First Sunday of Advent Pastor Peg's Sermon on Mark 13:24-37  November 27, 2005

Recently I found a recipe on-line that called for fresh parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. (Someone should write a song about that!)  I found fresh parsley, sage and rosemary easily.  But fresh thyme was hard to come by.  Not even the Natural Food Store had it.  And how interesting, that it wasn’t parsley, sage or rosemary I couldn’t find, but fresh thyme- t-h-y-m-e!  But fresh time of the other kind is also hard to come by in this season. 

The other day I was taken by a commercial on TV that interrupted either a football or basketball game, I don’t remember which.  The commercial showed a young father relaxing in front of the TV with the remote control in his hand.  Perhaps you’ve seen it.  His little boy happily jumped up on the couch next to his dad and said, “Daddy, will you read me a story?”  Then the little boy noticed what was on the TV and said, (as if he knew it was an important thing) “Oh, its football.” 

The dad looked at him and then, taking the remote control, said, “Look at this.  I can freeze time.”  And he put the game on hold.  And the assumption is, a story got read.  And the child wouldn’t know that the dad was actually giving up the game – because in reality even remote controls can’t control the game.  The game goes on whether he watched it or not.  But the illusion of control is there. 

We have lots of gadgets that give us an illusion of control.  We can lock our cars and houses and businesses – even alarm them – but if someone wants to break in, our locks and alarms become illusions of control.  Break-ins still happen – as we saw recently where an art museum lost some valuable pieces of art.  We can have savings accounts and insurance plans and the best of advisement, but in the end there are always risks.  We are never completely in control. 

This is no more true than when it comes to time.  We can use time wisely, but when it runs out, it runs out.  Our inability to freeze time – alter time – be in control of time – is of concern in the Gospel before us this morning.  “You do not know when the time will come,” the Gospel writer says.  In other words, we are out of control when it comes to the kind of time the Gospel speaks of. 

Of this time, it says, it may come in the evening, at midnight , at cockcrow, or at dawn.  We do not know God’s timing on things.  We are not in control of this coming.  And since we aren’t in control we are called to be ready, alert, awake – on notice for any surprise visit at any time.

And so it was for the first century people.  Mary was surprised by the angel coming to her when he did with the news she was to become the mother of God.  And Joseph was perhaps even more surprised by the timing than Mary was.  But these stories await Christmas Eve, as we gather here or in other places, on that holy night. 

Today, points us to this other coming of Christ – when he will return in the clouds at the end of time.  But what is time that there will be an end to it?  Not just t-h-y-m-e that’s hard to find in the grocery store, but the time the Gospel urges us to keep alert to and watchful of.  Mark 13 could not be more clear that there’s something worth staying awake for here! Today’s reading ends, “What I say to you I say to all: keep awake.”    

I read a story recently of a pastor named Ed, who now serves a church up in Washington State .  The story helped me picture what’s being asked for by these words on our bulletin cover: “Keep awake.”  The pastor tells about when he was a junior in college and full of pranks.  Some of you are in college and know about these tendencies. 

School was just ready to begin again after a long summer in which Ed worked as a canoeing guide in northern Minnesota .  By the end of the summer his beard and hair were longer and bushier than they had ever been.  So, he thought he’d take advantage of this moment.  He put on dark glasses, a crumpled hat and old clothes. 

His older sister – who loved him dearly – was flying into the airport and was excited that her brother was coming to pick her up.  As she came off the plane, he approached her with his bushy hair and beard, and a limp and posture she would never recognize.  He came up to her and said, “Lady, you got a dime for a cool cat like me?”  She moved quickly away from him.  He persisted and she started to run.  Then he gently touched her hand, looked into her eyes and said with a smile, “ Beverly .”  It was then that she recognized him and exclaimed, “You brat.” 

Beverly didn’t recognize Ed as the one she was joyfully expecting to come for her. She was waiting for someone she would recognize.  She was taken by surprise.  And Ed’s pranks didn’t end there.  Knowing he had a good thing going, he decided to try his “new look” out on his aunt and uncle on their farm.  He drove to the farm and parked the car down the road so they wouldn’t see it. 

He knocked on the front door and when his aunt opened the door, he asked, “Do you have a meal for a hungry guy like me?”  She said, “Just a minute.”  Ed waited for what seemed a long time and finally walked around to the side of the house and he saw something he never forgot.  His aunt was in the neighboring field, running for her life.  

As you might imagine, his aunt was angry when she found out it was Ed.  – Not a good trick to play on someone these days – especially at an airport – or on a farm.  But the Gospel tells us that this is the kind of thing God does.  God comes – not how or when we expect. “Will it be in the evening, at midnight , at cockcrow, or at dawn?”  No one knows.

Luther took seriously the hidden face of God.  He recognized that God isn’t just where we expect – in beautiful sunsets and fall colors.  Nor does God come only when we expect – at high points, at victories, at good times in our lives.  God is also found hiding where we least expect, in the poor, in the needy, in the suffering of our world; and when we least expect – when we’re waiting for something else, or someone else, or some other opportunity. 

Like Beverly met by her brother at the airport, had she known he was Ed she wouldn’t have run the other way!  And sometimes, God is even hidden in the lives of enemies – those who cheat or betray us, hurt or abandon us, for even they are our brother or sister – running perhaps from God’s timing in their lives.  And sometimes God hides even in our selves.  Our own lives become places where Christ is waiting for us to stop running from ourselves and to recognize our lives – just as we are – just where we are – as places and moments in which Christ wants to be known.

That we might be helped to see Christ’s time-altering presence we have been given gifts.  It is as if we are sitting on the couch in front of the television sets of our lives – full of action – and Christ comes as a child – a babe saying, “Won’t you share a story with me?”

And the game can be in full throttle, but the remote control of faith works its wonders.  Christ alters time – chronos becomes kairos – linear time gives way to God’s time – not by sight, but by faith if we are willing – if we will but give God’s timing a chance.  

Christ comes hidden in what appears to be ordinary – in bread and wine, in water and word, in imperfect Christian community, in humble acts of forgiveness, in the sun rising again on this new day.  And, when we see these not as ordinary, but as the extra-ordinary locations of Christ’s coming, time stands still.  It is with this expectation in mind that we are urged to “stay awake.”  “Beware,” we are told, “keep alert, watch!” 

Life will go on, on our TV sets and elsewhere, but that is really the illusion.  Real time – kairos time – rides above it, or below, or even next to us perhaps, as the little boy next to the father on the couch.  It surprises us with goodness and light.  God’s good time for us is now!  It is always here!  It is always now!

Christ is descending in clouds that hide him, waiting for us to be alert, to wake up, to see.  And the disciplines of prayer and worship and service, or whatever helps us put other things on hold for these moments, are practiced in the service of kairos time – God’s time, like where Christ says, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” 

Amen.

+Pastor Peg Schultz-Akerson, to the glory of God
Faith Lutheran Church, Chico, California