Trinity Lutheran Church

Matthew 24:36-44

December 1, 2019

First Sunday in Advent 

      

If it really matters we pay attention. This winter I’m reading Herman Wouk’s novels about WWII, Winds of War and War and Remembrance, alongside two volumes of journalists reporting on WWII, all told about 4000 pages. WWII was a time when things really mattered and people paid attention. We have been really paying attention to politics in America lately, our president, congress, and issues from support for the military and discipline to climate change to China. These are things that really matter to us so we pay attention. Last week we really paid attention to the weather forecasts, storms and holiday travel don’t mix well, so when they happen together we listen. The holiday season captures our attention too in ways the rest of the year doesn’t. We pay more attention to the needs of others so we value giving to Holiday Helping Hands, Salvation Army, Mitten Trees, Meals on Wheels, Thanksgiving offerings, and year end requests for charity. When it really matters we pay attention. 

The rest of the time, most of the time, life is routine, day to day. News still happens, weather comes and goes, and people are still in need, but we go to work, to school, to the lake, or a ballgame, and we eat our meals and celebrate marriages and baptisms and funerals and graduations. While we are aware of all these things they are often more a part of the routine of ordinary life. The dog days of summer or the mid-winter blues and long stretches of just living and being and doing until something significant happens to hold our attention for a little while. 

These sayings of Jesus that begin with, About that day and hour no one knows… are a call to pay attention to faith and God in the midst of the ordinary. More than warnings about the end times I hear in them four examples of people living ordinary lives until something suddenly happens to grab their attention. At the same time Jesus word to his followers, us, is pay attention to faith and the presence of God because you just never know. 

As I read through the commentaries on the story the same things were said again and again. M. Eugene Boring, yeah I know, what a great name for a theologian, wrote of the reference to the days of Noah, “The comparison with the days of Noah is not the wickedness of that generation, but that life was going on as usual, with no striking or mysterious signs of the approaching judgement.  The teaching is not so discerning disciples can know, but rather not knowing they might be continually spurred to being active in the mission.” In other words, the storm clouds didn’t build up for days and weeks and months so they could be ready, they suddenly appeared like any usual storm clouds in the midst of ordinary days. Likewise the other examples are of things happening in the midst of daily life. Two people are working in the fields or at a mill grinding grain, daily life, suddenly something happens. On 9-11 hundreds of people were at their computers in their offices or dropping their kids off at school and something happened without warning. In the midst of the routines of labor and life we expect nothing to happen, and usually nothing does. Jesus last example is also of someone living normally and unaware that something startling was about to happen. If the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake. Right! Except who ever knows such things. We sleep every night and nothing happens ever, until by very odd occurance something happens. I know I don’t stay up waiting for thieves in the night. Again, the point is about living in ordinary times when nothing is happening until it does. 

Jesus said at the end of these examples, … the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour. Some think that is a reference to the end of the world. Others think that the decisive moment of Jesus coming is the passion-resurrection story that caught his closest followers by surprise. His death hit them like the flood of Noah, he was taken they were left, they fell asleep in the garden before the soldiers came to take him away. His coming again in the resurrection was no less startling. They were so unprepared that they believed the announcement of the resurrection was an idle tale, fake news. But he broke into their midst when they were hiding behind locked doors, like a thief in the night he came to them with words of peace and forgiveness.  At the beginning of Matthew’s story of Jesus magi came from the east with news of the coming of God, Messiah, a new king. Herod and the scribes tried to figure it out and missed Jesus entirely. Even those paying attention missed the point. Some who think Jesus is coming in the clouds to end the world may very well miss his coming down the street or through the door or across the border in the form of one of the least of these in whom he promises that he will come. You never know how or in what form the Son of God will come, as an infant, or a hungry homeless sick person from another land, or in your neighbor or a stranger. You just never know, except that Jesus will come in the ordinary routines of day to day life. So Jesus said pay attention and stay awake, the Son of Man,the Lord of heaven and earth, the child of the manger and savior of the cross is coming and many who aren’t paying attention will miss it. 

How do we pay attention like it really matters in the midst of days that are routine and ordinary? How do we pay attention to the coming of our Lord like it really matters in the midst of days that are normal and unexciting? It’s really not that hard, though it is easy to get distracted and complacent. Keep the faith. Say your prayers. Love like Jesus. When Jesus shows up you will be ready to receive and serve. Worship and trust that God is with you, not just when you feel God’s presence or when you need or want God’s presence or when only when you expect God’s presence, but also when you don’t notice or remember that God is present. If it really matters we pay attention even while we are eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage as in the days of Noah, or as we are working in the fields or at the grinding mill, or at our labors or leisure, even when we are at rest and secure in our homes, God comes to us to stay with us and graces our lives with faith, hope and love. It does really matter so we can be about the work and will of God to love the world we live in. 

Amen.