Monday, October 12

Today’s Readings: Job 26:1-14; Revelation 7:9-17; Psalm 39

Yesterday, during our worship service we celebrated the fact that our congregation has embraced an identity as a Just Peace church. This designation – used for UCC churches – celebrates the fact that our faith community has embraced peace as one of its core values. It also means that we make every effort to leave behind imagery that smacks of militarism and triumphalism. Given that those issues are fresh in my mind, I have to admit that I struggled mightily with today’s reading from Revelation. I suppose that’s because I’m use to reading those words against a triumphalist backdrop (“I was right and you were wrong”) based on the ways those words were laid out for me in the past. I was use to assuming that gathered crowd before the “Throne and Lamb” represented a victory for a particular theological community. As I sat with those words today, however, I began to experience them in new ways. I began to pay more attention to the universalistic tone (“everyone was there – all nations, all races and languages”). I also noticed the language of healing and comfort (“no more hunger, no more thirst, no more scorching heat”) that practically jumped off the page. All of this happened because I took one set of lens I had (the triumphant, militaristic) and replaced them with another. Perhaps there is an area in your own life where you have gotten use to seeing through one particular lens – an area where you too might benefit from re-examining through another set. If so, I would encourage you to do that today. Who knows what new level of reality might reveal itself: if only you open yourself to it. Til next time…