Friday, October 31, 2014

Friday, October 31, 2014

Revelation 19:1-10

“Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.”

It is no small feat to comment on the book of Revelation. Fortunately, I follow Ann and Matthew who justifiably point to the difficulty and strangeness of the Bible’s closing text, and then offer helpful insights for our lives today.

This reading comes at the end of what scholars term the “Babylonian Appendix,” and is a description of the fall of Rome (symbolically termed Babylon). In particular, chapter 19 is a celebratory hymn to God who both judges and destroys the empire. Passages like this have inspired persecuted and oppressed peoples throughout history and continue to do so. The message that injustice does not have the final say in God’s creation is both true and necessary.

More difficult to stomach is an image of a vengeful and violent God and the sanction that image seems to offer humans who want to follow its model. John J. Collins, in an article called “The Zeal of Phinehas: The Bible and the Legitimation of Violence,” observes that the link between the Bible and violence is deeper than the numerous portrayals of a warrior God, or the countless divine commands to slaughter others. Instead, the deeper connection between the two is the divine certitude the Bible gives to the faithful.  “The Bible has contributed to violence in the world,” Collins argues, “precisely because it has been taken to confer a degree of certitude that transcends human discussion and argumentation. Perhaps the most constructive thing a biblical critic can do toward lessening the contribution of the Bible to violence in the world is to show that that certitude is an illusion.”

Maybe Collins’ advice would work well for us who aren’t Bible scholars, but who faithfully attempt to live the Bible’s stories, worship using the Bible’s images, and pray using the Bible’s language. Perhaps in this year of renewal, in the midst of our living, worshiping and praying, we can also critically reflect on our own, often hidden, certainties. How would this challenging spiritual practice transform us, our churches, and our neighborhoods?

- David Shumaker