Don't Miss God's Work

Matthew 24:36-44
Advent 1
December 1, 2013

I still say, this type of reading is not the way
I really want to start the Advent/Christmas season
I’m really kind of tired of the apocalyptic passages
that keep popping up every so often
They’re kind of scary and they’re hard to digest and
I think we just did this a few weeks ago for anyone
that’s been keeping score.

On top of these being a little scary in themselves,
these days there’s layers and layers of things we have to peel off:
interpretations from millenialists, and doomsdayers,
the whole series of “Left Behind” fiction novels.
it’s hard to get to the bottom of what Jesus was saying.
But just trust me when I say that there is some good news
somewhere in these passages. Just trust me on that.

The first thing that Jesus talks about here
which does not sound very good at all
is the people in the story of Noah and the terrible flood.
Jesus says in those days, people were doing horrible things like:
“eating and drinking and marrying and giving in marriage.”
Now, what’s wrong with that?
Nothing in itself is wrong with eating and drinking and marrying.
But Jesus is saying that the people in Noah’s time
got caught up with doing just that, just living their lives.
They were not waiting for God to act,
they were not looking for signs of God,
they were not paying attention and listening for God.
They even laughed at Noah when he told them that he was.The people who were supposed to be focused on God were not.
One of the worst thing you can do as a disciple of Jesus,
is just let life pass us by without notice.
The worst thing we can do is drug ourselves up
with whatever we drug ourselves up on
and spend our life on auto-pilot.
Sleeping our way through life.
Because when we do that, we miss God.

These days, God is not showing up on our
doorstep and saying, “Here I am, I’m God.”
God is not coming to us in the form of a burning bush.
God is incarnational, meaning that God is in this world as part of this world.
God comes to us in other humans, in the wonder of nature,
in the solid real things of life, in unexpected coincidences
a phone call from an old friend just when we need it,
the help of a stranger, kindness, generosity, gratitude, forgiveness.

And if we just spend our life eating and drinking and marrying
and shopping and watching TV and looking at our computers,
we very well could miss the whole thing.

There’s a woman in Canada who couldn’t afford to travel
to her father’s grave on the 40th anniversary of his death.
So she put an ad in the local paper where he was buried
and asked if anyone would be willing to do it for her,
hoping to get a least one response.
But dozens of people responded and promised they would do it.
She got pictures of the grave filled with flowers.

 
A girl was playing softball she was on second
and her teammate hit a home run,
as she ran into third base she twisted her leg
and couldn’t get home, which would have
prevented the other runs from getting in.
The rules said that none of her teammates could help
or they would forfeit the runs.
So two members of the opposing team got up and
picked her up and helped her get to home plate.

Last week, Iran signed a nuclear agreement with the US
which would curb Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.
A complete reversal of the situation just a year ago
where there was no discussions or diplomacy between
either of our nations.

It seems that this was aided by the return of a cup,
a 2000 year old silver chalice which was held
in a warehouse in Queens, NY with other relics
that were sized by American Customs in 2003
after being looted from a cave many years ago.
The chalice was an important symbol to
Iranians of its cultural heritage
and they have been looking for it for decades.An Iranian specialist suggested that it would be a way
that our country could show respect to Iran.

It was returned by a US diplomat, to an Iranian diplomat
unceremoniously in a plain white Hallmark bag during
a routine discussion about diplomatic license plates.
The Iranian diplomat looked at it,
stood up and thanked the US diplomat
and gave a heartfelt speech about what it meant to
him and what it would mean to the people of his country.
The US diplomat had worked 10 years in the foreign service
and said that he had never had a one-on-one meeting with
and Iranian diplomat, never spoke about anything
more than technical paper work and never even had
extended eye contact with one of his peers from Iran.
This one gesture changed all that.

Two days later, Iranian President Rouhani
accepted a phone call from US President Obama,
something which hadn’t happened since 1979.

I say these things are all God’s work,
large and small personal and international,
God is doing things all the time.
But God is subtle these days.
And if we’re too busy, we will miss it.
But God is acting in our world,

And that is the good news here among all the scary images.
God has not left us alone. God will not leave us alone.
Even during times of trials and sadness.
When it doesn’t seem like it, God is here.
Even when it seems like the darkness has won, it has not.
God will always be a part of us and a part of this world.
We need to be awake, praying for God to act
and expecting to see that prayer answered.

About that day and hour no one knows.
But as we wait in the darkness of this world,
we should always expect to see the light.