WAKE UP TO WATCHFULNESS
Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44
1st Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2022
The Rev. Dr. Ritva H. Williams
Happy New Year! Once again the wheel of the liturgical calendar has turned. It is the season of Advent. It is a season of expectant waiting and preparation for the coming of Christ. It is a season that looks back to the birth of Jesus, reflects on the presence of Christ in our lives now, and joyfully anticipates the day when God will be all in all.
Advent 2022 marks the beginning of a new three year cycle of Scripture readings. We return to the Gospel of Matthew which tells us the story of a baby called Emmanuel — “God with us” — who lives and dies as Jesus of Nazareth, but is raised to new life as the Christ who promises to be with us always.
In a marvelously paradoxical way we begin the new church year with a scripture reading from the end of Matthew’s gospel that, in my Bible has the subtitle, “The Necessity for Watchfulness.”
Jesus tells his disciples, ancient and modern both, not to waste their time trying to predict “that day or hour.” What “that day and hour” meant for first century people in Judea is quite different from what it means today. Then it was all about the God establishing justice in the world which meant restoring Israel to its former glory and wiping out their enemies. Today many Christians relate “that day and hour” to speculations about the “rapture” or the “second coming.” Both of those ideas are problematic for a number of reasons. Rapture and second coming theologies imagine that Christ wasn’t here, then he was, then he left, but he’s coming back. That is not what Scripture tells us. It is not Matthew’s story of Jesus. And it is not what Jesus himself was and is talking about in our gospel lesson.
Jesus says: the Son of Man’s arrival will be sudden and unexpected. People will be just as oblivious as people were in the days of Noah prior to the flood. The Son of Man’s sudden and surprising arrival will separate people from one another. Two men working in a field, one will be taken, the other left behind. Two women grinding grain, one will be taken, the other left behind. The people left behind survive just as Noah’s family did, and like Noah’s family are given a mission to rebuild human society.
But who is this Son of Man whose arrival Jesus describes? In Aramaic “son of man" simply means human being. Jesus humbly describes himself as “son of man” — a human doing God’s work, who will suffer and die, and whose unexpected arrival on the scene causes controversy. Now in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus son of man is revealed to be Emmanuel — God with us. What is Jesus telling us? That like the people of Noah’s time, we are not even aware that God is with us? That we don’t know how to discern when and where God shows up in our lives? That God comes to us in ways and places that are unexpected? that surprise us? that cause controversy?
Today Jesus invites us to wake up, be alert, pay attention, and keep our eyes peeled for Christ’s arrival in, with, and among us.
Watchfulness is an ancient spiritual practice. One 17th century Puritan pastor defined it this way, “Watchfulness includes a waking, a rousing up of the soul. It is a continual, careful observing of our hearts and ways, in all the turning of our lives, that we still keep close to God and [God’s] word.” Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) systematized watchfulness into the five steps of the daily examen: becoming aware of God’s presence, reviewing the day with gratitude, paying attention to one’s emotions, choosing one feature of the day to focus on in prayer, and looking forward to tomorrow. There is a growing interest in this ancient spiritual practice as witnessed by slew of new books, including Shaun Lambert’s Putting on the Wakeful One: Attuning to the Spirit of Jesus through Watchfulness.
So … Jesus invites us to wake up spiritually, to cultivate wakefulness, watchfulness, and attentiveness to God’s presence in our every day lives. The apostle Paul echoes that invitation: “you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep” (Romans 13:13). Paul urges us to lay aside what he calls the works of darkness: frivolous self-indulgence, drunkenness, sleeping around, predatory sex, bickering, quarreling, jealousy, envy, and greed. These behaviors numb our emotions, minds and spirits, and/or emerge from our most primitive egotistical instincts. It is very easy in our hyper-commercialized society to become so absorbed and exhausted with that all the holiday season brings to lose track of what it is really all about — the coming of Christ into our hearts and minds and souls.
Scripture urges us not only to pay attention to what is happening within us spiritually, emotionally and critically, but to look outward into the world around us. The prophet Isaiah presents us with a vision of God’s desire for us and for our planet. The mountain of God’s house attain a prominence that draws all nations. Peoples from around the globe will stream to God’s house like streams of flowing water running uphill (what a delightful image!) The nations will come to God’s house seeking instruction in the ways of the Lord. God will judge and arbitrate between them, settling their disputes with justice and equity. And here is the very best part, nations will not study or learn warn any more. The instruments of war — swords and spears, guns and tanks — will be beaten into tools that bring and sustain life. Folks who know me, will not be surprised to hear that this is one of my favorite Bible passages, summarizing beautifully what it means to strive for justice and peace in all the earth: the inclusion of all people and a commitment to nonviolence. I hope you will forgive this plug for RAWtools, an organization run by Shane Claiborne and Michael Martin. In addition to beating guns into gardening tools, they offer offer nonviolence training, and engage in hands on neighborhood development.
This season of Advent we are invited to into the spiritual practice of watchfulness, to be awake and alert, to pay attention to what is happening both within us and around us. How is Christ showing up in our hearts, minds and souls today? How is Christ showing up in the world around us today?
Let me conclude with this Blessing for Waking by Jan Richardson.
This blessing could pound on your door in the middle of the night. This blessing could bang on your window, could tap dance in your hall, could set a dog loose in your room. It could hire a brass band to play outside your house. But what this blessing really wants is not merely your waking but your company. This blessing wants to sit alongside you and keep vigil with you. This blessing wishes to wait with you. And so, though it is capable of causing a cacophony that could raise the dead, this blessing will simply lean toward you and sing quietly in your ear a song to lull you not into sleep but into waking. It will tell you stories that hold you breathless to the end. It will ask you questions you never considered and have you tell it what you saw in your dreaming. This blessing will do all within its power to entice you to awareness because it wants to be there, to bear witness, to see the look in your eyes on the day when your vigil is complete and all your waiting has come to it joyous end. Amen. 