C Revelation/Reformation 2019 BFC
Reformation 6
October 27, 2019
2:00
minute mark to 3:46 minute mark of podcast, “Omnicidal Tendencies: The Nuclear Presidency of Donald Trump,” The
Intercepted. https://theintercept.com/2019/10/23/omnicidal-tendencies-the-nuclear-presidency-of-donald-trump/
We have this breaking news out of north eastern Russia.
Seven Catholic peace activists cut a fence on the outskirts of Russia’s feared
Northern Fleet base, which houses some of the most powerful nuclear weapons
systems in Vladimir Putin’s arsenal. They hammered on a statue celebrating the
power of Russia’s nuclear force and poured their own blood on the doors to one
of the command buildings. They waited on the base until they were discovered by
Russian military police who took them into custody.
In a statement released by supporters of the group, seven
activists described their motivation: “We come to the base of Russia’s Northern
Fleet to answer the call of the prophet Isaiah to ‘beat swords into plowshares’
by disarming the world’s deadliest nuclear weapons. We resist militarism that
has employed deadly violence to enforce global domination.” The statement
concluded: “This weapons system is a cocked gun being held to the head of the
planet.”
Vladimir Putin’s government has responded by arresting the
seven activists and they now face a slew of charges that could result in their
imprisonment for decades. Among the activists is an 80-year-old mother of three
and grandmother of six. Supporters of the activists say that they understood
the risks they were taking in this action and said that the fact that they were
able to make it onto this nuclear base is clear evidence that these weapons
systems are not secure and pose an imminent threat to humanity.
In the U.S., several leading Democratic politicians
praised the bravery of the activists and called for their release, saying that
their protest has unmasked the danger of Vladimir Putin’s control of the
massive nuclear arsenal….
In the
Apocalyptic Vision Bible study we are doing on Thursday nights, we learned that
one of the warning signs for the dangerous use of apocalyptic literature is
when one uses the material to ignore the warts of your own religious faith
while magnifying all the sinfulness and evil of someone else’s faith. At a time when our religious faith is so
based in overt nationalism, we might also make that argument for other
countries and their leaders. Beware the
citizens who are unable and unwilling to be held accountable for their own
flaws while magnifying the warts, sinfulness, flaws, and evil of another
country.
The audio for this radio broadcast you heard is based in
fact. But this incident did not occur in
Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
This
protest was carried out on April 4, 2018 at a U.S. nuclear submarine base in
St. Marys, Georgia by seven activists calling themselves the Kings Bay
Plowshares 7. The Kings Bay nuclear arsenal houses nuclear armed submarines
equipped with two dozen ballistic Trident D-5 missiles. Each of those missiles
has roughly 30 times the explosive force of the nuclear bomb that the United
States dropped on Hiroshima at the end of World War II.
The
activists were able to cut a fence and enter the base completely undetected.
They staged a demonstration. They used household hammers to deface a monument
to the Trident weapons system. They also poured their own blood and placed a
banner on the base that read: The Ultimate Logic of Trident is Omnicide.
According to the activists, they also managed to make it undetected to three
different sites on this nuclear base, including a nuclear weapons storage
bunker. They displayed crime scene tape and delivered an indictment charging
the U.S. government for crimes against peace.[1]
Several of the defendants were held in jail for a year and a half as they
awaited trial. They included Jesuit
priest, Steve Kelley and legendary peace activist, 80 year-old mother and
grandmother, Liz McAlister. She could
end up spending the rest of her life in prison for breaking the law. She said, “If the world is obliterated by
these weapons, it will be perfectly legal. What does that say about the law?
When do we say no?”[2]
When do we say no? Our country’s foreign policy is being shaped
by apocalyptic literature, particularly our policy in the Middle East and
Israel. Some evangelical Christian
leaders seem to be supporting and proposing an almost gleeful, violent joy ride
against people of Muslim faith, then moving on to do violence against people of
Jewish faith, to advance what many believe to be the plan and purpose of the
book of Revelation. In advancing what is
believed to be the prophesied plans of a violent God, we seek to do the most
horrendous things, create a cocked gun that is being held at the head of the
planet.
