LOOK BUSY

Luke 12:32-4

Our Lord and our God, now as we hear your Word, fill us with your Spirit.
Soften our hearts that we may delight in your presence.
Sharpen our minds that we may discern your truth.
Shape our wills that we may desire your ways.
We ask this through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

 

Several years ago, I attended a continuing education class at Austin Theological Seminary in Texas. One evening, I was enjoying all the sights on 6th Street which is a lot like South Street in Philadelphia. I was walking past a shop that sold T-shirts and one caught my eye and I bought it. The T-shirt said, "Jesus Is Coming....Look Busy."

Even though this is a tongue-in-cheek message, I think it is an appropriate one for our scripture reading from Luke this morning.

Folks, we need to get ready, we need to look busy and be busy being the people of God. This scripture from the gospel of Luke talks about the second coming of Jesus. Now I know this is a touchy subject for some people in the church and it is a touchy subject for me personally. But I do believe that Jesus will come again. One day Jesus will return and we must be ready. But just how are we to get ready for the second coming of Christ? I feel if we look closely at the text this morning there are several ways for the people of God to get ready.

Jesus tells the disciples in verses 35 and 36, "Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks." I understand these verses to mean that we are to get ready by preparing for Jesus to return. I can agree with that idea, preparing for Jesus to return.

Many people are preparing for the return of Jesus. It becomes a touchy subject for when I read about just how people are preparing for the time when Jesus returns. It has become a cottage industry for a lot of Christians and that industry has resulted in a lot of disappointment, frustration, anger and death.

As a teenager, I recall Hal Lindsey and his book, The Late Great Planet Earth. It was written in 1970 and stated that 40 years after the establishment of Israel, Jesus would return to earth, and seven years after that return, the church would be raptured to heaven. Israel was established in 1948, so Christ should have returned in 1988 and the church raptured in 1995. In 1997 Hal Lindsey changed his predictions but the book, The Late Great Planet Earth has sold over 30 million copies.

A more recent literary phenomenon about the second coming is the Left Behind Book Series. This book series has spun off comic books for children, DVD's, daily devotionals, video games, a Left Behind Book Series for teenagers, dispensationalist blog sites and commentaries on everything from Iraq to Mid East Oil to Israel and even more blog sites refuting the dispensationalist view of the world.

During much of the Cold War, I can remember Russian leaders being characterized as the Antichrist, but that language and attitude changed with the fall of the Berlin Wall.

All of us probably have heard some day, time and place stated as being the end of the world. If you google "end of the world cults" here is a sample of what you get: Morningland, California is a fortified compound that states Christ will shortly be returning in a UFO "the size of Texas"; Koinonia House Ministry out of Idaho arranges Holy Land cruises so you can visit Armageddon; Isle of Patmos where the book Revelation was written and while on the cruise ship there are fun biblical character masquerade parties; the High 54 Ranch was and may still be composed of Y2K survivalists camped out in Arizona--the requirements to join are you must have one year's supply of food and at least one handgun per family member.

But for me this is not how I view the second coming of Christ. And when I hear about this kind of frantic activity surrounding the return of Jesus, I am really dismayed and disturbed. The question all of this raises for me is: What did Jesus mean when he told us to be prepared? I don't think it was to spend our time charting, planning and dating his return. I believe it is imperative for us, the mainline churches, to re-engage in this conversation about the second coming of Christ. I believe we have something very important to contribute to this conversation about preparing for Christ to return.

It seems to me that there is a lot of fear involved in discussing this issue. So maybe we are to prepare for the return of Christ not by predicting a date but by getting rid of our fears. Now, that is not an easy thing to do. There is a lot wrong with the world. If we created a list this morning, I am sure it would be a very long list that would include all kinds of political, economic and social issues. Unfortunately, much of the concerns of our world are not ever going to get better. It is sad to admit that there is much to fear in the world.

If we look at the context surrounding this passage in the 12th chapter in the gospel of Luke, I think we encounter a Jesus who is pretty straightforward that his followers are not immune to suffering. I think Jesus is asking his followers to adopt a way of life that is not rooted in the securities of this world.

