Plaint and Praise

Egg by Elizabeth Brown; photograph (c) Katherine Brown

And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those slaughtered because of the word of God and because of the witness which they had. And they cried out in a great voice saying, “Until when, O Master, holy and true, do you not judge and vindicate our blood on the ones dwelling upon the earth?” And it was given to them each a white robe, and it was said to them that they would rest yet a little time until they would be fulfilled also their fellow-servants and their brothers the ones who were about to be killed as even they.

Rev. 6:9-11 (my translation; NRSV linked)

The lectionary text is Rev. 7:9-17, but I’m sitting with 6:9-11. I’m cheating on the lectionary because there is something in me that wants to protest with the souls under the altar and is not yet ready to skip ahead to praise. Besides, notes from Rev. 6 resonate in Rev. 7: white robes (6:11; 7:9, 14), slaughter and tribulation (6:9; 7:14), a great-voiced cry (6:10; 7:9-10). In Rev. 7, the multitude cry praise; in Rev. 6, the souls cry plaint. The protest comes first. The text itself requires it. The fifth seal must be opened (6:9) before the sixth (6:12).

The first four seals have called out four horses, white and red and black and pale green, and death rides the pale green horse (6:1-8). No additional rider nor convulsion of earth or sky occurs when the fifth seal is opened. Instead, the opening discloses something that seems to be ongoing, ‘tas psuchas’ are already underneath the altar. Psuchē, here translated ‘soul,’ is a term that suggests life and animate existence. Yet these psuchēs have been ‘slaughtered’ for the ‘word of God’ and ‘witness they had’ (6:9)

What ‘witness’ did they have? What does it have to do with the arc of the action: the insistent demand, the reported response? And why is ‘witness’ — of all of the details in this tight-packed pericope — the note that calls me, when I had been so sure ‘protest’ was the summoning tone?

Witness is a significant motif throughout Revelation, as noun and as verb, ‘testimony’ and ‘testify.’ John declares he ‘witnessed to the word of God and the witness of Jesus (1:2). This word and witness is the reason John is on Patmos (1:9), though it’s unclear whether John is there because of John’s witness to Jesus or the faithful witness (1:5) Jesus’ own witness. It’s unclear whether the souls were slaughtered because they witnessed to Jesus or because they held Jesus’ faithful witness. Maybe these two possibilities are the same, a holding fast to the one who is ‘holy and true’ (6:10) with such sublime assurance of that one’s faithfulness that great protest can be cried. ‘Until when…!’ The souls have suffered the gulf between earth’s justice and the Lord’s, yet they have glimpsed God’s reign and cannot un-see it nor refrain from saying what they have seen. They cry out for vindication as if vindication of them is vindication of God. God’s faithfulness can be demanded because God is faithful.

‘Until when!’ It’s not a request for information but an insistence on response. Response is given: a white robe and the instruction to ‘rest yet a little time,’ an implicit promise not only of nearness but of purpose in the reference to unnumbered others still to be ‘fulfilled.’ That word resonates with implications of an expectation satisfied, an end accomplished. The one called ‘holy and true’ is also ‘faithful witness,’ seeing and hearing the souls whose witness led to their slaughter, and insisting on response, insisting in response that fulfillment is near. And it comes — at least in part — through the tenacity of this mutual witness work.

I came to this text identifying with protest because I am tired. Each hopeful turn in time seems uncurled by the next day’s news. I came to this text identifying with protest because protest seems the dominant note in every day’s news — yet protest defined in bullhorn-blared absolutes that brook no dissent on either side. I know the exact same urge to cry out. I need another model of demand. I came to this text identifying with protest, and I leave the text carrying its insistence on identity in relationship, reiterated cry and reply. Faithful witness as protest that speaks to the other in expectation of answer; faithful witness as heeding protest and giving reply (the white robe, the promise words); faithful witness as protest that receives that response and moves forward through it towards an end, holy and true.

