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November
30, 2008 Scripture: Mark 13:24-37 Sermon: “Sleepless in New Albany” I want to begin this morning by saying that I have never seen the movie Sleepless in Seattle. I know that many of you have seen it and love it. And I’ve anticipated your comments after the service today about how much you loved it. But, I’ve never seen it. Even though I love Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, I just haven’t taken the time to see it. Like other weeks, I found the title to be catchy for the sermon. I always imagine someone will drive by, see a sermon title on the sign outside, and think, “Hey, I’d like to hear that sermon”. It just never happens. What caught my attention in this morning’s scripture lesson is the idea of staying awake, keeping alert. So, we have “Sleepless in New Albany”. And it’s not a romantic love story. Turn with me to the 13th chapter of Mark’s gospel where we’ll read together verses 24 through 37. That’s on page 68 of the New Testament in the pew Bible. Now, I have to say that much has been made of passages like this over the years. They are what we call apocalyptic texts. They speak of things to come. They are where we get the assurances of a return of Jesus Christ. And they always struck me as strange ways to think about Advent where we are preparing for the birth of Jesus. But, if you think about it, the preparations and waiting of Advent have a lot in common with expectations for the future. And so these kinds of passages turn out to be very appropriate. We who cannot actually wait for the birth that happened in the past are still waiting for Jesus to come. Do you see how that works? Unfortunately for us, folks have kind of abused words like these and turned them into some sort of concrete way of predicting the end of the world as we know it. The End Times crowd has for centuries been saying that this event or that event is foretold in these very words. And they’ll combine them into very elaborate and convincing charts and arguments to make it seem like Christ is coming on the clouds at any moment. And for those of us who don’t really buy into all of that, and I’m one of them, we end up just avoiding these things altogether. But, today, I’m going to trust that the wisdom of those gone before us in preaching these scriptures at this time of year is a good thing. So, let’s hear the word of the Lord…
“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 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 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. When I was in high school and going to church camp in the summers, I had this one counselor that left a lasting impression on me. She was beautiful, full of ideals, and just seemed to live out of this faith that I wanted for myself. And I remember in one of our small groups one day she asked if we’d ever seen the stars falling from heaven. Just like Jesus said would happen. She asked if we’d ever seen that. I hadn’t. Have you? I hadn’t seen the stars falling from heaven. None of us had. And she told us all to meet her on the dock at 1 o’clock in the morning. Then she would show us stars falling from heaven. I’ve never been a night owl. But, I wanted to see that. And if she believed the stars were going to fall from heaven, by golly, I was sure that they would. So, I got up from my bunk and left my cabin and went down to the dock. Now, our church camp in Georgia was way out in the middle of nowhere. To get there, you had to go a few miles beyond the end of the earth as we know it, take a left, and keep going until you got there. And there was a little lake with a dock sticking out into the water. And that’s where we met that night. A handful of us. We gathered there and our counselor told us all to lay down and look up into the night sky. Turns out that this was a night that the moon did not gives its light. Some call it a new moon, you know. And being out east of nowhere meant that there wasn’t a light from any direction shining on us. It was the first time I ever saw the sky like that. There were stars like I’d never seen. Stars so thick that I could actually see the clouds of the Milky Way. And I was mesmerized. I felt so small to be human that night for the universe unfolded in front of me. But at the same time I felt so privileged to witness all that God had crafted. So small and yet so important. And I saw it. Staying awake out there under the heavens I saw it. The stars began falling from the heavens. In streaks across the night sky I saw them falling. Meteors. Space junk. Rocks from who knows where. They would catch fire as they entered the atmosphere and streak across the sky. It’s like John Denver used to sing: I’ve seen it raining fire in the sky. I’d slept through this and been totally unaware of it for 17 years of my life. But, keeping awake that night, there it was. You can miss a lot when you tuck yourself in for the night. Now, I think there is a certain kind of spirituality that Jesus is trying to teach us in all of this keeping awake business. If you try to boil it down to a prediction of when something is actually going to happen, I believe you’ll miss the spirituality of it. Try keeping awake as a way of life and you’ll see so much more of what God is up to than you would otherwise. When I was even younger than my church camp days, I discovered one of the most pleasing tastes in all of the world: leather. I learned that I loved the feel of a strip of leather in my mouth and the strange taste on my tongue. I learned this because I tried to play baseball a few times and standing out there in the outfield where no one ever hit the ball, I would chew on my glove. You ever do that? It would get so lonely out there in the outfield. I’d chew on my glove. I’d watch people in the park on the other side of the fence. I’d keep myself entertained with anything but baseball. And, sure enough, every now and then, I’d be awakened from my outfield daydreams with the screams of teammates to go and get a ball that somebody else had hit in my direction. They’d be cruising around second base by the time I got the glove out of my mouth to do something. Keep awake. Or the times when I would play soccer. Now, that’s a game I loved. And I figured out early on in life that you didn’t have to run very much if you volunteered to play goalie. The problem for me was that I was on a good team. And there just wasn’t much for a goalie to do with the ball on the other end of the field most of the time. I chewed on those gloves. I sat down sometimes. I would watch games on other fields. And this one time I was completely turned around. My back was facing my own field of play. There was a great game going on down the hill and I had the perfect vantage point. I’m trying to build up to a climax here, but you know what happened. The net in front of my face shook as a ball went right through my legs and in for a goal. Keep awake. We get tired of waiting, you know. Time is our worst enemy. The more we wait, the more we think that we have time to spare. “Oh, this isn’t going to happen for a while. I can take a break.” And wouldn’t you know it? As soon as we stop paying attention something happens. That’s the parable that Jesus told, isn’t it? Keep awake. I’ve discovered that the stars are always falling from the heavens. The seasons are always changing. The fig trees continue to get tender in the springtime, and summer keeps right on coming according to schedule. Some folks say that the world just keeps on spinning, you know. And we get tired of waiting, looking to the skies for Christ arriving in clouds. And that’s when we miss it. We miss it when Christ comes as a completely dependent baby swaddled close to his mother for warmth. We miss it when Christ comes as a neighbor in need. We miss it when asked to stay awake in the garden we instead fall asleep and a man is hanged on a cross to redeem us. Oh, we think we have time, but we miss it. Keep awake. What if we learned to live with our eyes open for the miracles every day? What if we knew that the stars did fall from the heavens all the time if we could see them? What if we learned to stay awake for the moon refuses to shine at least once a month? What if our approach to following Jesus was a spiritual way of being, of living in expectation of God doing the most incredible things all around us all the time? Keep awake. What if we didn’t grow older? What if we could stay like children, waiting for the promises of Christmas to come in the ways a large man in a red suit squeezes down the chimney bearing gifts that we’ve been dreaming of? Maybe the mark of true discipleship is to live like it could happen at any moment. And maybe if we lived in that spirituality, we’d see that it does happen at any moment. Keep awake.
Rev. David James Brown Park Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
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