The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.
2:2 In days to come the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.
2:3 Many peoples shall come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths." For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
2:4 He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
2:5 O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the LORD!
Psalm 122
I was glad when they said to me, "Let us go to the house of the LORD!"
122:2 Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem.
122:3 Jerusalem built as a city that is bound firmly together.
122:4 To it the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
122:5 For there the thrones for judgment were set up, the thrones of the house of David.
122:6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: "May they prosper who love you.
122:7 Peace be within your walls, and security within your towers."
122:8 For the sake of my relatives and friends I will say, "Peace be within you."
122:9 For the sake of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek your good.
Romans 13:11-14
13:11
Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers;
13:12 the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light;
13:13 let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy.
13:14 Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
Matthew 24:36-44
"As for that exact day and minute no one knows, not even heaven's messengers, nor even the son--no one, except the Father alone.
The son of Adam's coming will be just like the days of Noah. This is how people behaved then before the flood came: they ate and drank, married and were given in marriage, until the day 'Noah boarded the ark,' and they were oblivious until the flood came and swept them all away. This is how it will be when the son of Adam comes. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. So stay alert! You never know on what day your landlord returns.
Mark this well: if the homeowner had known when the burglar was coming, he would have been on guard and not have allowed anyone to break into his house. By the same token, you too should be prepared. Remember, the son of Adam is coming when you least expect it.
Sorry for so many words. We may or may not get around to them all. This won’t be a sermon, then. More like light exegesis aimed at establishing, if we can, a theme. A theme for the next four weeks; for the days of Advent, the days of preparation. To start, I want to illustrate the method, such as it is.
But to do that, let me explain a limitation. Biblical theology, I learned in seminary, set out to find a central thread, even a set of themes, in the canonical scriptures. They wanted to find, if they could, the binding threads beyond the surface features: the relationships of the God of Abraham to humanity, of Creator to creation. That’s a little broad, and the stories and statements and poetry and wisdom are contradictory and complementary and, if they tell us about God, if they reveal something, can we say decisively what that is?
In brief, the answer was: “No.” Fundamentalists tried to be literal about it: every word, they said, should be taken literally, and as true. (This was not a school of Biblical theology; if anything, like the later Jesus Seminar, BT was a reaction to fundamentalism.) But Jesus was born in Bethlehem because of the census of Augustus (there is no record of such a census), and Jesus was born in Bethlehem because his parents lived there. Which is it? And Luke’s theology is different from Matthew’s, sometimes radically so. What theology would reconcile these two?
In other words, is my reading “right”? No. Take it as offered and see what you think. “May it be unto you according to your faith.”
Look at Matthew again. It’s a familiar passage about the final days; isn’t it? Jesus brings up the Flood , which nobody outside Noah and his family really expected until it came; and that’s how the coming of the son of Adam will be.
Sounds apocalyptic, doesn’t it? The son of Adam will come like a flood. But is that what Jesus says? The Flood of Noah carried away everyone not in the Ark. Jesus says one will be taken, one left. This is the basis for many end-time speculations, which usually imagine “taken” as a supernatural act. The ones taken are the “chosen.” The ones left behind are…well, worse luck for them. But is that what Jesus says?
Will they be physically taken, removed from their place? From life? From earth? Or will they be taken by the Spirit (something more commonly used in Luke, by the way)? Will they be taken by the call of Jesus, to start the journey towards Isaiah’s holy mountain, the place everyone will want to be? Maybe we don’t have to get to the holy mountain to see this. Jesus mentions the thief who comes because the owner of the house slept. That’s a warning to keep awake. But in the metaphor, Jesus is the thief. And what does he steal, what does he take? Perhaps he takes one, and leaves one.
One thing I’m sure of: there’s nothing apocalyptic about a thief. It can be upsetting to be burgled; but it’s not the end of the world.
Now look at Matthew again. And Isaiah, too. After centuries of missionaries and evangelicals anxious for the salvation of your soul, you might reflexively think we’ll all be forced to that mountain. But Isaiah speaks of desire, not coercion. The apotheosis of Israel comes not when all humanity is of one religion, all of them children of Abraham and inheritors of the covenant; but just because the example of Israel raises them up (the “mountain”) so all can see what Israel has done: found prosperity and peace in the wisdom of God. Or rather, in finally living in the wisdom of God.
Not exactly a thief in the night.
So where’s the common theological thread here?
