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First Sunday of Advent, Year A

Matthew 24
36“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 37For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man. 40Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. 41Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. 42Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.


The sermon is just starting, so it may be the best time to learn about the Epworth Sleepiness Scale. The scale, developed by Dr. Murray Johns, is one of the ways to diagnose sleep disorders. Take it with me.

In the test you are asked to assign a value between zero and three for each situation, the higher number reflecting the likelihood that you have fallen asleep:

Sitting and reading
Watching TV
Sitting inactive in a public place
As a passenger in a car for an hour without a break
Lying down to rest in the afternoon when circumstances permit
Sitting and talking to someone
Sitting quietly after a lunch without alcohol
In a car, while stopped for a few minutes in traffic

(quietly) If you are asleep now, you may have a sleeping disorder and should see your doctor. I did notice that “listening to a sermon” wasn’t on the list, so I’m sure you’re all still with me. The fun thing is that you are all now sleep experts: if you notice that the guy next to you in traffic is sleeping, you can honk to horn and refer him to a sleep clinic. Who needs a medical degree?

42Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. 43But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.

If we were to ask a Latin scholar or a Catholic theologian to describe this passage from Matthew, she would likely use the phrase mysterium fidei. In English, it means “mystery of the faith.” And in a tidy bit of symmetry, perhaps worthy of Dan Brown himself, the phrase mysterium fidei appears in your bulletin today. “Grant that in praise and thanksgiving, we may so offer ourselves to you that our lives may proclaim the mystery of faith: Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.”

Back to Dan Brown, mysterium fidei has been quietly sitting there in our communion prayers for a few centuries now, hidden in plain view. It refers to the three-part assertion that we will repeat together, but it also points to more. Beneath the category “mystery of the faith” is God’s eternity, the Trinity, and the incarnation, God entering the world in Jesus. In other words, everything that remains incomprehensible to us is described as mysterium fidei.

Some of you will find this unsatisfying. It makes me think of Geoffrey Rush’s character in Shakespeare in Love, who responds to most questions with “I don't know. It's a mystery.” Ironically, the dissatisfaction that most feel with the idea of mystery dates back to this period, and earlier, when Renaissance thinkers rejected mystery in favour of empirical evidence and the scientific method.

Suddenly we were changed. As the modern age took hold, people began to expect that everything could be explained. Apples didn’t just fall anymore, they fell according to defined “laws” that were recently discovered. Even the church got into the act, dividing Europe in half based on the idea that faith was subject to reason.

By the eighteenth century, bible passages about the end of the world were no longer regarded as holy mysteries but uncertain facts to be deciphered. People spent hundreds of hours pouring over the text, looking for clues to determine the date of Christ’s return. Dates were set, churches prepared, and the sting of disappointment was quickly set aside for a better, more accurate accounting of the end.

***

More recently, we have begun to reassess the modern age. One of the key learnings of the Emerging Spirit campaign, the appeal to 30-45 year-olds to find us, is that there is a divide among us between modern and post-modern thinking. Now, I could spend a week trying to explain that post-modern means, and likely make little headway. Instead, I will give you a handy summary. If this phrase makes any sense at all to you, you are likely a post-modern thinker:

I don’t know if it happened this way or not, but I know it’s true.

To the modern mind, factual and truthful are the same thing. For something to be truthful, it must also be factual. To the post-modern, factual and truthful may not add up. A post-modern might say “just because I can’t prove it, doesn’t mean it’s not true.” Or, “I don’t know if it happened this way or not, but I know it’s true.” Ironically, the last phrase is a quote from a First Nations elder, which is both ancient and post-modern. Think about at over lunch.

Back to the divided minds of believers, we are left with a post-modern assumption that the story of Noah’s Ark can be both non-factual and true. To the modern mind this story is myth, and therefore to be set aside, rather than imagined as part of the truth of human development. Remember, truthful, but not factual.

Imagine for a moment that God regretted making us. Imagine a world that was largely unconcerned with God, no longer mindful of the Creator or the gift of human life. Now imagine how God might reset the clock, and return the earth to an Eden-like state where faithfulness was restored. Jesus, the first post-modern, put it this way:

37For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, 39and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.

As moderns we quickly get mixed up in the facts and we miss the truth of the story. The truth of the story is found in three small words: “they knew nothing.” The people were in a state of ignorant bliss. They were busy shopping at Wal-Mart, surfing the net, or falling asleep in traffic. They became so preoccupied with worldly concerns they forget that beyond these things lay entire realms of meaning, ways of understanding ourselves and our place in the universe. We allowed ourselves to be reduced to “consumers.” No longer citizens or children of God, we became consumers of goods, information, healthcare, and everything else.

Advent is the best of times and the worst of times. It is the season of thoughtful reflection and preparation. It is the time we set aside to ponder what it means to welcome Christ into our midst, in familiar or unfamiliar ways. But is also the most acquisitive time of the year, the time we feel the most pressure to consume.

Interesting word, consume. Did you know that the Chinese government has plans to build 500 coal-fired generating stations in the next few years? And why would they do this is the face of all we know about global warming? The answer is under the tree. A billion consumers from the so-called developed world of Europe and North America want an endless supply of cheap goods, and the Chinese are just trying to keep up. The last thing we will consume is the little blue ball we call home.

Where is the hope? The hope is in the power of God to transform us. The hope is in the wakeful moments where we meditate on Christ’s return, and the clarity this will bring. The hope is in the movement of the Spirit, urging us forward as one people. The hope is in the simple elements of bread and wine, reminding us that God defeats the power of death to always being new life.

Where is the hope? The hope is in a familiar story told and retold, a story that begins with angel voices and ancient words. A story that asks us to ignore facts and focus instead on truth. A story that lives outside of time, yet returns to us year by year. It is a story about longing and desire: God’s wish to walk among us and show us love.

I want to conclude with words from Henri Nouwen, who lived and died in the here and the not yet:

We eat bread, but not enough to take our hunger away; We drink wine, but not enough to take our thirst away; we read from a book, but not enough to take our ignorance away. Around these "poor signs" we come together and celebrate. What then do we celebrate? The simple signs, which cannot satisfy all our desires, speak first of all of God's absence. He has not yet returned; we are still on the road, still waiting, still hoping, still expecting, still longing..." (Yancey, p. 242)

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 5:07 AM