I guess it would only be a matter of time before a Gospel would show up in the Lectionary that forced my hand to address something I would rather not. In this mornings Gospel, generously called the “little apocalypse” by scholars, deals with something that had been so misunderstood, taken out of context and made into a cottage industry. The End Times.
Oh, I have a lot of sermons I have heard over the years rattling around in my head when I simply utter the words, “End Times.” Maybe you have been entertained, or terrified, by bad movies (bad in the sense of theology but also in plot, acting, directing… you get it) that have made a lot of money in my lifetime, scaring people into believing that the End is Near! As I think about it, I can even see, in my mind’s eye, a sandwich placard roaming around in some city somewhere with the generous warning: “Turn or Burn.” They seem to go hand in hand.
I mentioned a cottage industry or two that have sprung up in the last several decades centered around a sense of doom and that the world was soon to come to an end. I know someone out there had to read the series “Left Behind.” Not only books were sold, but movies were also made, t-shirts mass produced and millions of dollars made over stoking a fear that we are living in the End Times.
I have to confess, and since it’s just us guys this guys this morning, it’s safe to confess isn’t it? I have to confess to having bought this whole idea hook, line and sinker early on in my journey as a Christian. I was about 16 years old when I was introduced to this. I think I was told by someone in a compassionate attempt to offer me “fire insurance.” I’d better get right with God as soon as I can because the End is at hand and God evidently was offering cut-rate fire insurance policies to keep me out of hell. And so I consumed all the books I could that reemphasized the whole idea that Armageddon was on the way. We would soon see the rise of the Anti-Christ, Russia would invade the middle east and a war would ensue. The war would end, if I remember correctly, with the Anti-Christ defeated and a thousand years of peace to follow. Whoops, I left out the most important part, before this war, the Rapture would take place and all the born-again Christians would mysteriously be beamed up to heaven, leaving only those who refused to accept American Evangelicalism to battle forces of evil. I can’t remember but I think those folks get a second chance before it all comes crashing down around them. So for God’s sake, don’t get Left Behind.
Whoa. Just describing this makes me feel like I need to go take a shower. Quietly I hope this all new to you but from the look of some of your faces, I think you read the Late Great Planet Earth, like I did. I got so motivated by all of this that I decided I would figure out who the Anti-Christ was and nearly drowned in all of the numerology and guessing that my new faith could handle. There was something about the number 666 that clearly would be the key in deciphering all of this. By the way, this is starting to sound like a Dan Brown novel, isn’t it. There is a reason it is, and I’ll get there in a moment, but still to this day I cannot express my disappointment when I realized I was not given a direct, divine appointment to help us all out in identifying who this dastardly character was. After all, count the letters: Ronald Wilson Reagan…. 666. Of course President Reagan may have been a lot of things, but as it turns out, he wasn’t the Anti-Christ.
I make light of this but there has been real damage done to people who have bought into this rather pagan idea that the world is going to end in a cataclysmic battle between good and evil. Perhaps you know this but one of the stark differences between Judaism and Christianity, as opposed to the Pagan understanding of how things began and how they will end is pretty stark. This is an over-simplification but I believe we can see the difference pretty clearly in the way Genesis describes creation. Instead of a cosmic battle between warring gods, as Pagan theology would argue, God created the Heavens and Earth because God loves. Creation was not an accident, nor a requirement. God created in order to share God’s love with God’s creation. And note how each day of creation ends. God looks at it, and it is good. There’s not a battle in sight. Love, creation and goodness. This is an important difference that, keep following me here, makes a difference not only in the way we see the way things begin but also in the way things will find their fulfillment.
The talk of Armageddon, Anti-Christ’s and the struggle between two relatively equal forces of good and evil have more in common with Pagan influences than Christian or Jewish ones. And beyond that, the misreading of eschatology, which is just a churchy way of saying the end of all things, creeps into our understanding of God and how we should live. In other words, this isn’t a minor difference. It will serve us well to understand that much of the current, popular understanding of the End Times is fascinating but theologically full of errors.
This is why context is so important. Over the years I have heard and read many sermons that have simply been taken out of context and so the point being made by the preacher is simply an opinion based on nothing more than preconceived ideas. But before I throw stones, I need to acknowledge that I live in a glass house. I am guilty of doing the same thing and the resultant damage is something that I must own. It would benefit us all to go deeper than just a surface reading of today’s gospel, or any gospel for that matter.
But who could blame any of us for seeing that the world we live in seems to be tottering on the brink of some sort of disaster. There is a litany of issues that we face from political and economic disruption to climate change to geopolitical challenges that may make us feel as if anything got worse, surely God would bail us all out, right?
Although, one does not have to be an historian to know that one of the things that we hold in common with those who have come before is a sense that things are bad. I mean we could go way back to the bubonic plague, or even further back to Biblical times when it seems Israel was constantly struggling for survival: from being taken captive in Egypt or Babylon (or later) the whole issue of Roman dominance over Israel’s economy, politics and even religious order. If you’d rather, just go back to the middle of the last century when we face Total War, the rise of Fascism in Japan, Germany and Italy, the Jewish Holocaust and the extermination of millions in places far and near in our world. Not meaning to depress anyone but if anything, we live in a world that is broken. As one writer put it “It appears that only wickedness prospers, that might makes right, and that things don’t seem to be changing for the better. The poet, the prophet, the psalmist, and the singer are among the first to say.” so. Dark, David. The Sacredness of Questioning Everything (pp. 19-20). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.
We have to believe that there is another world that can exist. But sometimes it is hard to see because the bad news is so prevalent and as we may know, nothing sells like bad news. We live in the 24-hour news cycle and there’s never better news for the media than some sort of crisis during sweeps week. I can admit to dropping everything and listening to the television every time I hear the familiar interruption of “Breaking news.”
Yet, I think it’s important that we realize how easy it is to collude with the bad news and find ourselves easily persuaded that there’s no hope and God surely must be asleep at the wheel. When we see this in us, we might do well if we were to confess it. The great theologian Carrie Underwood once told us it’s best to let “Jesus take the wheel,” but we find ourselves stuck amid bad news and wonder if Jesus knows how to drive. We end up left with our fingers crossed that the rapture would help us all escape.
I get it. I understand the temptation. Perhaps we might live more fully into our faith if we treated those who pray for an end to all of this with a bit more humility and sense of graciousness. It helps me to acknowledge that I do not possess all the truth and neither do you. Part of the way out of all this mess is to be honest with ourselves, others and God. And to be honest with Scripture.
Sometimes it is easy to find a theological place where we can hang our hat that makes sense to us, even if it’s not true. Our religion can breathe life into us, or it can take life from us. And our tendency is to replace God, and good religion, with a small, insignificant replacement that moves into a place where humanity has always felt at home: idolatry.
So, this morning, let me say this as clearly as I can. One day all of this, will come to an end. Chances are, we’ll come to an end of the life we have been given before the world does. This is true, this was told to us by Jesus himself but…. Pay attention to the warning he gave the disciples…. Don’t be overcome with those who seem to be more than eager to proclaim that the End is Near. No one knows when that will happen. But we do know that the God of love, the God who clearly came into this world not to condemn us but to save us, will see us through whatever the End will look like. And I trust that it will look like God has always looked: full of love, compassion and acceptance. “Anything less is bad worship, bad theology, and a plain old bad idea.”
Jesus is coming again. There’s nothing to fear. But as he told us, don’t focus on the End, focus on the now and get out there and spread the Gospel by loving others as you are loved.
In Jesus name.