I witness to God’s righteousness not by blaring it trumpet-loud at another but by living it with another. In discussion and dialogue and, yes, argument, so long as it’s argument with, not at. I witness to God’s righteousness by living it in relationship with God’s word and with my neighbors’ words, a conversation that calls all of us to account for how we occupy the spaces in-between and how we acknowledge all the in-between-ness of our inherently partial discernment of God’s absolute being.

I witness to God’s righteousness as I navigate the present gap between word and world in the way of the faithful witness, who was dead and is alive: seeing and hearing and knowing this world, suffering its brokenness, loving it dearly, speaking and working to lift it toward life.
‘Until when, O Master, holy and true…?

The Tribulation and the Kingdom

Easter Egg and Photo (c) Katherine Brown

‘John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.’

verses 4-7 from Revelation 1

Easter has come. For the first time in two years, we celebrated it in church, physically together. The chancel was decked with flowers and a butterfly banner made by the Sunday School. The organ peeled. Voices rose in song. Hallelujahs returned to the sanctuary as the pastor proclaimed ‘Christ is risen!’ and the people replied ‘He is risen indeed!’

Easter has come. In the US there were multiple mass shootings that very weekend, more since. War between Russia and Ukraine continues, with horrific news of destruction and death and atrocities beyond those considered ‘appropriate’ in a theater of war. COVID rates are rising again, even as assessments of risk and response continue to divide the nation, along with judgments regarding race, sexuality, January 6, and too much else.

Easter has come. Christ is risen. What has changed?

Everything, says the book of Revelation. Do we trust its testimony?

The book is written by John, a record of what he saw when he was on the island called Patmos ‘in the spirit on the Lord’s day’ [1:9-11]. The revelation, though, is not his own. The revelation, the apocalypse, the uncovering, is ‘of Jesus Christ’ [1:1]. John’s written vision is challenging to read. Its imagery is bizarre, difficult to picture — starting with a flame-eyed, bronze-footed, sword-mouthed, torrent-voiced Son of Man [1:14-16]. In places it is unpalatably violent. (The lectionary skips these, as if the imagery is beyond that considered ‘appropriate’ in a theater of worship.) Yet this vision is written to send, to be read aloud [1:3, 11, 19].

‘John to the seven churches ….’ [1:1] Seven for completeness; seven including even us, as stuck in the middle now as they were then. A community come into being because Easter has come and been proclaimed, yet living still in a world of division and suffering and violence.

I’ve studied Revelation before. Its awareness of its own writtenness connects with other texts similarly struck. I came to Revelation this week assuming that note would again sing loudest in my hearing yet trying to will my mind to allow another note to sound. (My pre-reading prayer as hedged about with qualifications as John’s own visionary descriptions: one ‘like’ this, a thing ‘like’ that.). I floundered. Nor am I over with that work — floundering still! Yet on the umpteenth time of reading aloud, I was caught by an unexpected interplay. As I pronounced John’s self-introduction, I heard in my head a different rhythm. John proclaims himself one who shares ‘the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance’ [1:9]. I heard ‘the kingdom and the power and the glory,’ then recalled my mind to my own voice and read aloud and listened again.

‘The persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance.’ Three nouns in the Greek. ‘The tribulation and reign and steadfastness.’

The kingdom as God’s reign come near [Mark 1:14-15], as God’s will come here, on earth as in heaven [Matt 6:9-10] — that is familiar. Yet the other two seem slant to John’s earlier doxology [1:5-6], a Looking-Glass version of the Lord’s Prayer as we commonly recite it. Kingdom not as preface to power but conjoined with persecution and endurance, suffering and steadfastness.

How does ‘kingdom’ look in this unexpected frame? What are we missing if we twine ‘kingdom’ only ever with glory and overlook this tribulation named in the word, the brokenness known in the world? What if, instead, we follow John’s cue and claim identity in a different share, identity in sharing? Your hurt becomes my ache. Injury done to them is done to us. The work of resurrection becomes ever more urgent; our endurance in it ever more pressing, and, through Easter, ever more possible.

