Demystifying the Bible:
The Healing Leaves of the Tree of Life for a World on the Brink of Disaster

Third Sunday in Lent • March 15, 2020
Reading: Revelation 22:1-5 (N.R.S.V.)
Amy Meverden, M.Div, Ph.D, guest preacher

It feels as if our world is on the brink of disaster. We walk the streets surrounded by people in face masks and gloves. We ride the buses and trains leery of the strangers breathing the same air as us, protective of our own bodies, and shooting death glares at anyone who so much as clears their throat in our general direction! We go to the store and whole aisles have been emptied of the necessities many of us take for granted, such as toilet paper, rice, and peanut butter. And if there’s no nut butter at Trader Joe’s—the store that has every type of nut, in every desirable form of butter, be it creamy, crunchy, salted, unsalted, keto, vegan, kosher, gluten-free—my friends, it’s officially a crisis! The Coronavirus has descended upon New York City, and the stress—the looming, unknown nature—of this pandemic has settled into our bodies and we carry this weight around with us as we are glued to the news, watching our world slowly but surely lock down. At the very time when we might wish to seek out our communities of comfort, we are told to keep social distance. Those of us in this room today put ourselves at risk, getting on the train, the bus, walking down the street to gather with others to worship, and just being in this room might be a cause of anxiety. Those of us watching from home might be experiencing social isolation due to quarantine, or even fighting the Coronavirus, and to our friends participating in this service with us virtually, we feel your presence with us today and we wish you continued health and speedy recoveries.

At these uncertain times, we tend to turn to the “high-carb, comfort-food, eat-that-entire-pint-of-Ben-and-Jerry’s ice cream” texts of the Bible such as those inspirational writings from the Psalms and Proverbs that describe God as our rescuer and comforter. We turn to the healing texts of Jesus in the Gospels where miracles abound, the hungry are fed, and children are welcomed with open arms. We turn to the writings of Acts and the epistles, where Christ assemblies share all things in common and take on radical ways of enacting the gospel message through community. So, this might sound a bit odd, but today we will lay these texts aside and draw hope from one of the scariest books of the entire Bible—the book that continues to fuel modern-day anxieties about the ever-looming apocalypse and the end of the world as we know it: the book of Revelation. I want to challenge the notion that the book of Revelation is purely a “text of terror” and make the argument that when we learn how to read Revelation in its ancient context, this book has the power to serve as a crucial wake-up call and the message of hope we so desperately seek. Many people aren’t aware that the book of Revelation opens and closes with the image of the Tree of Life from Genesis: an anti-imperial symbol of community and open access, of feeding and healing—a symbol of abiding hope amid looming disaster.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I grew up in a conservative Baptist church, where the book of Revelation was taught to me as a literal account of things to come. As a child growing up in California, every earthquake, every forest fire, every outburst of warfare, every health epidemic, was a sign that Jesus was coming back at any moment and scary things were about to erupt all around me. I lived in constant fear that I wasn’t a good enough Christian and that I would be one of the people “left behind” to face the horrors of the apocalypse alone. Those times when I called out for my family at home and no one answered, I was convinced Jesus had come back, I wasn’t one of the chosen, and because of my abiding childish wickedness, I was left to fend for myself in a world where the beasts of the devil himself would roam. What a truly horrific way to grow up and what a disproportionate focus on a book of the Bible that was never meant to be read in a literal way.

          In ancient times, writers would use the genre of apocalypse to talk about their own context using metaphor, so as not to get into trouble with governing forces. In antiquity, you weren’t allowed to peacefully march the streets with cheeky signs in protest of the government—that and much subtler forms of resistance potentially would have gotten you killed. So, writers used coded language to convey commentary that was critical of the powers in charge, which is where the genre of apocalyptic writings arose. This word apocalypse comes from two Greek words meaning “out from” and “bud,” like the tight bud of a flower that opens up to reveal a beautiful rose—the rose at first is hidden, but later is unveiled and its beauty revealed to all. Similarly, when we read apocalyptic writings such as Revelation, we are reading texts that on the surface can be enigmatic, like a tightly sealed bud of an unknown flower, but with an insider’s understanding, ultimately a powerful message is unveiled. Most crucially, these writings would have meant something to the people in their own context—these aren’t just future predictions, but texts that responded to issues of the time period in which it was written.

