Tag: Expectations

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Suddenly

First Sunday of Advent  |  Mark 13:24-37

Suddenly

This Sunday marks the beginning of Advent. We are all waiting for Christmas. For some, it’s the season to remember the coming of the Messiah. For others, it’s a time of waiting for Santa, or for the food and gifts of Hanukkah. Some people, let’s call them the Grinch faction, just wait for it to be over.Mary and Joseph 001

And soon it will be. We’ll hear Christmas carols, shop for presents and wonder whether we’ll receive any, and one day, suddenly, it will be over. We’ll take down the decorations and wait for spring.

Most things are suddenly over. Birthdays are like that. Holidays. Stories.

Mark’s Gospel is like that. Originally it ended with this:

And having gone out, they fled from the tomb, for trembling and ecstasy held them, and they said nothing to anyone for they were afraid.

It’s a sudden ending, leaving the readers wanting more. Later someone added more verses to the Gospel, maybe trying to round out the story or smooth out the ending. Mark’s original ending is just as it should be, though. Fear and trembling and ecstasy were appropriate. That’s precisely where Jesus took them; it may be where God takes us.

The lectionary gives us a different passage from Mark to reflect on for Advent: verses from the Little Apocalypse, a portion of Mark’s Gospel that talks of the end of the world. That, too, will happen suddenly, according to this passage. Maybe the idea is to remember the first coming of God into the world by anticipating the next.

HorsebackAheadSo is the emphasis to be on waiting? Or are we to abandon our homes and gather our families on mountaintops, thinking that “suddenly” means “soon”?

In Mark’s Gospel, Jesus tells his followers that they will know the end of the world is near by certain signs, but then he tells them, “Truly I say to you that this generation will not have passed away before all these things have taken place.”

What? All those signs indicating the end of the world, and they had already come true two thousand years ago? Does that mean that the end is nigh? Past nigh? Is the crazy man with the sign right, after all?

Sure. As the fundamentalists are fond of saying, we are all living in the last days. But so has everybody else who ever lived.

That’s the point, or one of them.

We don’t know our last day. We don’t know when it will be over, whatever “it” may be. This world. Our lives. The universe. Any of it. That doesn’t mean that we should cower in the corner, worried and watching for angels or meteors or exploding suns. Or an accident. Or cancer.

The end is nigh. Don’t waste your life waiting for it. Go out and live.

Pay attention, Jesus is saying to his followers. This is what we have, and if we look, we’ll see the signs that it is all passing by us. At its worst, it’s amazing. At its best, it’s ecstasy. So go live, and pay attention, because suddenly it will be over.

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Return of the King

Reign of Christ  |  Matthew 25:31-46

     Return of the King

Christ Pantocrator - icon from St Catherine's Monastery, Sinai
Christ Pantocrator – icon from St Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai

Everyone is in a great throng, bigger than any rock concert, a slow moving herd of humanity, everyone there is, all in one place. When the sorting starts — the finger of God pointing left or right as each of us gets close enough for scrutiny — we don’t understand. This doesn’t match our expectations.

For one thing, everyone is still here. Wasn’t there supposed to be some kind of rapture? There were movies about it. Nicolas Cage was in the remake, wasn’t he? All of this judging business wasn’t supposed to happen yet, and not like this. All of the good folk were already supposed to be taken, not left behind, but here we all are, like sheep, or goats, depending on which way the finger of God points.

If this is a picture of how the second coming happens, somebody must have painted it wrong. It doesn’t match what the Left Behind folks tell us.

And one more thing.

All the attention is on the lives everyone led here on earth, before the angels and the throne of glory showed up. Jesus keeps talking about how everyone treated the hungry, the poor, the sick, and the oppressed — all from here in this life. How about the streets of gold and the lake of fire part? Can’t we hear more about that?

Call me crazy, but it sounds like Jesus is not really interested in streets of gold and lakes of fire. He keeps talking about how we live our lives. These lives. Right here. Now.

And in case anyone missed it, this isn’t the second coming of Christ. To hear Jesus tell it, this is something like the sixth or seventh return, or maybe the hundred billionth.

