Advent 1A
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Matthew 24:36-44
Initial Thoughts
Honest initial reaction: bleh.
“Human One” vs “Son of Man” Explanation by Common English Bible.
So was David Lose’s reaction: “Here’s what strikes me. I’m tired – actually bone-weary tired – of apocalyptic texts. There is typically so much to explain – why they are a part of the gospel traditions, what occasioned them, their relationship to a delayed parousia, etc. – that they soon seem nearly irrelevant to Christians living two thousand years later.”
Thoughtful initial reaction: Let’s review some of the stuff we talked about two weeks ago when we read some of Luke’ apocalypse.
Apocalypse Review. Insert Cubs/Indians World Series Champion joke here. (From Fred Craddock, Interpretation: Luke)
Means “revealed,” as in the source of writing is otherworldly.
Focus on eschatology - the end of the world as we now experience it.
Discloses the supernatural world bond the world of historical events.
Triggered by major historical crises.
Bible Study
Between the times - Karl Barth
We live between Creation and re-creation, looking backward to what God has done, assured of God’s presence in the current moment, and (Advent!) looking at what God is doing/culminating Kingdom of God
Promise
Promise of the coming of the Son of Man includes the gathering of the people. Just a few verses ago Jesus wept over Jerusalem, lamenting “How often I wanted to gather your people together, just as a hen gathers her chicks under wings” (23:37) Also, “They will see the Human One coming in the heavenly clouds with power and great splendor. He will send his angels with the sound of a great trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from the four corners of the earth.” (24:31)
Promise is that the gathering he wished to do on earth will be fulfilled one day. There will be struggle and suffering in the midst, but these things are not the goal. The goal is the gathering of the people under God’s name and rule.
Unexpected Time
Direct refutation to those who claim the end is nigh -”The spiritual arrogance that presumes to pry into God’s secret plan is roundly condemned by Matt. 24:36. Not even the Messiah knows when the end will occur! Not even the highest archangels are privy to the Father’s intention! How foolish it is for humans to think they can play with biblical numbers and ambiguous prophecies and discover what was hidden even from Jesus!” Douglas Hare, Interpretation: Matthew
Being caught off guard is an important part of life. So much so that we spend billions to avoid that, but “what if this week, Working Preacher, we invited people to take stock of their lives, asking what it is that they most fear about an uncertain future, and then reminding them of the promise that whether or not their immediate fears are realized, we were created for more than fear because Jesus, the Son of Man and Son of God whose coming birth we anticipate, has promised to come always to be both with us and for us” (David Lose, Workingpreacher.com)
Taken Up/Left Behind
The verbs that get translated “swept away” and “left behind” could have been “hauled off” and “forgiven” which makes much more sense in the context of the rest of this passage
Mark Davis examines the Greek of this text in this great article:
https://leftbehindandlovingit.blogspot.com/2013/11/like-flood-or-thief-or-both.html
Watchfulness and Wakefulness
Call to righteousness
Noah - set in striking contrast to the surrounding society. Everyone else was going about their business, but he was building a boat.
We might think - their only sin was going about with business as usual, and they were swept away, but their ultimate sin was not living a righteous life
Householder lacks vigilance by failing to keep watch.
Lacked the knowledge of when the thief was coming.
“Unaware of any impending crisis, they were lulled into a false sense of security by savoring the present, to the detriment of a future-oriented existence. They failed to watch.”Charles Cousar, Texts for Preaching, Year A
Listeners to Jesus (and readers of Matthew) are given the precious gift of knowledge. They have now been warned, and can live accordingly - not in utter fear and despair, clutching to what they have or pouring over codes to figure out when the time is coming - but in the sure and certain hope of a promise of God.
Role reversal. The one left behind is the lucky one. Mark Davis in Left Behind and Loving It:
“So, for verses 40 and 41, the interpretive question is what to do with the couplet of παραλαμβάνω and ἀφίημι. The words themselves are so multivalent that there is no simple “x in Greek means y in English” formula. People in the “Left Behind Theology” camp have argued that παραλαμβάνω means “swept away’” and ἀφίημι means “left behind.” At the level of possible word choices, that would be possible. (The further conjecture that “swept away” means the “rapture” and “left behind” means “facing the tribulation” is a move that goes well beyond this text.) But, also at that level of possible word choices, it is equally warranted to translate παραλαμβάνω as “taken away as a prisoner” and ἀφίημι as “forgiven.”
The one who is “left behind” is left for forgiveness, and for preparing for the great gathering. Remember that in Revelation, the culmination of all things is the new city that has no gates, and the Lamb inside beckoning all to “come.”
