Taken or left?
“O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the
Lord.”
Take it or leave it.
I suspect we’ve all had offers like that. But the Gospel reading this
morning asks us a harder question – taken or left, which will we be? “Two will be in the field, one will be taken
and one will be left. Two will be
grinding meal together, one will be taken and one will be left.” If we look a little harder at the passage,
it’s not even abundantly clear which I want to be, taken or left. When the secret police come knocking, it is
clear that you want to be left. There
are Christians and others in the world today who fear the knock at the
door. They desperately want to be
left. But when you live in the midst of
war and poverty, you want to be taken to another, better place. There are many in the world today, not least
the many refugees, who long to be taken more than anything else. The hope and the longing of the refugee to be
taken is no greater or lesser than the longing of the oppressed to be left.
Taken or left, which are we to wish for in the light of the
Gospel reading? It will probably be no
surprise to learn that there are scholars who take each side. The majority say that Jesus is expecting us
to want to be taken. But there are
others who suggest that Jesus is in fact suggesting that we should want to be
left. Now, it is important that scholars have things about which to
disagree. But it needn’t trouble us too
much. For, much like the refugees and
the oppressed, it all depends for what you are taken! Those who think we should want to be taken,
see those taken as taken for salvation.
Those who think we should want to be left, see those taken as taken for
judgement. Taken or left, for salvation
or for judgement.
Salvation and judgement are among the great Advent
themes. They ask us to lift up our eyes
and recall the bigger picture of our faith.
In Advent we are reminded of the whole sweep of our faith. The Gospel this morning reminds us of Noah –
about whom more in a moment. The Advent
wreath asks us to think of Abraham and Sarah, of the prophets, of John the
Baptist and of Mary. The themes of
judgment and salvation are never far as we look for the coming of Christ to
establish his kingdom among us.
Isaiah calls us to consider the big themes. ‘In days to come’ he promises, there will be
a time when every nation will come together.
It will be a time not of walls, or of separation, but of walking together. It will be a time not of arming for war, or
of striking at enemies, but of turning weapons into instruments of feeding
other people. Isaiah speaks of judgment
and of salvation; he speaks of inclusion and of peace. This is truly a vision that calls us to the
big things of faith.
Salvation and judgement, inclusion and peace. These are things to inspire us, but they are
also things that can dwarf us. What are
we that we can have anything to do with such big and important matters? The great themes of Christian faith can leave
me feeling small, impotent, and, well, incapable of making any kind of
difference to them. The danger of Advent
is that it makes me feel that I have little to do with the great vision of
faith, of salvation and judgement. Taken
or left, I can do little about it.
And that is why it is so good that Jesus draws attention to
the days of Noah. The story of Noah is,
as I will say given any opportunity, the Gospel in miniature. And on a day of such grand themes, miniature
is what we need. Noah fits the pattern
of the gospel reading, in that it is not clear if he is taken away from the
world, or the only one left behind when the flood comes. Is Noah taken or left? I’m not sure we need to decide!
So let’s picture Noah, patiently building an ark while life
goes on around him, ‘eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,’ as
Jesus puts it. Ark building doesn’t seem
particularly useful while all of that is going on. Shouldn’t Noah have been confronting the evil
around him? Perhaps he should have
launched a political career or organised demonstrations. But instead, he built an Ark. Surely there
were many times when he wondered if he had it right, if this was really what God
wanted of him. There must have been
times of doubt and frustration, of bewilderment and disillusionment. But Noah patiently built the Ark, one plank
at a time, even though it wasn’t raining.
Can Noah, then, be a figure that speaks to us? Patient building, seemingly distant from
everything going on around him. What
will it mean for us this Advent, to see ourselves as patiently building while
the world carries on around us? What
will it mean to worry less about being taken or left, but to be ready for the
unexpected hour when we will need to go into the Ark? We live, as Isaiah puts
it, “in the light of the Lord”. The
great stories of the faith give us the framework into which we put our
lives. But within that framework we need
patience and perseverance to carry one, to see those great themes shaping and
working themselves out in the daily parts of our lives.
We are to live lives that make sense of the stories of
Jesus, or perhaps better, we are to live lives that the stories of Jesus make
sense of. It is Jesus whose life, death
and resurrection gives us the framework to live our lives as Christians. Perhaps this Advent it would be worth reading
through Matthew’s Gospel, and seeing it as the framework for our own
lives. Despite what commercial Advent
calendars would have you believe, there are 28 days in Advent this year. And there are 28 chapters in St Matthew’s
Gospel. It would make a very good Advent
calendar. As we read, let’s ask how we see
ourselves in the Gospel stories. And
from that, how we can learn to meet Jesus in our daily lives.
Whether they are to be taken or left, Jesus teaches his
disciples to be ready to meet him. As we
prepare to celebrate Christmas, and as we prepare to meet with Jesus when he
comes at that unexpected hour, let us prepare to meet Jesus day by day. My Advent challenge to us all is to read
through Matthew’s Gospel, asking how we see ourselves in the Gospel stories, so
that we can learn better to meet Jesus day by day. We begin this morning by meeting Jesus as he
comes to us in broken bread and poured out wine.
This Advent, let us prepare to meet with Jesus by learning
to meet him day by day. “O house of
Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord.”
Amen. Come Lord Jesus.
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