Keeping Watch

"Keeping Watch"
Mark 13:32-37

I'm guessing, from what little history I've read, the world has always been crazy.  And by world, I mean people.  Animals can just be animals.  Plants can just be plants.  They seem to exist by different rules than we humans do.  Animals have instincts.  Plants have photosynthesis.

But we humans.  We have free will.  We have hormones.  We have emotions.  We have imaginations.  We have drives.  We have motivations.  There's so much that goes into being human, and all of that can end up being one big bad.

I wonder if in any and every era, the people of that time think, "Man, can it get any worse than it is now?"  Do we all wonder if we live in the worst of times?  As Charles Dickens started his book, Tale of Two Cities, from a previous era:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way…

And that's the trouble.  It's all a mix.  It's not all bad.  But it certainly is not all good either.

Just prior to the statements Jesus makes that were read in Mark 13, he talks about "that day and hour," and "in those days" and, "at that time."  Jesus went on to describe what those days and hours and times will be like.

It will be a mix.  The bad part of the mix is how everything falls apart.  This is how Jesus described it:
the sun will be darkened
the moon will not shine
the stars will fall from the sky
the heavenly bodies will be shaken
In other words, the world is going to be like a completed jigsaw puzzle that is broken apart, separated back into individual pieces, put back in the box, and shelved.

I have the idea that Jesus was not just talking about the literal elements of our universe.  Certainly, it would be catastrophic if the sun didn't shine.  All of our sources of food would die with no sun light, and we would be frozen to death from no warmth.  The stars falling and the heavenly bodies being shaken is a description of total destabilization.  Think of it…we measure and gauge everything we call permanent by the stars and planets and heavenly bodies.  People, ever since there were people have been looking up at this stars and seeing the same thing.  We have devised time itself (not only on our watches, but on our calendars) by the sun and the moon.  To lose the sun and moon would be to lose total track of time.

But there's another way to look at Jesus' statements.  Especially that "the stars will fall from the sky."  How many "stars" have fallen in the last weeks, due to sexual misconduct?  How many of the mighty have fallen?

Jesus was right when he said in one of the other gospels, "What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight.  What you have whispered to someone behind closed doors will be shouted from the rooftops" (Luke 12:3).  What are we learning from all the women who are now shouting from the rooftops about what has happened to them in secret at the hands of men we may have admired or looked up to for leadership and a good word?

The stars are truly falling from the sky.  But have such stars not always fallen from their lofty perches?  Donald Trump may have thought he was right, when he was caught on tape, making his own lewd comments to Billy Bush about his sexual attitude towards women:  Trump said, "When you're a star, they (meaning women) let you do it.  You can do anything."  Is that how all the "stars" think?  That they have some sort of entitlement!? Enamored by their own twinkling?

But what Jesus said was, when you're a star, you will fall from the sky, and it will be your worst day, leading to an even worse life.  You can't do anything you want.  There are consequences.  You will fall.  You who think you are stars.

And as Humpty Dumpty found out after his "great fall," "…all the king's men and all the king's horses couldn't put Humpty together again."

Three times in his little sermon, Jesus used the word, "watch."  Whenever a word is used a number of times, you better pay attention.  Which is what the word "watch" means.  Pay attention.  Be vigilant.  Be awake.  Be alert.  Always give your full attention.  Watch!

Jesus contrasted the word, "watch" with the word, "asleep."  It's a powerful word.  It doesn't mean just sleeping.  In the case of this word, being asleep means giving in to a certain laziness about your faith.  To be asleep means being lazy towards the sin that tempts you throughout your life.  Being asleep means being indifferent about your salvation.  Being asleep means being spiritually dead.

Being indifferent means succumbing to a low interest about your beliefs.  Being indifferent means having only a smidgen of concern about your spiritual self.  Being indifferent means not caring deeply about much of anything, let alone your faith.  Being indifferent means being apathetic about your salvation  No big deal.

This is an easy season to become lazy and indifferent to our faith.  It's an easy time to lose total attention to the depth of the true story of Christmas.  This is an easy time to take a shallow dive, stay just below the surface where the alternate story has no real, or lasting consequence in your life.  During that time where we allow ourselves to be immersed in the alternate reality of the secular Christmas stories, we get truly lulled to sleep.

We fall asleep from the story of Santa and the elves, rather than remain fully awake and vigilant to the angels who sing out Good News.  We fall asleep as we float on the surface stories about Rudolph's red nose guiding Santa's sleigh rather than remaining alert to the depth of the story of a guiding star, leading three wisemen to the Christ-child.  We fall asleep in the dreamy mythology of the North Pole, rather than immerse ourselves in the watchfulness of a small town place called Bethlehem.  We fall asleep waiting for Santa rather than give our full attention to the birth of the blessed Christ child, the Savior of the World.  We are more worried about what the Elf on the Shelf thinks of us rather than be alert to the ever watchful God who has totally immersed himself in this story and into our world at Christmas.

It is so easy to be lulled asleep this time of year, than being at high alert.  To fall asleep, in all its meanings, is to succumb to our own peril.  So, being watchful has to do with two fronts.  We have to be watchful for the Lord's coming.  And we have to be on the alert for any form of calamity of sin we so easily sleep into that would keep us from seeing Jesus.

Jesus said, in this sermon, to be watchful for the "master of the house."  The word literally means Lord.  It describes the one to whom a person or a thing belongs.  The owner—the Lord—is the one who has ultimate control.  The Lord is the one who has the power to decide.

In Jesus’ sermon, in this parable, Jesus describes a time when the owner goes away, putting others in charge.  Those others are us.  The faithful.  The obedient.  The followers.  The ones owned.  The ones who, presumably, know our place.  Who feel no sense of entitlement, thinking we can grab whomever and whatever we want.  Who know we are not stars who can do as we please, but who wish only to do as our Lord pleases.

We are in that time when the Lord of the place is away.  During his time away, we have responsibility for the owners work.  We are in that in-between time.  We are in that odd time between yet, and not yet.  We are waiting for the owner to return.  We are to live in such a way that we are watchful for the Lord's return, and live as if we are watchful and not asleep.

But the issue here is not just watching for the Lord's return, sudden as it may be.  But it is more about being watchful about who the owner is.  The master of the house.  The one to whom we belong.  The one who has ultimate control of our eternal destiny.  No elf-on-the-shelf, our Lord is the one who has the ultimate power to decide our fate.

As I said, we are in the in-between time.  We are watching and waiting.  But part of falling asleep, is giving into the lie our stupor creates that tells us we are the owner.  The lie that we are the one in control.  The lie that we are the master of the house.  The lie that we belong only to ourselves.  If you fall asleep in that way, you will truly be surprised when the owner arrives, and the little world of entitlement you built around yourself all falls down.

The other part of being on watch, as I mentioned earlier, is to be watchful of ourselves so that we don't fall into some calamity of sin.  I think I've already made enough of a case about those who have fallen asleep morally and are now paying dearly for that sleeping.

But their immorality doesn’t effect just them.  It's their families.  Their colleagues.  Their constituents.  Their viewers.  We tax payers who have ended up picking up the tab for the payouts to the women they have harmed.

If they had just watched.  If they had just been alert against temptation and sin.  If they had just been awake to what they were doing.

But it's not just them, is it.  It's all of us.  All of us who are asleep instead of awake and alert.

That's what this season of Advent is all about.  It's about waking up!  The Lord, the Master, the Owner is coming.  And the Lord has expectations about our alertness and our watchfulness.  Begin now.  Let these four weeks, prior to Christmas Day, be your time to wake up and watch; to no longer sleep.