{"id":3433,"date":"2022-11-27T11:00:14","date_gmt":"2022-11-27T16:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=3433"},"modified":"2022-12-01T13:43:25","modified_gmt":"2022-12-01T18:43:25","slug":"ready-and-steady","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2022\/11\/27\/ready-and-steady\/","title":{"rendered":"Ready and Steady"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

Matthew 24:36-44<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear just the sermon<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The gist of today\u2019s gospel is clear enough.\u202f We cannot see or know the future.\u202f We ought to live on the <\/span>qui vive<\/span><\/i>.\u202f Health there is, to be sure, and succor in a full acceptance and recognition of such a humble epistemology and such a rigorous ethic.\u202f Let us admit to the bone our cloud of unknowing about the days and hours to come.\u202f Let us live every day and every hour of every day as if it were our last.\u202f Song and Scripture, sermon and prayer, they will guide us along this very path come Sunday morning, come this very morning.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is less clear is the meaning of <\/span>the coming of the Son of Man.<\/span><\/i>\u202f What is the nature of this coming?\u202f Who is the person so named?\u202f What difference, existential difference, everlasting difference does any of this make?\u202f What did Jesus actually say here?\u202f On what score did the primitive Christian community remember and rehearse his teaching?\u202f Did Matthew have a dog in this fight?\u202f How has the church, age to age, interpreted the passage?\u202f We shall pose these four questions to verses 36 to 44 in the 24<\/span>th<\/span> chapter of the Gospel bearing the name of Matthew, and then apply the verses to ourselves.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Jesus.<\/span><\/i>\u202f Jesus may have used this phrase, though most judge that it is a later church appellation. It may have been both. This phrase, coming out of Daniel chapter 7 (did Jesus hear this read and hold it in memory?) and the stock Jewish apocalyptic of Jesus\u2019 day, was as much a part of his environment as the sandals on his feet, the donkey which he rode, the Aramaic which he spoke, the Palestinian countryside which he loved, and the end of time which he expected, in the contemporary generation.\u202f Did he understand himself to be that figure?\u202f We cannot see and we cannot say, though I think it unlikely. \u202fThat is, Jesus used the phrase, most probably, but not of himself, most probably. It is Mark and the author Enoch who have given us the \u2018Son of Man\u2019 in its full sense, and it is Matthew alone among the Gospel writers who uses the \u2018coming\u2019 in a technical sense (so Dr. Perrin, IBDS 834, and others). \u202fThe soprano voice of Jesus is far lighter in the gospel choruses than we would expect, than we would *think or like.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Church.<\/span><\/i>\u202f Mark, Luke and Matthew carry forward these standard-end-of-the-world predictions.\u202f Our lectionary clips out the mistaken acclamation of 24: 34, just two verses ahead of our reading, but we should hear it:\u202f <\/span>Truly I tell you this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.<\/span><\/i>\u202f Like the waiting figures in the Glass Menagerie, the earlier church has hung onto these blown glass elements while awaiting a never returning person, like that telephone operator, \u2018who had fallen in love with long distances\u2019.\u202f They preserve the menagerie in fine glass of hopes deferred that maketh the heart sick.\u202f That generation and seventy others have passed away before any of this has taken place.\u202f We do not expect, literally expect, these portents any longer.\u202f Nor should we.\u202f They are part of the apocalyptic language and imagery which was the mother of the New Testament and all Christian theology since, a beloved mother long dead.\u202f The Son of Man was the favorite hope child of that mother.\u202f A long low alto aria this.\u202f Yet we should, and do, hear these apocalyptic passages.\u202f They are a part of our shared, family history.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Matthew.<\/span><\/i>\u202f To his credit and to our benefit Matthew makes his editorial, redactorial moves, to accommodate what he has taken from Mark 13.\u202f The point of apocalyptic eschatology is ethical persuasion, here and in the sibling synoptic passages.\u202f Watch.\u202f Be ready.\u202f Live with your teeth set.\u202fReady and steady, ready and steady. Let the servants, the leaders of Matthew\u2019s day, be found faithful.\u202f\u202f After 37 excoriating verses directed against the Pharisees in chapter 23, white washed tombs which outwardly appear beautiful but within full of dead men\u2019s bones and all uncleanness\u2014the hard truth about religion at our worst–and after 43 further verses in chapter 24 of standard end time language, Matthew pulls up.\u202f He stands and delivers his sermon.\u202f You must be ready.