Beginning at the End (12.1.19)

Beginning at the End
Matthew 24.36-44
December 1, 2019
Advent 1A
Rev. Elizabeth Mangham Lott
St. Charles Ave. Baptist Church

‘But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. 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.Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour. —Matthew 24.36-44

I’ve never been much for blockbuster summer movies in which a charming hero saves the world from annihilation. After 90 minutes of explosions and heart-racing music, the hero emerges from a cloud of smoke, dripping in sweat, dirt smeared across his face. And if it’s a true summer blockbuster, then he also gets the girl and lives happily ever after. The thing about these movies is that the hero is the hero because he helped us all face the end and then avoid it. Destruction was right at the two hour mark, and he stopped it with ten minutes to spare. We’re exhilarated and relieved, grateful to the hero for sparing us and providing escape from one of our biggest fears. Today’s lesson has a different ending…it…ENDS.

It’s an odd way to start a story, but here we are again at the beginning of a new liturgical year, lighting the candle of hope and talking about the capital “E” end of everything. We mark this shift into a new church year not with the creation poetry of Genesis or the birth narratives of Jesus. We mark this shift with some kind of story telling us: the End will come. And it very likely won’t be at all what you imagined. And it certainly won’t involve Will Smith or the Rock waving guns around and saving the day. 

Matthew’s gospel is particularly spooky, and has been taken far to literally in recent decades. Jesus tells his followers: You won’t know when the world as you know it ends and a new one begins. You can’t predict it. But a time will come when everything changes in a flash, and nothing will be the same anymore. Stay awake for this. Be on alert. Anticipate total, radical transformation. Expect it.

The season of Advent speaks to a different rhythm not just when held against the cultural, American Christmas season, but a different rhythm of living altogether. It’s far more than a “not yet” of obligatory delayed gratification as we stare at presents beneath the tree not yet ours to unwrap. Advent is telling us to wait together for something fresh and dynamic to be revealed. These weeks are an invitation to celebrate not what is glittery and fun but what is hidden and mysterious with the power to transform everything forever. Do we want to know the hiddenly mysterious power of God that might transform the whole of creation? Is that how we want the story to begin? 

If we’re pretty honest, no. No, we do not want to know the hiddenly mysterious power of God that might transform the whole of creation. We want a sweet baby in a sweet manger and a sweet candle to hold during a sweetly sung Silent Night. We don’t want to talk about eschatology—especially when we live in a world that already feels like it could be teetering at the edge of something that feels an awful lot like an ending on the particularly bad days. 

But the end of things is entirely wrapped up in the birth and life and death and resurrection of Jesus. It is the Jesus story. The end of what we have known. The end of the pretenses of cultural religion. The end of controlling empire. His story is all about ending these poor, false expectations for how life and politics and religion and culture live together. Professor O. Wesley Allen, Jr. writes, “For Matthew[’s gospel], it is not that Jesus’ first coming was historical and his second coming will be eschatological. No, the birth, ministry, death, and resurrection comprise an eschatological event that means the church is already living and always will live in the turning of the ages. The End has begun. Matthew strives to answer the question: how are we to live in-between ‘the already’ of the salvation we have experienced in Christ and the ‘not yet’ of that salvation not being fully consummated in the world?”

The birth of Jesus is an ending. A transition moment. A point of no return. A true apocalypse—an uncovering, a revealing of what is true and what is false. And so, of course! Advent begins with apocalypse. We do ache for an uncovering, a revealing of what is true and what is false. In scripture, we find these fiery, end times stories of judgment, of a human one coming down from the clouds, tremendous suffering met by darkness and stars falling from the sky. Two men walking and one vanishing into thin air. It’s bizarre and terrifying and easy to dismiss as old or irrelevant. And when these sacred stories seem too covered in cobwebs to make any sense any more, then we know it’s time to ask better questions of them. What truth does the metaphor hold?

Why would this word of the END be inspiring to a particular and peculiar people? Why would this word of the END be a word of HOPE on the first Sunday of Advent? What is happening in the life of a people that the thought of burning the whole world to the ground seems a more hopeful notion than sticking with the status quo?

In the face of oppressive government and a society in which only a few determined the well-being of the many, a story emerges about what is abidingly real and what is a mere interruption of false narrative. Into very real pain comes a story that says, “What is happening in the Roman world around you isn’t the real deal. Those jokers in power aren’t the real power. The fear and destruction they are causing isn’t how the story ends. Caesar’s decree will not be the final word.” 

Now that is a very particular—real life here and now, speaking into the heartbeat of people who perceive they don’t have much of a say in their destiny—word of hope. And THAT is the waiting of Advent. THAT is what the gospel writers tell us is coming to an end—so much so that it has already ended in some kind of cosmic way. And this is where we will hang out together for a few weeks even while the fun and light of cultural American Christmas goes on around us because the work of Advent waiting invites us to reconsider how we see and engage everything.

On this first Sunday of a new church year, hear a question about our own story within this question of apocalypse. What’s the real story of our lives? There’s the story we can see unfold around us, and my goodness can we hear that story even better than Jesus’ audience would have heard it. We with computers attached to phones and in our hands almost all the time. We with the 24 hour news cycle. We with the ability to watch starvation and disease and far away war and right here gun violence on Canal Street…staring at our screens like it’s all just another tv show. We already know a story or 2 or 12 that could send us into a bunker to hide and fully disengage from life. 

Friends, we are not the first to feel this way—utterly overwhelmed by the enormity of the world’s pain. Jesus’ disciples were living within a very real story of oppression and fear around them, and it was quite enough to look into the face of Empire and those who conspired with Empire and want to throw in the towel. They’re bigger, they’re stronger, they have the power, they win. So when Jesus talks about signs in the sun, the moon, the stars, and on the earth, he’s telling them they cannot hide from their lives because of this one story they know. He’s telling them there’s a better story, a truer story, a story guided by love, and they might have to listen for it in unexpected places and watch for it to radically surprise them in the middle of their ordinary lives.

Maybe those words don’t sound very hopeful on their own, on this Sunday we have marked with Hope. But these words from Jesus are an invitation into a better story. He is calling his audience to wake up and be fully alive. If you are numbing your fear with booze and distraction and an overly full calendar and entirely too much time in front of a screen, you are missing everything. Be on guard, be alert, be here, Jesus practically begs them. Sometimes we’d rather be anywhere than the “here” of our lives. Don’t miss being HERE. Right now.

We’re not just waiting for Christ to appear and be revealed out there over there somewhere. We’re waiting for Christ to be revealed in us and through us. It is through the community Christ has gathered, through the people Christ has equipped, and through the ones who wait attentively that this holy transformation will come. We have everything we need to continue in faith. But we aren’t finished. We haven’t arrived. We’re waiting. And as we wait, we grow stronger.

We begin at the End in this season of Advent. Welcome to the revealing. Stay awake and watch for what is being uncovered.