You don’t think so? Count them up. Jesus says that we found him hungry, and thirsty, and alone, and naked, and sick, and imprisoned, and we did nothing to help him. That’s six appearances right there, not counting that time when we crucified him. Doing nothing was an improvement when you think about it, but still.

Where Jesus is concerned, some of us don’t have a very good track record.

RoundSunriseJesus is saying that he already came back. He keeps on coming back. Every day. Every time we see a homeless person, he’s back. Every time we meet someone who needs food, or clothes, or a place to stay, there he is. When our coworker needs encouragement, there he is. He looks like a refugee woman from Syria, a family crossing a river out of Myanmar, a couple staring at the ruin of their home after a hurricane. We just fail to recognize him, because he doesn’t look the way we expect him to look — which makes us sort of like those first disciples after the resurrection. According to the Gospels, they had trouble recognizing Jesus as well. They spent years together, and he still didn’t look like they expected him to look, didn’t appear the way they wanted him to appear.

But those people he is talking about, they aren’t the real Jesus, are they? It’s sort of like settling for a Santa’s helper at the mall because the real Santa is too busy. That lonely old woman isn’t really Jesus. That’s just somebody we might help so that we can get on the Nice list instead of the Naughty one. Right?

Except that isn’t what Jesus said. He said what we do to the old lady, we’ve done to him. Really, truly. It’s not like Jesus voodoo dolls — do something nice for the old lady, or not, and you do something nice for Jesus, or not. He’s saying that on some level, the old lady is Jesus. Even if she doesn’t know it. Even if we can’t see it.

Maybe we’ve just learned not to see Jesus. We can walk right past him sitting on the sidewalk, because that’s not Jesus, that’s just someone who should get a job. We can overlook him in his disguise as a child without a coat, the kid whose cheeks are a little too thin. Jesus doesn’t look anything like that woman in a Syrian refugee camp, or like those people in tent hospitals. Jesus never had ebola, never had his house destroyed by a storm, never lost his family in an earthquake. He never looked like that, or smelled like that, or dressed like that, and he was never so foolish as to be born on the wrong side of a border. Jesus never looked anything like our neighbors, certainly not anything like our own family.

We would have done fine things for Jesus, if we could have found him, but we’re surrounded by a bunch of goats.

Oh, what does he look like? Jesus looks like a king, of course. You can’t miss him. And one day we’re going to walk on streets of gold and wear white robes and sing songs together. It’s not a metaphor, you say? What do you mean? Heaven is real, and you’ve got a ticket, eh? If people know what’s good for them, they’ll go get themselves a ticket as well? That’s what matters, after all. None of this here and now stuff. This is just a momentary thing. Isn’t that what it says somewhere? Come to think about it, if this life is so temporary, why is Jesus making such a fuss about it?

In the meantime, where did all of these poor folk come from? They look sort of familiar.

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Photos by Granny ™ (except the icon from St Catherine’s, of course)

 

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The God Problem

The God Problem  |  Matthew 25:14-30

In the parable of the talents, we hear about three people who are entrusted with wealth. We know the story. It gave the English language the word ‘talent’ as we use it today—a gift or ability that one may use and improve upon, or not.

Two of the servants went off and doubled their money. When their master returned, he was very pleased with their use of what he had given them. The third servant, more conservative, or less bold, or perhaps afraid of his master, buried his money in a hole in the ground. It was safe when the master returned, but the man was not. For failing to use what the master had given him, the master took everything away and threw the man out.

Ok, we get the idea. Use your talents. We might not do it, in real life—we might be distracted, or busy, or afraid—but we really do get it. We understand that gifts are to be used. Not to use a talent is the same as wasting it, and hiding an asset away is no better than squandering it.CoinsfromJarVert

If we stop there, fine. We’re good with it. We’ve got a meaning we can apply to our lives. Fine. We can walk away.

There’s a problem, though. For all of us who walk away from this parable with a good grasp of the central point, at the back of our minds there’s a God problem. Sure, the guy who buries his one talent in a hole in the ground could have done better, but he doesn’t squander it, does he? He doesn’t go and spend it all. He keeps it safe, which isn’t nothing, right? And his reward? He loses everything. He is thrown out. With nothing. Not even with the one talent he had kept buried.

And there’s the God problem.

