“Too Late for Joe”
A sermon by Sid Burgess
for Edgewood PC, Birmingham, AL
First Sunday of Advent, December 2, 2007
Texts: Isaiah 2:1-5, Matthew 24:36-44
Those of us who were born and reared here in the South, deep in the Bible Belt have likely attended at least one funeral during which the preacher has launched into an evangelistic sermon. William Willimon, former Duke University chaplain, now bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the UMC, tells the story of a funeral he once attended. It was apparently early in his celebrated ministry as he was serving a small congregation in rural Georgia. A relative of one his members died, so Willimon and his wife attended the funeral held in an off-brand, country Baptist church. Willimon writes: "I had never seen anything like it. The preacher began to preach. He shouted; he flailed his arms.”
‘It's too late for Joe. He's dead. But it ain't too late for you. People drop dead every day. Why wait? Now is the day for decision. Give your life to Jesus.’
Willimon goes on to suggest that this was the worst thing he had ever seen. He fumed and fussed at his wife Patsy, complaining that the preacher had done the worst thing possible for a grieving family - manipulating them with guilt and shame. Patsy agreed. But then she said: "Of course the worst part of it all is that what he said is true."
Just listen to Isaiah, who says, “The days are surely coming . . ..” St. Paul says, “The night is far gone, the day is near.” In Matthew, Jesus teaches, “But about that day and hour, no one knows . . . .”
Lutheran pastor Susan Andrews, my source for the Willimon story, reminds us that each one of us lives in the shadow of the apocalypse - the dark reality of the end of our time and the end of the world's time. This is the warning of Advent. But there is also good news. There is also the promise of Advent - the promise that in the darkness, in the shadows, in the unpredictable anxiety of our unfinished lives, God is present. God is at work, and God will come again. With each candle we light, the shadows recede a bit, and the promise comes closer. With each candle we light, we are proclaiming that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness will never overcome it. The promise is that wherever there is darkness and dread in our lives, wherever there is darkness and dread in the world around us, God is present to help us endure. God is at work, and hope is alive. And as long and as interminable as the night may seem, morning will come - in God's good time and God's good way.1
When Jesus concedes that neither he nor the angels know when that final morning will dawn, he warns us that “any claim to special insight about the future,” to any one individual’s fate, or to the end of time as we know it--“any claim to special insight about the future merely exposes human arrogance and pretense.” 2
So, we are not to live as speculators, guessing about the future, not as lottery players, betting against all odds for a payday we have not earned. Instead, we are to live as those to whom a promise has been given. As Christians, we are custodians of the sacred promise of the coming reign of God. We place our trust in the reliability of Jesus Christ, the one who has made this promise. Meanwhile, we believe that “Christ gives us and demands of us lives in pilgrimage toward God’s kingdom.”3
Setting out on this journey--the journey toward God’s reign of justice and mercy and peace--Setting out on this journey requires a decision, just as the Baptist preacher said.
In Matthew’s story Jesus gives us two examples of how not to go about this. We are not to be like Noah’s contemporaries, going about business-as-usual--at a time when catastrophe looms. Genesis says flood; among the contemporary threats is global warming. In any case, “night is far gone, day is near.” The people of God must act, for no more than Christ “are we spared the darkness, the ambiguity, the threat of life in the world.”4
The other example Jesus gives is the head of household who lacks vigilance in protecting the house. Because the householder fails to keep watch, the thief succeeds in breaking in and plundering the house. This is another warning to all of us operating on auto-pilot, savoring the present moment, enjoying the present comforts, paying no attention to warnings about the coming judgment of God, when the last shall be first and first shall be last. It is the same as failing to keep watch. And Jesus warns there is a price to pay for negligence.
So our Lord Jesus urges us to be ready and to watch. Now, contrary to popular opinion the season of Advent is not the time of waiting and watching for Christmas, for “Away in a Manger” and “Silent Night.” Oh, to be sure, the baby born in Bethlehem does fulfill the promise of ancient Hebrew scripture, but, in another sense, this baby becomes the promise of something more. That is the coming of the Son of Man -at an unknown hour. We no longer await the baby’s birth. We await the Son’s return.
St. Matthew warns us that when he comes the Son will bring with him divine judgment regarding those who have, or have not, tended to the hungry; those who have, or have not, given drink to the thirsty, a welcome to the stranger, clothing to the naked, medical care to the sick, and comfort to those who are imprisoned.
Our Presbyterian Church “Declaration of Faith” warns that as people
of faith “we live in the tension between God’s warnings and God’s
promises.”5 In our time popular religion has made big bucks
misinterpreting the New Testament witness, particularly about the
end of time, or the “rapture.” Matthew, in fact, doesn’t have a
“rapture” in his vision of end times. When he talks about those who
will be “taken” he’s talking about God’s faithful people being
gathered together
just as Noah’s family was gathered into the ark. To be a
believer--to be the church--is to endure faithfully the inevitable
tribulations of this life-- not to escape from them. Matthew scholar
Eugene Boring writes:
The crucified Jesus is already the Christ,
and the persecuted church is already the elect people of God,
but the reality is hidden except to eyes of faith.
At the end of time, Matthew says, we all stay put. But the crucified Jesus will be revealed to all as the Holy One of God. And the church, persecuted in Matthew’s time, ignored, pushed aside in our time, will be revealed as God’s chosen people.6
To be ready, in Matthew’s eyes, the church is to busy itself with deeds of mercy, forgiveness, and peace that characterize God’s hidden and coming reign. “In Matthew’s understanding of the Christian faith, the second coming doesn’t cause us to quit the job of being the church in the world; rather, it calls us to take it up with even more urgency.”7
As to “who’s in and who’s out,” that is a judgment reserved for God alone. But, our Presbyterian Church “Declaration of Faith asserts, “We are sure that God’s future for every person will be both merciful and just.”8
'It's too late for Joe. He's dead.
But it ain't too late for you.
People drop dead every day. Why wait?
Now is the day for decision. Give your life to Jesus.'
Today is the day to give your life to a hope that is far greater than anything we have yet seen or head. Today is the day to surrender your life to ultimate confidence in the hope God gives to the whole world. Hope for a new heaven and a new earth. Certainty of victory over death, assurance of mercy and judgment beyond death.
Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever. Amen.
1 Susan R. Andrews, The Offense of Grace, CSS Publishing
Company, via sermons.com.
2 Cousar, Charles, et a., TEXTS FOR PREACHING, YR A, p. 8.
3 “Declaration of Faith,” IX.5.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., X.4.
6 Boring, Eugene, “Matthew,” THE NEW INTERPRETER’S BIBLE, vol. VIII,
pp. 446-7.
7 Ibid, p. 448.
8 “Declaration of Faith,” X.