Preparing

by Dan McCoig

Matthew 24:36-44 Common English Bible (CEB)

36 “But nobody knows when that day or hour will come, not the heavenly angels and not the Son. Only the Father knows. 37 As it was in the time of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Human One. 38 In those days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark. 39 They didn’t know what was happening until the flood came and swept them all away. The coming of the Human One will be like that. 40 At that time there will be two men in the field. One will be taken and the other left. 41 Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken and the other left. 42 Therefore, stay alert! You don’t know what day the Lord is coming. 43 But you understand that if the head of the house knew at what time the thief would come, he would keep alert and wouldn’t allow the thief to break into his house. 44 Therefore, you also should be prepared, because the Human One will come at a time you don’t know.

Preparing | 1 December 2019 | Dan McCoig

1.

This is the story of Norm and Will.  They are friends.  They are both Christians.  They both love Jesus and seek to follow him.

Norm and Will take the season of Advent very seriously.  It’s a season of preparation.  A time to take a longer and harder and closer look at one’s discipleship.  How am I doing as a follower of Jesus?  If people didn’t know me would they conclude that I am a Christian?  How can they tell?

Norm has always been fascinated with some of the more exotic teachings of the faith.  That is the word he uses.  Exotic.  Will would use the word fringe.

Norm is intrigued by the idea that there will come a time when Jesus will come back and everything as we know it will change dramatically.  This world with all of its heartache and woe will be transformed into a new world where hearts neither ache nor are they heavy.  Who doesn’t want to live in that world? 

In college Norm took every Bible class he could.  He cleared the library’s stacks of books on Christian apocalypticism.  He read and reread the Left Behind novels and debated their meaning endlessly with anyone who would listen.  He watched “Second Coming of Jesus” minded TV preachers.  He listened to their podcasts.  He contrasted and compared their timelines of what was going to happen and to whom and how and the impact on those who would end up on Jesus’ good side and those who would end up on Jesus’ bad side.  Norm, of course, wanted to be on Jesus’ good side and thought his reading and study helped.  But he could always imagine himself reading more and studying more.

For Norm, all this meant being prepared.  When Jesus returned he would be in the know.  He would be ready.  He kept his head in the game, to use a phrase his baseball coach used to shout at him repeatedly.

Will’s Christian faith was different.  He knew all about the passages that so mesmerized Norm but he didn’t dwell on them.  Truth be told, he found it odd that the church still read them every Advent.  He often wondered why.  He didn’t like them.  He found them off putting.  The passages seemed so bizarre.  They belonged to such a different time and different place that he wondered if they even had anything to say to the church in the 21st century.  As far as he was concerned, they really didn’t.  He kept these thoughts to himself, though.

Will understood that the early church was certainly preoccupied with Jesus’ coming back and coming back soon to make just an unjust world.  The earliest Christians suffered at the hands of the Romans.  They were marginalized by the Jewish leadership in many of the synagogues.  Affirming Jesus as Lord and Savior and practicing his way of loving neighbor and God in the world was costly.  Sometimes being a good Christian meant being a bad Roman and Rome preferred good Romans. 

The early Christians wondered how long they could endure.  They wondered how long they could persevere.   They longed for Jesus’ return.  And the sooner the better.

Will, however, wasn’t persecuted by the civil authorities for being Christian.  He lived in a land where freedom of religion was foundational.  Thomas Jefferson’s 1786 Virginia Statue for Religious Freedom predated James Madison’s 1789 Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution. 

Will read his Bible as much as Norm read his.  But he read more broadly — Old Testament and New Testament, prophets and letters, poetry and gospels.  Will worshiped publicly with other Christians weekly as did Norm.  Will put his money where his mouth was just like Norm as well.  He pledged each fall to his congregation’s annual budget and gave to his local congregation regularly.

Will also made a point of using his time to help neighbors in his community.  His principles was this — if Jesus said or did it, he wanted to say or do it, too.  For example, because Jesus fed hungry people he would feed hungry people.

