Advent I -- Isaiah 2: 1 – 5; Psalm 122; Romans 13: 8 – 14; Matthew 24: 37 – 44
A sermon by The Rev. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, IL on Sunday, December 2nd, 2007
Once upon a time in my life, I was on fulltime active duty with an infantry battalion of the Virginia National Guard. Part of the famous 29th Infantry Division,[1] much of our work as “full timers” was involved with making sure that the unit and its members were ready for mobilization.
We would work to make sure that our soldiers’ records were up-to-date, that the equipment we would need to take with us was available and in good repair, and so forth.
In fact, whenever we would muster for training, the reality that we – like our previous members during World War II – could be called up to meet some need or emergency was never far from our thinking. That realization colored and shaped our entire schedule of work and training….our whole lives – in short – were focused on being ready whenever the call to duty came.
As we look at today’s Gospel reading from Matthew, chapter 24, it seems to me that what our Lord Jesus Christ is describing is a mobilization of His own people, calling them out of their places of work and living, and into a new situation, much like soldiers who are mobilized, who leave their places of work and living to answer the call.
Our Lord’s words hit us in the face, like the shock of an order to report for duty….it must be Advent!
For in Advent, we have two main themes before us:
- Preparing for Our Lord’s first advent, at Christmastime.
- Preparing for Our Lord’s second advent, when God’s purposes for this world and the people in it are fulfilled at the end of time.[2]
In this Year A of our three year cycle of readings, we will be spending a lot of time reading Matthew’s Gospel account. As we hear today, and as we will encounter again and again in the Sundays to come, Matthew has (what a priest friend of mine once called) a “hard edge”….It is the “hard edge” of judgment[3]…Jesus describes the time of Noah, saying, “Far as in the days of Noah were, So will be the coming of the Son of Man.” The time of the Great Flood was a time that is described as God’s judgment….So we hear the harsh words of judgment today (verses 40 & 41), “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.”
Words like this, “One will be taken, and one will be left” make us want to shy away from the hard truths that Jesus is describing.
But for us soldiers, the hard truth was that not everyone who was a member of our infantry unit would, in fact, be mobilized with us….at our “separation point”[4] some would be sent home for various reasons, being found unfit for a variety of reasons for the service that we would be rendering to the country. We would say good-bye to friends and comrades-in-arms we’d known for many years as some were taken, and others were left.
That was the reality that we faced, and it is the reality that Jesus lays before us today: some with whom we may be “rubbing elbows” will be found unfit to answer the call, and will be left. Attached to that reality is the attendant reality that the separation between the “fit” and the “unfit” will not be made until the time of the coming of the Son of Man.[5]
Jesus’ words call us to reflection….
- Am I looking for the call of God in the return of His Son, the Son of Man?
- How does the reality that – in God’s good time[6] - all things and persons will acknowledge Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords affect and color my everyday activity and focus?
- Am I “fit for duty”? Will I be found worthy of being taken into the Lord’s service on that day?
- What am I doing to be ready to answer the call when Our Lord comes?
All of these questions call us to look at the “hard edge” of the reality of God…the reality that God’s plans might be quite different from our own conceptions. So today’s text calls us to see things from God’s perspective, not our own.
AMEN.
[1] The one that led the assault on Omaha beach during D Day (June 6th, 1944).
[2] Notice the bifurcated vision (literally “two-forked” – coming from the Latin bi + furcia = two + forked) in this comprehensive understanding; the world of the here-and-now, and the world-to-come.
[3] Today’s passage lies about in the middle of a major section – Our Lord’s last major teaching in Matthew – that extends from Matthew 23: 1 - 25: 46. Often entitled “The Judgment Discourse” by biblical scholars, it contains three chapters’ worth of Jesus’ teaching, as He issues warnings, woes and speaks of the coming judgment of God.
[4] For military units, the “separation point” is the place from which the unit departs to go into the area where they will serve, having been thoroughly equipped, tested and found to be ready for duty.
[5] Verse 44
[6] Beware of any who claim to know God’s plan in its specifics, or in its timing (verse 36)….televangelists, especially, beware!
