The Plagues

Wednesday, October 22, 2008 -- Week of Proper 24

Today's Reading for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 989)
Psalms 38 (morning) 119:25-48 (evening)
Ecclesiasticus* 7:4-14
Revelation 8:1-13
Luke 10:17-24

* found in the Apocrypha; also called the Wisdom of Jesus Son of Sirach, or just Sirach

Today our reading of the Revelation is something like that scene from the Ghost of Christmas Future in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." A frightening picture of the potential future. If you do not change, this is what will happen.

The author pauses dramatically before the trumpet sounds. "There was silence in heaven for about half an hour."

Then plagues like those in Egypt when Moses sought to persuade the Pharaoh to "let my people go." We are reenacting scenes from the memory of Israel. God heard the people's cry from their slavery in Egypt. When Pharaoh refused to free them, God sent the plagues to convince the Pharaoh to change his ways and to liberate God's people from empire and injustice. The purpose of the terrible plagues was to convert Pharaoh, to convince him to free God's people.

Here in Revelation the "smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rise before God." They pray for liberation from the oppression and injustice of the Roman Empire. The trumpet blows and plagues like those in Egypt descend. Remember, it is a vision of a future possibility -- like the Christmas Future vision of Scrooge -- warning the Roman Empire of the terrible consequences if it continues in its ways. Later an angel will say that these plagues of hail and fire and blood, of environmental poisoning and death, of cosmic darkness "is what they deserve." (Revelation 15:6) The word is Greek, "axios" -- it is axiomatic, or self-evident.

It is axiomatic, it is self-evident that the kind of bloodshed, injustice and destruction that Egypt, Babylon, Rome and other empires create should come back upon the Empires. John is telling Rome, just as the Ghost told Scrooge, if you continue in your wanton ways, here is the catastrophe that the future holds for you. Change! Repent!

Writing from the base-communities of Latin America, Liberation Theologian Pablo Richard interprets some of these signs this way:

Cosmic agonies of this kind are not "natural" disasters but rather the direct consequences of the structure of domination and oppression: The poor die in floods because they are pushed out of safe places and forced to live alongside rivers; in earthquakes and hurricanes the poor lose their flimsy houses because they are poor and cannot build better ones; plagues, such as cholera and tuberculosis, fall primarily on the poor because they are malnourished... Hence the plagues of the trumpets and bowls in Revelation refer not to so called "natural" disasters, but to the agonies of history that the empire itself causes and suffers; they are the agonies of the beast caused by its very idolatry and lawlessness. Today the plagues of Revelation are rather the disastrous results of ecological destruction, the arms race, irrational consumerism, the idolatrous logic of the market, and the irrational use of technology and of natural resources.

(from "Apocalypse: A People's Commentary, 85-86)

Revelation is a book for today, but not in the cartoonish sense of Tim LeHaye, Hal Jenkins, and the bizarre disponsationalist preachers. Revelation says look at the economic markets in apoplexy today and see the consequences of your idolatry and greed. Look at the global degradation and the dire warnings of inconvenient truths because of your consumerism and greed. Look at the death and chaos, the violence and fear that increases because of your militarism and failure of imagination. Look at the agonies of the poor and innocent. Your empire is corrupt, addicted to excess, and unjust. If you do not change, it is axiomatic that you will suffer terrible consequences. Change! Repent!

Lowell

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About Morning Reflections
Morning Reflections is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117

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The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church
is to explore and celebrate
God's infinite grace, acceptance, and love.

Visit our web site at www.stpaulsfay.org

Our Rule of Life

We aspire to...
worship weekly
pray daily
learn constantly
serve joyfully
live generously.

Lowell Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas