5/23/04

Prophecy for Profit

Psalm 97
Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21
John 17:20-26

It used to be that if you wanted to see what the future had in store for you or for the world, you'd read your horoscope in the daily paper, or you'd visit your local psychic or palm-reader, or more recently, you'd call up Miss Cleo's 800 number - until she was kicked off television for fraud - and just for giving her the account number on your credit card, she'd go through her pack of tarot cards, until she found just the right one for you. But Christians are not supposed to indulge in such theologically suspect things - unless we call it "prophecy." And this we can get legitimately for $44.95, the monthly subscription price for the Left Behind Prophecy Club Web Site, that promises an insider's view of what's happening in the world and an interpretation of all the events that will lead us toward the end of the world, supposedly predicted in the Book of Revelation. (i)

The web site is run by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, co-authors of the wildly popular Left Behind series, totaling more than 62 million book sales and counting. Some of you, I know, have read one or more of the dozen-plus books, and thanks to Bill Farquharson, I read the first one a couple of years ago myself. Like The Da Vinci Code, but with quite a different theological perspective, the Left Behind books are a fast-paced, action-filled good read. LaHaye and Jenkins are featured in this week's Newsweek, their smiling faces are on the front cover that describes them as "The New Prophets of Revelation." The themes and theses of the Left Behind phenomenon center around a belief that we are living in the end times, and that the Rapture (when all "true believers" will be taken up to heaven) and the seven years of Tribulation (for all unbelievers left behind) are imminent. As a professor of religious studies quoted in Newsweek says: "Left Behind encourages people to see the world in terms of black and white, good and evil, with us or against us." (ii) Good wins out in the end and enemies are left behind or left smoldering in the ashes. The idea that the trials of this life can be escaped with one rapturous pass of the Heavenly Hoover (iii) is obviously very appealing. And it's made a tidy profit for LaHaye and Jenkins. Though they are not the first prophets to have made a profit, nor the last I'm sure, I say, more power to them.

Folks have been making predictions about the end times since the first century, when even the Apostle Paul and the writer of Revelation thought that the return of Christ was just around the corner. This has continued up to modern times. Back before LaHaye and Jenkins was Hal Lindsay - remember him? - and his hugely popular book in the 1970's entitled, The Late Great Planet Earth. Lindsay said then that the agents of the Antichrist were the Soviet Union and China. But the apocalyptic calendars had to be revised when the Cold War ended. Now I understand that the Antichrist is the U.N. Secretary General and his assistant is the pope.

A Protestant minister in South Korea in 1992 preached convincingly that the Rapture was going to take place in October of that year. Thousands around the world took his prediction seriously. When it didn't happen, believers took the failure of his prophecy calmly with sad resignation. Two months later the preacher was arrested and sentenced to jail for bilking his congregation out of $4.4 million. Ironically, he had invested the stolen money in bonds that didn't mature until the following year! (iv)

We chuckle at that story, and look back at Hal Lindsay perhaps with nostalgic pity, and many continue to enjoy the adventures in the Left Behind saga, but should we be taking these kinds of things all that seriously? Do the events unfolding today around the world, and especially in Iraq, signify that the Rapture will occur in our lifetimes? I'm not so sure. Is there truth behind the fiction? I wonder.

The bigger question perhaps is, what is the focus of the Bible? Is the primary message of the Bible that we who believe will get a free ticket to heaven and those who don't, well, tough luck to them? I don't think so. Is the purpose of this life only to prepare ourselves for the life to come? Is this what life is all about? I don't think so. Consider this: The Bible is composed of 66 books, nd many of them are chock full of stuff about worshipping and loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves. We're even told to love our enemies, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, be good stewards of creation. We're told to take care of the poor, heal the sick, and yes, even to take up our crosses and follow Jesus. Are we to do all these things just to fill in the time before the Rapture comes and we're lifted up? I don't think so. In the Bible the love of God is emphasized a whole lot more than the vengeful wrath of God. God wants us to share this love with others, not to get us a ticket to heaven, but just because this is what we're supposed to do as faithful people. Let's take a peek at our lesson today from Revelation, excerpts from the last chapter, concluding with the last words in the Bible. The author, perhaps John of Patmos, has the resurrected Christ speaking these final words, beginning with a prediction of his imminent return: "See I am coming soon ...," interpreted as both a promise and a warning. For those who had remained faithful in the struggling early church, this was good news, words of hope and assurance. But for those who had followed false gods, or who had been leading lives of immorality, the author hoped that his words would encourage repentance, good news even for those who had strayed. Jesus then identifies himself as "the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." As in the prologue to John's Gospel, Christ the Word has existed forever. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ... All things came into being through him ...," says John the Gospel writer. Jesus also refers to himself as "the root and the descendant of David" and "the bright morning star," allusions to messianic prophecy in the Hebrew Bible.

