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riversidemoravian.org
First Moravian Church of
Riverside, NJ
Located on the corner of
Bridgeboro and Washington Streets
Riverside, NJ 08075
F. Jeffrey Van Orden-Pastor
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Isn't it about time? Matthew 24: 36-44 December 2, 2007 There is a problem with our gospel reading for today. It doesn't fit. Here we are, at the beginning of a new Church year, but instead of starting at the beginning of the story, we find ourselves, with this reading, just a few chapters short of the end of the Gospel according to Matthew! This is the first Sunday of Advent, the first Sunday of our season of preparation for Christmas. We just lit the first candle, after all. Christmas is the beginning of what is so often called "the greatest story ever told." So Advent should be about getting ready for the birth of the baby Jesus, the journeys of Mary and Joseph and the visit of the three wise men with their gifts for baby Jesus, shouldn't it? And yet, today's reading has Jesus talking about the end of all things. This passage isn't set weeks or months before his arrest, trial and crucifixion - it is only a matter of days! What were the people who organized these Lectionary readings thinking? Let's see if we can find a message that makes sense, shall we? The gospel lesson for this morning is Jesus' parable about two people working in the field - one of whom was taken and the other left - and it has often been interpreted a proof-text for those who focus their faith on otherworldly matters, particularly on the events they believe will unfold as the inevitable end of the world draws near. For these folks, epitomized, I suppose, by Tim LaHaye, the author of the immensely popular Left Behind series of novels, Christianity is focused on the next world, and Jesus, for LaHaye and others, particularly the Jesus that this depicted in our text, is the one who appears to hold the passkey to their entirely otherworldly kingdom of God. It is what Marcus Borg calls a "futurist interpretation." It is one which sees this passage, and the many other New Testament passages - particularly in the book of Revelation - that appear to point to an Apocalyptic end of the world, as a description of the future - a prophesy of things to come. Frankly, I think those who read this passage hat way are missing the point entirely. And more importantly, I believe Matthew, the writer of our Gospel lesson, agrees. Matthew's gospel does not speak about the Rapture. Instead, Matthew, using a reference to Noah and the Ark, Matthew quotes Jesus as he refers to those who are "taken" as part of a group of believers who will continue to faithfully endure the persecution and tribulation they are currently experiencing - with the sure and certain knowledge that some day the Kingdom of this world will become the Kingdom of God. With the sure and certain knowledge that, some day, their Lord will return. Our text, as it turns out, is helpful for us, on this first Sunday of Advent, but only if, instead of reading this passage as some kind of prophesy pointing to the future, we instead look at it in its historical context. If we do that, we find that it paints an entirely different - and, I would argue, much more helpful - picture. If we remember that this text was written for the people in the first century, and that, therefore, it can not possibly refer to events that might or might not be unfolding thousands of years later - or else it would not have had meaning for those who heard it in the first place - we are forced to look at its meaning for the Christians who were there that day, and, through that looking, find meaning for us today. n the present. In the here and now. The $64,000 question raised by this passage, of course, remains "Will Jesus return as a man, with flesh and blood?" And the equally important follow-up question also remains, "However Jesus returns, when will all of this happen." I am convinced that poring over the New Testament - particularly the Gospels and the book Revelation, attempting to crack some code for the future, is an exercise in futility. We simply do not know the answers to these questions. They have been the subject of great theological debate for centuries. What we do know, on the other hand, is that Jesus miraculously does come, again and again, in the lives of Christians - particularly this time of the year as we prepare for that coming. And what we also know for sure is what Jesus tells us we are supposed to be doing in the meantime. "Keep awake," Jesus says, "for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming." Our task then, is not to speculate about raptures and tribulations and millenniums. Such speculation may make good reading and sell lots of books, but it is really not particularly helpful. Our task is to discover what Jesus meant when he told his disciples to "keep awake." Once again, if we look at the historical context of the passage, I think we will find some wisdom. Matthew wrote his