“Burning the Midnight Oil”
“Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus” is not a hymn that we often sing in August when the temperature is topping one hundred degrees and the air-conditioners in our homes are running constantly. Usually, when we sing it, the nights are cold and crisp and the furnace is on, blowing air that smells faintly of old wood fires through the house. But the hymn is both a song of Christmas… a cry for the birth of Israel’s Messiah… and a hymn that speaks of the joyful expectation of Christ’s return in glory in the last days… an event whose timing we cannot predict and can as easily happen in the dog-days of summer as in the depths of winter. But wait! At this time of year, I am preparing for school to start again… and my attention is focused on backpacks and calculators, not manger scenes and Judgment Day. I’m not ready for that yet. I need time… time to play Christmas carols…time to dust off the Christmas wreath… time to hang the Christmas lights… time to get my head wrapped around Christmas… which I definitely can’t do until after Halloween… and Thanksgiving… and turkey with all the fixin’s… and all the other signs that the day is coming.
But, that’s just the point… there is no warning! Like traffic accidents…heart attacks… and natural disasters… there is no warning that Jesus is coming… except that we have been waiting for him for a long… long… long… long time. Haven’t we? Haven’t you been waiting? Aren’t you waiting now… waiting for Christ to return? And what are you doing as you wait? Oh, yeah… buying pens… and pencils… and paper… and ink cartridges… and all the other things that people need when they go off to classes in the fall. I don’t think that I have even thought about Christ coming again this summer… except, perhaps, to wish Judgment Day on those who put together the school calendar… the sporting events calendar… and all the athletic practices… and cheerleader practices… and band practices that have already begun.
Psalm 50 speaks of the anger of God and the judgment that awaits those who are complacent and accept the everyday activities of our world without question. "What right have you to recite my statutes, or take my covenant on your lips… for you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you… These things you have done and I have been silent; you thought that I was one just like yourself... but now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you. Mark this, then, you who forget God, or I will tear you apart, and there will be no one to deliver.” Our passage from Luke speaks to a totally different picture of what God expects of God’s people as they wait. “Sell your possessions, and give alms… for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes… If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves… You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."
When I read the text for today’s message, the image that came firmly to mind was the image that you see on the cover of this week’s bulletin… the image of Bob Crachett, Scrooge’s stooge… that poor man who was chained to his desk in an ice-cold office, slaving away until the wee hours of the morning, burning the midnight oil. No matter what time his master returned, Bob was there… awake… alert… still pouring over the accounts… the documents of the business… fulfilling his duties as clerk. He was there, burning the midnight oil. And what was Bob Crachett’s reward for all his hard work… his alertness… his diligence? Did Scrooge ever give him a raise in pay… time off at Christmas… a holiday bonus? No. Was there any reward for Bob Crachett for being the ever-faithful… ever-present clerk? No. His wife complained about it…his family longed for something different… but Bob still showed up faithfully for work and put in all the time that his master expected… year after year after year after year after year.
Does this scene sound familiar? Or is there no workaholic in your house? Is there no one who leaves the house at the crack of dawn and is seated at his desk before the others in his workplace arrive? Is there no one who eats her lunch at her desk… pouring over reports and juggling figures while others go to the Lunchbox or Chili’s to eat? Is there no one who stays late in the evening… finishing up those last few details… and then stuffing the rest of his papers in his briefcase or backpack to take home and work on some more? Is there no one who carries her cell phone… or pager… or Blackberry with her everywhere she goes so that she is never out of touch and can respond at a moment’s notice to the demands of her boss? For what? What is the reward for this attention… this diligence… this alertness… this commitment?
Perhaps, at work, the reward for all your diligence and hard work is a bonus at the end of the year… or a promotion to a position of greater responsibility. And, perhaps, any lack of attention or neglect of your work translates into a written warning… or a transfer into some less important… or less desirable role in the workplace. And, perhaps, these things may consume your time and attention 24/7. But my goal today is not to commiserate with you about the demands of your work life… but to get you to shift your focus from your work life… or school life… to your spiritual life… your spiritual development… and to ask whether you exercise the same diligence… or give the same attention to your relationship with God. For when Christ returns… long-expected though he might be… you will not have any warning. It could as easily happen as we worship here this morning as Christmas morning or Labor Day. Are you ready? What do we need to do to get ready?