         Much like our world today, during the time of the New Testament, the world was in crisis. The Roman Empire burned the city of Jerusalem and its temple to the ground, Mt. Vesuvius erupted throwing fire into the sky and ash that caused parts of the Mediterranean to lose sunlight. People saw the world crumbling around them. In reaction to the events leading up to and following the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman Empire, the book of Revelation is the vision of the testimony of Jesus Christ given to John for the purpose of communicating the ultimate downfall of empire by the Kingdom of God to the Christ communities, who are experiencing persecution on account of their decision not to succumb to imperial practices. John issues letters to seven different churches in Asia Minor that serve as distinct messages to each respective community giving both praises for their good works relating to the practice of the gospel message in their midst and issuing reprimands for their evil works relating to how each community is accommodating to those practices and ideologies of empire not consistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ. The book of Revelation then continues with the story of the war between empire and the Kingdom of God. The book is scary! Warfare and destruction are unleashed upon the earth. Parts of the earth are fully destroyed, people are killed, and power looms large, surveilling the masses, controlling the economy, exploiting natural resources, and killing anyone who does not bow to empire. The storyline uses fantastical creatures such as dragons and beasts to symbolize the corrupt powers of empire.

After the final defeat of empire, John watches as the city of the New Jerusalem is lowered down from heaven. When John looks into the New Jerusalem, he actively searches for and is startled by the decided absence of a temple: an observation that would have struck ancient audiences as significant. In the middle of the city where one would expect to see a grand temple to the god who has just conquered the oppressive grip of empire, one sees instead the throne of God and the slaughtered Lamb, which symbolizes Jesus, and the Tree of Life: symbols overturning imperial notions of victory and economy by promoting freedom from slavery, equality, healing, and shared resources for all of humanity.

         The themes and imagery contained within the book of Revelation relate to both general discussions of corrupt power in line with the Hebrew Bible prophets and the specific context of the early Christ assemblies, including their conflicts with Roman imperial ideologies related to power, domination, and economic exploitation. The corrective to this exploitation is the Tree of Life. When we consider the texts surrounding the Tree of Life and describing its function, we are witnessing a reorganization of both religious practice and society, on the whole. There is a decided de-centering of institutions and the power they hold with a re-centering of indigenous earth wisdom, community, service, and worship that is devoid of warfare, economic disparity, slavery, and ecological exploitation. The Tree of Life dismantles the law of empire that all things can and should be harnessed for economic wealth and world supremacy. The Tree of Life disrupts corrupt economic practices and eliminates slavery by feeding everyone equally—there is no room for economic exploitation and the enslavement of others when everyone has what they need. The Tree of Life offers a variety of fruits and blooms year-round on its own—the tree does not need to be cultivated nor does it run the risk of being over-harvested due to its everlasting qualities. Out of its roots flows the river of the water of life, so there is never famine or drought. The Tree of Life ends warfare and suffering by bringing together the nations with its healing leaves. The Tree of Life is the symbol I want you to remember when you think about the book of Revelation and today as you go back out into the scary world of the unknown—not the beasts, not the terror, but the hope we have in the community of God as we gather around this life-giving, feeding, and healing tree that sustains us during times of looming disaster. May we draw freely and often from the abundance of the Tree of Life.

Benediction:

As we go forth today, may we look to the model of the Tree of Life, solidly planted in the holy city of God, and like that life-giving tree, we feed each other, we heal the wounds of the nations, we call out racial, economic, ecological, and social injustice, and we work together in community to bring the healing hope of the gospel down from heaven to a world on the brink of disaster. May we go forth in continued health and may we be sustained by the community of God that draws its resources from the nourishing fruits and healing leaves of the Tree of Life. Amen.

Copyright © 2020 by Amy Meverden
All rights reserved.

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