23 Pentecost,
Cp28, November 17, 2019
Isaiah 65:17-25 Ps. 98:
2 Thes. 3:6-13
Luke 21:5-19
You and I are aware of the word utopia and for us it refers to ideal conditions or best conditions. We sometimes might think that the literal meaning of utopia means "good place" which would be eu-topia, but the actual word utopia was constructed from a negative Greek word, not meaning "good place," but "not a place," or "no such place," perhaps even meaning an impossible place.
When you go to the health spa which is called "Utopia," remember it really means "no such body, and no such good looks," but you should try anyway.
Utopia is not mentioned in the Bible; it became a word coined by the "Man for All Season," Thomas More, the critic of Henry the Eighth, who wrote a book of the same title. Utopia was a fictional island and he did this when there was chaos in the political world of England and Europe. O that there would be an impossible place, a "no such" place to escape to in our imaginations for but a moment of satirical relief from our current chaos.
I find it interesting that the utopian words of the prophet Isaiah are put in contrast with the dystopian world referred to in the words of Jesus as written in the Gospel of Luke.
The Gospel of Luke was written after the destruction of Jerusalem. The Jesus Movement and the early Christ-communities went through periods of flying under the radar from harm and times of severe persecution. The words of Jesus in the Gospels are layered to be appeals of the oracle of Christ depending upon what a particular group of Christians were facing in terms of persecution.
How does the Bible deal with the conditions of dystopia when the bad guys are winning and when those who believe they know God's spiritual favor are not favored in the actual circumstances of their lives? How do we continue to believe in God and in justice when God is not an apparent intervening protector of God's people? How can one believe in truth and justice when lying and persecution abound?
In the Bible, there is literature which is called apocalyptic. It was a language of comfort for suffering people. Language of comfort can be both utopian and apocalyptic. When one is in pain or distress, what does one want? One wants the freedom from pain and the end of the circumstances which causes the pain. We use aesthetic, poetic, artistic and musical language to ease the pain of the body and soul. Oncology and pain management regimes involve visualizations of states of bliss and freedom from pain. Children in oncology units are encouraged to draw pictures of what fighting means to end the cancer that attacks their body. They draw pictures of angels and superheroes and tanks and bombs fighting against their disease and pain. They try to envision the apocalyptic end of their cancer and pain. Is the language of the apocalyptic and utopian true and meaningful? It is indeed meaningfully true to fight pain in suffering with every kind of linguistic assault that can provide an analgesic. Fundamentalists say that utopian and apocalyptic language is predictive about an actual empirically verifiable future, and the scientists make fun of them. To make such language literal is to violate the analgesic and true meaning of utopian and the apocalyptic language. The true meaning of such language is found in a large portion of our literature and cinema of futurism which is seen everywhere in our entertainment culture. Just because we have separated apocalyptic and utopian from religion does not mean that the people who comprised the biblical books did. Remember the Bible as the first of its kind in being unique published use of language, presented many of the genres which modern society has stolen from in the many derived correspondences.
Utopian and apocalyptic language was true and meaningful analgesic language of comfort to the people of the Bible at different times of their lives. If we understand the function of such language, we understand it as meaningfully true. Persons who literalize such language try to literalize poetry and it only makes their religion look silly.
We use apocalyptic and utopian language and modes of thinking all of the time in common speech, even though we don't label it as such.
When a mother comforts her sick baby, with "There, there, all will be well. You'll be just fine." She does not know what she is saying can or will be verified but the major truth of her words is the truth of comfort, real comfort, godly comfort. And it would be silly for anyone to criticize her speech as being scientifically unverifiable, and therefore not true. The language of comfort is the language of hope for time to pass and better conditions to arise.
The apocalyptic is also the delayed impulse of rage and anger. We often are so enraged by the sheer injustice of something, we could wish ourselves to be all powerful enough to intervene and correct with force the immediate situation. Our better selves are more restrained; oppressed people who want to strike at their captors have to choose servile survival instead of enraged reactions that might get themselves and others harmed. What do such people do to delay their rage? They leave vengeance to God in a delayed future reckoning. The discourse of delayed future reckoning is the discourse of the apocalyptic.
Today in our cinematic art we use the action adventure film to channel the rage for immediate intervening justice. The action adventure hero in less than two hours can right all wrong and bring the bad guys to order, something that really is impossible in actual life.
The art of the apocalyptic functioned for people of biblical cultures; we just use the art of the apocalyptic in a different way today and people who are oppressed still need the art of the apocalyptic to retain a belief in the normalcy of a final justice for everyone.
