Text: Revelation 1:1-20

Revelation has been coopted. For the past hundred years or so it’s been taken by fundamentalists and far right evangelicals to espouse a notion that it’s all about actual events that we are even now in the midst of. I have friends who grew up in absolute terror that they would be left behind. Terror that was based on interpretations of Revelation.

Theologian Elisabeth Shussler Fiorenze talks about these interpretations as ‘paranoid fantasies.’ She says, “Something very strange happens when this text is appropriated by readers in a comfortable, powerful, majority community: it becomes a gold mine for paranoid fantasies and for those who want to preach revenge and destruction.” 

But like the rest of the Bible, while we can read and learn from scripture, it was not written for us. It is not a prophecy or prediction. It is a revealing – an un-covering – of the truth of things. The problem (for us) is that, as I talked about in the lesson for all ages, it’s written in the language of dreams and codes. And there is such distance of language and time that it’s hard to de-code it.

Apocalypse is used most often to mean the end of the world, and usually a violent end of the world. But that’s based on how people have understood this book. In Greek, αποκάλυψις actually literally means ‘revelation.’ Revelation as in ‘I’ve just had a revelation!’ ‘I see this in a new way!’ It’s connected to the idea of unveiling – as in a traditional bride after the wedding – when a groom can see the truth and beauty of his new spouse.

One professor of this book likens it to the Matrix. Only those who have taken the (blue or red) pill can see the world as it truly is. Only then can you see the sinister forces that are at work on everyone and everything. The author is red (or blue) pilling the reader: look at the ways that we are being violated and corrupted! Resist! I can start to see why one or two of my seminary classmates were a little obsessed with this movie.

The first chapter, which we heard and read today is the set-up. We learn who the actual audience is. We learn a little bit about the author. So far it’s not that weird. So let’s get into it.

The author John, is not the same John from the Gospels or the books of John. John is just a name lots of people had. He’s known as John of Patmos because that’s where he was exiled. Apparently because he’d been outspoken and begun to be perceived as a threat to those in power. One author I read speculated that he had refused to participate in worship at an imperial shrine where people swore allegiance to Caesar.

One of the themes of revelation is the corruption and violence of the empire ruled by Caesar. The church is being called to resist the impulse to become like that empire. John talks about sharing the hardship and endurance of the churches. It’s possible that some in the churches may have been persecuted for their beliefs. 

But it’s as likely that John is talking more about how genuinely difficult it is to live in the tension between the lure of hierarchy and power and wealth and the violence and exploitation that can win it and the true power of life and liberation that is offered by Jesus, the Human One, the Lamb, the one who has the keys to life and has triumphed over death.

The churches that John writes to are in present day Turkey. Some of those places might sound familiar because Paul also wrote to them with encouragement and advice and criticism. It’s the fact that this was written to churches that makes me want to hang in there with Revelation in spite of the weirdness and all the evangelical baggage. 

Because, I will be honest, I am not completely comfortable with Revelation. Even as visual as a person as I am – and Revelation offers a wealth of wild and fantastical imagery – it doesn’t sit naturally with me. But I like a challenge and I like a puzzle. I also appreciate that ways of understanding and expressing who God is and how God works in the world that are different from my own doesn’t make them wrong. In fact I might have something to learn.

There is even Anabaptist precedent for apocalyptic and visionary expression of God’s work in the world. Around the time when Anabaptism was born, 500 years ago, a woman named Ursula Jost and her husband and several others in community with them, began to have and share visions meant to encourage and exhort the early Anabaptist community.

In Ursula’s case there was real persecution of confession Anabaptists. The record of her visions that asserted the power and primary of God helped to shore up and encourage those folks.

This kind of literature is not prophetic in the ‘this is literally what’s going to happen’ sense. But it could be considered prophetic in the ‘speaking truth in the face of power’ sense. In the ‘calling us to allegiance in Christ’ sense. 

The way John addresses this book to the churches made me think about how our own leaders address the church today when there is crisis. It’s not a one-to-one parallel (obviously) but in these last months when we’ve seen the Trump administration reveal itself to be more and more unjust and corrupt our own leaders have written letters that encourage the Mennonite church to continue to resist violence and to be places of welcome and sanctuary.

Maybe more like this – those it’s not an apocalyptic vision – is Martin Luther King’s letter from the Birmingham jail. Like John King was jailed for this resistance to the empire’s racist ideology. He wrote to the church – specifically the white church – to challenge them in succumbing to that prevailing ideology. Challenging his fellow clergy people to be bold in their resistance, that waiting and being patience with injustice was simply allowing the dominant system to win. Allowing evil to win.

In the coming weeks Revelation is going to get more bizarre and we’re going to de-code it together. It’s been years since I’ve read Revelation all the way through and I think this is going to be a wild ride. But it’s a ride that’s going to drive us to justice and love and the turning of the world toward the way of Jesus. So let’s sing!

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