Sunday, December 17, 2006
Sermon on Proper 28B ~ The End of the World
November 19, 2006
Holy Trinity & St. Anskar
Make us glad by the measure of the days that you afflicted us
and the years in which we suffered adversity…
+ In the Name of God the holy and Undivided Trinity
I sometimes think of today’s collect as a kind of dare: all scripture is written for our learning. So, you’d better listen hard ~ and then come the frightful predictions in the readings. The lectionary seems to be saying to us, “Ha! If you’re so smart, make something out of this!” The gospel is sometimes called the Little Apocalypse, and it is paired with the Book of the Holy Prophet Daniel, that mother of all apocalyptic texts.
[By the way, apocalyptic writing is called that because it’s subject matter and style are like the famous book called The Apocalypse, which means Revelation. The subject is the end of the world and the style is full of fire and brimstone and large, colorful, supernatural images. Because apocalyptic literature deals with the End, the word apocalypse is commonly used as a synonym for the End, but it really means a revelation about the End.]
Anyway, that kind of literature was the science fiction of its time, and I have a feeling that these popular stories were repeated for entertainment. But behind them also lay a political message: the rulers of this age are in for a big surprise, and an unpleasant one ~ cataclysm, disaster, and total destruction. This is to be followed by the heavenly deliverance of the poor and oppressed by the creation of a New World , God’s Kingdom of peace and justice. As far a we know, the earliest Christians believed all this was going to happen in their own lifetime. The first persecution under Nero and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem seemed to confirm the expectation. But Time didn’t end. No Second Coming ~ no literal destruction and re-creation of heaven and earth, so interpretation became necessary. These were of three general types, which I will call Mañana, Now, and In-My-Heart.
Mañana says “not now, but someday in the distant future the world will end (or maybe tomorrow, but don’t bet on it).” Now says “”OK, it took longer than we thought, but it really is happening now.” And In-My-Heart applies cosmic doom to one's own inner life and mortality: “The world is always coming to an end for each one of us as individuals.”
We Americans have a special relationship to apocalyptic thinking. For a thousand years ~ roughly from Constantine to the Protestant Reformation (and beyond that in Byzantium and Russia) ~ Christians pretty much thought, mañana, “later.” The Reformation produced such horrible persecution and war that many of the more extreme Protestants were sure that the tribulation of the end times was upon them. They brought this consciousness with them to the New World, and it is alive and well in our own generation. Our very designation of our country as the New World arises out of this consciousness. The fascinating history of American Protestantism, especially in its home-grown varieties, reveals a thoroughgoing apocalyptic sensibility. This is true of left as well as right. In fact, until recently, it was progressives who were really apocalyptic ~ ready to tear down existing structures and shed any amount of blood in the cosmic struggle against evil.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the Coming of the Lord,I still get a thrill of naughty pleasure out of these words whose images come, literally, right out of the Apocalypse. Apocalyptic thinking is deep in our national DNA.
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightening of His terrible, swift sword;
His truth is marching on!
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free;Unfortunately, reactionaries have now discovered the heritage and they want to foment a big war in the Middle East ~ nuclear, if possible ~ precisely because apocalyptic scripture appears to predict something so profoundly awful just before Christ comes again. These people ~ hardly the children of the abolitionists or of Martin Luther King, Jr. ~ have this is common: they also have “seen the glory of the Coming of the Lord.”
Our God is marching on!
On the other end of the American spectrum of religious consciousness, are secular materialists, whose scientific observation of the signs of the times leads them to the conclusion that because of human folly, the world really is coming to an end. For them, too, human sin results in cosmic destruction. The same pattern. The difference is that this version of apocalyptic thinking is so literal and concrete that it has no imagination for any glorious redemption on the far side of the cataclysm. I am not suggesting that we minimize the gravity of the situation here. I am observing that the scientific facts fit well into our customary American inclination to apocalyptic narrative.
So does the “War on Terror.” Whatever “Terror” is, it must be spelt with a capital tee. It is a mystical, cosmic Enemy, and War on it is a total war, a war of annihilation. If we do not prevail and destroy it utterly, it will destroy us. Apocalyptic religious consciousness can be traced back to Israel’s encounter with Persian religion. It is dualistic: light and darkness, good and evil in cosmic warfare. There is no middle ground. If you’re not with us you’re against us, and ANYTHING GOES ~ Abu Grahib, Guantánamo, secret prisons and extraordinary rendition, elimination of domestic civil rights ~ there are no rules in total war. (And isn’t it ironic that our biggest worry now is Persia?)
There is a certain vanity in this kind of thinking, a sort of delight in participating in so momentous a time. That may be OK up to a point, I suppose. One should take one’s own time and one’s own life seriously. It is all one has. But on the other hand, it is also possible to take oneself too seriously, crossing the line into fanaticism. ~ John Brown with his broadsword personally slaughtering the wicked slaver settlers in Kansas, the more bloodshed the better, the redemption-in-blood theology of the radical abolitionists, which found its way into Lincoln’s second inaugural speech and is carved in stone in his memorial:
Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge
of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the
wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil
shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid
by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still
it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
Exalted rhetoric, and whether or not it was fanatical depended on which side you were on. And now we have the looney delight in the prospect of nuclear war in the Middle East and the American catastrophe in Iraq.
So, if all scripture is written for our learning, what are we to learn from apocalyptic scripture? Well, what I try to do is to take it seriously, but without fanaticism. Setting aside literal prediction (which was never the intent behind it), I think all three interpretations are useful. Mañana: the world will , literally, end someoday. The sun will explode and consume the earth ~ in a sense falling to earth. Furthermore, even if we humans have succeeded in emigrating by then, there is no escape: the whole universe will eventually collapse. But who knows, maybe humans will be so evolved that we can attach our consciousness to a string or something and bail into another universe. (You see what I mean by apocalyptic and science fiction!). Mañana.
And Now: every human construct is always coming to an end, especially our political arrangements. The world as we know it is always at the End of Time. Tomorrow is NOT just “another day”, as the feudal chatelaine of Tara said, but tomorrow will be radically different, full of menace and promise as Scarlett O’Hara’s probably was, in fact. The Now interpretation means that no earthly order is sacrosanct, permanent, or guaranteed by divine right.
Finally, the existential, individual fact of my own mortality means that whatever may happen to the cosmos, I will shortly encounter the One Like Unto a Son of Man, and then ~ like Daniel ~ rest to rise again for my reward at the end of days. This reflection puts things into perspective. It is inevitable. I can’t change it. My only choice is between the serenity of acceptance and the suffering of Dylan Thomas and his rage, rage against the dying of the light. In this existential apocalyptic, the cosmic catastrophes symbolize all the supports I have built to prop up my ego. They are doomed to ruthless destruction, so that God may be All-in-All. No one can escape, but those who have ears to hear can prepare. Those who are able to learn something from this strange, fascinating scripture may begin now to dismantle their soul’s idols ~ their own, personal, little abominations of desolation ~ so that the Last Judgment will be a setting-right that abolishes every slavery, dissolves every oppression, and opens the door of our human prison, and the collapse of the cosmos will turn into a rebirth into Light and Glory.
MARANATHA
COME, LORD JESUS!