The Bible tells us three things: First, that we should not be afraid. Our master’s return is not something that we should fear. Of course, if we are the students who are throwing erasers or spitballs while the teacher is out of the room, then perhaps, the teacher’s unexpected return and her judgment of our activity might be somewhat traumatic. On the other hand, if we are doing what we should have been doing all along, then her return is not a fearful thing and her judgment of our activity will not be a negative experience. “Fear not, little flock.”
The second instruction is familiar to us: “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Your real treasure should be in heaven… for wherever your treasure is, that is where your heart will be.” We know from the book of Acts that the early church tried to do exactly that… that they did sell their possessions and lived sharing everything. As a practice of the whole church, it didn’t last long, but it still has its residual practices in the convents and monasteries of the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches… places where people go to live in seclusion together, having sold all their possessions and given the funds to the church, and spending their time preparing for Christ’s return. It also can be found in the lives of those who go to the mission field… dedicating their possessions and their lives to sharing the good news of the gospel with those who have not heard so that they might also be prepared for Christ’s return. Many of us would agree that this path takes more faith and a greater level of commitment than most Christians have today.
The final portion of our text shares many different illustrations of how one person might be prepared for Christ’s coming… whenever Christ decides to return. The good servants have their lamps lit and are waiting for the master to return. They are alert and ready for action. They open the door for the master when he returns… even if he comes in the middle of the night. Obviously, Jesus is not speaking literally about physical preparedness… of people actually being dressed in the middle of the night. Instead, he is talking about our spiritual preparedness… our spiritual vigilance… and whether we are ready spiritually for Christ’s return. Most of us can grasp a picture of what physical preparedness look like… but it may be more difficult for us to understand how our hearts and our souls need to be ready for Christ’s return. I want to suggest that this spiritual diligence takes three forms.
The first way in which we are spiritually vigilant is for us to assume that Christ’s eventual return is an historical event that could transpire at any moment. The early Christians called this parousia, the “appearance and subsequent presence with” a person of royal stature. Their assumption was that Christ would return on a specific day… one known only to God, but one they also assumed was imminent… and that they needed to be prepared at all times for that event. They were to continually “watch for” this event… and their vigilance took the form of “tireless constancy, faithful stewardship, and unswerving obedience.”
The second way of for us to understand spiritual vigilance focuses on the needs of our neighbors. While we are waiting, we have a responsibility to care for those for whom Christ died. Our vigilance takes the form of our “watching over” those who cannot protect or provide for themselves, such as the poor… the sick… the weak… the homeless… the hungry … the lonely… the oppressed… and those who do not know… or understand… the story of God’s grace. In this form of spiritual vigilance, the intrinsic dignity and worth of each person is underscored and the moment of eschatological significance is the hour… those moments … in which we hear and respond to the cries of those in need.
The third form of spiritual vigilance is our guardianship over our own hearts. This form… instead of being future-oriented… or other-directed… as the other two forms are … this form of spiritual vigilance is inwardly directed and is focused in the present. Our chief duty for ourselves today is to “watch out” for the many ways in which our human weaknesses seduce us away… or alienate us… from God. We need to constantly watch out for those things that tempt us to be less than we can be as Christians.
Did you notice that, in all three of the examples given in our text, the test of the vigilance of the servants is what they do with those things which the Master has entrusted to them in his absence: the possessions they cling to… the things they neglect because they assume there is more time to deal with them later… and the things that may be stolen from them through their inattention. These things might be material possessions… but they could just as easily be qualities of character… or the evidence of an intimate relationship with our Creator God.
And the last thing I have to say on this subject today is that these three instructions… or examples… are not mutually exclusive… they overlap. And, more than that, they are actually mutually corrective. If we will assume that Christ can return on Labor Day as easily as he might return at Christmas, then we find that we will hold less tightly to our possessions and be more willing to let them go. And if we are willing to let them go… to be less focused on gaining or hoarding things for ourselves… and more focused on providing for the needs of others, we will find that we are less likely to be seduced by the temptations that the world puts in our path that draw us away from God and from an intimate relationship with our Savior. And, if we have an intimate relationship with our Savior, then we will find that we are ready for Christ to come… today or any day…and that we can sing with confident joy, “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus” on any day of the year.
And what is our reward for our spiritual vigilance… our diligence and attention to those things which are important to God? Is there any reward for working hard… for being ready today for Christ’s return? According to our text, the awesome wonder is that the reward for such diligence is that the master himself will sit and eat with us… that when Christ returns, his first act will be to share a meal… an intimate time together… with us… with those who have labored into the wee hours of the morning… waiting… hoping… praying for his imminent return. So, come, labor on. There is work to be done… and the time is short. Amen.