Welcome to the CommonsCast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information.

In our upside down apocalypse series, I preached the four riders of the apocalypse sermon a few weeks ago. And today, I'm preaching the beast's sermon to revelation winners in my humble opinion. And to catch us up a bit, Jeremy walked us through the trumpets in Revelation eight, nine, and 11 and this itty bitty scroll in Revelation 10. Seven angels sound these trumpets of doom and toot toot toot. I'm sure that's how it sounded in the apocalypse.

Toot toot toot outrules one horrific scene after another. Hail and fire mixed with blood fall from the sky. A mountain lit on fire is flung into the sea. A great star like a torch crashes and turns rivers to bitter waters. The sun goes dark.

Smoke from the abyss darkens the earth while scorpion like locusts attack earth's inhabitant inhabitants. Angels of death are released to kill, kill, kill. And now you're asking, this nightmare is in the bible? But along comes John with his prophetic apocalyptic swagger to remind us, yeah. Yeah, but Yeah, this is in the bible, but it's there to show you the revenge that you dream of, the harm that you wish on your enemy, the schemes of an eye for an eye aren't what God wants for you.

A mighty angel tells John to eat a tiny scroll, which makes his tummy upset as if to say, when you imagine justice that looks like terror, it might taste sweet for a second, but it will make you sick instead. Last week, Scott walked us through the dragon of Revelation 12. Now Scott didn't do his best dragon roar on stage, but he may or may not have roared at me at the office this last week when we were talking about dragons and beasts. And by may or may not have, of course, I mean, he did roar. There is so much to love about Scott's sermon, my favorite being this assertion that we already believe in dragons as a form of what terrifies us.

So it is not a stretch for John to use this trope with his people. The blend of Hebrew Bible and Greco Roman myth, John puts to work this cosmic dragon that stands for every destructive system we know too well. And so John says, let's make meaning of this dragon through the only way to actually defeat dragons. Not Scott Wall's roar on a Tuesday afternoon at the office, but through the way Jesus gave his life and the way Jesus' people give their lives to bring more good and more grace into the world. Now we are not done with all of this dragon energy today.

We are paid a visit by the dragon's emissaries as the third cycle of revelation continues. But before we meet the beasts, let us pray. Loving God, we take a moment to settle in and to focus on life as it is unfolding. The good and the bad that we hold, the happy and the sad, the things that we can control and the things we absolutely cannot. And as we just stay in this moment, we notice the ways our bodies remind us that we're alive, our hearts beating, our breath moving in and out, the sensation of our connection to the world in chairs, in pews, our feet on the ground.

And we know, we know that life can be ferocious, but still we find some calm in this present moment. Jesus, ground us in the here and now. Speak spirit to us through the word of God in scripture and the word of God among us and the word of God within us. Thanks be to God. Amen.

So today, we pick up the story of the beasts of revelation spending our time in chapters thirteen and seventeen. We will talk about beasts, the mark, woman of Babylon, and preview of evil's defeat. So let's dive into John's revelation fantasy in chapter 13, the beast of the sea. The dragon, Scott's dragon from last week, stood on the shore of the sea, and I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had 10 horns and seven heads with 10 crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name.

Now John says the beast resembles a leopard with the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion. It gets its power from the dragon. But that's not all. One of the beast's seven heads has a fatal wound, but it looks like the wound has healed. And the whole world is in awe of this beast, even as it spews lies and uses power to wage war against God's people.

And if that's not enough, next we spot a second beast, the beast of the earth. Then I saw a second beast coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. This creepy creature has all kinds of authority. It makes people worship the first beast, the one with the fatal wound, and the second beast lives to deceive.

The strange details behind John's symbolic beasts are not meant to push you away. They're meant to engage you. He gives puzzles to puzzle over as if we get more out of faith when it doesn't come so easy. John borrows from the Hebrew prophetic tradition and imagines how old symbols work to help us see the world. The beast of the sea is a composite of the four beasts that come out of the sea in Daniel seven to represent four empires that brutalize the Hebrew people, the Babylonians, the Medes, the Persians, the Greeks.

And in reshaping the beast into a super beast, John gives his beast seven heads, and scholars map those as emperors from Nero to Domitian. There's a head for each. Nero, Galba, Otho, Allis Fetilius, Basvian, Titus, and Domitian. And the fatal wound on one of the heads of the beast stands out, doesn't it? And it links to a myth known as the Nero Redividus myth.

You see, Nero was long gone by the time Revelation was written, but there were rumors that this feared emperor would come back to life. This was terrifying for Christians whom Nero blamed for burning Rome in sixty four CE. Many were martyrs in Nero's wake. And John, instead of comforting Christians with warm milk and lovely lullabies, he delivers this truth. The rule of Rome, like the rule of empires long collapsed, is antichrist, even though he never uses the term in this letter.

Rome mocks real power, turning influence into force and violence. However afraid you are, John says, don't side with power like that. Trust me, the beast has lost its power and it knows it. So dig deep for patient endurance and faithfulness. And then John brings a fantastical beast closer to home with the beast that comes from the land.