“Lord, I knew you, that you are a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter.” The master in the story does not deny any of it, and if the master in the story represents God, there’s our problem. Matthew seems to be painting a portrait of God as demanding, avaricious and cruel.

It’s not even the only time he does it. Try Matthew 22:1-14, the story of the king and the feast. (Here’s an earlier post on that story: Whims of God.) There Matthew gives us a king who’s vengeful and capricious, and once again the king represents God.

So what do we make of that? Did Matthew have God issues?

It is hard to reconcile Matthew’s images of a demanding, harsh master with the Johannine idea that God is love. (1 John 4:8,16)

Maybe we’re reading too much into it. Literally. The parable of the talents is just that, a parable, a story with a point. It is not an allegory, where each element represents something else, at least not completely.

We still see the figure of the master as telling us something about God. We just don’t like what it says. We especially don’t like it because we suspect that out of the three servants, we are most like the one stuffing his talent into a hole in the ground. We’d prefer a story where the master takes the moldy little coin, wipes it off, and praises the poor fellow for at least keeping it safe.

God does not meet our expectations. Matthew describes a God who acts in unexpected ways, outside our social norms, in ways that we find disturbing.

It’s unsettling.

That was the point. This entire portion of Matthew, starting with Jesus sitting in the Temple to teach, is about upsetting our understanding of God. It’s about undermining any complacency we may have about our notions of God.

If we made up the idea of God, if God were made in our image, then we could be happy with the concept. If God is just an idea that humans created, then we can change God, or even throw God out. Who needs to carry that kind of baggage?

FireCloudsIf we didn’t make God up, if God is really God, then we may need to throw out some different baggage. Maybe God does have expectations. Maybe God’s expectations don’t match our own. Maybe we don’t understand as much as we’d like, probably about anything.

So now what?

I think about my grandfather. Like many men of his generation, he had been disappointed by bank failures and limited opportunities. From time to time, he would wrap up some money, or put it in a Mason jar, and bury it for safekeeping. It was prudent. Given what he had seen in his lifetime, it was even wise. If he left the money buried long enough, though, there was the danger that he would forget where he put it. Instead of keeping it safe, he might have lost it for good.

We need to get out our shovels and start digging. How’s that for a Gospel message? If we start growing into the people we can be, we’ll have no cause to worry about God’s expectations of us. Never mind the sweet by and by. Get digging, and the kingdom of heaven is Diggingalready within us.

Maybe our jars don’t hold as much talent as some others.So what—better a small talent that is used than a great one left buried. Regardless of God’s expectations, we will become better people, and those around us will enjoy richer lives, if we go ahead and use the talents we have, great or small. It is true, and it makes our lives better, whether or not we believe in God—an ironic insight from the Gospel.

And Matthew’s story?

We have encountered an image of God that makes us uneasy, but complacency with God would be dangerous. A God that we made up would always meet our expectations, but that would not be a God worth a second thought. Matthew tells us that the God whom we did not make will not always meet our expectations. This is a God who acts in unanticipated ways, at unexpected moments, unbound by our religious rules.

Buried talents and made up gods are safe. An applied talent and a live God are not safe—either one may turn out in ways we do not anticipate, with results we have not dreamed. Start digging.

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Photos by Granny™

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Beasts of Burdens

Beasts of Burdens  |  Matthew 23:1-12

When Jesus finished the tirade that fills this chapter of Matthew, you can almost imagine him walking out of the temple to the sound of the Rolling Stones’ “Beast of Burden”.

Ok, almost.Lioness

It takes little imagination to understand that this is a tirade, though. The entire chapter is one long unrelenting indictment. Jesus declares no less than seven ‘woes’ upon the religious leaders for the burdens that their expectations lay upon the faithful.

If you have been around churches (or, I expect, synagogues, or temples of almost any established faith) for any length of time, then you know what Jesus was talking about. You will also have come to expect the usual twist in the exploration of such a passage—that we are invited to apply Jesus’ words to our own hearts, to our own expectations of those around us, and to the unwanted, unfair and unbearable burdens that our expectations place upon them.

Only slightly less anticipated is the interpretation that we should examine our own expectations of ourselves. We not only try to carry the unnecessary burdens of meeting the expectations of other people, but we also stumble under the weight of our own self-criticism, collapse under the burden of our self-expectations, and go wobbly-legged from the unmerited idea that we have no intrinsic worth, value, or strength.

