Have you heard!? The world is ending!! It’s very exciting. Fires.
Floods. Hail. Earthquakes.
Wars. All manner of natural and
human-made destruction.
At least, this is what most
readily comes to mind when the language of apocalypse is invoked in our late
modern context. It is a bit distant from
the Greek definition of something hidden being made manifest or revealed, which
is far tamer. Interestingly, in the
biblical witness it is not the fires and floods and hail and earthquakes and
wars that in themselves constitute the apocalypse, but rather they are signs
pointing to what will immanently be revealed.
Biblical apocalyptic vision arose in continuity with the prophetic
tradition of Israel. Isaiah, Jeremiah,
Ezekiel, Amos, Hosea, and all the rest spent half their careers warning of all
of the bad things that would happen to the Israelites if they did not repent and
return to right relationship with Yahweh and then they spent the rest of their
careers warning that the nations of the world would come to naught if they
failed to recognize Yahweh and the chosen people Israel. There are at times glimmers of more positive
prospects in the prophetic witness, of what good things will come upon turning
back to Yahweh. Apocalyptic follows in
this pattern of warning of dire times ahead after which a new, just, righteous
age will follow.
Occasionally, as I am returning to
the chapel from hither and yon on campus, I encounter an apocalyptic preacher
on the sidewalk along Commonwealth Avenue in front of Marsh Plaza. These preachers usually have a great deal to
say about how tragic, unfortunate, and painful events in our world are signs of
God’s judgment upon society for all manner of evils. They have a constitutionally protected right
to freely speak their views on a public sidewalk, just as I have a
constitutionally protected right to think them wrong. I have two problems with contemporary
apocalyptic preachers. The first is that
the social and cultural evils that these preachers are decrying are the very
same sociocultural changes that I take to be achievements over prejudice,
violence, and inhumanity. Gay marriage
and a woman’s right to control her own body often top their, and my,
lists. Apart from our contrasting
ethical visions, however, my second problem with the contemporary apocalyptic
preachers I encounter is that they almost never provide the second half of the
apocalyptic vision. There is much talk of
judgment, damnation, and destruction, but no talk of the new order to be
ushered in in place of the judged, damned, and destroyed one. While biblical apocalyptic can be considered
good news as it offers the promise of a better tomorrow in spite of the toil
and tribulation of today, contemporary apocalyptic seems to offer nothing but
toil and tribulation, which is nothing more than bad news.
One of the things that
differentiates the apocalyptic worldview in the bible from the prophetic view
is that in the prophetic view it is still possible for humans to self-correct,
while in the apocalyptic view humanity has passed the tipping point. The prophets were constantly adjuring Israel
to repent and return to Yahweh. “If we
confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and
cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Thanks be to God!” It is actually
not the case that apocalyptic figures and writers actually thought things were
worse in their societies than prophetic figures did. Rather, the prophetic figures felt that the
leaders of their society still had enough control over the society to bring
about changes that would return Israel to Yahweh. Apocalyptic figures, by contrast, felt
entirely out of control. This largely
had to do with the fact that they were living under the occupation of the Roman
Empire. Even if Israel wanted to go in a
different direction and become more godly, they could not because they did not
have any control over their own destinies.
Thus it is that since humans are unable to rectify the situation, only
God can step in and fix things. Only God
can overturn the present order and usher in a new order of peace, prosperity,
and right relationship with God.
This feeling of being out of
control marks the apocalyptic view in our contemporary context as well. Karen Armstrong, an independent scholar of
religion, spoke at Ithaca College during my freshman year there in October of
2001. She was extraordinarily helpful in
interpreting the events of September 11th of that year in terms of
the fundamentalist mindset that inspired and motivated that day of death and
destruction. Her book The Battle for God explores how
fundamentalisms across religious traditions are responses by religious people
to a loss of control brought about by the apparently secularizing forces and
assumptions of modernity. These
religious people then follow their fight or flight instinct, and those who
follow the fight path often understand themselves to be instruments of God in
righting the world. Certainly, there is
a great deal more to religious fundamentalism that an apocalyptic worldview,
and not all people with apocalyptic views are religious fundamentalists. However, the feeling of having lost control
that drives the modern rejection of modernity that is fundamentalism is the
same feeling of having lost control that inspired the apocalyptic texts of the
bible.
One of the challenges in
responding to apocalyptic texts, apocalyptic preachers, and fundamentalists is
that the view that the world has gone to hell in a hand basket and there is
nothing to be done about it but wait for God to set it right can feel very
foreign. I wonder, however, if we might
not be a bit too quick to abide in the feeling of otherness, perhaps as a
strategy for not having to face how familiar the apocalyptic view might
be. Perhaps I am the odd ball out, and
perhaps none of you have ever felt like things had gotten totally out of
control. Life in ministry, I have
discovered, provides frequent exposure to the feeling and experience of things
being totally out of control. Ministry
also provides ample opportunity to see how, if people would simply make this,
that, or the other decision and act on it, as opposed to the one they did
decide on and act upon, things would have gone so much better. I confess, I have at times found myself
daydreaming about how things might have gone had someone wiser been in charge.
Is this really so much different
than the apocalyptic vision? Not really.
After all, the apocalyptic vision is
very much an imagination that things do go better when someone of infinite
wisdom, namely God, is in charge. On the
other hand, my imagination of how things might have been better inspires me to
decide and act more wisely. This is to
say that I learn something from watching how the decisions and actions I and
others take work out, as well as from the imaginings of how things might have
gone. At the end of the day, however, my
imaginings remain in the subjunctive mood of what might have been or what might
yet become. This is in stark contrast to
the way in which the apocalyptic imagination of what might be inspires
fundamentalist decision-making and action.
The fundamentalist is so inspired by the apocalyptic imagination that she
or he attempts to impress the subjunctive mood of what might become into the
indicative mood of what actually is.
The work we do together here in
this space, week by week, in gathering together in worship, is very much a
subjunctive imagining of what life might be like if God were in charge. The readings, prayers, sermon, music, and
sacrament of the liturgy reveal to us the ways in which we ought to live in the
ideal world of God’s realm. Live justly,
walk humbly, confess your shortcomings, forgive one another, rejoice in joy,
weep in lamentation, and break bread with one another. Of course, life in the world is not nearly so
ideal. Justice is ambiguous. Humility is mistaken for weakness. Confession leads to judgment without
forgiveness. The joy of one is the
sorrow of another. Those we break bread
with may stab us in the back. We learn
from these experiences as well as the imagination we return to, week by week,
of what would be better. Furthermore, our
worship practice provides a safeguard from thinking that we should attempt to
impose the subjunctive mood of worship on the indicative mood of life. That safeguard is the strangeness of the
liturgy. The clergy wear funny
robes. The windows are made of stained
glass. The pews have no cushions. These things, and many others, provide a sense
of strangeness to remind us that, while much of what we experience here may
point to a better way of being, in the end, a worship service is not life. That better way of being exists apart from
the day-to-day walk of life. The better
vision informs life, and so transforms our lives, by reminding us that life is
not always and necessarily out of control.
The ongoing work of transformation by information indicates that at
every moment of our lives the world is ending, and is beginning anew out of
what was and what might yet be. Thanks
be to God. Amen.
