Advent Purpose [Advent 1A]

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Matthew 24:36-44

Advent Purpose

Today begins a new year in the Church.  And so this morning is, in a sense, our New Year’s party.  Happy New Year! But I do realize this is probably not like any New Year’s party you’ve ever attended; we do things a little differently in here.  I mean, yes, we do have wine and music.  But we also read this epistle that says, “let us live honorably…, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness.”  No drunkenness or debauchery.  So, like I said, this New Year’s party is probably not exactly like any you’ve attended before.

In fact, all of our Scripture lessons today, this first Sunday of the Advent season, noticeably lack that party vibe.  It is not just the letter to the Romans, it is also the Gospel.  Unless that woman grinding meal in Jesus’ little apocalyptic tale of terror just needed some “me” time, the sudden disappearance of her friend was likely not a cause for celebration.  Today’s texts feel serious, heavy.

They also fail to inspire in us the warm, fuzzy feelings that generally intensify as the chocolate candies begin disappearing from the Advent calendar.  There is nothing today in our scripture lessons that point us in the direction of the manger.  There is no baby, no pregnant mother, no grizzled father, no tired donkey.  There are no hints of Christmas at all.  Instead, there are a lot of warnings and a general sense of foreboding.

When I was a child, growing up in the Pentecostal tradition, this Gospel terrified me.  We were told that the day of which Jesus speaks was the day of the Rapture.  And the people being taken were the faithful; in an instant they were sucked up into heaven.  And while the idea of being taken whilst one is busy grinding meal or taking a shower or driving to Target is scary, being left behind, we were warned, was much, much worse.  You did not want to be left behind.  And so I repented a lot because I was pretty sure that was the way to stay on God’s good side.

But I can assure you, especially those of you currently mumbling hurried prayers of repentance under your breath so that you are not left behind, that this Gospel is not about the Rapture.  In this Gospel, in fact, the goal is to be left behind.  That is what happens to the righteous here; they, like righteous Noah and his family, are preserved, with a purpose.  I’m not really sure who took those other people or to where they took them, but the idea is that Jesus is coming like a houseguest, not like a UFO with abduction fantasies.  The people were getting ready for a coming, not a going.

When the members of the early Church talked about the return of Jesus, they did not imagine a great disappearing act.  They had something else, something very specific, in mind.  They expected Jesus to come back and stay – to live with them, to establish Heaven on this earth; we see this at the end of the book of Revelation.  It was not about escape; it was about salvation – a salvation not limited to a few souls, but a salvation that included all of creation.  And they got this intriguing idea from the one who taught them to pray: thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.  They got the idea from Jesus.

That became their reason, their purpose – nothing was more important.  Jesus was coming back and there were things to do, preparations to be made.  They did not stop living or working or doing good.  They did not dedicate their lives to staring at the sky.  They got busy. 

At our house, when we expect company, we devote ourselves to preparing the place, getting our home ready; it becomes the highest priority.  We want our guests to feel welcomed and honored.  And so we pick up and vacuum and scrub and wash; we stock the pantry and bake cookies; we put clean sheets on the guest bed and then clean some more because we have kids and the cleaning just never ends.  We coach our children about what topics not to discuss and make sure the background music is appropriate. And then finally we have the kids pick up the toys they decided to drag out of their rooms two minutes before our guests are expected to arrive.  It’s a whole thing.  But we want to be ready. We want our guest to feel at home.

The members of the early Church were expecting a very important guest: they were expecting Jesus.  They were expecting Jesus to return to their world.  And so there was a lot of work to do.  They had no time to waste.  They had to get things ready.

And so they not only prayed Jesus’ prayer, they tried to be the answer to Jesus’ prayer.  They lived their lives to make this world more like heaven, so that when Jesus visited them, he would feel at home.

That was their purpose.  That is why they got out of bed each morning.  That is why they took jobs tanning hides and catching fish and baking bread, so that they could invest in the kingdom come.  That is why committed themselves to prayer and worship.  That is why they visited the sick and supported the poor.  They were trying to make this earth more like heaven.  Because Jesus was coming and he was counting on them to be ready, to get things ready.

It seems to me that a lot of people in our world are looking for a purpose, a reason to get out of bed in the morning.  We want to know that we matter, that we are making a difference, that we are spending our lives on something important.  God does have a purpose for our lives – a purpose more valuable than earning potential and more eternal than success.  Your purpose is the same purpose that burned in the souls of the very first Christians.  Our calling, as followers of Jesus, is to make this world more like heaven.  That has always been our work.  The Church has, at times, lost the plot.  But Jesus established the Church to be his body in the world, to carry on his work, to be the answer to his prayer: on earth as it is in heaven – to make the kind lasting impact Jesus made, the kind that continues to reverberate through our lives two-thousand years later.  Jesus did not change this world with a big bank account; he changed the world with love.  You don’t have to be rich to be kind, to be compassionate, to be merciful. 

The arrival that often dominates our imagination during the Advent season is the arrival of a baby – an arrival that happened long ago.  But there is an arrival Advent still anticipates: the second coming of our Christ to establish his kingdom on this earth, in our midst.  That is what we are waiting for.  We are not awaiting an escape; we are hoping for salvation to show up – for salvation to come and transform our lives and our world.

Heaven on earth seems like an impossible dream.  But Jesus is asking us, his Church, to make his impossible dreams our highest priority; he is asking us to give our lives to make his dreams come true.  And it starts here – in this place, in this community in which we experience the transformative divine presence of the Spirit, in which we are formed and fed and then sent out, prepared, to do the work to which God is calling us.  Jesus wants us to wake up each morning with the kingdom of God on our minds.  To invest our time and money in those things that matter to him.  To do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.  To make this world a little better with each act of compassion, with each moment of truth, with each word of hope.   To fall into a rhythm of receiving the Body of Christ here and then being the Body of Christ out there, beyond our doors.  This is our Advent work: to get this world ready, to usher in some heaven on earth. 

This is the first day of a new year.  Could this be our New Year’s resolution?  As a parish?  To be the answer to Jesus’ prayer, to help make “on earth as it is in heaven” come true?  What would our city, our state, our nation, our world look like if each one of us claimed this as our purpose, as our reason for living?  What would happen in our own lives, in our own souls, if we made this work our highest priority; if our deepest desire was to make this world a little more like heaven every single day?  So that when Jesus returns, when he comes again, he feels right at home.