It’s the end of the liturgical year so the readings are becoming “apocalyptic” which is a weird theological word for focused on the end of everything.  I sometimes think the people like Daniel (book named after him we are using this week) and John (author of Revelations which is really scary) who wrote this stuff were just tired of trying to love people into the Kingdom of God or convincing  them through signs and reasoning and teaching to get in the kingdom so they just decided to, well, scare the hell out of them.  Personally, I think hell has a deeper grip on us than a nightmare or horror story or even a bad LSD trip can break even though I have never experienced any kind of a drug trip and stopped messing with horror stories after I saw The House of Usher when I was about nine.  Periodically I have nightmares but they usually end happily when I throw myself out of bed and grab someone by the throat which almost always involves my bedside table, the clock/radio/phone on it and the bottle of water I keep there in case of a sudden thirst.  (I switched to bottles with tops instead of glasses after mopping the floor up at 3AM became a hassle, but I digress).
 
Anyway, one of the things that intrigues me about apocalyptic literature is the importance of “white robes” and “purification” and making things “white”.  Don’t get me wrong, I think it is important to practice good hygiene and to look one’s best, especially if you are about to stand before God!  But generally I believe the last thing we do before standing before God is to die and my experience is that is rarely a nice, clean activity.  Even if you do die looking good the people that try to get you back to this side usually make you look pretty bad. 
 
Take my dad for example.  He “dropped dead” in the Food Lion on Easter Monday seven years ago or so.  He was wearing this camel cashmere blazer.  It was a gorgeous coat.  He loved that coat.  Whilst (I love that word!) trying to revive him the EMTs cut both sleeves of the coat from cuff to shoulder so they could start IVs and so on.  However. Dad had already gotten acquainted with Jesus so he evidently decided not to return.  When my mother and I left the ER they handed us dad’s stuff including the now totally ruined blazer.  I still can feel that coat in my hands and the craziness I felt of “What am I supposed to do with this?”  There was a big trash can by the door and as I walked out I dropped the clothes, including the coat, into it.  I can feel it slipping through my hands, “He doesn’t need it and no one else can use it. Amen.”  Looking good when you meet Jesus might not be as easy as washing your white robe.

Anyway, Bible folk seem to set great importance on washing and cleaning and purification and white robes.  Which is interesting because a lot of stuff they do for, with and to God is rather messy.  Adam and Eve wandering around in the all together must have had some grooming issues lacking indoor plumbing and all.  Crossing the Red Sea with the water rolled back still must have been muddy, not to mention what happened to the Egyptians.  Killing off the Amorites and Hittites and those other folk was a bloody mess and the collapse of Jericho must have raised a tremendous dust storm.  Then there’s the sacrifice stuff at the temple with the unlucky calf or bird or whatever and knives and fire and pans for catching blood.  When I saw Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ, I was undone by the darkness and the brutality and, well the mess we (humanity) made of Jesus.  I mean he looked bad.  I could hardly watch.  On some very deep and profound level what happened to Jesus was ten billion times ten billion worse than the icon of what had happened to my dad’s coat, something beautiful had been ruined, the body of Jesus was no longer needed by him and it seemed no one else could use it. Amen.
 
Did I say Gibson’s film was dark?  Was there any “white” in it?  Which makes me think about “white” in the bible.  In the Bible “white” is not really a human sort of thing.  Those were the days before Clorox and Oxyclean and the guy on TV with all the stains that disappear.  “White” was a gift from God, like manna and snow and the sheep’s wool.  “White” was an ideal because “no fuller could bleach” things white like God made them, as when Jesus was transfigured on the mountain (Mark 9:3).  “White” was stand up and pay attention because God was doing something!  “White” was the stuff of prophets’ visions.  “White” is Jesus after the resurrection. 
 
When things are “white”, robes, horses, people, look out.
 
Which makes me scared because of men on horses in white robes.  It is very scary whenever people think they are going to fix anything or make anything right or bring on justice or whatever.  Do we think washing the clothes of those who have been shot or stabbed or hit with a car will heal anything?  I am amazed by the number of second or third weddings featuring a “white” dress like”Oh well, let’s just start over!”.  It’s like a string of pearls will recolor a little adultery or verbal abuse or neglect.  Like a program to “Clean Up Our City”  which focuses on moving the drug dealers and hookers onto the side streets where they won’t be so noticeable instead of fighting addiction which puts them on the street to begin with.  When I was at St Mark’s on the Boulevard we had a big outreach ministry to the street people and I used to fantasize about getting washing machines so we could clean up those people and their clothes so they would “do better”.  Washing machines for Jesus!
 
Mother Teresa wore a habit of white with blue stripes on the edge.  I guess it wasn’t really “white” because of the stripes.  That was probably good so that you did not confuse her clothing with what she was doing.  Like the “whiteness” of dabbing water to a dying person’s lips or hauling someone in from the street and bathing them as God is getting their white robe ready.  We would not want to confuse her habit in clothing with her habit of loving.  Kind of like Jesus who after we did our worst to him was seen to be dazzling white.  We had used and abused him and thought he was no longer any good to us but God made him good for us, as white as the hope in his words “Father, forgive them”.
 
The Bible guys wrote about “white” as a hope, something they could never achieve but God could bring about.  If we could put “our souls” in them with an Oxyclean that would bleach out what we do to each other, Washing machines for Jesus might be a good idea.  In the meantime, I guess we should focus on imitating God and wear something that does not “show” dirt.
 
DDD III