Sermons

“Waiting, Watching, Walking”

Isaiah 2:1-5; Matthew 24:36-44 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – November 27, 2016

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that your Spirit of Love might comfort our souls and soothe our weary hearts. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

This sermon is not about the rapture. The rapture, to be clear, is barely even a thing, despite how much some people may wish it were. It’s not even clear in this passage we heard from Matthew, if being taken is good and being left is bad, or if being left is good and being taken is bad. Those words are used both ways in multiple different places in scripture, but in the directly referenced story of Noah, those who were “left” were the ones who got on the boat. So, no, we’re not going to be talking about who’s going to be levitated up to heaven without warning.

The truth is that we have a very different orientation to time and the appearance of Christ than those living in the first century who had first- or secondhand memories of having him around. Much as Christians throughout the centuries may have wished for Jesus to come and take the wheel, we have had to figure out new ways of relating to the presence of Christ and his guiding power in our world. Advent is one of the times when we grapple with these questions. As we prepare for the arrival of the Christ Child, we are also preparing ourselves to recognize and welcome Christ whenever and wherever he may appear in our lives. And so, during this season, we focus on waiting and watching.

And because we live in urgent times, it’s important that we talk about what waiting and watching looks like, because it might sound like something passive, but given what we know about Jesus, that hardly seems likely. Let’s start with waiting. The orientation of waiting is actually a fairly good metaphor for the Christian life. To be waiting implies that things are not yet as they should be. It requires that we maintain an active sense that things can and will be different than they currently are. This is akin to the way that Christians cultivate a deep and urgent sense of God’s vision for a world of shalom, even when it seems far removed from our daily living. Our consumeristic, fatalistic world would prefer to lull us into believing that the ways things are is how they’ve always been and how they always will be, world without end. The status quo prefers to remain the status quo. Those who shout or cry about how things should be different are seen as disruptive and unpleasant. It’s easier to just give in and go along. But as Christians, we are called to wait, to hold onto our belief that something different, something better is coming.

Now this call to waiting is not about sitting around, expecting God to just step up and fix things. Nothing about this says we are to be paralyzed while we wait. Regardless of which person in those pairs from Matthew 24 is getting to be with Jesus, the story tells us both of them were active beforehand. Two people will be working in the field. Two people will be grinding meal. Even if this life isn’t the one God wants for us, we still have to eat in the meantime! We are called to engage with life. There is work to be done, work that brings the realm of God closer, and simply work that’s necessary for holding things together in our current state. That’s what makes it so challenging to keep in mind that we’re still waiting, that there’s still something that is incomplete. If we’re living our lives fully, engaged with making the best of things as they are, it can be hard to remember that there’s something beyond all of this. To be called to waiting is to take on the challenge of living in two worlds at the same time. This might also be called the spiritual practice of hope.

Beyond but part of the waiting, is the watching. What does this even mean? What are we watching for? Jesus? Well, yes, but also signs of Jesus, signs of Jesus’ presence, evidence of the Spirit of Christ in our midst. Watching is important for cultivating hope, because in a sense, what we are watching for are reasons for hope. This watching is connected to maintaining that alternate vision for our world that waiting implies. Having a clear sense of that vision is what helps us recognize what we’re watching for when we see it. It’s how we will know when Christ is in our midst.

Just a little later in Matthew, Jesus talks about all the times the various nations saw him without realizing it. In the person who is hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, that’s where we should be looking for these signs, he tells us. Not where or when you might expect it, but wherever love is freely shared. Are you paying attention? Are you watching? Will we know him when we see him? The action of watching brings a deeper level of intentionality and intensity to our waiting. We’re not just waiting; we’re actively looking for hints that the new world we’re waiting for is breaking out all around us. We’re expecting it, and so we start to see it. Again, this is one way of explaining the spiritual discipline, the practice of hope.

Both of these aspects of practicing hope – waiting and watching – are mostly activities of the heart and mind. They are concerned with how we make meaning, how we interpret the world around us and our place in it. While this isn’t passive sitting, it’s also not quite as active as Jesus would have us be. “My kingdom is not of this world,” he said, and yet he came here, to this world, and did some important things here. God created this world and called it good. God cared enough for this world to come and inhabit it. God heals and reconciles the brokenness of this world because this world matters to God. Our role is not simply to sit around reminding ourselves that we’re waiting for something better. So let’s add one more word to our to-do list: walking. The passage we read from Isaiah paints a portrait of the Messiah, God’s chosen one and how compelling his wisdom will be, and how different from the ways of the world his approach to peace-making will be. And the very last verse we heard there said this: “Come let us walk in the light of the Lord!”

There may be many broken things in our world that only Jesus can fix. But it’s not like he left us clueless and completely without direction. Whether we’re in the fields, or grinding meal, or beating swords into plowshares, we are called to be walking in the light of the world. As the old song goes, “In the highways, in the hedges, I’ll be somewhere a-working for my Lord!” That’s another W-word, of course, but I think we will do well to call this step walking, rather than working. To call it walking reminds us that it’s “walking in the light of the Lord” that we’re talking about, not just getting the jobs done. Walking in the light of the Lord evokes a deeper mindfulness than working. When we call it “work” we can easily begin to think of the outcomes as our accomplishments, which almost defeats the purpose. This sort of walking is a complement to the waiting and watching. It is the way we live out our belief that another world is possible, and even in the midst of arrival. It is part of the spiritual practice of hope. Sometimes we watch for the signs so our hearts can find hope, and sometimes, when we’re walking in the light of the Lord, we are signs for others, pointing toward the hope that their hearts need.

It seems like Advent always come just when we need it. Or maybe we always need it, and late November is just when it finally arrives. At any rate, there is a lot of waiting and watching going on these days, so it’s high time we got intentional about restoring our reserves of hope. Cultivating the capacity to engage fully with things the way they are while simultaneously keeping alive a vision for a new and better world is not an easy calling. There is a reason we do this in community. There is a reason we surround it with a lot of festivity. There is a reason we make sure there’s lots of good food around. Our bodies and our souls need bread for the journey, for we will be walking in the light of the Lord. Even if that light is only one candle’s flame for now, it is enough to help us watch and wait. It is enough to remind us why we walk and Who is leading. Alleluia and Amen.