Getting Ready For the Kingdom
Pentecost + 12 – August 10 & 11, 2013
St. John's Lutheran Church – Brookfield, WI
As I was driving around this week, I saw a car with a bumper sticker that said this: “Jesus is coming – Look busy!” Which reminds me of this gospel, but also makes me think of my elementary school days when the teacher would leave the room for whatever mysterious reason. And we didn't have any teacher's aides or anything like that, so if she left, we were on our own. Of course there were instructions to work on something productive: our reading assignment or math worksheet or spelling list. There was plenty of stuff to keep us occupied while she was out of the room. And we'd start off okay – but the longer she was gone, the more we lost focus. First we'd start to whisper, and then talk, and giggle. And then, if she was gone even longer, we'd get into some sort of shenanigans, up out of our seats, maybe shooting spitballs, playing tag, who knows?! All fairly harmless, but definitely not what we were supposed to be doing.
Now, if we were smart, which we learned to be over the years, we'd post a lookout – someone to stand at the door and watch for the teacher's return so we'd know “the teacher is coming!” - and we'd have time to scurry back to our seats, trying to look busy, like all along we'd been doing what she told us to do, because we didn't want to get in trouble.
There's a sense of this in today's gospel reading. That's the tendency, I think, to read this story and think it's like that bumper sticker: “Jesus is coming – look busy!” Jesus says to the early disciples, “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return... so they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks.”
And maybe it wasn't so hard for the 1st disciples to imagine doing what Jesus says, at least at first. After all, he's still with them. But just like the teacher leaving the room, it's easy to keep focus at first. Even when he dies and is raised and ascends, it's easy to remember what Jesus had told them, easy to live a new life, to do the kinds of things he had done and taught and commanded them to do, easy to focus on being ready for his return. They expected him to return right away, any day now.
But by the time the author of Luke collected these stories and wrote them down, it's been a while. And it got harder and harder for the early church to know exactly what they should do, how to act and live as they waited, and waited, and waited, as the first eyewitnesses died off, and they began to wonder if maybe Jesus wasn't coming back after all. It got harder to be dressed for action, to keep the lamps lit, to stay awake and alert, always at the ready for the master's return.
And if it was hard for them, how much harder is it for us, 2000+ years later, to have a sense of urgency, to believe and live as though Jesus is coming back, to remember that he's left us with assignments to do while he's gone?! (And who wants to do homework anyway?)
And I've been thinking and wondering this week – what if we really did believe and live as though Jesus could come back at any moment – today or tomorrow or next week or next month? What would change? How would we live our lives differently? How would our churches be different? Where would we – individuals, families, congregations – put our focus? What would we spend our time on? Where would we put our energy? Our money? Our treasures?
See, this passage isn't so much about the “Jesus is coming – look busy!” mentality that warns us to post a lookout at the door to warn us when he's coming. Jesus doesn't say these words to inspire fear. They're not a threatening, “Wait til your Father gets home!” No, right at the beginning of this passage, Jesus says to his listeners, “Do not be afraid...” (some of the most often-repeated words in the Bible, I might add!) “Do not be afraid, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” And that kingdom is what we are waiting for, what the church throughout the generations has been looking forward to, living into. Jesus talked a lot about it coming near – but it's not quite here yet. Jesus inaugurated it, he ushered it in, but it's not here in its fullness yet.
But what we know is that the kingdom of God is something to celebrate, not something to fear! We pray for it to come every week when we gather together. And lest we be confused, the kingdom of God isn't some far-off, cosmic place. Jesus isn't talking about heaven when he talks of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is another way of saying the rule or reign of God. It's the place where God's will is done. And our call while we wait for Jesus to come is to be dressed for action, the action that helps to bring God's kingdom near, wherever we may be. In our homes and families, in our workplaces, in our neighborhoods, in our schools. In our relationships, in the ways we care for God's creation, in the ways we manage the treasure God has entrusted to our hands. It's to be about the work of feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, healing the hurting, lifting up the poor; to be the kind of people who are working to create the kind of world where it's not so scary to think about doing what Jesus says here: selling our possessions, giving alms to those in need, because we know that all of our needs will be taken care of. This is what we are getting ready for! It's not about busy-work spelling lists and math practice sheets. It's not keeping busy just for the sake of being busy, but making a difference in this world God created and loves so much that God sent Jesus, the only son in order that the world might be saved through him!
And when we do this, when Jesus does finally come, we will rejoice to know that we've been a part of the preparation, and we won't have to worry about looking busy, even though he'll show up unexpectedly, because we've been waiting and working with him all along. Thanks be to God!
Amen.
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