Column by Mary Lee Talbot
“Our readings were from Revelation, the last book of the Bible and one that many people believe was written while on LSD,” said the Rev. Brian McLaren. “It’s filled with ugly, bloody violent stories of collapse of ecosystems, collapse of economic systems, collapse of religious traditions, collapse of civilizations. Nightmarish monsters arise that do seem a bit hallucinogenic. Unless you read the news.”
McLaren preached at the 9:15 a.m. Friday morning worship service in the Amphitheater. His sermon title was “Apocalypse as Tradition Disrupter,” and the scripture readings were Revelation 21:9-12, 22:1-5.
The book of Revelation deals with two types of literature: apocalyptic literature and the literature of the oppressed. Some think that Revelation is a road map to the end of the world. “I think that is a mistake. This literature is a warning to people that if they keep going in the current trajectory, here is what to expect,” McLaren said. “The purpose of apocalyptic literature is not to predict, but to prevent.”
Think of Jonah when he got to Nineveh and preached destruction — the people repented, even if Jonah was disappointed that they did.
McLaren said the literature of the oppressed flourishes during an authoritarian regime. “If you speak against an authoritarian leader or regime, they will hunt you down and they will punish you. They will drive you out of business, call you an enemy of the state, imprison you, banish you, disappear you, torture you, or kill you.”
He continued, “Here’s the dilemma: If you know that that’s what they do to you if you speak up and you decide then to remain silent, in a sense, you become complicit with the regime. You obey them. You lose your voice voluntarily, which means to some degree you lose your integrity and to some degree, you lose your soul.”
In the literature of the oppressed, the regime is not attacked directly but through a story about a literal monster who rises out of the sea and destroys people. “Or in contemporary terms,” McLaren said, “instead of telling a story about a president who doesn’t want to tell the truth about climate change, you make a movie about an asteroid that’s coming with a president who says ‘don’t look up.’ ”
This is called “speaking the truth slant.” Revelation is not predictions about the end of the world, but is telling the people what the Roman empire was like for everyone but the elite.
Where does the new Jerusalem come from, he asked the congregation. “It comes down from heaven to earth. It is not an evacuation plan, but a transformation of bringing the values of heaven to the corrupted, polluted earth.”
He continued, “People in power don’t like apocalyptic literature because it signals the end of the economy that has made them rich, the end of the class system that has put them at the top, the end of the political and military system that has given them the power to exploit the poor and the earth.”
If this exploitation is not challenged, the earth begins to groan and the people begin to groan. These groans become prayers and these prayers say, “If there is a God out there, set us free from this corrupt, decadent, power hungry, money grubbing, suicidal system,” McLaren said. “And eventually, that system will fall — because all systems in overshoot eventually do fall. And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put them back together again.”
Eventually things will be better, as the death of what is corrupt becomes the birth pangs of something new.
What does better look like, McLaren asked the congregation. “There is a big wall. Lots of people like big walls, but this wall has 12 gates that are always open. People are welcome — but not their greed and lust and hate and bigotry and racism and all the rest. People welcome, corruption excluded.”
Inside the gates there is no temple, “which might be a surprise for those of us in the prayer business,” he said. The Garden of Eden did not have a temple because everything was good and sacred and God’s presence was there. The tree of life is there to help people maintain the balance of caring for each other and caring for the earth.
“That vision of a desired future becomes a lure, it becomes a magnetic force that draws us forward, even when the world around us seems to be falling apart,” McLaren said. “A tradition without a vision of a desired future, a tradition without a vision that makes us yearn for and dream for something even better, leaves us stuck in the status quo. It feels like you found yourself in a parking lot with no exit. A European philosopher quipped not long ago that ‘for most people today, it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.’ ”
A new tradition, a tradition fulfilled that draws people forward, helps us see what it was we really loved about the current tradition in a new way, he told the congregation.
“What we loved was the treasure without the packaging,” he said. “It wasn’t the hymns and organs, it was the beauty to which they introduced you. It wasn’t the architecture, it was the sacred community and belonging that you experienced within the architecture. It wasn’t the words of the liturgy or the sermons, it was the wordless reverence and transcendent awe of the sermons that lead us — like a trail through the woods in the Grand Canyon and suddenly you come and your feet are at the edge of something vast and splendid and glorious.”
McLaren continued: “It wasn’t the stories that told you about the past, it was the way those stories inspired you to show up in the present and to move into the future. It wasn’t the dogma about which you debated, it was the life-changing encounter with the living light, the encounter with the bush that burns but isn’t consumed. The experience in you of a spring of living water bubbling up within your own heart.”
Tradition succeeds only when it helps us see that it is not about itself but points to the source, points to the great love that is our source and destiny, he told the congregation. “We are in this living tradition together. And God is with us as we move forward. Amen.” McLaren received sustained applause and a standing ovation.
The Rt. Rev. Eugene T. Sutton, senior pastor for Chautauqua Institution, presided. Evans Nyamadzawo, one of the Abrahamic Program for Young Adults coordinators this summer, read the scripture. The prelude was “Lebhaft, Op. 58, No.3,” by Robert Schumann, performed by Joshua Stafford, director of sacred music and Jared Jacobsen Chair for the Organist, on the Massey Memorial Organ. The Motet Choir sang “The Secret of Christ,” music by Richard Shephard, text from Isaiah 42:14-16, Revelation 22:1-3 and The Pilgrim Prayer (based on Colossians 4:2-4) by the Rev. Canon Derrick Walters. Stafford conducted the choir and Brett Miller, a student at Eastman School of Music, provided accompaniment on the Massey Organ. The service ended with “Toccata,” from Symphony No. 5 by Charles-Marie Widor, played by Stafford on the Massey Organ. Support for this week’s preaching and chaplaincy was provided by the Robert D. Campbell Memorial Chaplaincy and the Daney-Holden Chaplaincy Fund. Many thanks are extended to Annie Leach, Alicen Roberts, Ori Edgar, Elizabeth Schoen, Evans Nyamadzawo, and Nia-Hyatt Eldosougi for writing this column on days when Mary Lee Talbot was absent. The Motet Choir gave Joshua Stafford a small token of thanks that contained these words: “I encountered Josh Stafford at three, / Where were at Twelve-thirty? / Spitting consonants, shaping phrases, / and breathing, if at all, in very odd places, / all for reluctant precious few praises, said s(he)…For putting the zip in our choir/ Staffords the man of the hour! / We’re all on his team / Though he threatens to scream / If we screw up his “current of power.”
Many thanks to the entire worship team.