The discourses of the utopian and the apocalyptic are words of confession about a hope that life can be better, and greater harmonies can be achieved. They are confessions of our belief in justice and no matter what the current conditions are. We still confess the normalcy of justice for all.
You and I live on the continuum of the freedom of all difference agents and actors in this life; some human and some not. In the free condition of different agents, we can hope for a harmony which acknowledges difference but also celebrates a perfect reciprocity among everyone and all things. Given our knowledge of our less than angelic natures, we doubt the fulfillment of perfect harmonies in our world, even though we need to have the utopian visions of harmonies, or the apocalyptic intervention of an almighty force eventually persuading the outcome of justice. In our lives based upon evolutionary theory, we can observe the fittest survive by over-powering in various ways the weak. And in our lives of faith and love, we believe that the weak have the right to play their part in the big orchestra of life, without being eliminated by the strong. The utopian and the apocalyptic genres are the poetic language of justice in a greater Power to persuade into a full harmony of all things.
Today, you and I need not worry about the apocalyptic words of Jesus as being foreign to human experience. We need not be cynical about the utopian vision of Isaiah or even the poetic license of John Lennon's song, "Imagine."
Today, I finish with the example of the conductor of the new Junior High symphony. The first day of class results in a total cacophony of bad sounds. "Everyone thinks.....this is really terrible." But then the conductor plays the recordings of a major symphony to show the kids what they could eventually sound like. The conductor gives them a utopian, seemingly unattainable model. But the conductor also begins to lower the apocalyptic boom on them in demanding practice and hours of private lessons. The conductor intervenes in a severe way to transform the skills of the instrumentalist toward the ideal.
Today, you and I need both the utopian and the apocalyptic. We need the vision of the perfect us, a utopian people, no such people yet, as a vision to which we are called. The biblical utopian Person is the Messiah, the Christ. He is the one who calls towards our utopian selves. He calls us a parish and society toward the harmony of being non-competitors, causing no harm. He assures us of a final apocalyptic power to ultimate persuade us and everyone toward our better angels.
Remember that if people today mock the utopian and the apocalyptic language of the Bible, they still are getting their utopian and apocalyptic discourse in other ways in the discourses of the culture within which we live. Most of these discourses derived from the great themes that are laid down in the Bible.
We need not feel inferior about the biblical discourse, because you and I have found the utopian person, Jesus Christ to be a life transformer, and we have found the Holy Spirit to be an apocalyptic intervener in our lives to advance us on the path of love and justice today. Amen.
When you go to the health spa which is called "Utopia," remember it really means "no such body, and no such good looks," but you should try anyway.
Utopia is not mentioned in the Bible; it became a word coined by the "Man for All Season," Thomas More, the critic of Henry the Eighth, who wrote a book of the same title. Utopia was a fictional island and he did this when there was chaos in the political world of England and Europe. O that there would be an impossible place, a "no such" place to escape to in our imaginations for but a moment of satirical relief from our current chaos.
I find it interesting that the utopian words of the prophet Isaiah are put in contrast with the dystopian world referred to in the words of Jesus as written in the Gospel of Luke.
The Gospel of Luke was written after the destruction of Jerusalem. The Jesus Movement and the early Christ-communities went through periods of flying under the radar from harm and times of severe persecution. The words of Jesus in the Gospels are layered to be appeals of the oracle of Christ depending upon what a particular group of Christians were facing in terms of persecution.
How does the Bible deal with the conditions of dystopia when the bad guys are winning and when those who believe they know God's spiritual favor are not favored in the actual circumstances of their lives? How do we continue to believe in God and in justice when God is not an apparent intervening protector of God's people? How can one believe in truth and justice when lying and persecution abound?
In the Bible, there is literature which is called apocalyptic. It was a language of comfort for suffering people. Language of comfort can be both utopian and apocalyptic. When one is in pain or distress, what does one want? One wants the freedom from pain and the end of the circumstances which causes the pain. We use aesthetic, poetic, artistic and musical language to ease the pain of the body and soul. Oncology and pain management regimes involve visualizations of states of bliss and freedom from pain. Children in oncology units are encouraged to draw pictures of what fighting means to end the cancer that attacks their body. They draw pictures of angels and superheroes and tanks and bombs fighting against their disease and pain. They try to envision the apocalyptic end of their cancer and pain. Is the language of the apocalyptic and utopian true and meaningful? It is indeed meaningfully true to fight pain in suffering with every kind of linguistic assault that can provide an analgesic. Fundamentalists say that utopian and apocalyptic language is predictive about an actual empirically verifiable future, and the scientists make fun of them. To make such language literal is to violate the analgesic and true meaning of utopian and the apocalyptic language. The true meaning of such language is found in a large portion of our literature and cinema of futurism which is seen everywhere in our entertainment culture. Just because we have separated apocalyptic and utopian from religion does not mean that the people who comprised the biblical books did. Remember the Bible as the first of its kind in being unique published use of language, presented many of the genres which modern society has stolen from in the many derived correspondences.