Finally, there are major promises made by Christ. "Blessed are those who wash their robes ...," that is, those who have remained faithful; for they will have access to the tree of life (immortality) and will be able to freely enter the holy city of God (what we might call heaven). These promises include a series of wonderful invitations. "The Spirit and the bride [probably the Church] say, 'Come.' And let everyone who hears say, 'Come.' And let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift ..." Everyone who is thirsty, anyone who wishes - the invitation is offered to all people. If we ever wondered about the welcoming, forgiving, inclusive love of God, how could we wonder after this?

Just as God in Christ invites us to drink of the water of life, so we are called to share that living water with others. I came across a lovely story that puts a different spin on the words of Revelation: "Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift." The story sounds familiar to me; I may have shared it before; if so, please forgive me, and enjoy it again. It was one of the hottest days in what was a very dry seasonv - no rain in a month, crops dying, river beds all dried up, cows no longer giving milk. A mother was in the kitchen making lunch when she saw her six-year-old son, Billy, walking with great effort toward the woods, with deliberate slow steps. Soon after he entered the woods he reemerged, running toward the house. Moments later he was again walking with a slow, purposeful stride toward the woods. This sequence was repeated several times.

The mother could no longer stand the suspense, and followed discreetly behind him, being careful not to be seen by her son. She could see that he was cupping both hands in front of him, being very careful not to spill a little bit of water he held. As he entered the woods, he walked through branches that brushed his face, not seeming to mind them. Suddenly, several large deer loomed in front of him, and his mother almost screamed instinctively, but did not. The deer, including a large buck with big antlers, were dangerously close, but none of them moved. The boy knelt down beside a small fawn laying on the ground, obviously suffering from dehydration and heat exhaustion. The animal struggled to lift its head to lap up the water cupped in the boy's hand. When he was finished, the boy stood up and hastily returned to the house to an outside faucet that had been shut off by his parents to preserve water. Billy opened it fully and a small trickle of water crept out. When he had his "cup" full, he turned off the spigot and then saw his mother standing there. "I'm not wasting it," was all he said, probably remembering the trouble he had gotten into the week before when he was playing with the hose.

He again walked to the woods, this time carrying a small pot of water his mother had gotten from the kitchen. She joined him on the walk, but stayed at the edge of the woods as he went ahead alone, watching while her son tended the fawn, this small boy sharing water to save another life. As tears rolled down her face, they were suddenly joined with other drops of water, and others. It was raining! We might call it a coincidence. She called it a miracle.

Back to Revelation. The point of John's vision, I think, and the reason Revelation is put at the end of our Bible, is that it attempts to bring full circle what God has been doing from the beginning of creation. In Genesis, God declares the world and all that has been created as " (v)ery good," but over the intervening years we humans, through our sins and other clever ways we mess things up, have tried to make it less than good. The biblical prophets were charged with the task of calling the people back to God and back to what they were supposed to be doing, calling them to straighten up and fly right. Throughout history, God has been at work, sometimes directly, sometimes through others, renewing, remaking, and reforming creation, even to the point of coming in the flesh in Jesus Christ to teach us how to live in that creation with God and with each other. When we celebrate Christ rising from the grave on Easter, we get a foretaste of the renewed and resurrected life to come, the life that was meant to be from the beginning. The purpose of the church is to be the conduit through which God is already at work bringing in the kingdom and renewing life. (vi)

Jesus says at the end of Revelation, "Surely I am coming soon." No doubt it will happen sometime, but we really don't know when, and it doesn't matter when, as long as we're doing what we're supposed to be doing. And that is, we need to quit looking up at heaven, quit listening for the trumpet blasts signaling the Rapture, and start looking at the world around us, and get working to make it a better place. We need to forget about escaping from this world and start remembering our calling, that is, sharing the love of God with all we meet and rolling up our sleeves and doing kingdom work in the world. Maybe you've seen this bumper sticker or T-shirt: "Jesus is coming. ... Look busy." When Jesus returns, whenever and however that is, what will he find us doing? Will we just look busy, or will we be busy doing the work of the kingdom here and now, trying to make this world a better place?

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is addressing the crowd and his disciples, and says to them: "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?"vii We know there's a good profit to be made in prophecy, but the real profit to strive for in life is not the financial kind, but the kind offered by Jesus to those willing to take up their crosses and lose their lives for his sake. The question is: Are we willing? Amen.

The Pilgrim Church of Duxbury
Rev. Kenneth C. Landall

i Homiletics, Vol. 16, No. 3, 5/23/04.
ii Tina Pippin, Newsweek, 5/24/04, p. 47.
iii Homiletics, op. cit.
iv Martin Gardner, quoted in Homiletics, op. cit.
v Author Unknown, Aha!, 5/23/04.
vi Homiletics, op. cit.
vii Mark 8:34-36.