The End Game?
“...you know what time it is, the time in which we are living. It is now the moment, the time, the hour for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer, closer to us now than when we became believers, than when we first accepted faith. The night is far spent, gone; the day draws near. Let us, then, lay aside the works of the night and put on the armor of light.” — Romans 13:11-12.
Many of you know about my strange, personal journey in the world of higher education, but for those of you who don’t, let me briefly mention it. The first time I went to college, I dropped out after one semester.
Only later in life did I returned to the classroom for my Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees, required for ordination in the United Church of Christ. Since I was living with my parents when I dropped out of college, my late mother, practical woman that she was, said I needed to find a job.
I asked where she thought I might look. She remembered her first job was in a department store— Wanamaker’s. But by the time I dropped out of college Wanamaker’s had closed its New York City outlet.
Since my mother was working on the Upper East Side of Manhattan at that time, she suggested I get on the Subway with her, get off at 59th Street and Lexington and apply for a job at Bloomingdale’s. In fact, this was sound advice. Department stores, statistically, have a fairly significant turn over rate among employees. Hence, they are open to hiring people.
I did what my mother suggested— got on the Subway with her and got off at Bloomingdale’s. And they even interviewed me right on the spot.
With the interview completed and feeling very self confident about how I had presented myself, and feeling very positive that they would hire me and perhaps also feeling more than a bit cocky and self satisfied, I did not go anyplace else to apply for work that day. I simply got back on the Subway and went home.
That evening, when my mother got home, she asked how it went. I said it seemed to go well. She asked where I had applied for work after I left Bloomingdale’s. I admitted that I just came home.
She expressed her anger with me in no uncertain terms. She said I could expect to visit the personnel department at Macy’s the next day. And that I would continue to visit personnel departments day after day, even if it was only one store at a time, until I ran out of department stores to which I might apply in New York City. (Slight pause.)
Later, as the family sat around the dinning room table having dinner, the phone rang. I was closest to it, so I jumped up and answered. The call was from the personal department at Bloomingdale’s. They said they had a job they’d like me to do and asked if would I report for orientation the next morning. (Slight pause.)
Since the phone was near the dinning room table, what was said in that conversation and what had transpired as a result of that interview was totally obvious to everyone sitting there. Still, with some glee, I reported the entire exchange nearly verbatim without a pretense that anyone sitting at the table had heard what was said, even though I was standing several feet away.
I might add that, in the telling of this story, I also did not exhibit any pretense that I had an ounce of humility. Frankly, I sounded more than a little smug. (Slight pause.)
Well, if my mother had been angry with me before, she was really angry with me now. But what could she say or do? After all, not only did I get a job, I got it in one try. (Slight pause.)
And these words are from the work known as Romans: “...you know what time it is, the time in which we are living. It is now the moment, the time, the hour for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer, closer to us now than when we became believers, than when we first accepted faith. The night is far spent, gone; the day draws near. Let us, then, lay aside the works of the night and put on the armor of light.” (Pause.)
Perhaps you realize the words of this passage could be construed to mean the end times are at hand, the world is coming to an end. But, rumor to the contrary, these words are not about The Apocalypse. This is an exhortation about hope. But that leaves an important question open. ‘What is hope?’ (Slight pause.)
In fact, the story I told moments ago about getting my first job might be taken by some to be a story about unbridled hope or at least as a story about the unbridled hope of youth. After all, why else would I have felt so good about the interview?
But the idea that my job hunting story is about unbridled hope of any kind is simply not true. Most assuredly, it is a story about unbridled egocentricity and perhaps also a story about sheer stupidity exhibited by someone still in the teen years... and that someone happened to be me.
In fact, anyone who takes this passage from Romans or any passage which refers to the end times to mean The Apocalypse is imminent, is engaged in a massive case of egocentricity. The implication of insisting the writings of Scripture confirm the end time is around the corner is to believe that all the people who have ever lived before us must not be as important as we are, right now. That kind of stand insists there is some strange self privilege in witnessing the end times and illustrates an egocentricity which loses track of reality.
One thing people often forget about hope is that hope never loses its grasp on reality. Indeed, many hear the term ‘hope’ and confuse it with wishing. Take my word for it: wishing for something instead of working for something has nothing to do with hope. Hope both challenges reality and faces reality head on.
What’s my proof of that? The American abolitionist movement which culminated in the freedom of American slaves. Women receiving the right to vote here. That only took another fifty-five years after the slaves were freed. The work of Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela in overcoming apartheid in South Africa.
The list where a vision of hope triumphed goes on and on and on. All these people and movements understood reality. Because they understood reality they could envision that for which they hoped. (Slight pause.)
There is another issue to tackle here. I am quite sure some would read the list of sins in this passage: reveling, licentiousness, quarreling and jealousy, etc. and decide this is a list of “thou shalt nots.”
Once again, hope understands not just reality but human reality. We are frail and we are not perfect. Further, it’s likely people pay way too much attention to the reveling and licentiousness named here and not enough attention to the quarreling and jealously aspect.
If you want to place a face on imperfection and, indeed, on egocentricity, start with quarreling and jealously. Hope, you see, embraces, encompasses, recognizes humility. (Slight pause.)
Well, for a moment, lets talk about what it might mean that, in light of hope, (quote): “...salvation is nearer, closer to us now than when we became believers...” (unquote). [Slight pause.] We have entered the season of Advent proclaiming hope. Why? (Slight pause.)
Yes, Jesus is the light of the world. But is that simply a ‘feel good’ phrase? Banish the night. Come to the light. Everything’s all right. Or is there more to it than that? (Slight pause.)
Let me suggest that, in this season of Advent, we should recognize that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ. But in so doing we also need to place ourselves in Roman Palestine some two thousand years ago. We need to realize that, before the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ, no one alive back then could foresee the way God would break into the world and change— change— the way we understood God and the relationship God has with humanity.
We need to realize that with the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ, God fulfilled all the promises God had made about covenant, promises about eternal life with God, promises about hope for the world in a way humans had never before imagined. And that, my friends, is the kind of hope Paul addresses here. The kind which says God imagines freedom, imagines life, imagines goodness in ways we never thought about before, in ways we never thought possible before, and, indeed, in ways that face reality.
And yes, God imagines us in the joy of covenant, in peace which surpasses understanding, in relationship that defines love. In the tender, loving, surprising ways, ways beyond our imagining, God provides and we, thereby, can see and envision the fulness of hope. Amen.
11/28/2010
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, NY
ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Benediction. This, then, is an précis of what the pastor said before the blessing: “Biblical Scholar Walter Brueggemann said this: “What a stunning vocation for the church— to stand free and hope-filled in a world gone fearful— and to think, imagine, dream, vision a future that God will yet enact.” I want to suggest to you that the vocation, the work of the church, is hope.”
BLESSING: Let us know and understand that our hope is in God. May we carry the peace of God where ever we go. Let us share that peace and that hope, which is God’s, with all whom we meet. For God reigns and the joy of God’s love is a present reality. Amen.
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