Matthew 24:36-44
Advent 1 - Year A
As we enter a time of preparation we are able to shift focus from an endgame and put it back on a process of living, no matter our time, culture, or faith orientation. We are not waiting for a dividing judgment, but a birth of new hope for a peace that passes our understanding and is for all creation—a peace we can hear sung, no matter how far off, hailing a new creation. We will be ready in our dark night to hear angels sing.
First let go of expectations of results. What is coming goes beyond expectation. It may come this hour; it may not. While we have preferences about the timing of things (speeding up the good stuff and slowing down the bad) the Preacher of Ecclesiastes reminds us that all the various seasons take place within a larger vision—enjoying life and work.
Whether the latest war continues or ceases or expands—what are you called to in your place? Whether one country’s economy busts or all do—what are you called to in your time? Whether your health holds or you find out the latest worst—what are you called to in your body? Whether your dearest dream expands or dies—what are you called to continue nonetheless?
Appreciate that we don’t really know a larger picture. The angels don’t know it yet, either. Neither does Jesus. This frees us to simply enjoy life and do our work.
Simply put, what’s a good thing to do, whether we are here or not in any given hour? Does this mean reducing the carbon footprint we have as individuals and congregations? What witness to a better hope, a larger future, and a more expansive love will we participate in? Will we sing this song and dance this melody in good times and bad?
While we aren’t ready for judgment 24/7, we can be open to enjoying and to a next good work, regardless of our context. Amazingly, this simplifying puts us in the good company of the saints who are urging us to stop our political and religious games, to cease our military aggression and economic exploitation, and to calm our excited entitlements.
Advent comes as a gift of waiting wherein we might practice avoiding all expected hours and joining Jesus and all the other saints in feasting with other saints and sinners to provide healing touches and speak healing words to one another. Four weeks may just be long enough to make some progress as individuals and congregations in this process of “holy” non-attached participation.
As found in Wrestling Year A: Connecting Sunday Readings with Lived Experience
What day and hour are you waiting for?
Democracy in Iraq?
Democrat in the White House?
Demos means again "the common people" not "demons"?
A second coming from on high?
A second birth from above?
A second chance in the current plane?
Well, that time is not known. The choice is only that of being distracted by eating and drinking and personal relationships or being aware enough to do what you can according to the vision given -- whether that be building an ark or buying property in a besieged town or planting a tree or working your work or turning the other cheek or loving an enemy or other seeming impossibilities.
What day and hour are you waiting for if not this day, this hour?
A side benefit to focusing on what can be done rather than on what can't be done is that it reduces the anxiety of waiting at a loved one's side while they die. This breath is enough; this non-breath is enough.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/november2004.html
What are we waiting for? This is a sub-text question that is constantly in the background of our lives.
So?
Are you waiting for someone to make a mistake so they will get theirs?
Are you waiting for someone to come through so they will get theirs?
One way of coming at this is to reflect on what we experience as the expectation of others upon ourselves? As a progressive Christian, is the church waiting with a trial when you put a toe across its line? Is the church waiting with nearly bated breath to learn of a new door to enter a more expansive understanding of GOD's presence and love?
Those same questions can be asked of our understanding of what the world around us is expecting from us. How different do you think the church and the world are in their expectation?
I have to admit that most of the time I am expecting to get caught on the other side of the tracks and that the consequence of this is going to be ostracism. Either the real people, the important people, will pack up and move further up the hill or I will be sent packing further away. The gap, like the gap between the rich and the poor, will increase, making it feel like an immediate action rather than one that plods along according to its own internal logic. By extension my temptation is to project that same dynamic upon those I think currently in the wrong.
So we battle for the better turf. Is "better" away from here or exactly here? Is a new heaven and earth a different here or must it be some other there? Are those who get to stay the blessed and the taken away the evil ones; are those who are taken blessed and the left behind cursed?
My bias is a non-separation of sacred and secular, saint and sinner, that here and now is the arena of blessing. Given my bias and/or your bias, is there a third option even more worth waiting for?
Wesley White
The following paraphrase is helpful and was offered on the Midrash email conversation.
To subscribe to this free conversation, e-mail: midrash-subscribe@joinhands.com
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Matthew 24:36-44 - A Contemporary Reading
by Brian DonstOne: Jesus says
A: we need to be ready.One: Jesus says
B: we need to be ready
for incarnation,
for the Word being made flesh,
for God's will being lived out,
for the kingdom of heaven coming near
and making itself known.
He says we need to be ready because when it happens
- and it does,
it's always surprising.One: Jesus says
A: most of the world still thinks the way it did
in the days of Noah,
when most people thought
things would always stay the same
and nothing would happen
to make things different or new.
They satisfied themselves with what they could get
in the world as it was,
and didn't look for anything more or different.
They were completely innocent
about what God was up to,
and when the Change came
there was no place for them in God's new world.
They were swept away in the Change,
while Noah and his family
- because they were ready,
were left behind to inherit the world
that God wanted to make better.One: Jesus says
B: this is how it is
when the moment of incarnation comes,
when the Word is made flesh,
when God's will is lived out,
when a flashing glimpse
of the kingdom of heaven appears in our time.
Some, not ready for the Change,
are swept away by it;
others, who are ready,
stand up and take their place
in the new world that God is always bringing to be.One: Jesus says
A: the Change steals in through the back door of our time
like a thief.
Those who count on things never changing
will lose everything.
Far better that we open our hearts now
to what God wants to do,
so when the Change comes
we are ready for it.One: Jesus says
B: he wants us to be ready.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/november2004.html
A back story to our work this year is encouragement to see Peace and Security as parallel realities. Our current world tends to separate them so a focus on Peace leaves us insecure and an emphasis upon Security keeps us from hope or trust.