In verse 13, Jesus had just finished dealing with a young man who wanted his brother to share the family inheritance with him. The man wanted Jesus to resolve the matter. Jesus said, he was not to be the judge or the arbitrator in this matter but Jesus did give a piece of advice. He said, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions!" Jesus then tells a parable about a rich man who had a great crop and stored it all for himself but on the very night he got his barns built and secured his future he died. He never ate a single grain of corn. Jesus concludes it is better to be rich toward God.

Jesus then addresses his disciples and he says, this man is worried about his life and how it will all turn out. I don't want you to worry about your life. I don't want you to worry about what you will eat. I don't worry about what you are going to drink and I don't want you to worry about what you are going to wear. Consider the ravens and the lilies. Doesn't God take care of these, how much more valuable are you?

Words that we should take to heart since most of us spend our life worrying about our security. But what would happen to all our insecurities if we suddenly gave away all those possessions that give us security? If we could view life from the perspective of what we need instead of what we want, would we come to depend on God, especially for our most basic daily necessities? How much time do you spend worrying about storing up treasures on earth and how much time do you spend storing up treasures in heaven? Which way are the scales titling--treasures on earth or treasures in heaven?

And that brings me to another way the people of God are to prepare for the second coming of Christ. We are to be servants of God. For all the words that we use to describe Christian behavior there is none better than servant. Look at this parable that we read. The master has left to go to a wedding banquet and there is no way for the servants of that master to know when he will return. It could be that very night. It could be the next. It could be three days before he returns home. Because weddings in Jewish culture were weeklong events, one never knew how long the stay. If the wine held out and the celebration was lively enough, he could be there all week. But the servants are not privy to the master's plans. They are simply to be ready when he knocks on the door.

Everyone listening to Jesus tell this story would have understood it. The servants are to be watching for their master and be prepared to meet him at the door. The master will have certain needs that must be met when he arrives. They must feed him if he is hungry. The must help him unpack. The servants must let the master know what has happened since he has been gone.

That is not how the story ends. There is a twist at the end. In verse 37, it is not the servants who wait on the master. It is the master who waits on the servants. The servants are ready for the master not because there is the threat of punishment but because there is the promise of a lavish master who upon his return graciously gives to his servants. The master serves the servants!

This is quite a different picture of a master and a servant. One where the rewards are beyond measure and grace is abundant. That's the kind of promise that our Lord has given us upon his return. He will sit us down at his banquet table, and satisfy the needs of us--his servants.

This is a picture that is drastically different from most of the scenarios that I have encountered about the second coming of Christ. And that is why we need to enter into this conversation, to re-engage the church in this conversation. When the second coming of Christ is mentioned, it is usually ensconced in language that describes a punitive and angry God heaping retribution on the world. Many people have responded to that image by creating an end-of-the-world scenario that carefully dictates who and how many will be saved, who will be condemned to eternal damnation, who is the Antichrist and exactly when and where all of this will happen. Remember when I stated earlier that there is a lot of fear involved in this discussion and that conquering that fear was one of the ways to prepare for the return of Jesus.

Jesus was constantly forging new frontiers. He was not fearful about plunging into new territory. Jesus also plunged into new territory by challenging some of the exclusivity of his culture. He dared to believe that all people are children of God--even those in Samaria, even women, even Gentiles, even tax collectors and other sinners. Jesus embraced all persons as being in the fold of God's love. He could have been afraid. But Jesus had a vision of the kingdom of God; a present vision and a future vision. Both visions focused on a fellowship that is grace-filled, loving and inclusive of all of God's people.

One summer, over ten years ago, at the closing worship service at a youth conference, I received a thin slip of red paper with a scripture passage written on it. For many years, I carried that passage in my purse and occasionally would come across it. Every time I read that short line of scripture, it opens up all the possibilities of the world to me. "Always be prepared to give answer to everyone....to the hope that you have." (1 Peter 3:15) It is a challenge to always be engaged in the world, not to fear what we will face as the disciples of Christ, to be willing to be a servant of God.

I believe it is imperative to be engaged in the conversation about the kingdom of God, the one that we live in now and the one that is coming. The Church needs to take a huge leap of faith in order to recapture the vision of one Church under the benevolent lordship of Jesus Christ instead of toiling and spinning anxiously over its own life and future.

How good it will be, when, out of the vast wealth of God's grace, Christ returns and we his servants are asked to sit down and be served by the master. Amen.

August 12 , 2007

Mary Alice Lyman