Our presumption to allow God a voice does not please everyone

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/111918.cfm
Revelation 1:1-4; 2:1-5
Luke 18:35-43

The reading from the Book of Revelation today is written for believers. To anyone else, it's a hodgepodge of science fiction and visionary hallucinations. What does it mean for us to read this book? What positions must we hold in other to absorb its meaning?

In both the Old Testament and the New Testament quite often we hear the phrase, “The Lord said …” This is not just a tool used by writers to prop up a dictum or a rule. And, it’s not simply a type of writing style which requires a protagonist, like a parable or a metaphor. When someone writes out, “The Lord said …,” they’re actually reporting on a communication from God, the very person who created the universe. This Lord is God himself, who holds the universe together as we muck around with our free wheeling wills. That same Lord God has promised us a life of eternity with him if we’d just pay attention to him and do what he says. We're not just robots, though. We are his partner, his brother and sister, and his son and a daughter. 

This is all true if we believe the Lord is the Lord God, and we presume and accept that he does communicate with us.

It’s at this point where all of us stand at a fork in the road. There are usually four or five tines on the end of a fork, by the way. I’ve always found that interesting. I think it applies to the point of our discussion about decision-making. In order to proceed forward we have to make a decision about not just God's existence, but a whole lot of other stuff presented to us in scripture. 

The fork choice I'm presenting begins with whether the Lord of scriptures is God or just a writers prop. We can quibble over the word “Lord” as a pseudonym for somebody in charge that might not really be God. If we read the scriptures regularly there's no escaping the inference that the Lord referred to in both the old and new testaments is the Lord God. What holds many of us back from following through on that inference is that it seems unlikely that God, if he exists, would go around saying things to some people and not to others. Why does God allow only some of us to hear him, and then expect those to witness to everyone else?

Well, it was, as the scriptures tell us, the necessary revelatory process that God decided upon due to a sinful, unbelieving trajectory taken by humankind. Jesus shifted the hand-picking procedure presumed permanent in early Jewish writings to one similar to the design built into creation. God is available to us all. In our own distinct relationships to God, both individually and as community, he offers us himself to call upon and receive answers. Again, that's what scriptures tell us. If there is no belief in God actually communicating with us, especially the bulk of us who are not worthy of God, then Jesus' words are unbelievable.

Each step we take to being open to God's interest and willingness to speak to us presents a whole new set of either remarkable or unbelievable stuff (depending upon your perspective) that the "Lord said ..." to us. We Christians are asked to accept that God provides us with divinely assisted prowess. We are told that each faith-induced leap and hurdle offered by God, though, will probably be met with cynical and dismissive responses. Smarter folks than us will assure us we are fools. 

"You foolish folks. The scriptures may clearly state that the Lord is God, but the scriptures aren’t what you think they are. They are not divinely inspired and gathered together. I don't know who that is talking to you, but it's not God."

Well, we have to disagree. We have to differ with these people, and oppose their premise which insists that our Holy Scriptures come largely from a bunch of collected sayings and ancient stories passed on by tribal, mouth-breathing, easily awe-struck, pre-technological shamans and oracles. No, we say. He speaks to us right now. We might even have suggest that it's quite possible he'll ring us up on our cells.

These naysayers are a huge stumbling block. If we don’t oppose their premise, then our faith crumbles. Our beliefs are unsubstantiated without scriptural support. Not only must we emphatically choose to believe that God actually spoke to our ancestral mix of Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens, described by our adversaries as limited brained nationalists. We must also believe that he’s still speaking to us today. The authors of scripture wrote at times when rocks and sticks were weapons, cooking tables, and chairs. The revelatory interceding from God today must speak through a host of technology discoveries. We don't necessarily think that God's cares about our technology, much less uses them. He did, however, use every literary form known to humankind in his revelations to a host of authors. And, his transcribed words landed upon the latest writing technologies at the time — stones, scrolls, and papyrus.

In addition, as followers of Jesus which we also recognize Jesus as God made man, the second member of the Trinity; and we view him as the central character within the entire plot line of both sets of the scriptures. This presumes a huge critical juncture in belief right there. And still further, we are asked to take some incredible steps toward the acceptance and structure of creation and heaven to include the existence and cosmic mind-blowing realities that there are these things — a Communion of Saints, hosts of Angels, and the earthly gathering of the Church. 

Church is not a simple idea, by the way. Church means us believers, which somehow includes a whole lot of semi-believing folks on the edges of faith, hobbled but a part of us. We all constitute a bunch of meaningful, nay vital, members of the Mystical Body of Christ. We, then, believe that all of these alive and dead people who’ve passed on to heaven, plus all the angels, are wrapped up within a holy Kingdom of God. 

We could mention now the existence of hell, Satan and the fallen angels, and folks who’ve joined ranks with evil, but that’d be putting too fine of a point on the fork in the road and I’d start losing a bunch of folks. I’ve only got a few pages here.

All of what we’ve just covered is necessary background before reading the Book of Revelation as a believer, because this is how the book begins:

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him,
to show his servants what must happen soon.
He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,
who gives witness to the word of God
and to the testimony of Jesus Christ by reporting what he saw.
Blessed is the one who reads aloud
and blessed are those who listen to this prophetic message
and heed what is written in it, for the appointed time is near.

John, to the seven churches in Asia: grace to you and peace
from him who is and who was and who is to come,
and from the seven spirits before his throne, …

So much about our faith is necessary fertilizer in our scriptural harvest in this last book of the Bible. Our reading for today skips over a whole bunch of stuff about Jesus and the kingdom, and intense detail about a visionary experience that would challenge any of the greatest movies ever made. This preliminary  set up to the upcoming sections in the Book of Revelation are astounding to anyone but believers.

After the Apostle John’s promptings to write out and witness his vision are explained we are taken in our reading of Revelation directly to the ominous and oft-repeated scriptural phrase that sparked the beginning of this reflection:

I heard the Lord saying to me:

Now, I don’t care who you are, but if you come to this reading today without a general understanding of all things we’ve discussed for a page and a half then you’ll be kind of lost. It’s not just the context of what John is going to say to us, but it’s the communication itself.  If we can't believe what Jesus has said and what the scriptures have said about him then the Book of Revelation will be nonsense.

The very idea that one of us can be an inspired man of God, and taught things that are largely unknown to everyone else by God himself, is amazing. But, it’s not just an idea to Christianity. It’s a freaking reality show. The scriptures we heard today reveal a window opening into an entirely new view of heaven and earth. 

I’ve heard people warn believers not to read the Book of Revelation. It’s too weird. Prepare yourself before reading it. Study the references to the Old Testament as you go, or you’ll think you’re reading a fantasy play. Well, they’re probably right. Even if you’re a believer, I suppose. That’s why I mapped out a short set of signage on our path that comes with such a huge fork in the road. 

Not all of us are skeptical types, but I think it’s more common today than at any other time in history. We are more trained to be skeptics rather than believers. So, before we enter a set of scriptures like the Book of Revelation, or Daniel, or Ezekiel, we should rest in our assurances that God does talk to us. We have a tremendous resource of aids in studying our faith, but the most important one is God himself. He’s right there with us, just like with John as he encountered a vision for the ages. 

God has a lot to tell us, but it all comes back to the words from Jesus to Johon. “Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come.”