Resisting Trump with Revelation (02)
A Proposal for Reading this Book (02)
Jesus
Messiah vs. Trump – that’s the version of Empire we’re called to engage at
present. Empires being empires are always idolatrous (it’s the nature of the
beast). In fact, that’s the way our book, Revelation, portrays the empire it
engaged – a beast (Rev.13). It ill behooves us too misunderstand this. This
beast certainly does not lie beyond God’s sovereignty or ability to use
(Rom.13:1-7) or ours to use it benefits when appropriate (Acts 22:25-26) or its
ultimate judgment and destruction (Rev.19:17ff.). Nevertheless, this beast
lives as the dragon’s chief agent and antagonist to God and God’s people. Remember
Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia?
The Trump version
of American Empire tends in these early days of its reign to the “more" side
of the “more of less” continuum of overt beastliness. As Steve Bannon, Trump’s
confidant, comment, “Darkness is good. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's
power. It only helps us when they" [liberals and the media] "get it
wrong. When they're blind to who we are and what we're doing"[1]
illustrates this nicely.
I grew up during
the Watergate years and was fascinated by the White House tapes that emerged
from those investigations. On those tapes Nixon and his confidants used a vivid
though vulgar phrase for what they intended to do to the American people – “mind-f***k.”
Seems pretty clear that Trump and friends are trying to do the same thing. They
want our passions, priorities, and practices. They want to call the shots about
how we experience and respond to things in our lives and our world.
God, too, wants
our passions, priorities, and passions. God, too, wants to call the shots about
how we experience and respond to things in our lives and our world. This is
where the struggle is joined at its most profound and personal levels. To put
it simply, it’s a matter of worship. A war between God and a god. And if we don’t
want to “get it wrong” we must offer our worship to the right deity. Worship is
where we sort all that out.
And
that brings me back to reading the book of Revelation.
No
consensus exists among commentators on the structure of Revelation. Structure
gives us important clues about how to read and understand a writing. But whatever
order John gave his material has remained a mystery to his interpreters lo
these many years. I have no new ideas about that. But I do have an idea about a
way to read Revelation that may in some ways at least open us up to better hear
its message.
First,
though, just a note to remind us that by designating his work pastoral,
prophetic, and apocalyptic John requires us to read his message as something
addressed to the seven churches in
Asia Minor. Everything in it relates to the
challenges and circumstances of those addressed.
-That’s self-evident for the pastoral focus.
-the prophetic focus, like biblical prophecy
in general, is focused on the near future . not times
and places, millennia distant.
-apocalyptically, the focus is on “characterizing” not “calendarizing.”
Apocalyptic “unveils” what a thing is.
All
this means that ways of interpreting Revelation as mostly about the last few
years of life on earth is badly misguided. Revelation was not written to us
even though it is written for us. But the meaning we get from it comes through
its message for those originally addressed. And that’s the way I’ll be reading
it.
Back
to my idea for approaching Revelation. Since worship is finally the way we will
have to resist and find our resistance to Trump nurtured, and since worship is
highlighted as the way we gain perspective on things in Revelation itself
(Rev.4-5), I propose we read it as a highly visionary worship service
(understood in terms of the four movements that have historically framed
worship: Gathering, Word, Table, and Dismissal).
Worship
is at least a form, a structure, we understand. And since we can’t identify
John’s structure, I propose we adopt one from our end of the process that
reflects as far as possible John’s own major emphases. So I’m going to try reading
Revelation as a “Resistical Worship Service” whose order of worship unfolds following
the book like this:
Revelation’s
“Resistical” Worship
Sermon Title:
“What Must Soon Take Place” (Rev.1:1)
Guest Preacher:
the risen Lord Jesus Christ (1:12-20) with his interpreter John
****************************************
Gathering
(ch.1-5)
Call to
Worship (1:1-3)
Greeting
(1:4-7)
Introduction
of Guest Preacher (John, 1:8-20)
Greeting by
Guest Preacher (2:1-3:21)
Opening Hymns
(4:1-5:14)
Word (chs.6:1-22:16)
Sermon:
“What Must Soon Take Place” (6:1-22:7)
Congregational
Response (22:8-16)
Table (22:17)
Call to
Communion (22:17)
Dismissal (22:18-21)
Exhortation
(22:18-19)
Benediction
(22:20-21)
*****************************************
This is no
doubt a fanciful exercise. And it doesn’t fit in every particular. But, as I
said, in lieu of a clear sense of what John was doing, I believe lining the
book out this way makes a sense that is congruent with John’s interests and
enables us to enter more fully into it message for us. I guess we’ll find out!
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