The Gospel for the The First Sunday of Advent (November 28, 2004)
Matthew 24:37-44
‘As it was in Noah’s day, so will it be when the Son of man comes. For in those days before the Flood people were eating, drinking, taking wives, taking husbands, right up to the day Noah went into the ark, and they suspected nothing till the Flood came and swept them all away. This is what it will be like when the Son of man comes. Then of two men in the fields, one is taken, one left; of two women grinding at the mill, one is taken, one left. ‘So stay awake, because you do not know the day when your master is coming. You may be quite sure of this, that if the householder had known at what time of the night the burglar would come, he would have stayed awake and would not have allowed anyone to break through the wall of his house. Therefore, you too must stand ready because the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect. -- The New Jerusalem Bible. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1995, c1985
A Study
We shall all be living our ordinary lives when He comes again, and we shall be divided. There is an implication, given the images of the flood and the burglar, that something bad happens to some of the divided. There is created the image of "standing ready" because Jesus is going to re-appear at some future time, one we do not expect.
A Reflection
I suspect that the author of this text fully intended to inspire some fear into its readers, to shake them up and get them to "amend their ways."
In spending the past few days with eight of our ten grandchildren, my wife and I have observed how well rewards work and re-verified that threats of punishment are temporary dis-incentives, at their best.
How about with adults? Check out the effectiveness of the death penalty. If you're a poor black man in Texas, there's a slight correlation -- delayed by a decade or more -- that a heinous crime against a white woman will result in the death penalty.
On the other hand, what I call "laws of physics" adverse results aren't really punishments: stick your finger in a lamp socket to test this one. Unlike the death penalty, and most societally-imposed sanctions, the laws of physics always apply and are always satisfied. If I attempt to "violate" one of them, I suppose I would be "punished" for stupidity?
So much of what we read into this text is both cultural and a result of the Revelation of John, a nightmare that somehow got read into the Canon, and which many claim to understand as inspirational. I confess that I am not there, yet.
In referring to the flood story, the writers have Jesus refer to the suddenness with which events transpired. Unspoken is YHWH's one-sided covenant with humans: He will never destroy the earth again.
And that leaves me wondering, then, how will the end times actually end? We know that the clockwork set in motion at the Big Bang will have our little blue ball of a planet likely consumed when our star explodes in a few billion years, or that it will become a Mars-like frozen desert.
I will therefore confess to no understanding of this parousia business, or perhaps merely a vague acceptance of a coming again, and no definite assurance that the next coming and the end times are the same event. That's the danger of having beliefs in complex supernatural stuff: blind belief is so colored by people with ungodly desires that it can hardly be safe.
I am assured that loving God and loving my neighbor are as close as I can get to the theological laws of physics, however.
The Collect
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
9:47:03 AM 
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