Utopian and apocalyptic language was true and meaningful analgesic language of comfort to the people of the Bible at different times of their lives. If we understand the function of such language, we understand it as meaningfully true. Persons who literalize such language try to literalize poetry and it only makes their religion look silly.
We use apocalyptic and utopian language and modes of thinking all of the time in common speech, even though we don't label it as such.
When a mother comforts her sick baby, with "There, there, all will be well. You'll be just fine." She does not know what she is saying can or will be verified but the major truth of her words is the truth of comfort, real comfort, godly comfort. And it would be silly for anyone to criticize her speech as being scientifically unverifiable, and therefore not true. The language of comfort is the language of hope for time to pass and better conditions to arise.
The apocalyptic is also the delayed impulse of rage and anger. We often are so enraged by the sheer injustice of something, we could wish ourselves to be all powerful enough to intervene and correct with force the immediate situation. Our better selves are more restrained; oppressed people who want to strike at their captors have to choose servile survival instead of enraged reactions that might get themselves and others harmed. What do such people do to delay their rage? They leave vengeance to God in a delayed future reckoning. The discourse of delayed future reckoning is the discourse of the apocalyptic.
Today in our cinematic art we use the action adventure film to channel the rage for immediate intervening justice. The action adventure hero in less than two hours can right all wrong and bring the bad guys to order, something that really is impossible in actual life.
The art of the apocalyptic functioned for people of biblical cultures; we just use the art of the apocalyptic in a different way today and people who are oppressed still need the art of the apocalyptic to retain a belief in the normalcy of a final justice for everyone.
The discourses of the utopian and the apocalyptic are words of confession about a hope that life can be better, and greater harmonies can be achieved. They are confessions of our belief in justice and no matter what the current conditions are. We still confess the normalcy of justice for all.
You and I live on the continuum of the freedom of all difference agents and actors in this life; some human and some not. In the free condition of different agents, we can hope for a harmony which acknowledges difference but also celebrates a perfect reciprocity among everyone and all things. Given our knowledge of our less than angelic natures, we doubt the fulfillment of perfect harmonies in our world, even though we need to have the utopian visions of harmonies, or the apocalyptic intervention of an almighty force eventually persuading the outcome of justice. In our lives based upon evolutionary theory, we can observe the fittest survive by over-powering in various ways the weak. And in our lives of faith and love, we believe that the weak have the right to play their part in the big orchestra of life, without being eliminated by the strong. The utopian and the apocalyptic genres are the poetic language of justice in a greater Power to persuade into a full harmony of all things.
Today, you and I need not worry about the apocalyptic words of Jesus as being foreign to human experience. We need not be cynical about the utopian vision of Isaiah or even the poetic license of John Lennon's song, "Imagine."
Today, I finish with the example of the conductor of the new Junior High symphony. The first day of class results in a total cacophony of bad sounds. "Everyone thinks.....this is really terrible." But then the conductor plays the recordings of a major symphony to show the kids what they could eventually sound like. The conductor gives them a utopian, seemingly unattainable model. But the conductor also begins to lower the apocalyptic boom on them in demanding practice and hours of private lessons. The conductor intervenes in a severe way to transform the skills of the instrumentalist toward the ideal.
Today, you and I need both the utopian and the apocalyptic. We need the vision of the perfect us, a utopian people, no such people yet, as a vision to which we are called. The biblical utopian Person is the Messiah, the Christ. He is the one who calls towards our utopian selves. He calls us a parish and society toward the harmony of being non-competitors, causing no harm. He assures us of a final apocalyptic power to ultimate persuade us and everyone toward our better angels.
Remember that if people today mock the utopian and the apocalyptic language of the Bible, they still are getting their utopian and apocalyptic discourse in other ways in the discourses of the culture within which we live. Most of these discourses derived from the great themes that are laid down in the Bible.
We need not feel inferior about the biblical discourse, because you and I have found the utopian person, Jesus Christ to be a life transformer, and we have found the Holy Spirit to be an apocalyptic intervener in our lives to advance us on the path of love and justice today. Amen.
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