Advent 1A
by Iva Staats
Matthew 24:36-44
Jesus said to the disciples, “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.”
Come Holy Spirit, renew the face of the Earth. Kindle in us the fire of thy love, awaken in us a readiness for the day at hand, the day that fosters the coming of your Kingdom. +Amen.
***
“Iva! Iva! You know what time it is! It is time to wake from sleep!” Actually, it sounded a smidge different than this in my house in 1983, and, for the record, it was the only time that I can recollect that I just flat out lied to my mother, repeatedly and intentionally. It went a little bit more like this: “Iva, are you up?” My response was consistent: “Yes, mom. I’m up.” Maybe if I just doze back off, she will forget. Invariably, though, a few minutes later came the same question: “Iva...are you up?” “Yes, mom! I’m UP!” Depending on how many rounds were tolerated on any given school morning, the eventual secondary response was predictable. My dad would soon arrive in my room, turn on the lights, strip all the covers back from my warm cozy existence and shake the mattress yelling “earthquake!” By then, the situation was most certainly apocalyptic and there was no mistaking what time it was. It was definitely time to wake from sleep. “Iva! Iva! You know what time it is!” But, did I? Did I really know what time it was? I contend perhaps I did not and unfortunately, it wasn’t until I read a commentary on this week’s lectionary that I realized the excuse I should’ve perhaps employed in my own defense on those cold mid-winter school mornings. Maybe I really didn’t know what time it was, relatively, anyway.
You see, by the time my mother was asking the question, I’d already permanently snoozed the wakeup call of my groovy off-white digital clock radio, the kind with the numbers that flipped mechanically each minute, anyone remember those? Essayist Cynthia Campbell muses that digital clocks have accentuated our tendencies to see and perceive time in discrete, disconnected units. So, in retrospect, I think this whole situation was my clock’s fault, not mine. I mean, it’s not that I couldn’t read the numbers on the clock, but they weren’t anything more than numbers, representing a moment in time. So, those numbers were not held in any relativity to the past, perhaps the math homework left undone, or to the future, the urgency of the arriving bus. Time advances in this manner from moment to moment, but is not held relatively to anything else. So, you see, it was absolutely my clock’s fault, not mine!
We all fall under the tyranny of time. We talk about time as though we both possess it, “having” enough time, and create it, “making” time, when in actuality we can do neither, right? Time continues forward never taking into account our posture or attitudes toward it. We also live in an era where communication occurs in these same discrete and disjointed units. We can text or email our thoughts when it is convenient to us, our recipients do not need to perceive or receive these in real time and then can respond when we, ourselves are then busy with something else. Information about the world also arrives to us in these same compartmentalized packets that limit our ability to see the big picture. Our worlds exist largely through small windows we now hold in our hands. When we couple these factors with the phenomenon of telling time in a digital format, we cannot see what has come before and what comes after. In a moment, the moment just becomes the next moment and so on.
Campbell posits that our perspective changes when we tell time with an analog clock. You know, the kind that has three hands sweeping around a fixed central anchor in the center of the clock face? The kind of clock that we can see all the numbers of the clock simultaneously? When we gaze upon an analog clock’s data, we can see not only the moment as it passes, but see the moment relative to other moments. Whether we are conscious of it or not, when we “see” two o’clock, it is held relatively to both lunch two hours ago and quitting time three hours from now. Two o’clock reminds us how long it's been since we kissed a loved one goodbye to when we will sit for a meal with a friend. We know where we stand relative to the beginning of the day and the end of the day. We know where we stand to our deadlines, the moments we look forward to...and the ones that we dread...we know where we stand relative to our lives, situated between the past and the future. The “was” and the “will be” intersect in the moment we are experiencing. From this perspective we can see ourselves in the present as a culmination of our past moments as they hold hands with the ones that remain unrealized, but only when we can see ourselves in the moment relative to each.
Arguably, neither Jesus or Paul had even an analog timepiece as they admonish us to our wakefulness this morning. They could only tell time relative to the created order and knew where they were in it by watching the created order itself: the sun, the stars, the moon and the tides. Even when one argues that Jesus, being fully divine, would have greater insight, he speaks clearly: “but about that day and hour, no one knows...not the Son...only the Father.” This left them with a profound sense, a situational awareness, of the “was” and the “will be” in the arcing narrative of creation and God’s plan. Their urgency to wakefulness and time telling takes on additional gravity when we consider their time keeping methods and limitations.
Advent, by its very nature invites us into this same manner of time-telling, or it should anyway. Seasonally, Advent is the analog clock of the church. Amidst the frenetic pace of the secular calendar, always present but certainly intensified in the coming weeks, Advent beckons us to see not only the moment as it passes, but see the moment relative to other moments and ourselves within it, both individually and collectively. The hearkening call of Advent is to hold simultaneously an anticipation of the imminent dawning of the Incarnation, of Immanuel, God with us and the breadth of the salvation narrative, alongside a pregnant expectation of God’s promised inbreaking to Christ’s second coming and a new heaven and a new earth made manifest.
This is at the heart of living in the “now and the not yet” or “eschatological reservation” of German theologian Ernst Käsemann. The notion of eschatology is the body of theology that considers the culmination of the destiny of humankind, from the individual to the breadth of creation, the “end times” in all its manifestations. Advent is filled to the brim with the divine possibility of living in the now of a world already redeemed by Christ’s life, death and resurrection while simultaneously anticipating a world yet to be brought fully into God’s actualized wholeness and completeness. We are to be watchful and vigilant for both. Both are imminent, but our perspective is heightened when we allow the “was” and the “will be” to co-mingle in the present. This liminal space and time between is the heart of Advent.
What could’ve been different on those cold mid-winter mornings as a teenager when sleep was so enticing? Likely nothing. Likely I would’ve ignored the analog clock in the same manner as I did my groovy digital clock radio. My moment still became apocalyptic and fully known when my dad arrived to unmistakingly remind me what time it was...it was time to wake from sleep. He did know what time it was; nothing in the created order shall circumvent or derail the arrival of the Incarnation, the new Kingdom...or the school bus. So, my friends, as you consider the donning of your decorations and your “merrily-on-highs", I ask you to perhaps quite literally decorate with as many analog clocks as you can for the duration of Advent and let the “was” intersect with the “will be” in the present moment, filled to the brim with divine possibility.
Amen.