Tracy always makes fun of
me because she sees my ardor and says, “You think that one more sermon is going
to save the world, don’t you?” Yes, it’s
true. I get caught up in it, knowing on
my better days that my sermons mean so little in the scheme of things. So little.
But what I hope you have heard Lisa and I preaching over these last few
weeks is that we believe in you. We
believe in you. We believe in what a
people with a critical, discerning faith, people with an other-hearted faith,
people who are willing to come out of the domesticated violence of Babylon to
say, “No! No more! I will not allow my church, my community, my
faith to domesticate and soften the violence we do.” As Christians, and people of a Biblical
tradition, we are called to name evil.
And we are in a country right now with a leader who is so self-absorbed
that he might just push the button to absolve himself of any wrong-doing.”
We must beware of the polarization and the easy “us” and
“them” narrative that the book of Revelation offers. But we also must be aware of the
counter-cultural narrative it offers which, upon closer examination, takes
imperial language and flips it on its head.
In Revelation, the Christ who conquers is the Lamb who has violence done
to him and is coupled with the Jewish understanding of the paschal lamb slain
to bring liberation to an entire people in the Exodus story. The blood spilled in Revelation is the Lamb
and the faithful witnesses who were willing to step forward to confront the
Domination System. The weapon wielded by
Christ and his army is a two-edged sword coming from his mouth which represents
that the faithful are called to witness and testify in vocal and bold ways to
God’s alternative purposes to imperial violence. And the people who witness and testify? According to Revelation, Chapter 7, they come
as “a great multitude that no one could
number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,
standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”[3]
In contrast to those who
believe they will be part of the select
few to be raptured into another realm, John’s vision is of those, from all over
the world, who speak boldly and courageously against the everyday violence. John’s letter is a broad and inclusive vision
of a non-violent people of a non-violent God who have the tools, in hammers and
plowshares, their own courageous witness and testimony, to bring about
transformation.
John of Patmos knows
that Rome has mythically communicated to subject peoples that it is
all-powerful and everlasting. So the
vision John of Patmos shares with the faithful, the vision read for us today,
reaches back to a vision shared by the prophet Ezekiel during the Babylonian
Exile and forward to a time when the devastated and traumatized Jerusalem
shines, gleams, with God’s presence.
Sustaining all of life is a river which runs from the throne of God and
the Lamb, coursing its way through the city.
The vision is in keeping
with Native storytelling which knows that water is not only life but water is
our first medicine. That saying comes
from the truth telling among the Lakota, the name given to the Black Hills
which also is the name for “uterus,” reminding us that we were all born in
water. Water is the beginning of life.[4] Water is the signpost of shalom, the absence
of violence. When the water is crystal clear it provides for the trees whose
leaves are medicine for the healing of the nation. The water also provides for the trees to bear
fruit in due season. When the river that
runs through the city is right and good, all is right and good for not only the
citizens of the city but all of the flora and fauna—not only at Standing Rock
but in Syria, in Flint, and in Billings, Montana. When all is not well with mother water, all
is not well with the people.
So as the effects of
climate change begin to take hold in Billings, Montana, and beyond, as the
faithful people to whom John writes to in this day, we will be charged with the
care of the Yellowstone River. It is our
mother, a canary that will tell us when the coal mine has become so much of a
focus that we destroy our relationship with the river and show that we are not
in relationship to Creator. We are to
witness and testify whenever its water is not crystal clear. For the origins of the water that moves
through our city flow from the throne of God and the Lamb. We must remember the courage of the Kingsbay
Plowshares 7 and 80 year-olds like Liz McAllister so that our critical minds
and other-centered hearts do not become clouded by imperial rhetoric.
Violence to our mother
river has become so domesticated that we have too often become collaborators in
the certain destruction of our own lives.
As people of faith, we are called to a grander vision, one rooted in our
ancient story and Native wisdom. May we
be faithful. Amen.
[1]
Jeremy Scahill,, “Omnicidal Tendencies:
The Nuclear Presidency of Donald Trump,” The Intercepted. https://theintercept.com/2019/10/23/omnicidal-tendencies-the-nuclear-presidency-of-donald-trump/
[2]
Ibid.
[3]
Harry O. Maier, “The War
of the Lamb,” Peace and War:
Christian Reflection Series (Waco, TX: Baylor University, 2004).
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