The first narrative in this collection, Eternal Empire, Everlasting King, focuses on the context of discipleship. It follows John’s strategy of setting the stage for what is to follow. To the churches under Pastor John’s care, the Roman Empire was ubiquitous and unrelentingly brutal and was called the “Eternal Empire.” Domitian, the Roman Emperor, called himself the “Everlasting King.”
The largest consideration for this narrative is a worship moment for meditation, “Mediated Live.” This moment uses a live video installation to contrast what is really “real” with the mediated images we see each day. In this installation, a community member reads a poem while their image is broadcast live on a nearby television set.
This moment is meant to challenge our notions of how we know what we know. In doing so it is meant to start us thinking about the seen and unseen realities talked about in Revelation. It deals with a television image as a sort of touchstone for our media saturated world and helps us confront the ways in which much of what we know is mediated. That is, much of what we know is brought to us through intermediaries—people, institutions, organizations—all of which possess, at best, a world view, and at worst, an agenda. By juxtaposing personal presence with mediated presence, it asks us to encounter the ways in which the personal but unseen presence of God’s grace is often overshadowed by the mediated but vivid presence of an acquisitive world.
This poem may be read during this moment.
Mediated Live
READER: You can see me and I can see you.
We share time and space.
I also appear on this television screen.
I am being mediated live.
Which version of me are you watching?
Why?
What is it that an image promises us?
Why do we sometimes prefer an image over the real thing?
I am powerful, successful, beautiful.
Do you believe me?
Who benefits from this message?
I am everlasting and eternal.
Do you believe me?
Do you want to?
I am all there is and all there ever will be.
Do you believe me?
Do you wish you didn’t have to?
