November 29, 2020: Those Who Dream . . . Keep Awake
Mark 13:24-37
Rev. Rhonda Blevins
“But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory. Then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven. From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”
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My cousin was an MP (Military Police) in the Army. He was stationed in Berlin, Germany in the years leading up to the wall “falling down” between East and West Berlin. One of his duties as an MP was to occasionally be the night watchman in the gatehouse at the entrance to the military base. As you might imagine, being the night watchman in the gatehouse at the entrance to the military base was a boring, lonely, tedious job. One night (maybe more than one), my cousin fell asleep on the job. He tells the story that he propped his arms on his desk and lay his head down on his arms for a quick “cat nap.” His cat nap turned into a much longer experiment with sleeping on the job, so much so that morning came bringing with it his commanding officer into the gatehouse. Awakening with the sound of hearing someone enter, knowing he had been caught, he said a loud, “Amen!” and lifted his head to greet his boss. Because of his quick thinking, my cousin lived to see another day.
It can be difficult to stay awake. When have you had a hard time staying awake? I think back to my seminary days in Fort Worth, Texas. I had an internship about an hour north of the seminary in Denton, and every week I would have to drive back to Fort Worth at 11pm on a Texas highway. There’s nothing longer or flatter than a Texas highway. Staying awake on those drives was a challenge!
Staying awake proves difficult for kids trying to catch a glimpse of Santa on Christmas Eve, for college students trying to cram for finals, and for my husband and me trying to watch the ball drop on New Year’s Eve.
It’s sometimes not easy to keep awake! Yet, that is what Jesus tells his followers to do in this strange passage in Mark that I read earlier.
Every year on the first Sunday of Advent, the lectionary gives us one of these apocalyptic passages. “Apocalypse” simply means “revealing,” and in this passage we hear about the “revealing” of the “Son of Man” who is coming in the clouds to gather his people from the “four winds.” And no one knows when he will come, not even the angels or the Son himself, only the Father. Jesus uses the metaphor of a man going on a journey and leaving his slaves in charge while he is away. The slaves have no idea when the master is to return, and they don’t want to be caught goofing off. They better do the work while he’s away. They better . . . “keep awake.”
When reading apocalyptic passages like this one, it helps to consider the circumstances of the original audience. None of the Gospels, including Mark, were written during the time of Jesus, rather, they were written many years later to preserve the story of Jesus because the people who walked and talked with Jesus were becoming few and far between. The Gospel of Mark is believed to have been written sometime around the year 70 AD, nearly 40 years after Jesus, and Mark is the earliest Gospel written. 70 AD is the year that the Romans completely destroyed the glorious Temple in Jerusalem. There had been an uprising, the Jews were sick of living under Roman imperial rule and paying taxes to Caesar. The Jewish revolt began in 66 AD. Rome systematically crushed the uprising, and in 70 AD, Rome burned down the Temple. And as if this wasn’t tragic enough for the defeated Jews, the Romans added insult to injury by slaughtering thousands of Jews. Thousands more were enslaved. Many Jews were sent to arenas throughout the Roman Empire to be butchered for public amusement.
This is the context out of which the Gospel of Mark was written. In a time of confusion and utter hopelessness, the Gospel of Mark offers a message of hope. Mark’s message is, in a nutshell, this: “Things are bad. Really bad. But Jesus will come again and make all things right. The powerful will fall. And we will be lifted up. The world will be turned upside down.”
Advent 2020 begins with the world, once again, in chaos. We may not be experiencing the devastation that Mark’s original readers knew, but we know our share of difficulty. We have political chaos. We have economic chaos. The stock market seems to be doing well (the Dow hit a record this week) even though many people remain out of work. Agencies that help the homeless have never been busier. Then there’s the global pandemic.
