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1 ALREADY, BUT NOT YET August 11, 2013, Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Luke 12: Rebekah M. Hutto, The Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New York Surprising God of mercy and love, thank you for calling to us this day. We praise you that you challenge us to show our faith in ministries of peace and justice, offering compassion to all in need. Open our hearts and minds today to hear your words of blessing and challenge. Make us mindful, attentive, and watchful of the way you are still at work in us. We offer this prayer in Jesus' name. Amen. Be dressed for action. The first words in this passage today have been softened quite a bit. Actually, the more traditional translation of the Greek opens the passage with Gird your loins! Although not exactly language that we use nowadays, the urgency is more apparent in the King James Version. I can t help but think of Stanley Tucci in the movie The Devil Wears Prada whenever I hear the phrase gird your loins! This movie is the story of a dictatorial fashion magazine editor and the way she runs her office and career. Played expertly by Meryl Streep, Miranda Priestly is a fashion mogul, a force to be reckoned with, leaving quite the wake in her path. In one of the opening scenes, as Miranda arrives to work, one of her employees, played by Stanley Tucci, shouts Gird your loins! down the hallway. In that instant, everyone begins to scramble, rushing from one desk to another, collecting papers, putting away trash, and checking and rechecking details to make sure all is ready for Miranda s arrival. It s an urgent and intense scene. Urgency is where we are in this text this morning. Throughout this whole chapter of Luke, Jesus has been warning his disciples about those things that can distract and deter them from his kingdom. He warns them against greed that focuses on hoarding possessions, consequently keeping resources from those who need it most. He warns them against those naysayers who will challenge their belief in him and demand proof. Jesus warns against a false faith that speaks one thing and does another when no one is looking. And then, one we can all relate to, Jesus - 1 -

2 cautions his disciples about anxiety and worry a constant emotion in our lives that fuels greater anxiety rather than faithful living. So why all these warnings? Well, Jesus is a teacher, after all. In this narrative he s on his way to Jerusalem, he knows what lies ahead, and he wants to make sure his disciples are prepared. All of these warnings, against greed, hypocrisy and anxiety are Jesus way of making sure his disciples are equipped for life without him. He s giving them the tools to continue in his name and further his kingdom. Just as you pack a suitcase before going on a trip, clean your apartment before guests arrive, or study and read before the big test Jesus is preparing his followers for the journey, for his eventual return, and for the greatest test of all, his death. So, what does it mean to get ready for Jesus? This passage is obviously about preparation, from its language about keeping our lamps lit, being prepared for the houseguest, and servants working for the manager until he returns. The metaphors here and images convey many ways we can prepare for Jesus. We can remain alert and watchful, confident that our Savior will come again to greet us. We can be prepared by continuing in our work rather than watching the clock and sitting idly by. We can also be prepared for Jesus by caring for those whom he cared for: the most vulnerable and at risk. Being ready for Jesus means that we honor the blessings we ve been given and share them responsibly and faithfully. But allow me to back up for a moment. In order to talk about how we prepare for Jesus, we first have to talk about what it is we re preparing for. This passage, like many in the Gospels, speaks to the eventual return of Christ. This return is described in various ways in the New Testament: it will come unknowingly like a thief in the night, Jesus will come as the manager returning to his servants or as a guest ready to serve. The kingdom is a story of wise and foolish maidens, it s like a wedding banquet, and all the while we re called to keep our lamps lit. But despite the variety of ways Jesus return is described, the promise in scripture is that Jesus WILL come again. This is a truth we hold so dear, that we even have a specific season of the church, Advent, in which we re called to prepare for Jesus return. The truth is that he WILL come again. Over and over we are reminded in the New Testament that Jesus ministry began the healing and reconciliation needed for God s kingdom. But this work is not complete until he comes again in final victory. Therefore, we, as followers of - 2 -

