In the holiday season, we hear Jesus’s invite us to listen and hear in the midst of chaos—a call, not to ending it, but being in the center of it.
Finding a heart for presence in the midst of chaos
Advent 1A
Matthew 24:36-44
Some people showed up for a big party. They expected cake and presents and balloons and a DJ and a dance floor. They expected food and fun. But what they got was something else. Like a sales pitch. Oh, this is one of those parties.
That’s one way of going. A more direct path is like this.
Some people showed up for a revolution. They expected to kick Rome out of Jerusalem and inspire the Temple leadership to coronate Jesus as a kind of general-turned-king like King David or Dwight Eisenhower. But instead Jesus tells them that the Temple will be destroyed and while we’re at it, we’re all going to be blindsided by it.
Or maybe we say it this way.
Some people showed up for church expecting to hear about an expected baby. They were already putting up trees with ornaments, decorating, making lists, and Black Friday shopping. Looking forward to Cyber Monday. Then the preacher starts talking about a great flood destroying humanity.
I mean, nothing quite says “Happy New Year, Church!” like Jesus going Guess what! Crazy junk is going to happen and you don’t get to know when! Ha!
So, how’d everybody’s turkeys turn out?
the flood
At one level, we get this passage which is itself a bit uncomfortable. But our reading it now as we’re starting to turn our eyes toward Christmas…well, it hits us like a ton of bricks. Even as many of us have come to expect a dose of apocalyptic to kick off Advent, everything else around us is still moving along.
Even we are blindsided when it comes.
Jesus describes that sensation of everything proceeding as normal, that day so long ago. Birthday parties, babies being born, people heading in to work and people leaving the late shift. Maybe that pastoral apple pie is cooling on the window sill.
The flood came on a normal day.
And I can hear the little cartoon bug on my shoulder telling me Don’t get distracted by the nature of God in the flood story. This is about the feeling of that moment: everything was normal. And then it wasn’t.
But what is happening? Noah is already on the ark
“and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away”
Even Noah didn’t know. Not in that sense. And not until it became clear.
the impact
And when it hit, they were all gone, yes. But already divided. Some of everything was on the boat; the holy remnant.
But Jesus isn’t talking about the flood. He’s talking about a future moment. A moment that will have an impact like that moment.
A sudden and unpredictable impact.
An impact that will divide and devastate, hitting like a freight train.
Two will be sitting at a coffee shop. One will get a call from an oncologist and the other won’t.
A mother will deliver twins and only one is breathing.
One parent is sick all the time, but keeps going. The other falls victim to an opioid addiction.
As much as we want to talk about control, power, certainty, and all the predictability we long for: we can’t. Life doesn’t work like that.
In fact, that’s the very appeal of Rapture theology. They want this story to talk about a time in the near future when all the good people will be taken up into heaven. It sounds so good. So certain. Predictable.
But that is literally the opposite of what Jesus is saying.
People die. And people live after. The question is not about preparing to survive the impact: it’s preparing for life after the impact.
the living
Remember the context of this story was in Jerusalem, leaving the Temple, and Jesus saying some trouble is coming.
So the context of the evangelist we call Matthew’s telling of this is in the 80s CE; some 50 years after it happened. And just a few years after the Temple was destroyed.
And at that time, you have now had three generations of people waiting for this imminent moment: this great reconciling they just knew had to be any minute now. They were totally prepared for their neighbors to be wiped out and they get to ride the ark to safety.
But clearly there were skeptics who were not staying on this logic train. You know half the congregation is like You know, Jesus made it seem like it would be, maybe not tomorrow, but like next week. And that was five decades ago. That junk is never gonna happen.
So these words, “you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” are doubly frustrating for them.
One thousand nine hundred and thirty-some-odd years later, we should be frustrated. But we’re all so skeptical it could ever happen, we’re not likely to give it much thought, actually.
We’re all going about our business of getting married and baking apple pies and putting them on window sills.
Our context, then, is not just a story of a future time that can’t be predicted, but a time so ridiculously future that predicting it stopped making sense a thousand years ago.
the now
And this is when that cartoon Jiminy Cricket says it again: Don’t get distracted. This is about the feeling of that moment.
Our fixation on prediction is us seeking certainty for a thing Jesus keeps saying we can never have! When are we really going to learn?
What is at the heart of this moment? Right now? What is at the heart of our very present? When we’re all confused and distracted—making plans and relying on expectations. Right now, we’re all running on instinct and frustration and anxiety and fear. All the things which desire a stilling of the storm, an end to the chaos, certainty in the midst of confusion.
And what does Jesus say? We don’t get to know!
So why doesn’t that help? Because we aren’t listening!
We fear uncertainty, but Jesus is trying to tell us to quit it because we don’t get a say in a lot of this. In the end, we all will die. Some of us sooner than others. And every individual moment starts to feel random or unfair; why does one get taken early and another late? But ultimately, we all go down to the dust; yet even at the grave we make our song: Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
So Jesus is pushing all of his people to stop ogling the Temple and our idealized past, stop worrying about the uncertain things, and see what is right in front of us, right now. With open eyes and hearts for love.
All these distractions feel important in the now. And that’s because they are! That’s the trick! Public elections, sitting with loved ones, eating dinner with family and friends, giving gifts: it’s all important!
But do these keep us from seeing God in our world? Or do we see God in all of these things?
Jesus’s favorite tool: urgency
So here’s the thing about this passage: the moment it captures, how it was heard one thousand nine hundred and thirty-some years ago and how we’re hearing it today. That desire for certainty and all that anxiety about knowing the time of a great revelation of God to the world: that is literally our thing. It’s not Jesus’s thing. It’s ours.
Jesus’s thing, on the other hand, what he’s trying to communicate, just like a cartoon cricket on my shoulder saying not to get distracted but to listen to his point is that we are called to listen and be present to God in the midst of the chaos around us. Our point is to try and get rid of anxiety. But his point is to listen in the midst of anxiety.
And if you’re like me, you’re shouting I’m trying! But it’s hard! And the voice comes back I know! But you can do this!
So if we’re all here trying to figure out how to listen and be present in the midst of chaos because that’s what we’re being called to do, here’s one more thing. Jesus’s favorite tool for teaching is urgency. Sometimes it’s creating urgency. Sometimes it is reminding us that matters of the eternal are actually matters of an extreme sense of the present.
When is the best time to do something? Now!
Urgency isn’t about the future, but about our action now that changes our future. Building urgency about a future revelation is about building a greater sense of now in our hearts. Just as building urgency about the environment is about building a greater sense of now. Because now is the time to act.
This is our life; our work; our hope. Being here now. To still the storm, end the chaos, throwback the forces of destruction and death; and to love fervently, full of hope and generosity. Squeezing our babies tight, feeding our hungry neighbors, building community in the midst of isolation.
Building it now. Not like our lives depend on it. But because now is the most important time to do it. To breathe the stilling breath of God into chaos while singing Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia!