Word to the Wise
Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - Tuesday in the Thirty-third Week in Ordinary Time
[Revelation 3:1-6, 14-22 and Luke 19:1-10]Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me. I will give the victor the right to sit with me on my throne, as I myself first won the victory and sit with my Father on his throne. Whoever has ears ought to hear what the Spirit says to the churches. [Revelation]
The Book of Revelation presents one of the biggest challenges of the bible, but that has not stopped many folks from making the effort! It is filled with vivid imagery and action, much of which appears to inspire the imagination overheated by current motion picture productions. However, long before those productions were even thought of, this piece of biblical literature has motivated readers to predict the end of the world and many other catastrophes. It seems that the original purpose of the book is not as important as its imagery! In short, the message gets lost because the vocabulary is so fascinating! The central message of the book could be summed up in the words quoted above. It is a letter to churches in Asia Minor, using a form of literature that was well known in its day - "apocalyptic." We musn't think that only our age has possessed "sci-fi" imagination! One might note that out of a tremendous amount of that literature available to the earliest Christian communities, only two made it into the final "canon" of the Bible: the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation. Obviously this kind of writing had to be handled with care, lest it cause theological nightmares later on! One of the advantages of Revelation is that it does challenge the reader to read "outside the box" (to use a current phrase)! It tries to present things from God's perspective rather than from the current Roman empire cultural perspective (or ours, for that matter). The seven churches in Asia Minor all had their particular problems that they were struggling with. The letter is meant to encourage them by making them take a whole different perspective on the challenge of being a Christian but does it by using a lot of Old Testament imagery and allusions - probably more familiar to them than to us, who have nearly given up on the Old Testament! Those who persevere in living out their Christian commitment will be "victorious." God will not forget the faithful ones. If we are more interested in the vocabulary than the message, Revelation will be more like one of those biblical parlor guessing games. It we really want to get to the message, we need to open our Bible and read the Old Testament closely. Then we may be able to recognize the knock on the door and realize who is coming to dinner! AMEN
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