Advent 1A - November 27th, 2022

Matthew 24:36-44 ““But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: 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 house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” - apocalyptic

If God waited until we are ready, we would never be ready -> God does it anyway.

Wake up from sleep, church

Link it to reaction to apocaylpse -> do good for the sake of good with no worry about return -> why worry about an apocalypse? Keep watch, but also keep working

Good morning!

And welcome to Advent! It’s here, whether we are truly ready or not..and well, there is something theological about that - we are rarely ready, but God makes it happen anyway! And well, the theme of an apocalypse continues in our first advent reading, just like all first advent readings in all three liturgical years. I think going straight to Jesus’ monologue later in Matthew is a bit confusing - so let’s backup a little- beep, beep, beep.

So at the beginning of the chapter 24, we have the figurative and literal prediction of the fall of the Second Jerusalem Temple that did happen - physically in the year 70 and spiritually in the transformation of the Judaism into more disjointed and perhaps intimate synagogal Judaism, away from a centralized Temple worship, which ultimately helped it grow and spread far and wide. Then begins the looong section we are in the middle of prefaced like this:

The New Revised Standard Version Signs of the End of the Age

3 When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” 4 Jesus answered them,

and then comes a loooong list - I think just the titles will tell us a lot - Signs of the End of the Age, Persecution Foretold, The Desolating Sacrilege, The Coming of the Son of Man, The Lesson of the Fig Tree....and then comes our “Necessity for Watchfulness” and some more monologues and THEN the plot to Kill Jesus unfolds. Oof! Needless to say, there is a lot to take in. So let’s take a closer look at the sliver we have for this Sunday.

The comparison with Noah’s Ark is interesting, i think, and according to Stanley Hauerwas, provides an intepretational key. Ultimately, the disciples are NOT in the prediction game of when the end will come - as you know, there have been so many natural disasters, destructive wars, big milestones all around, and people aplenty promising to be the saviors of us all…and yet, we are still here, in what is still very much a pre-apocalypse world. Rather, the story continues, the disciples are supposed to be ready when that happens, whenever that may be! Just like Noah was supposed to be ready with his Ark, even when it was yet to rain. They were to build an ark of their own, from a structural perspective, we may call it the church, but it is less about the physical building, the tenets of faith…and more about being a community that listens to and tells the story of God through their words and actions. Some will join them, but others will continue as if the apocalypse is not coming, just like in Noah’s times.

Our context is of course a little bit different - I think it is becoming more and more clear that the proverbial rain is here and we just do not know how long the rain will go for before the time will be up. One of the facet is a literal submerging of certain parts of the world due to melting icebergs because what is increasingly being recognized as heavily humanity assisted climate change. Wars that drags on for what seems forever and we are not going to remove the petition to pray for communities affected by gun violence any time soon - most recently in Chesapeake, Virginia or Colorado Springs, to name just the high profile ones. The truth is, we’ve been in the end times for quite a while, little apocalypses are happening all the time, just like the ones that happened on the East Coast for many Native Americans, whose tribes were ravaged by imported European diseases their immune systems had no answer to and oppressed by the colonists in an rather unchristian-like manner, even though many colonists claimed to be Christians. The apocalyptic rain is coming down hard. We know from Jesus that the Son of Man and with him the judgement and the end of all things is coming, but there is no calendar to open a new window of every day (what would be inside?) or number of sleeps to countdown to. It’s a mystery. I have experienced Christian communities that were SURE that the end is very near and there was a lot excitement - it was electric and infectious, but of course…that was like a decade ago, I wonder where is their energy now, it is really hard to sustain.

And here we are, in our community, building our local version of the apocalypse ark - trying our best, making mistakes, falling down and raising up again. Some, mostly cults, conceived of building such an ark as an escape vehicle, where the select few can go and leave this plane of existence. Others think of it more as a hermetic seal against the fallen world full of temptations. I like to think we do not really follow either imagery, even though it can seem alluring for one reason or another, but rather that we should try to build this ark, this foretaste of Kingdom of God, this church community, to celebrate and worship God and all that God has done for us the best way we know and invite others to come along onto the ark. It is not an evacuation craft and also not a self-sustained habitat on a deserted planet. If you forgive me, I think it is a wholesome party boat, where everybody is welcome to come and join the celebrations with others, get to know the host and captain (God), and go to many interesting places, because faith is less of a destination and more of a journey. We know that eventually it will end and we are going to hit some rather tall waves and scary storms along the way, but until then we are on the way, not isolating from the world, but also not accepting everything at its face value, not trying to escape the world, but also being open to an adventure. Let’s keep working on this ark and let’s leave the itinerary of the adventure in the captain’s, God’s hands! Amen.

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