\u202f <\/span>Steady and ready, steady and ready. <\/span><\/i>The figure of the future is coming at an hour you do not expect.\u202f Hail the Matthew tenor.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tradition.<\/span><\/i>\u202f Immediately the church scrambled to reinvent and reinterpret.\u202f Basso profundo. One example, found early in the passage, will suffice.\u202f Of that day no one knows, not even the Son.\u202f Except that some texts take out \u2018even the Son\u2019, in deference to Jesus\u2019 later and higher Person.\u202f It is, finally, and except for occasional oddball readings, like that of the Montanists in the second century and the fundamentalists in the twenty first, the church\u2019s view that apocalyptic language and imagery convey the future as unknowable and the present as unrepeatable. <\/span>The future as unknowable and the present as unrepeatable\u2026<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To sum up: As soon, here at Advent 1, the edge of the church\u2019s new year, as we reach out to grasp the future, it has slipped past us, already flying down the road to the rear, into the past.\u202f The present itself is no better, because its portions of past and future are tangled permanently together.\u202f We do have the past, neither dead nor past\u2026or do we?\u202f Memory and memoir spill into each other with the greatest of ease.\u202f One agnostic admitted that music, performed, was his closest approximation of God, the presence of God, the proof of God.\u202f Gabby Gifford showed her history of healing this past week, crowned in music, music that resurrects memory and empowers speech.\u00a0 Somehow, she persevered.\u00a0 In week with 6 dead in a Walmart in Virginia, 5 in a gay night club in Colorado, 4 on campus in Idaho, and 3 on a team bus in Virginia, all far more preventable than we have yet found the national will to make them, we think on those so maimed and those so lost.\u00a0 We need music to carry us, to carry us toward the true and the good and the beautiful.\u00a0 And to keep us steady and ready, waiting for an opening, a moment when something can be voted, passed, done.\u00a0 Music can carry our deep memory, including in worship.\u00a0 The ordered public worship of Almighty God on the Lord\u2019s day is not a matter of indifference.\u00a0 It carries the models of saving intervening words and soulful intervening notes that may just see us through.\u00a0 We shall listen in a moment to a beautiful anthem, with rapt attention.\u202f One trusted Christian\u2014it may have been you\u2014sensed grace and grace in the grace of worship, unlike any other. Every moment is a veritable mystery.\u202f Music is a veritable mystery.\u202f So next week, we shall hear:\u202f My body and My blood, these are veritable mysteries, so named mystery, sacramentum, to this day.\u202f How shall we respond?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sleepers awake!\u202f There is not an infinite amount of unforeseen future in which to come awake and to become alive!\u202f There does come a time when it is too late, allowing the valence of \u2018it\u2019 to be as broad as the ocean and as wide as life.\u202f You do not have forever to invest yourself in deep rivers of Holy Scripture, whatever they may be for you.\u202f It takes time to allow the Holy to make you whole.\u202f Begin.\u202f You do not have forever to seek in the back roads of some tradition, whatever it may be for you, the corresponding hearts and minds which and who will give you back your own-most self.\u202f It takes time to uncover others who have had the same quirky interests and fears you do.\u202f Begin.\u202f You do not have forever to sift and think through what you think about what lasts and matters and counts and works.\u202f Honestly, who could complain about young people seeking careers, jobs, employment, work?\u202f Do so.\u202f But work alone will not make you human, nor allow you to become a real human being.\u202f Life is about vocation and avocation, not merely about employment and unemployment.\u202f You are being sold a bill of goods, here.\u202f Be watchful.\u202f It takes time to self-interpret that deceptively crushing verse, \u2018let <\/span>your<\/span><\/i> light so shine before others\u2019.\u202f Begin.\u202f You do not have forever to experience Presence.\u202f It is presence, spirit, good for which we long, for which, nay for Whom, we are made.\u202f It takes time to find authentic habits of being\u2014what makes the heart sing, the soul pray, the spirit preach.\u202f Your heart, not someone else\u2019s, your soul,\u202fnot someone else\u2019s, your spirit, not someone else\u2019s.\u202f Begin.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You must be ready.\u202f For the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For example. \u202fHow do you deal with hurt that comes from a person you deeply love, a relationship you truly enjoy, an institution you firmly affirm, or a friendship you lastingly cherish? Was yours a contentious Thanksgiving feast?\u202f It is one thing to think about pain, permanent or passing, that comes in collision with others whom we do not know well or care for.