Beasts, Blood, and Butterflies

Beasts, Blood, and Buetterflies
sermon by Carrie Eikler
Rev 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
May 12, 2013 Easter 7

Many of you are familiar with the author Barbara Kingsolver.  Some of her more well-known books include the Poisonwood Bible and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  In her most recent novel, Flight Behavior,[i] we peer into the lives of a family and community struggling through the rainiest winter in memory.  Sheep farmer Dellarobia Turnbow lives on a wooded hill that unexpectedly becomes the winter hibernation grounds for millions of monarch butterflies.  The weather chaos has disrupted the butterflies’ normal migration pattern.  

Ovid Byron is a scientist who arrives at the farm to study the phenomenon unfolding before them, and he sees a dire future for the species.  He says ‘I am a doctor of natural systems, and this looks terminal to me.”  At first Dellarobia disagrees and is fascinated by the beauty of the scene.  She says “I just can’ t see it being all that bad.”  But by the end of the novel, Dellarobia understands the science of climate change and realizes the presence of butterflies on her hill—while amazingly beautiful—means that she is in effect, living on a different planet.

Barbara Rossing, a professor at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, compares the scientist in Flight Behavior to John of Patmos, the author of the Book of Revelation.  She says “both help people see that it is, in fact ‘all that bad’.  John of Patmos is also a “ ‘doctor of natural systems’” she says.  “He diagnoses the entire Roman imperial system as monstrous, even Satanic, as it devours peoples and the whole of creation with its predatory economy.  Yet unlike Byron,” she continues, “John has a twofold project as a doctor: he diagnoses the situation as terminal, and then he gives people the medicine—a vision of hope”[ii]

So let me step back and say

“a vision of hope” is not

how I have usually approached the Book of Revelation.

 

In fact, since childhood, I pretty much
avoided the Book of Revelation.
If it wasn’t scaring me with the images of the end of the world

(as I was sure it was talking about)
it was disgusting me with images and blood and warfare
disturbing me with language of whores and beasts.

 

Honestly I have not given Revelation much attention because it seemed to me

one of the most easily manipulated texts in the Bible

a text used to manipulate people, political situations, and religious sentiment.

 

And that, I guess,

is why I decided I should preach on it.

 Last December when- for the first time-

Torin had to step in for me and read one of my sermons

because I was too sick to preach

One of you told him:

“now remember, this is Carrie’s sermon.  You have to proclaim!”

Well, friends, I will warn you,

I’ll start off not proclaiming much

as this text has been a test of my own faith,

and theological understanding,

 and sermon writing capabilities.

 

So, here I go: let me try to teach you about Revelation.

(I may get into some proclaiming in a little bit)

 

John of Patmos, likely not the same John as the apostle, the author of the gospel

is writing letters to seven Christian congregations in the Roman Empire.

Given the content of the letters, John was likely a Jewish Christian from Palestine.

 It is likely that John would have baulked at the contemporary notion

that Revelation should be read as a guide to the future,

some sort of coded prediction of what will happen

to bring an end to this world
(we have all probably come across someone who
lines up the events on the evening news
alongside the events in Revelation, attempting
to convince us that, indeed, the end is near).

If we see Revelation as a prediction of terrifying events,

then Revelation remains obscure and malleable
to the political and social views of the reader.

But, as David Barr points out,

“Revelation was not a fanciful dream of far-off events; it was a practical attempt to deal with some of the most pressing problems besetting Jesus’ followers in the late first century.”[iii] 
One of those problems—a major problem in fact—was the dilemma of living in an imperial society.
Living within the Roman Empire.
Living—and prospering—in the Roman Empire.
Living, and prospering, and benefiting from Empire.

I don’t usually say this in a sermon, but I’ll say it today:

If you take anything away from my sermon, please take this
It’s my opinion that the book of Revelation is a call to the end of the Roman Empire.
The Book of Revelation is not a prediction about the end of the physical world

Now, most scholars knew that John was critiquing Rome in his unearthly metaphors.
But an enduring interpretation was that the newly formed Christian church
was facing imperial violence from Rome.
The violence that crucified their Messiah

But historians are showing that that is not necessarily the case.

