Caesar” by John Dart, February 8, 2005 issue of Christian Century