Sermon for the First Sunday of Advent - The Doorkeeper

First Sunday of Advent Year B Mark 13:24-37

Keep awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come.

Those words from Jesus in today’s Gospel help give some focus to this season in the life of the Church we call Advent.  Advent is not just a name for the 4 weeks before Christmas in the church where we get a head start on our Christmas celebration.  We look back, yes, at how Christ came into the world, but it is also a time to look at how Christ comes to us now, and how Christ will come again at that time when God’s promises are fulfilled, and the Kingdom of heaven is made complete.  In these times – in between the manger of Bethlehem and the time when Christ will come again, Jesus tells us to keep awake.

Keep awake? How?

Jesus tells us that the task of keeping awake falls on the doorkeeper.  Because we do now know when the time will come, someone has to be on the lookout.  In verse 34 of today’s Gospel, Jesus says that this situation is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch.  

We often think of door keepers as being like guards, keeping people out.  The only way to get in is to talk your way in, let them know the secret password, sneak past them, or fight your through them.  But some door keepers have another role, not related to guarding something in order to keep unwanted people out.  The role of this other kind of door keeper is to let others know when something, or someone, is coming.

For example, there are those kinds of door keepers when a court is in session. Sometimes, that kind of door keeper may make a simple announcement, such as “All rise, court is now in session”.  Sometimes, it could be a more detailed and solemn ritual.  The second highest courts in our nation, just below the U.S. Supreme Court, are the several federal circuit courts of appeal, spread throughout the country.  On several occasions, I argued cases before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, with court houses in St. Louis and St. Paul, where the door keeper would begin each session with this little ritual:

The lawyers and onlookers would all be gathered in the courtroom, waiting, when there would be three loud knocks at the door between the judge’s chambers and the court room. The door keeper would then announce: "Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is now in session.  All persons having business before this Honorable Court may now draw near and they will be heard. God save the United States and this Honorable Court.”

Regardless of how it was done, the door keeper’s job was not to guard the courtroom, but to announce to us that the judges were on their way in.

And that is essentially the role of the doorkeeper that Jesus talks about.   The kingdom of heaven doesn’t need a door keeper who is like a guard.  But the kingdom of heaven does need a door keeper to keep awake, be alert, and to let others know when that hour has come when all things will be fulfilled. Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye – the kingdom of heaven is now in session.

When will that master of the house return? When will that door keeper need to be alert and awake in order to announce that return? We don’t know. As Jesus said,  it may be in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, meaning that predawn time of the early morning, or at dawn.

Those times aren’t just random times that Jesus picked out.  They would prove to be crucial times of day in the days to come from him, particularly as the story of Jesus last few days are laid out in the Gospel of Mark.   Those times when Jesus says that the master may return are all connected with critical events leading up to the crucifixion. Evening, midnight, cockcrow, dawn. (Thanks to Pastor David Lose for writing about these connections)

The verses from today’s Gospel come from at the end of chapter 13 of Mark’s Gospel.  What happens in the very next chapter - chapter 14? Well, we have the Last Supper, and Mark 14:17 begins to tell the story of that event by saying: “When it was evening he came with the twelve…”.  Evening.

 A few verses later, we have Jesus’ prayer in anguish – “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible, remove this cup from me, but not what I want, but what you want” .  When he had finished his prayer Mark’s Gospel tells us that  “Once more he came and found the disciples sleeping, for their eyes were heavy” because it was the middle of the night.  Midnight.

 Jesus was then captured and tried before the religious leaders at night.  At the close of his trial, Peter’s abandoned Jesus, just as Jesus predicted he would.  When did that happen? Peter denied Jesus just as the cock crowed for the second time”.  Cockcrow.

And finally, we have the time when Jesus is delivered to Pilate, the Roman governor. When did that happen? According to the first verse of Mark chapter 15: “As soon as it was morning”.  Dawn.

Evening. Midnight.  Cockcrow. Dawn.  Each time was a critical time during Jesus’ road to the cross.  Each time is a time when Jesus said that we would need to keep awake, and keep alert, for the time when he would return.

But how can we stay awake all the time? It just isn’t possible for us to be awake all the time! We need our rest, our sleep! And that is where the door keeper comes in.  

Because the door keeper isn’t just one person.  The door keeper – the one given the task of keeping awake – keeping alert – for the coming of Christ - is us. 

We look for Christ, together, because any single one of us can’t stay awake all of the time.  There are times when we are weary.  When we are sick.  Times when we have doubts.  Times when we have fear.  And that is why we need each other, because it is the role of the door keeper community to watch when others cannot.    

