Thankful Memorial, Chattanooga; December 1, 2019; Year A, Advent 1

Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44

A few weeks ago, our organist Sheryl told a few of us who were here before the service a story about the time she got “left behind.”  All day she had been in the stacks of the music library at the top of the building where she used to work.  When she finally came down, the building was empty.  No one was there – on any floor, in any office.  Even all the cars in the parking lot, except her own, were gone.  Sheryl said she was sure everyone had been raptured. 

In fact, there had been a bomb threat and whoever rounded up all the workers and told them to go home had failed to alert poor Sheryl working away in the stacks! 

Still, the effect, I imagine, must have been chilling.  Perhaps you have had a similar sort of experience and have wondered if everyone else had been saved.  That idea of being “left behind” is, in part perpetuated by quasi-religious nonsense like the Left Behind book series many years ago.  But, in part, the idea is rooted somewhat in Scripture.  First Thessalonians and the book of Revelation both offer pictures of an end in which the righteous are whisked away into the clouds and the unrighteous are left to suffer here on earth. 

And it’s that idea, confirmed by the culture around us, that often shapes our reading of all apocalyptic literature in the Bible.  So, when we hear Jesus’ words in Matthew, that “two will be in the field” or “two women will be grinding meal together” and “one will be taken and one will be left,” we assume that the one taken is the one saved.  But, if you look closely, that’s not actually what Jesus says – at least not here in Matthew.  Jesus doesn’t make it perfectly clear which of the two is the righteous one.  But there is an implication that maybe it is the one who is “left behind” who is saved.  After all, Jesus has talked about “the days of Noah,” when the flood “swept them all away” except the righteous few who were left behind on the boat.  So, maybe we need to keep awake so that when the Son of Man comes, we will be ready for him, ready to stay behind and get to work.

Because, if we read Jesus’ words this way, work is exactly what will be required of us. Again, the example of Noah is helpful here.  It turned out that the “end” that was the flood was actually a brand new beginning for Noah and his family.  And when that new day dawned, when the waters receded and the rainbow appeared, Noah was faced with a whole new world – a world in which the good work of regular life had to go on.  And notice that when Jesus in Matthew describes the final end and new beginning, when the unrighteous are swept away, those who are left are still caught up in doing the work of living: tilling the field and grinding meal. 

Now maybe, at first glance, that doesn’t sound like hugely good news to us.  Who wants to keep working when Jesus comes again?  Wouldn’t it be much better to get raptured up away from this world and into another?

But in the scriptures, stories of salvation keep heaven very much tied to earth.  We even say it in our Lord’s prayer: thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Or, take the picture painted by the prophet Isaiah who prophesies a time when God’s righteousness and justice are made real right where he is, in the city of Jerusalem.  And all the nations stream to God’s holy mountain to learn the ways of God.  And “they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.” 

Isaiah imagines a time when, just as we so often pray, God creates God’s kingdom on earth.  But notice that here, too, human beings are caught up in the work of that kingdom.  God doesn’t do everything, for it is the people who “beat their swords into plowshares.”  The people participate with God in the good work of kingdom-making, of creating a world in which the nations learn to live in true peace with one another, where God’s love and justice reign.   

This morning we celebrate the first Sunday of Advent, the season when we wait in anticipation for the coming of the Christ-child at Christmas, and we are also reminded to wait for the second coming of Christ.  But how should we go about waiting for the Lord?

Our readings today tell us that Christian waiting is active, not passive.  We are not allowed to just sit back and hang out until Christ comes again.  Rather, we are challenged to live as though God’s kingdom is already being made a reality on earth.  Because, actually, it is.  In Jesus’ birth, ministry, death and resurrection, God’s work of re-creation was already begun.  The end is already started but not yet complete.  And, as Christians, we look forward with hope to that completion, to the time when God’s work of salvation will be fully realized on earth. 

We act on that hope when we live and work for the kingdom of God that we know is already here but not yet complete.  We act on that hope when we continue to work diligently in the field or grinding meal – or teaching, or raising children, or nursing patients, or fixing HVAC systems so folks can have heat in the winter – when we do well and generously whatever it is we have the gifs for.  We act on that hope when we participate in the work of beating swords into plowshares, by seeking justice and peace for all people – through individual actions and through societal change.  We act on that hope when we see the darkness in the world around us, when we feel the anxiety caused by one crisis after another in our personal lives and on the global stage, when we come close to sickness, sorrow and death, and yet, despite it all, persist in Christ’s mission of salvation, trusting that what God has begun in us will, through God’s grace working in us, be fulfilled.

This is how we make ourselves ready for the coming of the Christ: by living into God’s kingdom here on earth, as individuals and as communities, by taking real, concrete steps, one by one, to heal division and to build relationships, to seek to do what is good for another, to love others generously.  “For salvation is nearer to us now… the night is far gone, the day is near” and we live in the hope that when Christ comes again, we will be left behind to take up our work in his kingdom.  Amen.