The second beast has a different vibe though. It's not going for more heads and crowns. In fact, it looks like that lamb, but it sounds like a dragon. This sneaky beast is here to do Rome's bidding. It personifies wealthy priests who propagate an imperial cult.

Rome, this epic stand in for evil, will try to occupy your heart. The beast of the land will feed you lies and make promises it can't keep. It will tell you that the gods are on the side of the victor, that anyone who speaks truth to power should be silenced or killed. It will trick you into a thousand distractions so you don't see the contours of your own soul or the suffering in your community. The beast is any system, call it religion if you want, that convinces you to give your whole heart to the politics of us versus them.

It may even do so in the guise of Jesus the lamb. So John says this, this calls for wisdom. Now maybe you love John's creative critique of Empire's Power and maybe you don't even really care. Either way, what John is doing is profound and brave. John takes what is terrifying about the world, the systems of power that abuse bodies and evil that feels impossible to defeat, and he gives it form.

John says, don't let this empire of pretend power steal what's best in you. What's best in you will last as if the love, forgiveness, and beauty you put into the world is lost. That stuff lives on forever. The beast may brandish seven heads, and it may roar like a lion or a dragon. But when you give it form, when you write it down on the page, sketch it out even, describe it in new detail, well, the beast just can't scare you so badly anymore.

If you've ever had someone say to you, That thing that thing you're experiencing, it's called depression or it's called trauma from your past or it's called the effect of late stage capitalism on your relationship with wanting more and more and never having enough, then you know something of giving form to fear. Naming what is wrong or broken or systematically prone to corruption is a way to take power back. Like now you see the beast you're facing down, and you have choices to make. Okay. How many of you have been waiting, just waiting for us to talk about the mark of the beast?

One person I know because someone actually asked me about it last week, so the time has come. Speaking about the beast of the land, Revelation 13 reads, the beast also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands and on their foreheads so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast for it is the number of a man, the number is six six six. Now, I contend that we don't need a code to find evil, but let's dive into the code anyway.

John loves a good compare and contrast. This is the kingdom of Rome. This is the kingdom of God. This is the way of the dragon. This is the way of the lamb.

Here, it's this is the mark of the beast that gives people a place in the extracting economy of Babylon slash Rome, and this is the seal that provides wide open entrance to the new Jerusalem. We find that back in Revelation seven. The mark here stands for an economic system devoted to debt. This system will take and it will take and it will take. The whole economy from the coins in your pocket to the slaves bought and sold, reinforced the empire's possession of its subjects.

And the number six six six, it's a riddle, a way for John to connect with his readers and to see if they are picking up what he is putting down, which is basically nonstop shade thrown at Rome. And the riddle uses a code called geometria, where letters are assigned numbers. Solving the riddle means you have to take in the context and guess the person being referred to and then see if the letters of the name fit the numbers. With this code six six six, it refers to Nero in Hebrew and an earlier known translation six one six is Nero in Greek. And the thing about these numbers is that they aren't body barcodes that you have to fear in the future.

They just mean that there are leaders who will try to trick you to forget who you are meant to be and insist that you follow them instead of remembering. Whether it's a mark or a riddle, the point is to stay alert. The Greek words here are Sophia, have wisdom, and Nous, apply insight. So be on the lookout. Don't get hoodwinked.

Crack the case of misused power like it is a riddle. Remember, evil isn't just something out there. John doesn't actually care about Nero. That stinker is gone. John cares that evil parodies the good.

And before you know it, evil becomes something right here in your own chest. Greed that creeps in and steers you away from a generous, open handed life. Loyalties that dismiss people on the margins and anyone who struggles, the unquestioned support of structures that thrive on dehumanizing practices. John says, you have choices. And I love that.

Don't expect God to do everything for you. What kind of life would that be? Now, we are tracking beasts today, so let's flip ahead to Revelation 17. In Revelation 17, we meet the woman of Babylon, also known as the whore or the prostitute. And just because this isn't an actual woman, but the way John personifies a wicked city slash empire doesn't mean that I love John's choice of metaphor here.

Just naming that. But let's try to take it for what it is, verses three to five. Then the angel carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness, which is what a trip. Then I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and 10 horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet and was glittering with gold, precious stones and pearls.

She held a gold cup in her hand filled with abominable things and the filth of her adulteries. The name written on her forehead was a mystery, Babylon the Great, the mother of dragons. Just kidding. I wish it said that. I wish it said the mother of dragons, but it says, sadly, prostitutes.

And of the abominations of the earth. It's harsh. So who is this woman? Well, she's a pretend woman who rides a seven headed beast. She's a figure who has amassed power and wealth and done so with great perversion.

She seduces. She flaunts. She exploits. And the seven heads of the beast map onto the seven hills of Rome, and the 10 horns are kings. Her name is on her forehead just as slaves charged with offenses could have been tattooed with the offense on their forehead.