So, one year Will committed to serving in his church’s soup kitchen every single Saturday.  He got to know people in the community he had only seen in passing.  He learned their names and stories about their lives.  Food insecurity was no longer a phrase.  When he heard the word he saw faces and knew their names.  Some were new to hard times.  Others were passing through hard times and could see the way out.  For others, hard times had become a way of life.  Everyone was thankful that Will’s church noticed them and cared about them and provided not only a weekly meal but a place to be in the company of others.  The kitchen provided food for the body and the dining tables provided food for the soul.

Another year Will volunteered with a local literacy organization after he read about the recent influx of immigrants in his community for whom English was a new language.  Because Jesus removed barriers that excluded people, Will would remove barriers as well.  Will could only imagine how hard it might be to start over in a new country with a new language.  Perhaps he could make the transition for his community’s newest neighbors a little easier.  He hoped so and worked at it.

When Will and Norm got together periodically Norm would ask Will how his “neighbor projects” were going.  In turn, Will would ask Norm how his “end time” studies were coming along.

Will would jokingly ask Norm if today was the day, meaning the day Jesus came back.  Norm would smile sheepishly and mutter, “Maybe.”  Norm would then ask Will facetiously, “And if it is the day what becomes of all your neighbor projects?”  The exchange was always good natured and without malice, but there was a slight edge to it.

That’s the story of Norm and Will.

2.

Friends, it’s Advent again.  Like Norm and Will, we are Christians.  Like Norm and Will we love and seek to follow Jesus.  Advent is also a season for us to look at our discipleship a little longer and harder and closer.  How are we doing?

Advent always begins with an apocalyptic reading that counsels preparedness.  Today’s lesson from Matthew does just that.

The early Christian community valued faithfulness to Jesus and his way of being devoted to God — love of God and love of neighbor — more highly than anything else.  I’d like to think that the 21st century Christian community shares the same value but on some days that’s not always apparent.

Preparedness is an interesting idea.  The other side of the coin is unpreparedness.

One of my earliest encounters with a street corner evangelist was nearly 50 years ago.  He was practicing what I will call fright or scare evangelism.  His line was “If you die tonight, will you go to heaven or hell.”  The answer he was looking for was “I don’t know” so he could tell me just what to say so that my passage to heaven would be assured.  For him, that’s what preparedness was all about.  Saying the right words in this life — usually Jesus is my Lord and Savior — to have the best possible outcome in the next life.

The fright or scare evangelism approach never set well with me.  Nor did saying certain words.  Jesus was a holy man, a savior, the Lord.  He wasn’t a magician.

Preparedness, at least by my reading of the Christian gospel, involves being faithful to Jesus and staying faithful to Jesus.  And being and staying faithful to Jesus means loving God in this life with everything we have and loving our neighbors in this life with everything we have and trusting everything to God, including when and how this world ends and when and how a new world begins and what becomes of the people in this world and the next.

3.

Recently, I overheard Norm and Will talking in a local cafe down the street.  The topic of their conversation was Judgment Day.  Norm, expectedly, was doing most of the talking.  Will was listening even though his gaze was on something out the window and in the distance.

When Norm finished talking Will said, “You know, I believe every day is judgment day.  Not in the sense that God is out to get me or get you or catch any of us saying or doing something we know better than to say or do.  That’s not who the God of grace in the Bible is.  That’s a mean school principal.  Rather, every day is judgment day because we get to wake up, put our feet on the floor and ask ourselves, “How am I going to live in the way of Jesus Christ today?”  And every evening when the day is done as we lay our heads upon our pillows we get to ask ourselves, “Well, how well did I trust Jesus Christ today?”

There was a silence.  Norm said nothing.  Will said nothing.  More silence.  Then, Will added, “That’s what I believe.  It’s not easy because we get so preoccupied with so many other things — things we can’t know, things we can’t control, things we can only speculate about.  Being Christian is all about being faithful and staying faithful.  Loving God.  Loving neighbor.  Living in Christ’s way.  Trusting Christ.  I need God’s help to do this.  I need your help to do this. I need the church to do this.  That’s what I believe.”

After a few more moments of silence I heard Norm say to Will, “That’s what I believe, too.”

Will and Norm got up and walked to the door.  I watched them leave the cafe and walk down the street.  Snow flurries had begun to fall.  I heard myself say aloud, “That’s what I believe, too.”  May we observe a holy Advent.  Amen.