Easter does not contradict the cross. Christ died. Easter overcomes it. Christ is risen.

Easter does not contradict the world’s brokenness nor shy away from the reality of suffering. Easter overcomes it. So the world’s brokenness does not itself contradict Easter but may become the stage on which our suffering and endurance testify to resurrection in our witness of shared tribulation and steadfast hope.

We are a kingdom, priests to God; God’s is the glory and the power [1:6], the sustaining through which Christ’s faithful witness [1:5] becomes our own, a testimony which is trustworthy because it does not pretend the world is whole, transforming as it persists through us towards the world’s healing.

Easter changes everything. May our witness be true.

The Same Kinds of Suffering

face-masks by Paul Brown; photo (c) Katherine Brown

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.

1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11; lectionary epistle for Sunday May 24, 2020

It was years ago, now, that I was riding home on the Metro one winter evening, lost and alone in my own bad news, trapped behind a glass wall of grief. The train driver told a joke, and the mouth of the man opposite twitched in appreciation, and the movement caught my eye, and my gaze his, but I did not smile, only looked through him for a minute till we both turned away. If I had smiled, I think he would have smiled back. He would have been a sort of brother. I would have felt glad of the connection. Instead I sat there in my own unhappiness, in the Metro car with strangers. I had the wit to recognize the tension but not the will to break through the wall.

1 Peter’s word hits hard against that glass wall, reminds us that while our griefs may be profoundly unique, there is a unity in suffering. We confuse the two, I realize, grief and suffering. As, perhaps, we confuse gladness in all its wildly various forms with its common wellspring of joy. Grief does constrain and imprison us … unless, until, we are drawn to see past our own particulars to the underlying unity.

‘Your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering,’ Peter reminds us. ‘All the world’? The phrase hits close in this time of pandemic. The losses mount. Too often they are set against each other. Save lives but kill the economy. Individual liberty opposes community welfare. I learn of a death, ‘non-COVID caused,’ and I wonder at the need to distinguish it for those of us without epidemiological responsibilities. Is this death somehow separate from the others? Is there therefore less pain? or more?

Peter writes not only ‘all the world’ but also ‘the same kinds of suffering.’ As if all these pains should not be treated as distinct and opposing. As if to distinguish my distress from yours is to miss the gospel promise. ‘Do not be surprised,’ Peter admonishes, ‘as though something strange were happening.’ Yes, the particular suffering Peter describes comes of calling on the name of Christ within an empire that acclaims Caesar. But the ground of Peter’s claim of Christ is that Christ participated fully in humanity, ‘suffered in the flesh’ (1 Peter 4:1). This is the sameness that underlies our suffering. Tap into this wellspring that connects our suffering with God’s own, and the suffering we experience in our flesh becomes what Peter describes: suffering with and for Christ — so that we ‘may also be glad and shout for joy’ in Christ (1 Peter 4:13).

It feels premature even to imagine being glad and shouting for joy. This pandemic continues to unfold, and the shape of its process remains murky. So many losses already — lives, jobs, plans. We cannot even know how many more losses we will suffer. But the very universality of this virus invites a recognition that suffering is not a matter of various kinds but of ‘the same kind.’ It can connect us or, more accurately, reveals what has always been true: we are all connected. Maybe reading 1 Peter can rewrite our experience of pandemic; or perhaps the current context of global convulsion may allow us to read 1 Peter anew and suddenly, shockingly, plain.

I imagine myself again on the Metro. Looking across at the stranger whose mouth had just twitched. He, too, must know grief and uncertainty and loss and pain. Each one of us might have true cause to feel ourselves kept separate by the glass walls of our individual experience, rightly divided by the unique peculiarities of our distinct distresses. Yet together we are — all of us — on the same side of the wall, the side to which Christ in flesh came, on which Christ in flesh suffered.

I am not alone behind a wall but together with brothers and sisters in all the world. Nor are we — together, in our same kinds of suffering — alone behind a wall. God has reached across the wall to ‘himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish’ us. Let us, then, work to restore, support, strengthen and establish each other.

