THE RAPTURE IS CRAZY TALK
Mark 13; II Thessalonians 2:1-17; I Thessalonians 4:16-17
The governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu said, “Fix crazy first and deal with policy next.” Some years ago, Glen Scherer wrote an article “The Godly Must Be Crazy.” I agree with Sununu and Scherer. Christians need to fix crazy. Some of this ought to be easy. It is crazy for televangelists and evangelical preachers to keep claiming that the apocalyptic texts like the one in Mark today are about the end of the world. Jesus says, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and, “The time is near!” Do not go after them.” Jesus says that tough times give us a chance to testify. Testify not spread conspiracy theories. “Can I get a witness?” Jesus also flatly says no one knows when the end will be. Jesus says he doesn’t know when the end will be. “Drop the mic!”
Yet almost all Americans are obsessed with the apocalyptic genre. Historian Paul Boyer said, “A kind of secular apocalyptic sensibility pervades much contemporary writing about our current world. Many books about environmental dangers, whether it be the ozone layer, or global warming or pollution of the air or water, or population explosion, are cast in an apocalyptic mold.” The scientists, the secularists, the televangelists, and the evangelical preachers have all gone apocalyptic.
In 2 Thessalonians, Paul addresses a church gone crazy over when Jesus was coming back. Men had quit their jobs and were waiting for the Lord. This is why Paul said, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.” This wasn’t incipient conservative opposition to welfare. This was common sense.
The rapture is a conspiracy theory. It is a fictional scenario. It belongs with the other notions being peddled by Christian nationalists – a literal six-day creation and America was born as a Christian nation. Not true! Not true!
Well, you know what has my attention? I’m concerned about how many people are hurting in our world. I’m concerned about persons not about doctrines, persons not issues.
Here’s a specific concern: I am concerned at how many farmers in the Midwest are committing suicide.
Let me offer you just one example – Chris had been despondent over the couple’s finances, crippled by surplus grain he couldn’t sell because of the trade war and flooded fields.
“I’m struggling so bad today. I don’t know what to do anymore,” he texted on May 31. “I seriously don’t know how we are gonna make it.”
On June 1: “I just want to sit in the house and cry.”
And then: “What am I supposed to do. I am failing and feel like I’m gonna lose everything I’ve worked for the past how many years.”
Then Chris shot himself through the heart with a deer rifle. Do you suppose that we could work to salvage the people who are being devastated?
That’s what I want from church. How we can minister to people who are depressed, alone, hurt, left out, poor, devastated. The gospel is about people; it is not about getting in church buildings and arguing until we are blue in the face over cultural issues. The gospel isn’t about “poisoning the blood,” but lives in the soil, in the blood, sweat and tears of every human being and if we are not there getting our hands dirty to help, then we are not a gospel people. When the working men of this nation, in the late 19th century didn’t have a living wage, the churches came to their aid. The churches did that.
The evangelical movement once had a social agenda of women’s rights, working people’s wages, feeding the hungry, caring for the poor. Now evangelicals have morphed into angry anti-abortion, anti-science, anti-intellectuals. They are fighting against gay rights. They are obsessed with transgenders and public restrooms. They are “pining” for a rapture to take them away from all the problems because they are not willing to find solutions.
The rapture is AN ESCAPE PLAN, A GET OFF THE PLANET FREE CARD, THE GOLDEN PARACHUTE FOR CHRISTIANS.
I believe Paul would be shocked to discover that his words have been used to create a rapture scene. That is not what he says. He says the opposite. “As to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we beg you, brothers and sisters, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as though from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord is already here.”
One of my favorite novelists experienced the awful trauma of his six-year-old boy drowning. After the funeral, he told his uncle, “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” His uncle said, “Do the next thing.” That’s better theology than rapture theology. We have all this human need. What are we going to do here and now?
I make this assertion in the face of 80,000,000 Americans who believe in the rapture. Here’s a summary of the thesis of this set of beliefs: There will be a literal “rapture” in which believers will be snatched up to heaven, leaving empty cars crashing on freeways and kids coming home from school only to find that their parents have been taken to be with Jesus while they have been “left behind.” My favorite bumper sticker: IN CASE OF RAPTURE, I GOT DIBS ON YOUR MERCEDES!
The word “rapture” never appears in the Bible. The idea comes from I Thessalonians 4:16-17: “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God. The dead in Christ will rise first; then we, who are left alive, will be snatched up with them on clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). The key phrase is “snatched up with them.” That little phrase has caused all this havoc. God is not a snatcher.
At Jesus’ “coming” or “appearing,” those who are still alive will be “changed” or “transformed” so that their mortal bodies will become incorruptible, deathless. Symbolic language, rich metaphors not literal words are used. Look at the verse that opens this paragraph: “But we do not want you to be uninformed about those who have died so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” Paul is talking about resurrection.
You might want to challenge me here on the basis of Matthew 24:40 where Jesus says, “Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.” On the face of this verse, it sounds like being “snatched up” doesn’t it? Isn’t that the rapture? No. Jesus is referring to a band of marauders sweeping down on a village, in a surprise attack, and as people run for the village walls, some are taken captive. There’s nothing here of a rapture into the sky.
Maybe you will challenge me on Paul’s image of the people “meeting the Lord in the air.” This is an image of the people meeting the Lord outside the city and immediately turning around and leading the Lord back to the newly remade world. Jesus is not trying to help us escape. We have drugs and entertainment for that. He trying to enlist us in working to salvage the planet for goodness. Paul is saying that God will create a new earth, not take his people and leave this world to its own destruction.
What’s even more dangerous than believing in the rapture? Being a climate denier. Let me help you at this point. Rapture believers are often climate deniers. Rapture believers and climate deniers live in a fantasy world of illusion. This is why they are so dangerous.
Rapture believers endanger Israel, Palestine, and the world because they want foreign policy to lead to a world-destroying war. And Rev. Mike Huckabee, a self-proclaimed “Zionist,” has been nominated as our ambassador to Israel. He is a rapture believer. His very presence in Israel will increase the war tensions in the Middle East. Rapture beliefs should not impact American foreign policy.
Climate deniers claim freedom from the truth that global warming is the most dangerous event bearing down on our planet. Global warming puts humans on the endangered species list.
Here’s the scary part. Donald Trump is the most powerful politician in the USA; and he is a climate denier. “Dangerous climate change is a white swan: it will destroy us, unless we intervene to stop it. It is utterly reckless to play politics with the future of humanity the way he is doing.
Rapture belief and climate denials are escapes from reality. They are a denial of truth. Jesus isn’t preparing a “golden parachute” or a “snatch me up plan”. He calls us to take responsibility for our planet.
We need to be about the business of caring for the earth. We need to care for the land the way good farmers care for their land so they can hand it down across the generations as fertile, productive soil that can keep feeding the world. Good stewards are at work figuring out how to make a better world here and now. We are responsible. It is time for the adults to accept responsibility.
May the Lord help us to concentrate on Jesus, the gospel, and its proclamation. May the Lord save us from man-created false doctrines and keep us faithful to our tasks – a people saved by grace in order to do good works. Amen.