1st Sunday of Advent
November 27, 2016
Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:36-44
(Or watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE6oF-wKa8Q
)
In 2002 a short comedy sketch came out called “¿Que Hora
Es?” (“What Time Is It?”)[1]
It’s a parody on a Spanish-speaking soap opera and billed as the Mexican soap
opera for people who have only had 3 weeks of Spanish in the 4th grade. The
acting is all overdramatic, just like practically any Spanish-speaking soap
opera I’ve ever seen, with exaggerated gestures and emotion and overacting. But
the words are all vocabulary from a beginning Spanish class. One person asks
“¿Que hora es?” and another person answers, “Ocho,” (8) but the inflection and
tone of their voice are all suggest that this is a very serious conversation.
They say random phrases to piece together a conversation, like “¿Donde esta la
biblioteca?’ (Where is the library?) and “Me gusta queso.” (I like cheese.) The
kicker comes when a native Spanish speaker enters the scene and starts talking
normally, because he assumes they’re speaking fluent Spanish, and the rest of
the cast all looks at him very confused, because they don’t understand anything
he said. They tell him to use phrases like “como se llama” (what’s your name?)
and “cinco de mayo.” The fluent speaker says, “Ustedes no se hablan espanol,”
(y’all don’t speak Spanish), and they all respond “si!” Then he responds very
melodramatically, “¿Que hora es?” And they all gasp as if he’s said something
shocking. It’s hysterical.
Anyway,
que hora es, or what time is it, was the question that it felt like we had two
very different answers to in our Scriptures this morning. In Romans, Paul tells
us, “you know what time it is,” the time has come to wake up, and put aside the
works of darkness and put on the armor of light. You know the time has come, is
the first line of our Romans passage. And we do know what time it is, it’s the
first Sunday of Advent, it’s the beginning of the Christian year, it’s the
beginning of the countdown to Christmas. We know we just had Thanksgiving and
Black Friday and Small Business Saturday and that Cyber Monday and Giving
Tuesday are right around the corner. We know it’s the beginning of the holiday
season and the beginning of winter. We do know what time it is.
Yet,
then at the beginning of our Matthew passage, Jesus says, “No one knows when
the day or the hour will come.” You don’t know when the day of the Lord is
coming. It’s coming like a thief in the night, and if the owner of the house
knew what time the thief was coming, he wouldn’t let the thief break into his
house. Jesus says, you don’t know the time. It’s quite a contrast from Paul,
who says you know what time it is, and then Jesus says no one knows the time.
So, which way is it? Do we know what time, or do we not? Let’s look at each of
these passages a little more closely.
Paul
says, “As you do this, you know the time has come,” which, of course, begs the
questions, what’s this? If you look back at the first part of Romans 13, you
find out that Paul is talking about the commandments and the law. He says that
the commandments are summed up in this word, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love
does no wrong to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law,
which is to show love to your neighbor and to yourself. So, as you love your
neighbor as yourself, you know what time it is. The time has come to wake up,
salvation is near. The night is almost over, the day is near. It’s like it’s 4
or 5 a.m., and if you’re in my house, your two year old has already been in 3
times asking if it’s time to get up yet, and it’s getting close to sunrise. Of
course, today sunrise was at 7:02 a.m., so we could even be talking about as
late as 6:00, and you’re getting up, getting ready, because you know the day is
coming. It’s almost sunrise. The dawn is about to break. The sky is about to
start getting lighter. You know this is coming. You know what time it is.
And
Paul says, because dawn is about to
break, let us stop doing things that belong to the dark and put on the armor of
light. “Let us conduct ourselves properly, as people who live in the light of
day, no orgies or drunkenness, no immorality or indecency, no fighting or
jealousy.” One of my mom’s favorite sayings is that nothing good happens after
midnight. There are times I disagree, but this is still the same idea. It’s
time to stop doing things that belong to the dark. Unlike Darth Vader, we do
not belong to the dark side, and so it’s time to stop acting as if we did. What
happens under the cover of night? Stealing? Sneaking out of the house? Bad TV
shows? It’s certainly a time when if you get a phone call, you know it won’t be
good news. And so Paul just says point blank, no more reveling and drunkenness,
no more immorality or indecency, no more fighting or jealousy. That is not how
you are supposed to be acting. That is not what you’re supposed to be doing.
That does not show love to yourself or to your neighbor. It is time to shape
up, grow up, act appropriately, act decently toward others and toward yourself.
Paul says, “Instead, dress yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ, and don’t plan
to indulge your selfish desires.” It’s time to put on Christ, like we did in
our baptism, to remember that you belong to Christ, and stop paying attention
to your selfish desires. No more midnight milkshake runs, or soap operas that
border on porn, or whatever your vice is. It is time. Day is almost here, and
it will bring to light all these things you’ve been doing in secret, trying to
hide them from others and from God and from yourself. That doesn’t work, you know.
Jesus says, “Whatever is hidden away will be brought out into the open, and
whatever is covered up will be found and brought to light.”[2]
Secrets never stay that way forever. Hidden vices to do not hurt only you. It’s
time to stop doing whatever belongs to the darkness, and start loving your
neighbor as yourself. It’s time. We know what time it is.
Yet
then this passage is paired with the one from Matthew where Jesus says, “No one
knows when the day or the hour will come.” No one knows when the day of the Lord
is coming. It will be a surprise! We know it’s coming, but not exactly when. It’s
kinda like being pregnant with a due date, but you don’t know when exactly the
baby will come. Or maybe like waiting for the first snowfall of winter, or
wondering when the radio is going to switch over to all Christmas music. You
know it’s coming, you just don’t know exactly when. The day of the Lord is
coming, but you don’t know what time. And Jesus gives the really interesting
analogy of the thief in the night. If you know a thief is coming, you take
extra precautions and put extra safeguards in place. However, then you might
fall asleep while you wait. If you know exactly
what time the thief is coming, then you can stay awake, or go to bed with your
alarm set, and be ready yourself to prevent the thief from breaking and
entering. So then, Jesus says, “you also must always be ready, because the Son
of Man will come at an hour when you are not expecting him.”
So
then, here is the paradox. We know Jesus is coming, but we don’t know when. Jesus
tells us to be always ready, because we don’t know when to expect him. It’s
time to wake up, it’s time to get ready, and then stay ready and prepared. We
know it’s almost dawn, but we don’t have the weather instruments that tell us
exactly when sunrise will be. And you know what they say about the time right
before sunrise, the night is always
darkest right before the dawn. Going through an extra dark night makes it
even more important that we are ready, that we resist the urge to join the
dark, that we don’t give in to our selfishness, but instead stay ready for
Jesus, always loving our neighbor and ourselves.
I
know many of us have already begun our preparations for Christmas. I gave out
an Advent calendar for the kids to count down. We have lit the first candle on
our Advent wreath. We are getting ready. We know what time it is now. We know what we have to do to get
ready, whether make cookies or buy presents or wrap presents or clean the house
for visitors or go visit family. We’re not ready now. But we will be. We’re going to take the time to put in the
hard work to clean up our act, clean up our houses, prepare our worship space,
and prepare our hearts to welcome our King. Because sometimes the only answer we get to
our question, “Que hora es?” is “Ocho.”
Amen.
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