Readings

Good morning, and welcome to the Season of Advent. Over the next weeks our readings revolve in different ways around God’s advent, God’s arrival. Predictably, we’ll resonate with some of those ways more than others. God knows we’re in different places, and Thursday may find us in a different place than Sunday. (This is why I’d encourage you to take advantage of our readings being on a separate sheet. Take them home, tape them to the bathroom mirror, see what resonates during the week.) There are multiple doors into the story; if some are currently closed others will be open.

Our first reading and the psalm speak from deep pain and profound uncertainty: is God going to arrive? Not difficult to think of situations around the world in which their words would come naturally to the lips. And most of us in the past or present have had occasion to echo that “How long?”

Both the first reading and the psalm speak of God’s anger, and that merits a digression. We shudder when some preacher declares that that hurricane/earthquake/disease is God’s punishment because there’s too much of X going on. It’s tempting to simply quarantine that language of divine anger. But that may be worse: that God isn’t angry about the evil that corrupts and destroys God’s creatures. The danger is weaponizing that language: God’s angry at them for doing that. The first reading gets it right: we’re the problem. As one of our confessions puts it “We repent of the evil that enslaves us, the evil we have done, and the evil done on our behalf.”

The first reading treads where we fear to tread: “But you were angry, and we sinned; because you hid ourself we transgressed.” Can we talk to God like that? No, not if it’s a grenade we hurl and then duck for cover. Yes, if we’re sticking around to hear how God might respond.

In other words, questions like “How long?” can seek to deepen a relationship or score points (“I’m right; you’re wrong.) The words are perhaps less important than the intention: what do I want? That’s often not an easy question, whether with God or with a family member. The words I choose or shun in prayer can clarify my intention. The situations that elicit “How long?” may clarify whether I’m finally praying “Your kingdom come” or “My kingdom come.” What do I want? As we hear in Lewis’ The Last Battle, “all find what they truly seek” (chapter 15). But back to the first reading…

If most of the first reading is about the past and present, the ending points towards—well, demands—a future. You’re the potter; you started this project; isn’t there some obligation to finish it properly? That was Moses’ argument after the Golden Calf debacle. It’s an argument to keep in the back pocket: if our future depends on how well we’ve kept our end of the bargain…

The reading starts with “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down.” That may sound familiar, because it’s the language Mark picks up to describe Jesus’ baptism: “And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart…” (1:10). That’s part of Mark’s good news (‘Gospel’), that there’s an answer to “how long?”

Our second reading, the beginning of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. If we read it apart from the rest of the letter, it sounds like everything is going fine: just switch on the cruise control/autopilot. And sometimes that’s where we are. If so, we’d better stop reading there, because beginning in the next verse Paul—without denying for a moment God’s grace and their many spiritual gifts—does want them to wonder about the “blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” part. In Jesus’ language, to “keep awake.”

Today’s Gospel: more than enough material for multiple long sermons. For the moment, let’s just notice two things. First, as the NRSV recognizes, “the Son of Man coming in clouds” is a quote from Daniel’s vision of history as one ill-tempered beast/empire after another until God reestablishes a human future. For our day and age that’s perhaps one of the most appealing parts of the Good News to share: our future is not an extension of our present. We’re not stuck in the logic of “Do unto others as they do to you—only do it first.” Or “The one who dies with the most toys wins.” No reason to not start using the currency of the coming kingdom now.

Second, there’s that closing parable: “It is as if someone took a trip, left the household behind, and put the servants in charge, giving each one a job to do” (CEB). A couple weeks ago in reading a similar parable in Matthew I suggested that in the context of Matthew’s Gospel we might understand the work in terms of making disciples and acting mercifully. This year (church year) we’re in Mark: we’ll want to attend to what Mark might want us to hear. From Jesus’ repeated “keep awake,” we probably don’t want to be on autopilot.

How might we pull this together? The prayer “How long?” doesn’t disappear now that we have the New Testament. It shows up in the Book of Revelation. Sometimes that’s all we can pray. As someone put it, “Pray as you can, don’t pray as you can’t.” Jesus’ “keep awake” might encourage us to remember that even in those situations there may be unexpected opportunities to mirror God’s arrival. “Any dark corner that I can find…”