Welcoming the Apocalypse
More than a few of us have described 2020 as an Apocalypse. A few weeks ago, I joked that at any time I was expecting a plague of locusts. Later that night, I saw a BBC news report about, you guessed it, a plague of locusts! Enormous swarms of locusts are devouring crops and devastating communities in countries such as Kenya, Pakistan, and Yemen.
Really, 2020?
In our lessons on Sunday, we will hear God’s people compared to a vineyard that is being devastated. The hedge of protection has been trampled, the watchtowers collapsed, and the grapes devoured by passersby and wild beasts. The land is untended and overgrown with briers and thorns. There is no rain to nourish the parched land or sustain the crops. The psalmist begs, “Preserve what you have planted.”
What are we to make of such difficult times? Others have surely endured difficult times such as these, and worse. But still, there is great suffering now. It is an especially great tragedy that the poor and vulnerable among us suffer the most.
So, what are we to make of such difficult times? Are we to sink into despair? Are we to blame “them,” whoever “they” are? Or are we to come together, to support and comfort each other? Are we to come together to tend the vineyard God has entrusted to us?
The word Apocalypse is commonly used to mean something like “the end of the world,” especially when it involves Zombies! But the ancient Greek meaning of the word apocalypse is “unveiling.” An apocalypse is an uncovering of some important truth that has been hidden or lost or forgotten. Apocalypse is ultimately about revelation, not destruction.
We pray with the psalmist, “Behold and tend this vine; preserve what your right hand has planted.” God is showing us something very important, if we have the courage to see it. God is whispering and thundering truths we need to know, if we are willing to listen. God is creating something new! Every death is in the service of life. Death of the body is the servant that ushers us into eternal life. Death of the ego is the servant that ushers us into our place in community. Death of our desire to be right is the servant of compassion and mercy. Death of unfair advantage is the servant of justice.
Let me be clear. It’s not my intention to spiritualize our suffering. Pandemics and racism and unemployment and fires and plagues of locusts---these completely suck! But given these realities, we need to choose how we’re going to be amid this suffering. An apocalypse is here, whether or not we like it. So how are we going to relate to this apocalypse? Are we going to resist it and fight against it and sink into despair, or are we going to seek and welcome what it wants to reveal to us?
Many of you are familiar with the Sufi poet and mystic, Rumi. His beautiful and powerful poem “The Guest House” offers one approach to our apocalypse.
“This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.”
Reverend Sonya Reichel
