Back from Communion with some thoughts
Popping into the weekly Thursday communion we were led in an Advent (slightly early by three days) communion service. One of the passages of scripture read was ...
Matthew 24: 42-44
Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this : if the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would have not let his house be broken into. So you must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.
As the reflection began my mind did not so much wander but ponder on the need to keep watch.
If the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) had been keeping better watch on the border much of the horrors perpetrated on 7th October would have been halted. Time and an investigation into what went wrong may reveal what future actions need to be taken, though a lasting just peace would resolve that. Of course there should not be the need for people to watch for potential trouble. And the utter barbarity of the actions of Hamas and others can never be excused.
Watching and listening to some of the Covid enquiry you could be forgiven thinking some key people were 'not watching' what was happening around the world and in Europe as the pandemic was taking off. This enquiry is meant to help us as a society learn lessons and to be better prepared. But will it succeed if individuals spend time trying to blame others and excuse their own lack of action?
Watching and waiting is very much part of the Advent season. For Christians, advent highlights afresh, what is meant to be the ongoing state of awareness disciples are to have. The Son of Man has already come in the incarnation and we now await his coming again, or do we? We live in an in between time always on our our guard, or do we?
The early christian community were on hightened alert as they thought it was going to happen like tomorrow or very very soon. So as Acts records the early church community life was lived out with this expectation, medium and long term planning was not the order of the day. So holding everything in common and sharing a close community life made sense as everything was soon to be wound up.
Of course when things don't occur when you expect, your pattern of life changes and you take your eye off the ball. We now find ourselves some two thousand years later and the return has not occurred. Church life has to a greater or lesser extent taken on an institutional life which often seeks to maintain the status quo and lacks any sense of urgency. Bearing the hallmarks of the early christian community seem now a long distant dream. It's too easy to see any form of judgement on our daily actions being kicked like a can down the road. Though of course we all have the reality of our own death hanging over us, but of course unless we are unwell, we live as if we are going to live forever. So urgency is missing. Even with church buildings and churches closing at a rate with children and young people missing from our churches we seem to sleep walk into the future. Where is the urgency to do something.
We see urgency in the action of climate activists, or Just stop oil protestors, or those protesting about pollution of our rivers and seas. They seem to get the need to watch and to act. Are these the prophetic voices in our midst with whom the church needs to catch up with?
It seems to me that Advent serves to niggle away at us to once more seek to live like watch men/women for the signs of The Son of man returning. We are to live out in the now a lifestyle as if Christ has returned and the Kingdom of God has come. The Christian community is to reveal what forgiveness looks like, what peacemaking costs, what holding all things in common means. It must bear witness to the equality of all people regardless of gender, race, colour, etc. It must give voice to those who are denied a voice and must not allow its scriptures to be used in ways that uphold prejudice and inequality.
So we must live ready to give an account of our actions at the coming of the Son of Man. We know what is required of us we just need the willingness to truly take up our cross and walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
we are watching
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