We’ve all found our ways to cope with the restrictions of life during a pandemic. Several weeks, maybe even months ago, I confessed one of my coping mechanisms to you: Hamilton, the musical. When my kids remember the pandemic, they’re going to remember their mother’s obsession with Hamilton. Of course, part of the story line of Hamilton is the Revolutionary War, in which “a ragtag volunteer army, in need of a shower, somehow [defeats] a global superpower.” And the song they sing to mark the end of the war? “The World Turned Upside Down.”
That’s what the people reading Mark’s Gospel are hoping for in light of the crushing defeat at the hands of the Romans. They dream of a world turned upside down. It is obvious by the time Mark is written that the Jews will not see victory, they will not know sovereignty in this world, but Christ will come again, and when that happens, “The World Turned Upside Down.”
And so Mark’s Jesus tells his followers, “keep awake!” “For you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn.” But when the master comes we should be ready. We must keep awake as we wait for his return.
And so we begin the season of Advent . . . the season of waiting. So we sing, “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus,” “Wait for the Lord,” and my favorite Advent song, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel and ransom captive Israel that mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.” Each year during Advent we suspend our knowledge that the Christ-child has been born, to give ourselves to the difficulty of waiting. Some churches, including the church I grew up in, don’t even “Advent.” They go from Thanksgiving straight to the singing of Christmas Carols. Other churches have an entire repertoire of Advent songs—songs about the waiting. No Christmas carols until Christmas Eve at those churches! But no one likes waiting—we want baby Jesus and we want him now!
But waiting is what we’re called to do during the season of Advent. And never before during my lifetime has the world been waiting in unison like we have this year. The world awaits a vaccine for COVID, and it can’t come soon enough. We are warned of a long, dark winter as people have grown tired of waiting, growing complacent, resuming normal activities sooner than medical experts suggest. We don’t like to wait.
Yet, we must wait.
We wait for a vaccine. We wait for the return of Christ. We wait.
But here’s the hope we hold as people of faith—Christ is coming.
Christ came—in history.
Christ comes—in mystery.
Christ will come—in majesty.
And in the meantime, we keep awake. We tend the master’s house—we take care of the house and the land and the children—we feed the chickens and we pay the bills and we keep oil in the lamps and sweep the floors—until the day comes when the master returns and the world is turned upside down.
So keep on doing the work, child of God. Keep on tending the Master’s house. In the waiting, there is work to do. Would we rather have the excitement of the return rather than the mendacity of waiting? Perhaps. But just as a vaccine is coming—we don’t know the day or time we’ll each receive the vaccine—we don’t know when we’ll again sing the great hymns of faith at the top of our unmasked lungs—but we hold out hope. Until the vaccine comes, we do the mundane work of masking, distancing, staying out of crowds, keeping ourselves and those we love safe. Waiting for a vaccine isn’t fun. But we do the work until the day comes and we celebrate a COVID-free world.
In the same way, we wait for the coming of the Christ in majesty. But in the waiting we hold out hope that when he comes, the world will be turned upside down.
That’s the spirit of the hymn we will enjoy in closing: “My Soul Cries Out” or “Canticle of the Turning.” The tune is the old Irish “Star of the County Down”; the lyrics were written by church musician Rory Cooney. Cooney writes:
The idea . . . is that we are all walking a particular course dictated by the gods of “this world,” for Jesus and his countrymen, the god’s name was Caesar. Jesus was saying, “Look, how is that working out for you? Happy? Well, I have good news: a God with another idea, and his name is Abba. Let’s “turn around” and walk in another direction.” So the “revolution” is both interior (a change of heart-self) and corporate and visible (a new way of living together). It is, in fact, against the prevailing set of values in society, a revolution. But I want to emphasize that it is a peaceful revolution, a revolution of action, persuasion, and justice. “Canticle of the Turning” invites us to sing around the fire in the darkness while we await the new world’s dawn.
So welcome to Advent. Welcome to waiting for the “World Turned Upside Down.” Things may not be great, but we have hope that dawn draws near, and the world is about to turn.
My heart shall sing of the day you bring.
Let the fires of your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears, for the dawn draws near,
And the world is about to turn.