There is one over-arching trajectory to be found in Jewish and Christian scripture, and that is the movement of God toward humanity. From the Old Testament images of God as smoke and fire, untouchable, unfaceable, and unknowable, to the Christian revelation of the physical incarnation of God in the person of Jesus the Christ, Messiah, the only unwavering message is one of God loving, valuing, treasuring, restoring, and redeeming all of humanity, each one of the teeming crowd of humanity, and all that we have touched and that has touched us.

Horses on the hill

So let’s consider Jesus’ tirade from the point of view that it could apply to our cruel criticisms of other people, our unrealistic expectations of the people around us. There’s a lot to learn from that exercise. And let’s consider Jesus’ tirade from the point of view that it could apply to our own inner dialogue, the cruel criticisms and unrealistic expectations that we lay on our ourselves. There is a lot to unpack right there, and all of it is useful.

While we’re at it, let’s also consider the possibility—the slight, often overlooked possibility—that Jesus was yelling at precisely the people he meant to yell at. Maybe, just maybe, we ought to allow the Messiah, God incarnate, that much credit. God yelled at whom God wished to yell: the leaders, the teachers, the people with credentials. People like me who presumed to say something about faith. The people who claimed to know something about God. The people in charge.

Jesus is saying we should question authority. What? Did you think they thought that stuff up in the 1960s? There is nothing new under the sun. (Wait, did someone already say that?)

We get to question the people who claim to teach us and those people who presume to preach to us. In particular, we need to question the teachings of anyone who doesn’t like our questions. The ones who are worth listening to are the ones who will welcome your questions, even your differing views.

Matthew portrays Jesus, just prior to embarking on this scathing criticism of the religious leaders gathered around him, sharing the greatest commandment. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” That is not blind faith. It is open minded exploration. It is bare souled honesty. It is walking toward God with eyes wide open. It is tossing out all of the things we thought we knew about God in order to know God. It is realizing that our preconceived notions of God are rubbish. It is realizing that if God is real, if anything we understand about God is at all true, then this is a God who already knows more bad things about each and all of us than we ourselves realize or can admit, and yet who keeps loving us.

Relentless. That is what God’s love is. Relentless. Interminable. Unceasing. Tireless. Endless. Ruthless. And therefore it is also unfathomable. Incomprehensible.

Question anybody who leaves you wondering what you might do to get God to love you. There isn’t anything you can do. It is not about what we do. It’s about Who God Is.

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Navel Gazing

Navel Gazing  |  Matthew 16:21-28

We in the west have become a society of navel gazers. We gaze at our devices, our televisions, our phones. The world is something that happens on a tiny screen in our hands. We respond to small images of tragedy with tweets, and we post edgy comments on Facebook. If we are particularly moved, we send money, usually online.

We do not touch one another. We do not see one another.

Matthew tells us that Peter didn’t see the plan. He didn’t see how what Jesus was telling them could possibly be good. How could yielding ever be the best response? How could it be that God should choose to suffer? What could possibly be gained?

Society needed a good straightening out. People needed to see that God was more powerful than their oppressors. To Peter’s dismay, Jesus did not promise them any of that, at least not right away.Clouds 6x4

On the other hand, Jesus mysteriously claimed that some who saw him that day would live to see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. It must have sounded encouraging, but what did he mean?

The answer may be in the next verses—the utterly odd mountaintop story of Jesus being transformed. That must have been something to see. What is more, the resurrection itself was the headline kingdom of God event.

Nevertheless, Jesus wasn’t talking about the future. He was talking about the present, how we live our lives now.

The idea that we might lose something by holding onto it too tightly is old, but some old ideas are true. If our lives are only about ourselves, then we have lost them. If our wisdom is so small that it extends only to gaining wealth, then we are poor indeed.

We are in this world, just as Jesus was in this world, and Peter, and those other dimwitted followers. We remember them as extraordinary people, but they don’t appear that way in the gospel stories. How we live our lives depends on how we set our minds. If we think on ordinary things, we live ordinary lives. If we focus on the extraordinary, then our lives will also be extraordinary.

The truth is that life is always extraordinary. We just need to look up and pay attention.