Rev. E. Scott Winnette
Watching for Floods
Preached by the Rev. E. Scott Winnette
December 2, 2007
Do you ever just watch people? Thursday afternoon I studied for this sermon in the Cosi Coffee shop in Capital Hill. I love working on sermons in public. It forces me to recognize that sermons are about the living good, bad, and ugly people of the world. Revelation provided in scripture is not given to just stimulate our thinking about God. Revelation is provided so that we will learn to live as God’s children. It welcomes us into holy relationships with our God and wholesome relationships with each other.
In as much as the Revelation of God is invited into a sermon, the sermon should speak to life in this world. That said, I sat there and wondered how today’s text impacted the lives of the people who were with me in the coffee shop.
Not a comfortable task with our Gospel text today. I ordered a salad. The girl who prepared it was sweet as can be. The cashier was rudely disinterested in my polite chatter; she did not even look up to acknowledge me as I paid, nor did she mumble a thank you as I gave my tip of gratitude. I sat down and wondered if the parousia, the end time, if the final moment of Christ’s coming were to occur that minute which of these women would be received into God’s embrace – the nice, attentive one or the not-so-friendly lady who was apparently having a bad day?
There was a table of four very active teenage women across from me. They were loud not with their words but with their movement. I had to seriously concentrate to not be distracted from my reading as the four deaf women rapidly shot sign language sentences across their table. Would the short red heads be received into God’s love, the chunky blond, or the most vibrantly hand-dancing girl? Any of them? All of them?
I recalled the VHS tape my brother sent me years ago of the popular dispensationalist novel turned movie, Left Behind. The faithful ones in the middle of their normal days were plunked from the world during the end time rapture of God leaving moms and dad and brothers and sisters behind.
A homeless man stumbled in. He leaned against the door and looked at me. I smiled. The grin must have seemed an invitation. I was not wanting an interruption, but God’s Revelation is about wholesome relationships with people. I could not refuse to chat with this man with the Word of God open before me. I invited him to sit. I listened to Lawrence’s story. He had been hit by a car a year ago Christmas and that explained his difficulty walking and his almost unintelligible speech. He said he lost his job. He lives behind the CVS with his cousin and has a big knife to protect himself. He grew up in DC, and reminisced sharing stories of change. He even knew our church having driven by many years ago. I bought him a sandwich; we companionably sat. I worked while he ate and paused whenever he had something to say. Who would be left behind? Him? Me? I prayed that if the literal interpretation of this passage from Matthew were truth and God was going to take one of us that God would take Lawrence. Leave me to muddle through whatever penance God has planned for those left behind.
The joy of our Advent/Christmas begins with this apocalyptic passage and its seriously disturbing interpretations. A mother with three little boys came into the Cosi. If she had to choose one or two of her children to keep and one to leave behind, how would she? Enough! I DON’T WANT TO BE A PART OF ANY THEOLOGY WITH THIS KIND OF CHOOSING. I don’t want to be a part of a faith community who attempts to judge who is to be left behind. I refuse to believe in or bow before a God who is destined to make these kinds of choices. Now that is not to say that I don’t believe in God’s right to judge our actions. I would be more afraid and disturbed by a God who did not care how we treat each other, and who did not care what sort of lives we live. Somehow God will judge us all but not outside of the Amazing Grace and Love revealed by Jesus Christ.
There are some great Gospel messages in our text today. One is a blessing of humility. We do not need to make these hard salvific choices. We are not responsible for deciding if anyone is left behind. Not us! I don’t need to help that mother choose which children to leave behind. I don’t have to worry about Lawrence, or the hand-dancing girls, or the cook and cashier, or you or myself.
The pericope opens, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Nor the Son! If Jesus doesn’t know when the end time will be coming, how could we know, and if we cannot know when - then we surely cannot know how, and who.