Gospel some 70 or 80 years after the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus. The world of the Christians in that first century AD was the world of the Roman Empire. It was a world of political oppression and economic exploitation. Wealth and power were concentrated in the hands of a few and those few declared that the will that they imposed was, in fact, the will of the Emperor-God. The Romans routinely executed Christian martyrs, as they had previously executed Jesus himself. Matthew's quoting Jesus' announcement that the Kingdom is coming and his call to be alert and watchful for the coming of the Son of Man, in this context, is revolutionary. It is his way of calling his first century church to a way of life that sensitive to God's active work of deliverance for the people of this world. It is a bold announcement to them that the current state of the world that they were experiencing was not a world that pleased God. After all, the Christians who Matthew was addressing had been waiting for Jesus to return for a long time. Some of their number had already died and others were getting old and tired. Many of them were probably losing faith that he would ever return. "Keep awake," Matthew tells them, things are going to change. The Son of Man is about to come. As one scholar beautifully puts it: "We know how the story is going to end," Matthew tells the Church, "and that makes all of the difference. We aren't at the end yet, but we know how it ends. It ends just like it begins-with God! The One Who redeems it all, transforms it all-just as surely as this One created it all! And that means that, even on the bleakest day, we need to stay alert." My friends, if that message was true when Matthew wrote it nearly twenty centuries ago, it is even more true today. You and I need to keep our eyes open and be alert each day, because the Kingdom is coming. You know what? It's coming sooner than any of us may think. And you know what else? It's about time. If you're anything like me, sometimes a verse from a song, or perhaps just a line or two from a song, gets stuck in your head and, try as you might, you can't seem to shake it. Well for the last several days, there is a particular verse of a particular song that has occupied my mind in just that way. It's the first few lines of a Buffalo Springfield classic entitled "For What It's Worth," and it goes like this:
There's
something happening here Why is that particular song haunting me? I'll tell you why. It reminds me of 1968; and I've been thinking a lot, as 2008 gets closer and closer, about 1968. Forty years ago - a year that will always stand out as a pivotal point in our nation's history. This all started, actually, when I heard Tom Brokaw on the radio, recently, talking about his new book, Boom! Voices of the Sixties. Well, you won't be surprised to learn, I'll bet, that I rushed off to Borders and bought the book. And guess what Brokaw titled the first section of his book? Right. "Something's Happening Here." I've been humming and repeating the first few lines of that song - and thinking about what happened in that incredible year - ever since. Indeed, something did happen in the sixties in general - as Brokaw points out - and in 1968 in particular. Some of us will always remember it vividly. It was a year in which a war fought in a distant, Southeast Asian jungle would take a fateful turn; a year a president would back out of office and decide not to run for reelection; a year the nation's greatest African-American hero would be murdered; and the year a second Kennedy brother would be assassinated. For me personally, it was the year I decided to attend Seminary. I was convinced then, as I am convinced today, that the Kingdom of God is coming; and that it's about time it did. When I think about the 40 years that have elapsed since 1968 I find myself identifying with the first century Christians who needed, desperately, to hear Matthew's account of Jesus' words; who needed to be reminded that we know how this story we are living out is going to end - just the way it began, with God. As the Buffalo Springfield song suggests, something's happening here. And some of what's happened in our world in the last 40 years is good and some of it is not so good. Brokaw points out, for example, some areas where we have made strides that show progress toward the kind of Kingdom that Jesus might have been thinking about:
Some other signs, on the other hand, do not seem like progress at all:
Isn't it about time that the Kingdom of Heaven bursts forth into this crazy world? It certainly is for me. Frankly, I can't think of a better way to begin the season of Advent than with Jesus' promise that the Kingdom is coming and his directive to keep awake ringing in our ears. Those folks who picked our Gospel text for today were on target after all. Or, to put it slightly differently, "I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down." What's going down? Jesus is coming. Jesus is coming. Thank God, Jesus is coming. AMEN |