Apocalyptic scripture gives us a window into an alternate vision of reality – not in destruction, but in revealing ours as the wrong path.
apocalypse and the language of change
Matthew 24:1-14
What do we do with this?
Jesus gets apocalyptic in this reading. In ancient Hebrew communities, the apocalyptic was a literary form—it’s like reading a murder mystery or sci-fi. It is quite literally a genre.
Which explains why people take to the book of Revelation like it’s a disaster movie.
And much like genre fiction, the principle concern of this scripture is not its craziest elements or future prediction: it’s the human story underneath.
Readers of science fiction are keenly aware of that genre’s ability to speak to the present world better than our newspapers precisely because it removes us from the immediacy of the situation. In other words, we can see intergalactic tyranny more clearly than the domestic kind.
This idea of speaking in a language that removes us from our present to better see it is perhaps apocalyptic’s greatest gift to the church.
Misunderstood
Unfortunately, the word apocalyptic has been severed from its purpose. It has become too associated with its metaphors so as to strip it of its power.
The word apocalypse is treated as a synonym for catastrophe, annihilation, or end times theology.
Apocalypse is not about destruction—it is about revealing.
Focusing only on the images used in apocalyptic speech and literature and not the message is gross distortion. It is like defining science fiction as being “about lightsabers and laser guns” and not heroic myths of loss and redemption.
To restore the true purpose of apocalypse, we must dig under the surface. And it is there where we can see its most relevant and necessary revelation: what revealing does to us.
Revealing the truth
Apocalypse is about revealing. And we are called to put ourselves in a place to experience what God is revealing! Revealing of the true nature of the world, of humanity, and of our present condition. It is a profound state of unity to see below the surface! It also brings up far more complex emotions and confusions.
Revealing the truth about our world and our relationships with one another has a really big drawback: it doesn’t just reveal the good stuff we want to see. Or the bad stuff that others do. It also brings up the stuff for which we are responsible. It reveals our sin and need for redemption.
Which is why we work so hard to avoid it.
One of the things God is revealing to us presently is how burdened we are in the US for the sins of our ancestors. Sins that have never been absolved, nor accounted for. Sins that have produced benefits to some while hindered others. Racism and incarceration, violence and murder.
And the knowing of these debts, these grave sins, which are never truly in the past, and always make themselves essentially present, provides us with a new moral terror of responsibility—not for the creation of this moment, but for the perpetuation of the present.
I’ve watched groups and governments avoid responsibility time and again. Avoid responsibility when it was revealed to us that there is a problem. That there is something that needs to be done. And yet no easy way is available. So we sit on our hands. Months and months pass. And finally, when the conditions get too great, we act on the only option remaining.
While the group feels confident in its decision (“we didn’t have a choice” they always say) it comes from the deliberate painting ourselves into that corner that reveals our cowardice. The abdication of responsibility is a choice to perpetuate sin.
Once the truth is revealed to us, we are on the hook for it.
This is our true fear.
This is why we get so worked up about apocalypse. Because revealing is all about change. It changes the game and the rules. And it demands we change: personally and communally.
Our obsessive, irrational fear of change is pathological and dysfunctional. The reverence we have for the status quo and what we call “normal” is selfish and sociopathic.
We define the very nature of our existence so as to avoid responsibility to God and our neighbors. Which is why this is precisely Jesus’s main focus.
We don’t want to be responsible.
So we take on the role of the lawyer asking Jesus in the gospel of Luke: “Who is the neighbor?” Like him, we all know the answer. We’re just trying to wriggle out of it.
Jesus’s parable response couldn’t be more direct and obvious. YOU. You’re the neighbor. EVERYONE. They are your neighbors. BE responsible.
Jesus keeps challenging us to be better; to change.
Prophetic
In the church, we use a word for challenging speech. We call it “being prophetic.” In many circles they’ve composed a yin-yang arrangement for speaking to the community: Prophetic vs. Pastoral.
This pits the challenging speech against the comforting speech. One is tough and the other is gentle. We can afford a little stick if we use mostly carrots.
If you read only the “red letters” (just the stuff Jesus says) you would not find such a balance. You would not find tons of sweet with a hint of spice. And projecting such a strange balance onto one another is unChristlike.
What we see more often is like what we saw in last Sunday’s gospel. Challenge, challenge, major challenge, small exposition, and then comfort tied to change. Which is a whole different kind of challenge.
In fact, Jesus’s whole message can be summed up as: come get changed so we can help others change, so we can help the whole world change.
Revealed to us
I invite us today to see Jesus’s apocalyptic words as trusting that we can handle the truth. That we can claim responsibility for our behavior and for the life of our community.
And he invites us to see the challenge this reveals and not run from it. That our neighbors may reject the kin-dom for power, profit, and personal gain. And they may hate us for demanding accountability in our elected officials and government servants.
But most importantly, Jesus trusts us to want to be changed by this revealing. That we will see the kin-dom work as ours and make it our deepest desire.
That we embrace the change that will change this world.