Our brothers and sisters in faith past, present, and likely in the future have and will craft intricate teleological devices and formulas to determine when Christ will come again. We want to know. We want to know what is around the corner, so we will be ready. We want the power that comes with the knowledge. We want the control that comes with knowledge. Unfortunately, too many of our brothers and sisters also want to know more than when, they want to know who. They want to judge who God will receive. Why? Is it so that we can ensure our own acceptance. Is it so we can compete with each other for God’s grace? The Good News of our text today is a gift of ignorance, a gift of humility. In Acts 1:6-8 the disciples pleaded that Jesus share with them the master timeline,
So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’
We are not to know the divine timeline, but Jesus promises that we will receive a power to be witnesses to his life. This takes us back to our passage where Matthew references the great Flood and Noah. There is great divine judgment in the story but there is also the amazing grace of the Ark, the amazing faithfulness of Noah, and the amazing cleansing waters of the Flood. The power promised to us, the disciples, by Jesus is akin to the power given to Noah. He built an ark. The ark is a metaphor for a safe place, a metaphor for a place of rescue, a refuge in storms. The ark is a metaphor for a God-oriented world-wide society, it is the peaceable kingdom, it is the time when swords are melted into plowshares, and bombs into household heat, and tanks into roofing material. It is the place where the cranky are welcomed with the kind, the different are welcomed with the average, the homeless and poor are welcomed with the comfortable.
Noah built an Ark and welcomed all the animals good, bad, and ugly. Noah did it amidst the jeering laughter of his community. He was counter-cultural. Jesus calls his church to likewise be counter-cultural. Like Noah, like Jesus, we are disregard the fears and jeers of the world. We are to hold high a beacon of hope for all the world to see. We are to live into in a bright future. We are to spread the Gospel by making safe places. We are to create Arks of safe haven, Arks of shalom while we watch and wait for the flood of God’s cleansing presence. Create an ark at home, at work. Together we create an ark at Bradley Hills, a church that is the provisional demonstration of God’s beloved kingdom here and now.
Rather than worry about the when, who, how, and why of the end times, we are to be alert at all times to the possibilities that God has in store for us. This is what Advent means. We wait and watch for Christ’s final flood-like, world-cleansing coming. We also stay alert watchful for the myriads of epiphanies that come into our lives daily through each other and all whom we welcome.
Picture with me, Noah and family were watching for the flood. They built the Ark and invited the creation to enter its safety. I imagine them in the midst of their daily activities anticipating holy moments, anticipating holy strangers. What do we do when we are uncontrollably excited? We cannot sit still. We strain to see what is coming. We dance around. I imagine Noah and family that excited as they watched all of the bizarre animals who came to the ark. I imagine them up on their tippy-toes watching the horizon for the approach of people and animals who sought refuge. Then like the welcoming father of all prodigal children, they ran to welcome them into the Ark.
Jesus promises the same faithful power to us. Our Christian lives are lived expectantly, on our toes. Our passion should be evangelism, the exciting opportunity to welcome strangers into our community. We should be so excited that we almost wet ourselves anticipating the next opportunity sent by God. We should be uncontrollably excited watching for new friends, that we stay up on our toes until they hurt.
Now we cannot stay on our toes for too long, for we need to eat and drink, work and play. We have to plant and harvest, cook and clean. So we learn to watch, to keep awake by always inviting Christ to come to us, by creating rhythms up and down that will keep us on our toes enough so that we won’t miss any comings or goings of our God. Up on this tip-toe, the other. Christian living dances with hope-filled expectancy. This Advent we are invited to grow our mindfulness of God in the world. We are invited to grow in our trust that God will care for us. We are to strain up to our tippy-toes watching for Jesus ready to welcome the Christ again and again in each other, and in the strangers God sends into our lives.
Watch for Lawrence with me. Lawrence said he may come join us someday to hear me preach. You will know him by his stumbling walk, his winning smile, the smell of his unwashed body, the beauty of one of God’s beloved Children, Christ’s image among us. Watch for and help me welcome the rude cashiers and kind cooks of our lives. Girls with dancing hands. Moms and Dads, little girls and boys. This Advent come watch for and welcome all of them, all of them to Christ’s table on your excited toes. Come welcome all of the Christ comings, on your beautiful dancing tippy-toes. We are watching for you too. We are very excited to see you coming here to this Ark too. Amen.