Thoughts and Questions
One of the rare times that Jesus explains himself. He tells us the lesson of this story: Be prepared! But what does it mean to be prepared? It seems as if the preparations we are to make are the preparations of compassion, grace, and welcome. As the Advent season begins, this is where we should start - at preparing for the future. “The task is to listen carefully to the texts and allow the symbols to evoke the sense of urgency and expectancy at God’s future.” (Charles Cousar, Texts for Preaching, Year A, p. 7)
Like Dickens’s beloved character Scrooge, the future is never set, but it is always coming. We are left to prepare for the future. Lighting candles in the midst of growing darkness is the Christian way. Not giving into the darkness is the epitome of discipleship. We know not the details of the future. We know not just how dark it may get, but we know that the light of a single candle can hold it off.
Isaiah 2:1-5
Initial Thoughts
The importance of vision- where are we headed?
Hope Sunday, but we are talking peace- there is no peace without hope
Miroslav Volf on Exclusion and Embrace
Bible Study
Ch 2 is one considered an add-on by a later redactor.
It contains the second of three introductions to the work.
“Chapters 2-4 are a collection of sayings from the prophet’s first period, but were probably put in this position by a later redactor.”Alberto Soggin Introduction to the Old Testament
This passage has close parallel to Micah 4:1-4. Not known which was first. Micah’s promise of salvation is to Israel. Isaiah’s is more universal in nature.
Pre-exilic Jerusalem - In a precarious political situation, wedged between the world powers of Assyria and Egypt.
Blame for Jerusalem’s position is placed on the people, who are sinful
Failure of the people in Isaiah “For Isaiah, too, human sin consists in a refusal to recognize divine sovereignty in the whole of life. Dishonesty, corruption, immorality, the thirst for riches and luxury, irresponsibility or downright oppression in the social sphere, syncretistic worship are all aspects of a basic attitude of human rebellion against the divine will.” Alberto Soggin Introduction to the Old Testament, p. 312.
Acts as introduction to Isaiah’s theme of promise in the midst of despair.
Immediately precedes oracle of great devastation and despair.
Back and forth between promised redemption and judgment.
In the days to come
Not necessarily apocalyptic
“Indefinite and vague. It refers neither to the end of time nor beyond time, but within it” (NIB)
Anticipates a radical transformation of this, tangible reality
Universal desire to follow God and God’s ways
Our journey of faith has a destination
God’s eschatological vision is for ALL people
Isaiah is the most quoted book of Old Testament in the New Testament. Connection between promise as found in Isaiah and Kingdom of God in the gospels is easy to see.
Reinhold Niebuhr makes the connection:
“The prophet Isaiah dreamed of the day when the lion and lamb would lie down together, when , in other words, the law of nature which prompts the strong to devour the weak would be abrogated… Sometimes the contrast between the real and the ideal is drawn so sharply that the religious man despairs of the achievement of the ideal in mundane history. He transfers his hope to another world… It is the peculiar genius of Jewish religious thought, that it conceived the millennium in this-worldly terms. The gospel conception of the kingdom of God represents a highly spiritualised version of this Jewish millennial hope… Wherever religion concerns itself with the problems of society, it always gives birth to some kind of millennial hope, from the perspective of which present social realities are convicted of inadequacy, and courage is maintained to continue in the effort to redeem society of injustice.” Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society, p. 61.
Walter Brueggemann makes the connection in Texts for Preaching: A lectionary commentary based on the NRSV - Year A
The vision of Isaiah is “an act of imagination that looks beyond present dismay through the eyes of God, to see what will be that is not yet. That is the function of promise (and therefore of Advent) in the life of faith. Under promise, in Advent, faith sees what will be that is not yet.”
“Sharp contrast between what is and what will be.”
Centrality of Torah
Justice and peace come from “The Instruction… from Zion; the Lord’s word from Jerusalem.”
When the nations learn the Torah, then war is no longer needed as the arbiter. Instead, God’s will can be the judge.
What does God’s justice look like? Hesed and peace, not national interest or triumphalism
Live and walk into this vision- don’t just sit around and wait for it
The passage ends with an invitation to walk or mirror or reflect the light of God (God’s vision)
This is not only a proclamation but a vision - how will you accept this invitation? How will you extend it to others?
Thoughts and Questions
Many times we talk about the journey of faith without adequately describing (as Isaiah does) what the destination looks like. What is the Kingdom of God? What does the Kingdom of God look like for your community? How does that vision guide your ministry as an individual and a church?
God’s vision is universal and rejects nationalistic triumphalism or the victory of any one political ideology. War does not lead to peace, division does not lead to peace, only relying on God’s love, forgiveness and grace leads to peace. Is this good or bad news?
