Sermon 11/28/04
What Are You Waiting For? - Isaiah 2:1-5, Matthew 24:36-44
(view lectionary notes for this text)
The season of expectation. The season of waiting. The season of anticipation. The season of visions - visions of sugar plums? Maybe. Visions of the birth of the Christ child. Hopefully! Visions of the end of the world and the second coming - what? If last week we were surprised to find ourselves on the scene of the crucifixion, today, at the beginning of Advent, we're surprised to be reading texts that deal with the second coming of Jesus. Aren't we still on the first coming? Isn't that what Advent is all about? But here we are, and the two texts we read today have us looking into the future - farther into the future than December 25th. What do these visions have in store for us today?
Our first vision comes to us from the Prophet Isaiah. Isaiah speaks of God's house being established in the "highest of the mountains," a dwelling in the top of the hill. And all the nations, we read, are streaming upward to it, an interesting visual image. The people say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of God, that God may teach us, and we may walk in God's ways." And we read, "God shall judge between the nations . . . they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." The passage closes with Isaiah's call: "O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord." One vision.
Our second vision comes from the gospel of Matthew, the gospel that will be our focus for this Christian year which begins today with the first Sunday in Advent. The vision in Matthew, told by Christ, is much different. Jesus speaks of a day about which no one knows, not even the Son himself, but only God. He compares this coming day to the day the flood came in Noah's time, and the people, unaware, were drinking and laughing and eating right up until the floods were upon them. It will be like that, Jesus says, where two will be in a field, and one will be snatched away, or two grinding meal, and one taken away. So, Jesus warns, "keep awake . . . for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming . . . you . . . must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour." A second vision. And a very different vision than the one Isaiah shares.
And, of course, there's the small matter that these verses come to us in what is supposed to be the season of Advent. Theses verses have some message for us, we're to understand, about waiting for the birth of the Christ child. For me, the text from Isaiah is perhaps easier to work with - its prettier and we humans seem to fare better in this vision. But we can't just write off the gospel lesson as too difficult to handle. So let's start there. The first thing I notice about this text from Matthew is that Jesus keeps emphasizing the unexpected nature of his coming. He urges us to be watchful, to keep awake, but says in no uncertain terms that we can't know when, we can't know exactly what to expect. "Understand this," Jesus says, "if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his be broken into." Jesus is speaking about the return of the Son of Man to earth, the second coming. But we're talking about Advent, right? Expectation is a word that's very appropriate to Advent. But how about the word unexpected? If that an Advent word?
After all, we know exactly what to expect in Advent, don't we? We expect the candles to be lit each week on the wreath. We expect a great Christmas pageant in couple of weeks. We expect to sing Silent Night with the lights out on Christmas Eve. We expect to give and receive presents. We expect to spend more than we planned. We expect to see ringers asking for support for the Salvation Army. We expect to party! And, yes, we expect Jesus to be born, promptly on time on December 25th, the Christ-child to come and save us all again, thank God! Good news, yes, but unexpected? Haven't we heard this story already? Isn't this season about traditions and planning and preparing?
But I think we have to ask ourselves - did we remember to leave room in there somewhere to be changed? Did we leave room in our expectations for God to work in us? Did we leave room for the unexpected? Are we so prepared that we can't be touched and shocked to the core by the awesomeness of what God is doing in our midst in this season? The people were full of expectations two thousand years ago. They were waiting for a savior. They expected a Messiah, a King, a leader, someone who would rise up and take control. No one was looking for a baby, born under questionable circumstance, from some small country town. Today, with all our planning, might we miss Jesus' coming? God's child is coming at an unexpected hour this year.
So what are you waiting for? What are you expecting this year? Are you waiting for things together? Are you waiting for the world to be a safer place? Are you waiting for a better economy? For gas prices to go down? Are you waiting for a savior? For the second coming? For the Christ child? Rev. Wesley White responds with our reality check, saying: "Well, [the] time is not known. The choice is only that of being distracted by eating and drinking and personal relationships [as in the days of Noah] 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." (1)
Isaiah, we could say, did what we could according to the vision given. Isaiah dreamed and preached about a world were the nations came to God's holy mountain to learn how to walk in God's paths. Isaiah saw a world were tools that were used for war and violence and death were made instead into tools that would cultivate growth, planting, harvest, life, and were war was no more. People flocking to be taught the right way to live - who'd have thought? Tools meant to kill used instead to give life - who would have expected that?
But what are you waiting for? Less than a month stands between us and Christmas day 2004. Between now and then, will you do something different, imagine a new vision? Between now and then, will something make this Advent other than the same-old-routine? Between now and then, what do you expect? Between now and then, can you make a place for God to work in unexpected ways in your life? In this church? In this world? Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, that we may walk in God's paths. Amen.
(1) Wesley White, Kairos CoMotion, http://66.84.196.7/dialogue/dialogue.dll?kairoscomotion-T20065+1000%