Our modern world is full of what I’ll call “do it yourself religion”, meaning the idea that our relationship with God is better as a strictly vertical relationship (just me and God), without a horizontal relationship (with each other).  I understand the reason behind that kind of thinking. Church communities are full of people, and people fight.  People are self-centered. People can disappoint us – even betray us.

People certainly did all those things to Jesus during the evening, at midnight, at cockcrow, at dawn. 

His followers disappointed him by not staying awake while he was in anguish in the garden, and when Peter denied him.  One of his followers outright betrayed him. After the disappointment, after the betrayal, his own people crucified him. 

But Jesus did not abandon them. After the resurrection, after his ascension into heaven, Jesus remained a living presence with them, in their community – helping them keep awake, keep alert, together.  Think of the words Paul used in today’s reading from 1^st Corinthians – his letter talks about the spiritual gifts God gives to us that we need in order to wait for the revealing of Christ. 

Was his letter to an individual? No.  It was to the church in Corinth.  From the rest of the letter, we know it was a church full of problems and divisions.  But they needed to stick together.  Together, they were called into the fellowship of God through Jesus Christ. Despite their problems – they still needed one another. 

And that is the truth for us as well.  Despite our imperfections, together we are being molded by God, to use that phrase from today’s reading from Isaiah about how God is the potter and we are the clay – together we are being shaped into the body of Christ during these times in between the manger and the second coming. 

We need one other, to hold one each other accountable when needed, to do together what Christ calls us to do – love and serve our neighbor – and, to be the door keeper to the kingdom of heaven.  Again, not the kind of door keeper who is a guard.

Together, our call is to be the kind of door keeper who proclaims the good news. The good news that Christ was born for us in Bethlehem. The good news that Christ died for us on the cross.  The good news that Christ’s presence is among us today, and that Christ will come again, to make all things new.

Thanks be to God – Amen. 

 

A Sacramental Perspective on Matthew 25:31-46

So as not to go 0 for 2017 in blog posts, I thought I would interrupt the silence and post this morning's sermon, since it is a good barometer of where I am theologically and spiritually these days.

Christ the King Sunday Year A Matthew 25:31-46

You’re going to figure this out soon enough, but the word of the day for this sermon is "perspective", meaning the where and the how we view things, our point of view, or our vantage point.  We just heard Jesus talk about sheep and goats, but let me use cats and dogs to illustrate a point about the importance of recognizing the perspective from which we view the world around us.

Dogs, like the ones on our family farm I visited over the Thanksgiving holiday, look up at you with those big brown eyes, wagging their tail, as if they are thinking to themself: “You love me, you feed me, you care for me, you take me for walks... you must be God”. Cats, on the other hand, like our dear Mellow whom we adopted from the shelter last year, look at you with those piercing eyes, thinking to themself:  “You love me, you feed me, you care for me, you pet me ... I must be God”. (Joke adapted from a sermon by Steven Sizer: www.stevensizer.com) Recognizing our perspective – the vantage point from which we look at the things around us - matters.

Today is Christ the King Sunday – the last day of the church year, before we begin a new church year with the season of Advent next week. A day that we can take a step back and look at the world from a new perspective.  A perspective which reveals to us how Christ the King is a very, very different kind of king. A perspective which shows us how Christ is a king whose crown is thorns, not jewels, A perspective which shows us that his king’s throne is a cross, not made of gold. 

A perspective revealed to us through today’s Gospel from Matthew.  A perspective which reveals how Christ is with us today.  A perspective that shows us how Christ the King comes to us today - not through all kinds of royal pageantry, but through those whom Jesus calls the least of these who are members of my family. The hungry.  The thirsty. The stranger. The naked.  The sick.  The imprisoned.

This parable, sometimes called the judgment of the nations, or perhaps more simply, the parable of the sheep at the goats, is found at the end of the 25^th chapter of Matthew, the chapter we’ve been going through these past few weeks where Jesus has told a series of parables about being prepared for the day when he would return.  In the very next chapter, chapter 26, Jesus had the last supper with the disciples.  He was betrayed and arrested. He was put on trial before the high priest, then in the 27^th chapter, brought before Pilate, and taken to the cross.

Today’s parable of the judgment of the nations, using the sheep and the goats as metaphors for the righteous and unrighteous, was the last parable he told before those events we remember during Holy Week.