There is little evidence that shows Roman persecution of Christians
in the late first century (when Revelation was written).[iv]
So it is likely that John is not writing Revelation out of threat of violence against the church…

Rather…
those Christians to whom he was speaking were

comfortably adapting to the Roman empire.
They were, perhaps, happy in it.
They participated in the economic prosperity,
taking opportunity to equate their wealth with status in the empire.

As Barr notes: “For these Christians (to whom John was writing)

the problem is not that social conditions are too threatening.
Instead the issue is that life is so comfortable that it has diminished the vitality of their faith.”

But…

Before we write Revelation off as something we don’t need to be concerned about
because we don’t live in the Roman Empire,
let me remind you.

That we do live in Empire.  Not the Roman Empire, of course.

But it is clear that there is an American Empire.
Yes, my friends, I will proclaim that: We live in the American Empire.

An empire that uses military power to secure its economic interests.

An empire where poverty is merely a consequence to the free market
An empire where cultural superiority is broadcasted though worldwide median
An empire that disseminates a narrative of American exceptionalism

We, like the church John is writing to, live in Empire.

And we benefit from it.
 We, at least those here, for the most part prosper from it.
We may critique it in Sunday School and over the dinner table,
but truth be told, we live and appreciate the luxuries (that we may have come to call necessities)
the luxuries of Empire

At the end of the day

we might be a little disconcerted with it,
but we are definitely, comfortable with our Empire.
(and lest you think I am taking myself out of the equation and pointing fingers at you all
I most certainly am not.  I am comfortable.  Very comfortable)

Now, beasts and blood are not the ways

to get our attention to these evils.
But maybe butterflies are.
Butterflies living where they shouldn’t be.

We know that a consequence of this empire lifestyle

as pointed out by those butterflies in Kingsolve'rs book
is the destruction of God’s creation.
This is the end times prophecies that we can actually see.
This is what is shifting us, however frighteningly, into an apocalypse.
Made by us.
And can be changed by us.
If we act quickly
and have courage.

At our congregational retreat last month

we decided that there are two things our congregation should focus on.
The first is Christian community.  We do that well.
Our worship, fellowship, mutual care and concern are of highest priority
to this gathered body.

Another priority is Caring for Creation.

As Brethren and Mennonites we are rooted in values of
simple living and service to humanity and to God’s creation.
Within our congregation we have
farmers, gareners, mountain advocates.
Wildflower walkers, mushroom hunters and nature photographers.
Bicyclists and washer women of cloth diapers.

We have children whom we adore and we know that all the Sunday School lessons
in the world will mean nothing if there is not a future
for them to put these lessons into practice

and pass on the faith

Christian Community and Creation Care.

These are our priorities.
This is what we will give our faithful energy to.
And in this way, we will live into John’s hope
as obscure as it may be in the Book of Revelation.
John’s book ends, if you remember from the scripture reading today
with an invitation, it’s almost liturgical:

The spirit and the bride say come

Let everyone who hears say come.
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes to take the water of life as a gift.
Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus!

As one theologian in our Sunday School videos suggested

what congregations have to offer the world
in light of the environmental crisis
which is an apocalypse of our own making,
what we offer is a community where people belong
a place where materials and goods creation need not be consumed
in order to find worth and joy and meaning.

So in fact, our priorities are more connected that we might see at the outset

our deepening of Christian Community is our response to
Caring for God’s Creation.
Caring for Creation will be amplified and encouraged and more clearly lived out
as we deepen Christian Community

When we find meaning in relationships—with God and other people—

our vision sharpens.  We see our lives, our world, and our place in it
in new ways
We become a community that calls people out of Empire
into a new life.

A new earth.  A new heavens.

A new creation.  A new being.

So we will continue living in Empire.

And benefiting from it
and yes, even enjoying what we get from it.

But together, as a community,

we can learn how to resist
how to embrace
how to be the invocation of John into a new world.

 

Let everyone who hears, say come.

Let everyone who is thirsty come.

Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.

Amen.  Come, Lord Jesus!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[i] published by Harper, 2012.

[ii] “Reflections on the lectionary” The Christian Century, May 1, 2013

[iii] “John’s Ironic Empire,” Interpretation A Journal of Bible and Tradition. January 2009, Vol 63. No.1

[iv] Koester, Craig.  “Revelation’s Visionary Challenge to Ordinary Empire” Interpretation A Journal of Bible and Tradition. January 2009, Vol 63. No.1