Paul uses “night” and “day” metaphorically, just as Jesus does. But not at all like Jesus does. Jesus is actually crafting a parable because, of course, the thief can’t come if the owner is awake; but we all have to sleep! What advice is this?
Isaiah’s mountain is about life, not death. It is not in heaven, it’s on earth. And it’s not exclusive; it’s radically inclusive. Everyone is there, or wants to be. No one is left out, or left behind. It seems to be the opposite of Jesus’ statements; the radical opposite. But is it?
Jesus’ statement seems to be radically exclusive: one is taken, one is not. But it's still not clear if "taken" is a good thing or a bad thing. He puts it in reference to the Flood, so maybe "taken" means: dead. And one left means only 50% will perish. Except the Flood seems to an apposite example: Noah told people the flood was coming, and they ignored him. People could see Noah building his ark; they knew he expected something, anyway. They didn't care, or want to pay attention, so it was on them. Jesus says the coming of the son of Adam will be like a thief in the night: suddenly where there were two, there is only one. Again: dead? Disappeared? Or started a new journey?
The Flood did come without warning, though. It started with rain; but until that rain kept coming and coming and coming, who could know what it meant? Who could know it meant annihilation? When Harvey struck Houston, the areas that floodest soonest surprised no one; and we were told the rain would start and not stop. But no one predicted how long the rain would fall, or how much rain would fall; nor could they predict who it would affect, and who wouldn't be affected. And then the rain stopped and large parts of west Houston thought it was over, until the flood waters start rising after midnight. The Army Corps of Engineers, without warning, opened the floodgates of the reservoir and the water flowed where it was meant to flow: overland to Buffalo Bayou, which winds its way through neighborhoods that were open farmland when the reservoir was built (to control flooding in downtown Houston, miles away). The water flowed through buildings built next to the reservoir, across roads and highways, into the bayou and down to the Gulf. And the bayou rose well above its banks and flooded whole neighborhoods in its flood plain, a flood plain no one had thought to worry about when the land was being developed right up to the banks of the usually placid, usually shallow watercourse. And it came when everyone was asleep.
That's not what Jesus is talking about but, if it was, was it apocalyptic? Was it, as “apocalypse” means, a revelation? Well, kinda. House values dropped in those neighborhoods, more drainage was built, but the reservoir stands and would do it again if necessary. That's how the reservoir works. That’s what it was designed to do: store water, and then dump it into the bayou. And few of the houses along the bayou have been moved.
So are we awake, or asleep?
It's a metaphorical condition, being asleep in this sense. The flooding of west Houston was predicted 50 years before Harvey, but no one wanted to be awakened, and the predictions and the engineering behind them were quieted and put back to sleep (the reservoir dates back to the '30's. Development in west Houston began in earnest in the '70's). There's still no major effort to "fix" the problem, except silly ideas like building giant drain pipes from west Houston to the Gulf. That part of Houston is, at best, 50 feet above sea level. The drain pipes would have to empty out well below sea level in the Gulf to not just wind up laying on the beach and filling up with water because they wouldn't drain. The solution is to remove houses from the bayou flood plain. But no one wants to be awake enough to even say that, much less try to do it.
Gives a whole new sense to "keep awake!," doesn't it? And to the thief in the night. Who, one wonders, is the thief now?
Isaiah’s vision is not about sleep or waking, but it depends on Israel following God’s vision and waking, metaphorically, from their rejection of God. That consequence is the Exile. Isaiah is telling Israel God remains faithful to the covenant and its promises will be fulfilled. One could say Israel is being challenged to wake from its slumber.
But still: who will be taken, and why? And who is the thief? Death? The context of the Flood sounds like it. But who was asleep in the time of Noah? Asleep to what? Are we talking about death? Or about right v. wrong living? That was the problem in Noah’s time, after all. That’s the corrective offered by Isaiah’s mountain. Faithfulness to the covenant leads to the mountain. The story of Noah means there are consequences to living in the “night,” even without the covenant.
Maybe it’s all just a question of how we get from here to there. Maybe it’s really just all about the journey: who goes, and who stays behind. There isn’t any condemnation in Jesus’ parable, or Isaiah’s vision. There is no in nor out. And who is the thief? Could it be us, robbing ourselves by not being awake? By not even being “woke”? If we keep awake, won't we see things we'd rather sleep through? But if we don’t want to know, aren’t we stealing from ourselves, our past selves the thieves of our present? The dark is when we sleep, but are we the ones keeping ourselves in the dark so we can’t be awake?
Maybe that’s what Advent is about this year.
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