Romans 13:8-14
INITIAL THOUGHTS
Pop culture allusions
Augustine refers to Romans 13:13-14 as a conversion verse
After reading it he reports: “Instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all of the gloom of doubt vanished away.” (quoted in The First Paul, by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, p. 120)
BIBLE STUDY
Literary/Lectionary Context
Paul Achtemeier (Interpretation: Romans, pp. 193-241) frames ch 12-16 as “God’s Lordship and the Problems of Daily Living: Grace and the Structures of Life.”
Grace and the community, Grace and the state, Grace and the Christian community, Grace and the secular community.
Romans 13:8-14 is “Grace and the Neighbor: Love in Action”
Further, he divides this passage into two
8-10: The Neighbor and the Actuality of Love
11-14: The Neighbor and the Dawning Day
Next week is last Sunday in Romans. It is Romans 14:1-12. Achtemeier calls this section “Unity and the problem of self-righteousness” (p. 215)
Also used for Advent 1A “Remember what time it is.”
The Actuality of Love
Love and the law are tied together.
“We know God loves us not because of the way [God] feels about us but because of what [God] has done for us.” (Achtemeier, p. 209)
“Matthew 18:15-20 does not contain the word ‘love.’ The passage records Jesus’ advice on how one is to go about recovering an erring fellow Christian, and the great import attached to the responsible exercise of that task. Yet the description of such a recovery is surely the description of an act of love on behalf of the erring fellow Christian… Jesus, the embodiment of God’s love, exercises that love in this passage by telling his disciples how they are to embody that love. Again, love consists of doing something for the good of others.” (Achtemeier, p. 210)
Borg and Crossan point out that this passage is connected to the previous one (which the lectionary skips) about obeying authority.
The verse “Don’t be in debt to anyone” comes right on the tail of admonishments to pay taxes.
“We can now see that Paul’s concern in 13:1-7 when it is placed in this fuller context of 12:14-13:10. It is, of course, about taxes and revenues demanded by Roman but precisely about refusing them violently, about the specter of violent tax revolts among Christians. It is something that appalls him so much that - in rather rhetorical panic - he makes some very unwise and unqualified statement with which to ward off that possibility. Paul is most afraid, not that Christians will be killed but that they will kill, not that Rome will use violence against Christians, but that Christians will use violence against Rome. And that emphasizes the difference between the peace of Rome and the peace of Christ.” (The First Paul, by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, p. 120)
The Dawning Day
“The conviction that Christ will return is the conviction that God will in fact one day redeem his creation, that he will one day fulfill the promise of restoration and recreation given in the resurrection of Christ. Indeed, it is precisely the fact that that future has already invaded the present, an invasion shown by the presence of the Spirit within the community of the faithful that vies to the Christian faith the distinctiveness it has.” (Achtemeier, p. 211)
The expectation of the early church is something with which we are still living.
Christianity is a future-based faith. It is about looking ahead to what is to come, what is promised
“Let's behave appropriately as people who live in the day, not in partying and getting drunk, not in sleeping around and obscene behavior, not in fighting and obsession.”
A proper response to love is to live a certain way. This is not another list of things to avoid - Paul just spent 12 chapters trying to explain why faith is more than following rules. He’s not now replacing the Law with this moral code.
PREACHING THOUGHTS
“Dress yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ.” God as a garment, and article of clothing, something to put on for protection, identity, even fashion? The word fashion means to make something, to manipulate an object into something useful. To be “fashioned” into Christ - could this include our clothes? What do our clothes say about us? How do clothes communicate? People say they judge people by their character, not their clothes. These people lie. Lauren Winner’s book Wearing God explores this and many metaphors of God.
For an example about how love and law are related, Joann Haejong Lee tells a story in the Christian Century about her curfew. She was given a rule - be home or call by 10 p.m., but one night she neglected to do so. Her father’s reaction helped to illustrate the point. The love he showed her that night - the palpable relief, the embrace - communicated a love that was so deep she wanted to follow the rule. Her desire to respond in love was more powerful in get than the fear of punishment.
“In fact, the call to love is not an escape from our duties to one another. It's a call to live with even more intentionality and attention to the needs of others.
We do so not because some rules or laws tell us we have to but because we have experienced that radical and welcoming love ourselves, and that love compels us to strive to be better.
We are not called to be rule followers.m We are called to experience and understand the deep love that undergirds and upholds the commandments of God —and by intimately being known and loved by our God, to then extend and share that love with the world.” (Joann Haejong Lee, Christian Century)
Thanks to our Psalms correspondent, Richard Bruxvoort Colligan (psalmimmersion.com,@pomopsalmist). Thank you to Scott Fletcher for our voice bumpers, Dick Dale and the Del Tones for our Theme music (“Miserlou”), Nicolai Heidlas (“Sunday Morning”,"Real Ride"and“Summertime”) and Bryan Odeen for our closing music.