For Jerusalem to be Jeru-Salem these issues of Peace and Security need, as the Psalmist says, to be "bound firmly together." Isaiah is clear that the light of the Lord will lead us to finding Security only in the Peace of swords turned to plowshares and Peace only in the Security of the whole and not just our part.
Matthew has an intriguing image follow after examples of usual places of togetherness --around table and in "marriage". Togetherness is swept away when we divide ourselves up - in the midst of everyday life, one is taken way and one is left behind. We are usually told this is about a second-coming and judgment day but it makes as much sense to consider this behavior as the result of our choosing sides against one another or allowing our house to be broken into by dividing Peace and Security.
Judgment against our current divisions is already evident and we are encouraged to work against our desires for privilege and exemption from common work alongside one another.
As the rich get richer and the poor poorer, as some earn their keep through interest from money and others provide for themselves by their labor, we loose the bonds of two becoming one and find two dividing into two.
Advent places before us a choice for a different future where, instead of being separated from the world by an attempt at renewal, Noah-style, two by two, we are ready to set aside separation and quarreling to respond to a call from our descendents, Children-of-human-style, to, one by one, rebind Peace and Security.
- - -
May peace be our life
among family, friend, stranger, enemy.
May security be our heart
among our common house and common good.
May these gifts give light on our way
among ancestral dreams and coming hope.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html
The context and surface style of this passage makes it very easy to jump to apocalyptic end-times. The imagery is stark and dramatic. The theme is judgment.
As we enter a time of preparation we might take our eye off an endgame and put it back on a process of living, regardless of the times, culture, or faith orientation in which such living takes place. We are not waiting for a dividing judgment, but a birth of new hope for a peace that passes our understanding and is for all creation – a peace we can hear sung, no matter how far off, hailing a new creation. Can we be ready in our dark night to hear angels sing? This is what we are preparing for.
A first key is that of letting go of expectations of results. What is coming (whether one uses "Son of Man" lingo or not) goes beyond expectation. It may come this hour; it may not. While we have preferences about the timing of things (speeding up the good stuff and slowing down the bad) the Preacher of Ecclesiastes reminds us that all the various seasons take place within a larger vision - enjoying life and work.
Whether war continues in Iraq in 2008 or ceases or expands to Iran – what are you called to in your place? Whether one country's economy busts or all do – what are you called to in your time? Whether your health holds or you find out the latest worst – what are you called to in your body? Whether your dearest dream expands or dies – what are you called to continue nonetheless?
Here we need to re-appropriate our ignorance of a larger wisdom. We need to appreciate that we don't know any of the larger pictures. The angels don't know it yet, either. Neither does Jesus. This frees us to simply enjoy life and do our work. By extension this ignorance is corporate as well as individual. So we can enjoy together and work together. How is it where you are?
By this ignorance (a refusal to be trapped by fuzzy Gnosticism) I don't mean stupidity. Rather, a detachment of our actions from our expectations. Simply put, what's a good thing to do, whether we are here or not in any given hour? Does this mean reducing the carbon footprint we have as individuals and congregations? What witness to a better hope, a larger future, and a more expansive love will we participate in? Will we sing this song and dance this melody in good times and bad?
Since we can't be ready 24/7, we perhaps can be open to enjoying and to a next good work, regardless of the context we find ourselves. Amazingly, this simplifying puts us in the good company of the saints who are urging us on to stop our political and religious games, to cease our military aggression and economic exploitation, and to calm our excited entitlements.
Advent comes as a gift of waiting wherein we might practice avoiding all expected hours and joining Jesus and all the other saints in feasting with other saints and sinners and providing healing touches and speaking forth healing words to one another. Four weeks may just be long enough to make some progress as individuals and congregations in this process of holiness.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_11_01_archive.html
Whew! "Christ the King" Sunday came and went without King Christ coming on a cloud. It still holds: no one knows what time holds. One can claim "The Father" knows best or just knows, but even G*D seems to have a rather elastic sense of time (which takes some of the humor out of life, if timing is a key basis for humour).
Being swept away by flood isn't all that different from being swept off one's feet in an expansive and expanding love. We are disoriented and reoriented, all in one fell swoop.
It would appear that being captured by the Love of Jesus is not a universal. One catches it and one does not. Keep alert to the option of being captured by love rather than anger or irrelevancy. Help those around you to so keep alert. You can help one another with expectancy so when you run into expectancy fatigue, your friend can expect for you - and vice versa.
- - -
If you are looking for a daily advent resource, you are welcome to consider the WUMFSA Advent Reflections for 2010.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2010/11/mathew-2436-44.html
The future cannot be foreseen, only lived as it is desired to be.
Remember Noah’s day? It is like that. You build your future in the days available.
Not even Noah knew the import of this as evidenced by his actions after the flood and the subjugation he continued.
We live until we are swept away.
There are those who would warn about unexamined lives and keeping awake and being ready. Unknown in these is what we don’t know. Examining the unknown lacks tools. Keeping awake or ready readily leads to fatigue and plenty of gaps in which not to be ready or awake.
So, a future day will surprise in its suddenness, but not in its preparation. Live well now. In so doing, all shall be well—all manner of things.
Question: What would happen if we didn’t expect judgment/disaster but mercy/grace? As contrasted with living on edge trying to protect what can’t be protected, might we relax into living today as we would want to live tomorrow?
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2013/11/year-advent-1-needed-change-1-december.html