There are probably several different perspectives from which we can look at this parable of the sheep and the goats, but I’m going to talk about three. 

One possible perspective would be to look at this parable from what I’ll call the “legal perspective” the perspective that Jesus is offering us a contract for our salvation, with a list of conditions. What kind of list?  Well, because the Christmas shopping season has begun, pardon me for bringing up Santa, but a list of things we can do to be put on the nice list, the sheep list - and not the naughty list, the goat list. Let’s see – feed a hungry person? Check.  Give a drink to a thirsty person? Check. Give clothing to a naked person? Check.  Welcome the stranger? Check. Took care of someone who is sick? Check.  Visit someone in prison? Check.  Okay Jesus, I’ve done all of those things – now fulfill your end of the deal and tell me I’m a sheep.   

Another possible perspective is what I’ll call the “save the world” perspective. What I mean by that is that from this perspective, we think that Jesus is telling us how to go out there and make his kingdom a reality here on earth in our time, and we do that by doing all kinds of great and noble and just things for other people. 

Things like feeding the hungry, giving a drink to the thirsty, etc. – I won’t mention the whole list again.  Jesus told us about the kingdom of heaven, so let’s get going on bringing it to earth by doing all these things - time’s a wasting.

The problem with those perspectives is that they are from the vantage point of what we are doing.  We need to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, and take care of the sick to fulfill our end of the legal bargain, or we need to do these things to save the world and make the kingdom of heaven a reality here on earth by doing them.

I’m going to propose to you a different perspective – what I am going to call a sacramental perspective.  As Episcopalians/Lutherans, along with other Christian traditions which believe that God’s grace comes to us through the sacraments like baptism or communion, believe that ordinary things or objects can bring the holy to us.  They can bring Christ himself to us.  The water of baptism bring Christ to us and unite us with him in his death and resurrection.  The bread and wine bring Christ to us as they carry his body and blood for forgiveness of sin and nourishment of our souls.

In other words, the sacramental perspective reveals to us that the material world – what we can see, taste, touch, is not all there is that is material to us for our salvation – our unity with God.  Through this parable, Jesus is reminding us that each encounter with the people that we meet has the potential to be an encounter with himself.  What may seem like an ordinary event, can be a Christ event.

The week before last, I stayed several days at New Melleray Abbey, the monastery over Dubuque that I go to periodically. The monks there follow the ancient Rule of St. Benedict as the guide for their lives, and the Rule of St. Benedict recognizes how Christ comes to us through others.  One part of the Rule specifically quotes Matthew 25, when it states that “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for he himself will say: ‘I was a stranger, and you welcomed me”. 

In other words, an act of hospitality, welcoming a stranger, is a sacramental event – an encounter with Jesus. A means by which Jesus Christ - the King of this very different kind of kingdom - comes to us.

A sacramental perspective reminds us that Christ’s presence in the world is not merely a past event, or a future event on the day when Christ returns.  Christ’s presence is a current event.  The face of Christ is reflected to us through the face of the hungry, the thirsty, the sick, the stranger, the imprisoned.  We are all pilgrims on the journey, and Christ visits us through the journey of others. (Adapted from a writing by Fr. Prior Joel Macul on the 20^th anniversary of Christ the King Priory. www.christthekingpriory.com).
A sacramental perspective affects our mindset when we go about doing the things that Jesus spoke of, like feeding the hungry.  These aren’t just acts of charity from someone who has something, to someone who does not have something. We aren’t the kings of our little kingdoms being benevolent and merciful to those whom we provide assistance.

We are receiving far more than what we are giving because the presence of Christ the King himself is with them, whether we recognize it or not.   One of the beautiful things about this parable is how the people who were sheep and not goats did all of these things without even realizing it was the Son of Man who was with the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, stranger, and imprisoned.

So, a sacramental perspective is not required to be a sheep and not a goat, but it does open our eyes to a new way of looking at why we do the acts of love that we do as Christians. It is a perspective that comes when, as Ephesians so beautifully puts it, the eyes of your heart are enlightened. 

The eyes of your heart.  Not the eyes in your head.  The eyes in the core of your being – the core where the Holy Spirit dwells in you because of the sacrament of baptism, the core which is nourished and fed because of the sacrament of communion.

A sacramental perspective opens the eyes of our heart to see God’s grace incarnate in water, in bread and wine.  It allows us to see the presence of Christ in the least of these. It allows us to see that the presence of the resurrected and living Christ is not merely a thing of the past or future, but a living presence right here, right now, with us.  Immanuel.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

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