Where was the Fine Print?
Last January or February, my friend Jason called and asked if I would like to go to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness with a small group. Our mutual friend, Tony Jones, has been guiding trips to the BWCAW for at least five years, maybe more. I agreed to go without checking more than the dates and the cost. After all, I had time. The trip dates were in September.
July brought the beginning of an email thread for the group. Tony reminded us of the deadline for the final payment and provided a link to the packing information and a few books to read that we would discuss around a campfire. I began securing the items I did not own: a sleeping mat, a sleeping bag rated at 0 degrees (F), and wool socks. The instructions emphasized, “No Cotton!”
The Uncontrollability of the World and a copy of Tony’s book, a memoir that is to be published in March of 2024, were two of the suggested readings for the trip. And if we had time, he also recommended Sigurd Olsons’s The Singing Wilderness.
I wrote about The Uncontrollability of the World by Hartmut Rosa.
Then Came Chapter 7
I then read Tony’s book, The God of Wild Places: Rediscovering the Divine in the Untamed Outdoors. I found the read to be a good and solid companion to Rosa’s book. After realizing that we are receiving a form of knowing and experiencing the world rooted in consumptive living, one may need to rediscover the Divine in the world we cannot control.
We cannot control another’s experience of the world.
Even more, we cannot control another’s experience of God, of the Divine. In my tribe, that makes people nervous, uncomfortable, and often critically suspicious. Stick around for more on that in a future reflection. (You see what I did there? Even I cannot control the publishing schedule.)
Others’ stories often resonate. That is why when we are with close friends and hear their stories, our minds often race to our own stories that hold a common thread, common experience, or even the exact opposite.
I came to Chapter 7 and read a description of the trip I had agreed to take. I have abbreviated the descriptions.
Someone will get hurt. Someone will get sick. You will ache. You will be tired. You will stink. And you will never not be wet.
Reading further, with no idea what a portage was, I discovered,
You will portage +50 pound gear packs, food packs, equipment packs, and canoes. You will portage all our gear over rocky, slick, wet, dangerous trails ranging from 150’ to more than 2000’.
There it was! Just six weeks or so, with my money paid and travel arrangements made, I read the Fine Print. I told Patty what I had read. Her response,
This will be good for you.
And it was. But that does not take away that when I signed up; I did not know about the Fine Print - that I would carry a +50 lb. pack across uneven terrain on two bad knees and arthritic shoulders from too much basketball.
John’s Fine Print
Tony asked if Jason or I, both of us pastors, would discuss or mention our trip in our Sunday sermon. He invited me on for a conversation on his podcast and asked again. Both times, it was Yes. When he asked, I had a couple of ideas about how to connect with Revelation 13:1-10.
I left one on the cutting floor and opted to use a reference to the Fine Print missing from the trip to the Fine Print missing from hearing the Good News as a child. In this case, it is missing from the travel Brochure of the Faith. And for the record, I am not sure that I would have been able to conceptualize Fine Print as a child. So this is not a criticism of a lack, just a recognition of the facts as I recall them all these years later.
When the reader hears what John saw in Revelation 13, it is quite the opposite of a life of peace and a future of pearly gates and golden streets. No one told the story that a Beast from the Sea would be given authority to pursue God’s people, and they might even worship said Beast. See the letters to the seven churches. What youngster did not think about monsters hidden behind the closet door in the dark of night?
Also it [the Beast out of the Sea] was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them.
Make war on the saints?!
One only needs to read the prayers in the Psalms to know that the forces that work against human beings, even God’s people, take various forms, all intending to conquer. However, Blount was right. There, amid a description of a life full of adversity, difficulty, and opposition, are embedded signs that these forces that seem out of control are actually attempting to control the uncontrollable God by pursuing His people.
First, seven is more than ten. That is, John sees the Lamb that had been slaughtered in the Throne scene in Revelation 5. There, the Slaughtered Lamb has seven horns. Those symbols of power subverted the notion of weakness and defeat. Put another way, the signs and symbols conveyed there jibe with the Apostle Paul, who wrote to the Christians in Corinth,
God’s weakness is greater than human strength.
The Beast out of the Sea, attempting to mimic the Slaughtered Lamb, has ten horns. As if to convey more power. Yet. the Beast had no authority of its own. Therefore, its ten horns were not complete power, not even more power, but derived power. Seven is the number for complete or perfect. The Slain Lamb has more power in weakness than the Beast possesses. Seven is more than ten.
Second, conquering does not mean the end. Derived power, the sort given the Beast out of the Sea, demands allegiance, even worship, in an attempt to strike fear, even in the people of God. The passage is part callback to Daniel 7, where the prophet describes godless governments that demand ultimate allegiance, pretending to be king of kings. John quickly adds to the coercive conditions pressed upon every nation, tribe, and people that those whose names are written in the Book of the Lamb are not conquered. It is not their end.
It is important to note the construction. For those who like control, we need John’s Fine Print here. It is the Lamb’s Book - not ours, yours, or mine. It is not the Beast out of the Sea’s or Dragon’s book. It is the Lamb’s book.
Not only does John’s Fine Print reveal that life isn’t a travel brochure. It also conveys that conquering does not mean the end.
Finally, leave a faithful trace. The verbal Fine Print of our trip included instructions on how to dispose of food, dishwater, and trash. Our goal was to leave no trace in the Boundary Waters. The intent is not to disturb the ecosystem and cause harm to the wilderness.
How might God’s people leave the world under the weight of pretentious godless governments? John does not instruct God’s people to burn it all down. Instead, John’s Fine Print includes a call to obstinate faithfulness. Obstinance, in this sense, is better understood as determined stubbornness rather than indignance. In the face of adversity, difficulty, opposition, and hostile environs, what is needed is the kind of faithful witness that is grace under fire. For many, this would seem like a weak response.
And yet, it is the example Jesus gave us as The Faithful Witness.