Make no mistake, she is named Babylon, but she looks just like Rome. In history, Babylon destroyed Jerusalem in May, and Rome laid siege to Jerusalem in seventy CE, tearing apart the city and destroying the second temple. So John is equating Babylon that beats you down with Rome that beats you down with any empire or nation that beat you down. As John gets ready to conclude Revelation, he sets up the final scene, one city to contrast another, two cities personified as women, the whore of Babylon or the bride of New Jerusalem. Revelation is full of binaries.

It is this heroic fight of good versus evil, the lamb versus the dragon, the harlot, and the virgin. And there's a place for imaginative either or narratives where we don't bother with the middle and we only see extremes. These classic tensions have always been a part of what it means to figure out the world and our place in time. But where do we go from there? Because I don't have a lot of black and white in my life.

I have a lot of gray, a lot of questions, A lot of trying to do what is best without always knowing what that looks like. Living is hard, isn't it? Isn't it? John takes the woman called Babylon to a terrifying conclusion. Of course, if you stick with her as only embodying an evil system, you might relish in her demise?

It's Revelation seventeen sixteen. The beast and the 10 horns you saw will hate the prostitute. They will bring her to ruin and leave her naked and will eat her flesh and burn her with fire. The city she seduced, the power she rides upon, it turns on her, and it tears her apart. Huzzah?

Only by now in revelation, I want something different for this woman on a dragon. Maybe that's because I'm so tired of the tearing, tearing of bodies, tearing of relationships, tearing of our imaginations. So let's push our imaginations, shall we? Let's embody the spirit of the lamb through humanizing creativity. Let's find a preview of evil's defeat.

I'm changing the tone a little here, guys, just to let you know. So back in 2009, I took a trip to New York City. And before I left, a friend told me that I should visit the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine. And even more specifically, she said I should spend time with a sculpture in the gardens of the cathedral called the Fountain. The Peace Fountain was created in 1985 by the sculptor in residence there, Greg Wyatt.

Now, I love a travel challenge, so I went to see the sculpture. And I loved it so much, I went to the cathedral on that trip, not once, but twice. There's 2,009 Bobbie at the base of the sculpture on a rainy day in New York City. Bless her. And there's the Peace Fountain, loaded, loaded with symbols.

Now, we don't have time to get into all the symbols, but let me point out some meaning. The peace fountain is all about the triumph of good over evil. The plaque at its base reads, the peace fountain sets before us the world's opposing forces, violence and harmony, light and darkness, life and death, which God reconciles in God's peace. Sounds like revelation. Yeah?

And in the sculpture, there's this strand of DNA that serves as the pedestal, the molecule that holds the genetic instructions for life. And there are nine giraffes dancing together in peace with one resting its head on archangel Michael's chest. And there is a slain Satan decapitated by the angel's sword, his head dangling along the edge of a pool. And I think I did have a close-up for you. Lucky.

And I think at the time, I loved this picture of evil's defeat. And there's a place for that cathartic take on defeat. When you've been harmed, you want the head of that harm lopped off, dead and gone. But something about the upside down apocalypse has me entertaining a different fantasy, one that trusts the lamb to know the real reason any of us do harm. And to imagine a city where every person harmed or healed can gather and be lit up by the very light of God.

Revelation twenty one twenty three. And so this this is my new fantasy. I imagine I go back to the Cathedral Of Saint John The Divine, and as I walk up to the fountain where in the past no water flowed, water begins to gush from spouts so long left dry. I imagine the fountain coming to life, giraffes dancing, DNA spinning, the angels singing, and I walk right up to that decapitated Satan. And this being my fantasy, I offer to put his head back on his twitching body.

I offer to heal him. To show this character the kindness that was never shown to him, to reverse something that turned his heart away from the good. This is my fantasy of nonviolence. That instead of striking back or turning away or ripping apart, I insist, I insist on love's creative survival. I don't know exactly how we face down evil, but I think that's the game.

Here's what we do with beasts. We trace their form. We specify their shape, the connections to systems that they uphold. We name them, and then we tame them. We name the systems, the sadness, the sickness, we name the lies.

We name everything that's wrong, we name the disappointments, and we tame all of it with imaginative futures, with healing efforts, and with scandalous grace. And I am not saying that you shouldn't have boundaries or you should stay in abusive places or you should ever let evil in. I'm just saying that when we offer to heal that which is harmed, when we tend to our healing within and without, we are empowered in the best way possible. And it is okay if you feel like a little lamb. Power was never meant to ride on beasts anyway.

Power is meant to love and heal, to find a middle way, to seek creative solutions to our problems, to dream up a better world, and to actually make the world come to life. Let us pray. Loving God, thank you. Thank you for our wild imaginations and your patience with all that you have made. For those of us facing beasts, tough times, old traumas, challenges in our minds and bodies, systems that aren't working for us?

Will you bring the support we need? Teach us to ask for help and inspire us to help one another. Jesus of the peaceable way, make us more like you, wise, compassionate, and capable of all of that good. The spirit of the living God present with us now, enter the places of our hurt and the places where we feel like we battle evil's beasts. And God, will you heal us of all that harms us?

Amen.