\u202f These traffic accidents are perhaps to be expected in the rush hours of relational experience.\u202f When we do not know one another, or not well, we can miss cues and generate miscues that those more familiar would avoid. Not knowing you I did not know and would never have expected that you are an avid Yankees fan, and if I had I would never have said what I did, directly, about the Yankees.\u202f Well, I probably wouldn\u2019t have done.\u202f But what about the church you deeply love, when disappointment comes from the pulpit? What about that lifetime friend who says something unpleasant and hurtful?\u202f What about that employer, whom you revere and admire, to whom you give both creativity and loyalty?\u202f What about that community group whose organizational needs you have selflessly met, that then makes a statement or takes a decision that causes you pain? Or, what about the country you love, when its voice, its choice, deeply disappoint? \u202fIn short, what happens when those you love hurt you?\u202f How do you deal with that?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You must be ready.\u202f For the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps you will irrupt in the moment, lash out in reaction, without any due process of reflection, because the moment needs it, and you have or feel you have no choice.\u202f <\/span>Let your yea be yea and your nay be nay.\u202f Be angry, and let not the sun go down on your anger.<\/span><\/i>\u202f This may cause more problems than it solves, of course, but you may have had no choice.\u202f\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Or, you may sense that you just want to put some distance between yourself and your source of pain, institutional, relational, or personal.\u202f A little time, a little distance, a little pause, a little absence.\u202f\u202f Thence a cooling off, it may be, not a squaring off.\u202f In some measure that may suit you and the challenge.\u202f You did not start it.\u202f You do not need to take responsibility for it.\u202f <\/span>Shake the dust from your feet<\/span><\/i>.<\/span>\u202f Let the day\u2019s own trouble be sufficient for the day.<\/span><\/i> (You see how tough it can be even, especially when you know the Bible, to pick out the right Bible verse!)\u202f The trouble is still there, though it may just dissipate on its own.\u202f Not all battles have to be fought.\u202f\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Or maybe you want to just listen. You know, like animals do, they just curl up and become a log or a part of the scenery.\u202f\u202f Let life go along, and let the conversation play out.\u202f You do not need to oppose.\u202f You do not need to repose.\u202f You can just pose in silence.\u202f You can offer the silent treatment\u2014present but quiet.\u202f This could work, though there is a quality of falsehood about it.\u202f It may depend on just how substantial the fender-bender was, how hurtful the collision, how extreme the traffic accident.\u202f\u202f Silence alone has limits to its beneficence.\u202f Still, as the man said, \u2018I would rather remain silent and be thought a fool than to open my mouth and remove all doubt\u2019.\u202f Sometimes it is better just to keep your own counsel, and play dead.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You must be ready.\u202f For the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On the first Sunday of Advent, you are reminded, you have though at least one other option.\u202f Fight, flight, play dead if need be.\u202f Yet you might also, well, wait.\u202f We are approaching Advent, are we not?\u202f Wait upon the Lord.\u202f That is, you might think through what happened, both putting the best and worst lights upon it.\u202f You might pray about it.\u202f Hold it in prayerful thought.\u202f You might think out a couple of sentences that you would caringly use, should the institution, relationship, or person provide an opening for that.\u202f And then you would have to \u2018hurry up and wait\u2019.\u202f <\/span>Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven you.<\/span><\/i>\u202f \u201cYou know, I have had that interchange in mind since it happened.\u202f Honestly, for whatever reason, it did hurt.\u202f But given the love, joy, happiness, meaning and help you give me over so much time, it is just one brief solar eclipse that comes once a decade, when all else is sunshine. Thanks for mentioning it.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Call it an Advent Gospel, an advent admonition:\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You must be ready.\u202f Steady and ready.\u00a0 For the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service Matthew 24:36-44 Click here to hear just the sermon   The gist of today\u2019s gospel is clear enough.\u202f We cannot see or know the future.\u202f We ought to live on the qui vive.\u202f Health there is, to be sure, and succor in a full acceptance and recognition of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3433"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3435,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3433\/revisions\/3435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}