Jesus
told his disciples a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees;
as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that
summer is already near.
So
also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom
of God is near.” (Lk. 21:29-31) The signs, Jesus said, will be there
for us to know that God is coming near. But you have to be paying
attention.
Now,
Jesus pointed to signs in the natural world. He used a fig tree in the
parable. Just before that he had been talking about other natural
phenomenon, some of a dramatic nature, sun and moon and stars and sea
and waves. We know something about the dramatic forces of nature as of
late. And, sure enough, whenever there is some horrendous force of
nature that wreaks havoc on us, we begin to ask ourselves about signs.
What is God trying to tell us?
I
wonder, though, if the natural phenomena don’t distract us from the
signs we ought to be paying attention to, no less apparent to those
watching, but tending to be overlooked because we cannot so easily
attribute them directly to the hand of God. For those who are paying
attention, though, they seem to be screaming out for attention. They
seem to cry out: “Pay attention! Watch! Listen up!” When such things
take place, surely the reign of God must be about to break in.
I’m
thinking about things like economic signs. Corporate greed results in
the near-collapse of the world economy. The rest of us are held hostage
and have no choice but to bail the whole system out or suffer the
consequences of someone else’s greed even worse. Something is terribly
wrong with the signs, as the Occupy movement has tried to tell us. Are
we paying attention?
The
middle class lifestyle I grew up taking for granted is becoming harder
and harder to maintain, almost impossible, without all the adults in a
household working outside the home. Does anyone notice that, all the
gadgets in the world notwithstanding, life is getting harder and not
easier to say nothing of the fact that it’s not getting better?
Something is terribly wrong with the signs. Are we paying attention?
One
of the first things we decide we can no longer afford is beauty. The
arts suffer. Architecture becomes more utilitarian and less a source of
wonder. Can you imagine someone proposing to build something like
Grand Central Station with its magnificent ceiling or the Chrysler
Building today? No one would put up with that sort of expense for a
train station or an office building for a minute. Things that touch on
what it is to be truly human and that introduce that humanity to the
rumbling of great machines or the conduct of commerce are the first to
go leaving nothing to counterbalance them. Is anyone paying attention?
In
order to keep our country from falling off the fiscal cliff, we are all
held hostage to what is emerging as a “compromise,” which means the
trading of a greater contribution from the wealthiest toward the common
good from which they so richly benefit in exchange for taking something
away from the poorest of all. Is anyone noticing that there is
something wrong with this? Is anyone reading the signs?
And
then, of course, there actually are the sea and waves and wind. Acts
of God are one thing, but acts of God helped along by human degradation
of the creation are another. There are those urging us to pay no
attention to these signs. Will we?
The
signs are all around us. Signs these days, if they ever did, may not
come right up and slap us in the face. They take, and always have,
paying attention. That is what Jesus is saying to the disciples in this
lesson for the first Sunday of Advent. Pay attention!
And
why pay attention? Because God is coming. This situation is going to
be set right. What I have no doubt of is that God does not will the way
things are. The way things are is God’s call to action—God’s action
and ours in concert. The promises of God will be fulfilled.
We are reminded of that in this week’s reading from Jeremiah.
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I
made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days and
at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and
he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In those days
Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the
name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”
(Jeremiah 33:14-16)If
you’re paying attention, you’re going to see it happen. If you’re
paying attention, you’re seeing it happen now. If you’re paying
attention, you have an opportunity to be a part of it.
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