Beloved, do not be surprised. Be sustained in unity with Christ.

Held in Mind

For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly.

1Peter 2:19; excerpt from 1 Peter 2:19-25, lectionary epistle for May 3, 2020

I have come again to the text seeking a word that will feed. My first thought on seeing this week’s reading is, ‘Well, crap.’ I feel let down by the lectionary commendation of ‘unjust’ suffering, the suffering the righteous endure but do not deserve, distinct from any proper punishment for wrongdoing. ‘If you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval,’ the text reads. This text has been used abusively in the past — it comes just after an instruction for slaves to obey their masters — and when I read it I recoil, as if the words have struck an unhealed bruise. I could spend this week in another reading. This discipline I’ve chosen is as artificial as the lectionary itself. It feels like a cheat, though, to just throw this text aside. Set myself to it. Maybe there is in it a word for this time, a word for me. Certainly, there’s suffering enough in this time. Read it again, weighing every phrase.

‘Being aware of God.’ The hook catches my heart, tightens the cord between me and the words until the line is taut and tugs the text just slightly slant. Read at this angle, the word does not recommend but assumes suffering. The point of the passage is not to seek and embrace suffering but — through it all — to seek and embrace God, to reframe the experience of suffering not as a barrier to God but as a possible means of connection. The passage is an exhortation of how to bear suffering: ‘being aware of God,’ who suffered in Christ, whose example and experience of suffering as redemptive and freeing means that we needn’t suffer in isolation (no matter how physically distant) but ‘being aware of God.’

I read the text again before bed, go to sleep pondering this possibility. I dream in cycles, rise towards wakefulness, to the phrase ‘being aware of God’ then sink again into dreaming sleep, surfacing again to the words ‘being aware of God,’ as if that phrase was the tether that kept drawing me up. Was I aware of God? I was aware of the idea of being aware. Is that itself the point? Even so, a lingering unease. The text speaks of ‘credit’ — as if right suffering accrues points on a heavenly ledger, earns God’s ‘approval.’ But what when one cannot be aware even of being aware? What when one cannot even recite the phrase? What credit then? How can the account be balanced, but by grace?

Grace is present in the passage — literally: ‘grace’ — charis — is the third word in the Greek. I’ve pulled out my Greek testament, and that word, at least, I know at sight. My wondering quickens. Grace, charis, is the bracketing concept: ‘for this is grace,’ 2:19 begins — not ‘credit,’ not divine regard earned but ‘grace’ experienced; and 2:20 ends: ‘if doing good and suffering, you endure, this is grace with God.’ At this point, I’m reading the testament with the lexicon, checking every word; my mind alert, my heart urgent. ‘For this is grace’ the text reads, ‘if through the consciousness of God endures …’ The Greek behind the NRSV’s ‘being aware of God’ is this: the consciousness or mindfulness of God.

So: what is the ‘consciousness of God’? Is it my consciousness of God or God’s consciousness of me? I don’t see any grammatical cue that dictates a reading. I check several translations and they all suggest that it’s my (or ‘your’) awareness of God at issue in the phrase, not the other way round, that my mindfulness (‘being aware’) colors my experience. That fits with the overall flow, the fact that Peter is addressing a plural ‘you’ that is suffering, a ‘you’ that needs to be reminded to endure in the hope — the expectation — of Christ. I know my Greek is poor; I should defer to the translations which represent the considered judgment of committees of experts. But this other possibility will not let me go. I am caught by the reading’s promise that grace is not primarily our consciousness of God but God’s consciousness of us; that God holds us in God’s loving thought even when we are caught and carapaced, trapped in the amber of our own suffering; that when we cannot be conscious of God, still God remains conscious of us. Grace raises us again and again towards waking. We come up from the deep of sleep towards the surface of awareness, re-minded and re-minding ourselves towards consciousness of God.

‘Being aware of God.’ It is through the consciousness of God that I have consciousness of God. Mind calls to mind. Love summons love. Reaching to hold, I realize I am already held.