3 Christ in the present, live in a time between times, between his first and his second coming. We are stuck between the miracle of Christ s resurrection and the even greater future miracles of his return. Therefore, theologically speaking we are inbetween, between the already and the not yet. We have already seen what God intends for God s kingdom, but we re not yet there. In my house we are right in the middle of the 3-year-old Why questions. Hannah Ruth is filled with curiosity and wonder, which means her parents have to be armed with answers to all of her questions. After almost every statement we utter, we hear, Why Mommy? Or Why Daddy? Most often, we get questions from her about things she s not quite old enough to do. Why can t I do that? So we tell her that she can save those things for when she s older, like her cousins or her teenage friends at church. We ve given Hannah Ruth the impression that there is much to look forward to in the future, but that she has plenty to keep busy with in the present. This is the same for us in the Church. We live in a state where all of God s truths are not clear to us, but there is much that Christ has given us to do in the present. We hear and read the warnings from our text today that clearly give us more than enough ministry to keep us busy. Jesus warns us to reject greed, anxiety, hypocrisy, fear and abuse. And we know these things exist in our world. Our daily headlines remind us that God is not done with us yet. Last year our women s Bible study read a really provocative book by Rob Bell called Love Wins. Some of you may have heard about it or read it yourselves because its argument gained a lot of acclaim and press. In it, Bell tries to articulate his understanding of heaven and hell. But before he does that he spends quite a bit of time teaching what heaven is and what it s not. He says, It often appears that those who talk the most about going to heaven when you die talk the least about bringing heaven to earth right now...at the same time it often appears that those who talk the most about relieving suffering now talk the least about heaven when we die. 1 1!Bell,!Rob.! Love!Wins.!Page!45.!! - 3 -

4 Encouraging us all to find the balance between these two things, Bell talks about the already-but-not-yet place in which we Christians live. He reminds us all that when Jesus came to earth, his ministry wasn t about teaching people how to get into heaven. Instead his ministry was about bringing heaven right to where they were. With his love, healing, sacrifice, teaching and confrontational ministry, he was instituting God s kingdom right here on earth. But he wasn t finished; he promised over and over again that after he went away he would come again. But, remember, his followers, when writing about heaven, were not talking about a future life somewhere else, because they anticipated a coming day when [their] world would be restored, renewed, and redeemed. 2 Jesus ministry, then, was preparing them for the in-between time. The life of faith isn t all about getting into heaven, nor is it thinking that our life on earth is all there is. We re called to live in between, following Christ in his ministry but waiting for his glorious return. Rob Bell s conclusion therefore, was that what we believe about the future, what we believe about Christ s return, shapes, informs, and determines how [we] live now. 3 In other words, if we believe Christ will return, then we must listen to his warnings, his warnings against greed, anxiety, hypocrisy and abuse. We must follow his teachings, and listen for his call. If we believe he will return, we must be ready and waiting, working to further the work he began here on earth; which is all to say we must be Christians, followers of Christ. If you believe the master is returning, you continue the work he gave you, eagerly awaiting his arrival. In the already-but-not-yet life of faith, what we believe about the future determines how we live in the present. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the well-known mid-20 th century German theologian is someone revered for his faithful witness in the face of the Third Reich. But what some of us may not know is that he had a chance to escape all of that. In 1939 Bonhoeffer went to America to teach, at the invitation of Union Theological Seminary right here in New York. But within months of being in America, Bonhoeffer felt he had made the wrong choice to leave Germany. He wrote to another well-known theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, "I have made a mistake in 2!Bell,!40.! 3!Bell,!46.! - 4 -

5 coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people." 4 Bonhoeffer believed that there would be a time of reckoning in the future of the German church, and he acted on that belief in the present. His is just one example of how what you believe about the future determines your life of faith in the present. Now sure, it s hard to compare our own lives of faith to that of great saints like Bonhoeffer, but I hope all of us can name people we know who act in the present following their beliefs about the future. It s the young widower who lives a life of hope knowing that death will not have the last word. Or it s the wealthy entrepreneur who insists on giving away his fortune because he knows he can t take it with him when he dies. It s the cancer patient who lives a life of hope determined that Christ will not let his illness define his life. It s the joyful elderly woman who approaches her death with peace and grace knowing that her reward is just around the corner. It s the passionate men and women who protest injustice and abuse in our world, confident in Christ s ministry of love and peace. And finally, it s all of us who live in this already-but-not-yet time of faith knowing that Christ has promised to come again in final victory. For all of us, we are called to shape our lives by the hopeful and joyful news that God is not done with us yet. Brothers and Sisters, what we believe in the future about Christ s return, his reign of love, peace and justice will determine and shape our life in the present. Therefore, keep your lamps lit; stay awake; gird your loins! Because the master is coming to make all things new. Come Lord Jesus! Amen. 4!Dietrich(Bonhoeffer,(Works!(English!translation),!vol.!15,!page!210.! - 5 -