Luke 12:35-40 Active Waiting

 

It’s the first Sunday of Advent. Advent leads us into Christmas. It’s about remembering the coming of Jesus as a baby to Mary and Joseph; a child that is completely God and yet completely human, a baby who cries, has dirty diapers, who’s completely helpless. But Advent is also about waiting, not for Christmas and presents, but for Jesus’ return from heaven. The question for this Sunday, as we reflect this year on waiting, is ‘how do we wait?’

Brad Paisley has a music video with Andy Griffith called “Waiting on a Woman,” and the lyrics go like this: “Sittin' on a bench at West Town Mall, He sat down in his overalls and asked me You waitin' on a woman? I nodded yeah and said how 'bout you? He said son since nineteen fifty-two I've been Waitin' on a woman. When I picked her up for our first date, I told her I'd be there at eight and she came down the stairs at eight-thirty. She said “I'm sorry that I took so long Didn't like a thing that I tried on.” But let me tell you son she sure looked pretty. Yeah, she'll take her time, but I don't mind Waitin' on a woman.” There are some things that you don’t mind waiting for because you know it’s going to be worth every moment of waiting. This kind of waiting is filled with anticipation as you sit on the bench waiting.

Jesus describes waiting another way in the parable we’ve just read. This passage is the parable of the servants who are waiting for their master to return. Jesus tells this parable right after telling his followers to not worry or be afraid. It’s important to know the context, there’s no need to worry or be afraid while the master is gone; he’s coming back. The master heads out to go to a wedding. We don’t know whose wedding, where the wedding is, whether it’s in another city or his own, so there’s no clue as to how long he’s going to be gone. He could be gone a day or two or a week or more, it all depends on how close he feels to the couple and what his role in the wedding is. We know Jesus enjoys weddings as his first miracle happens at a wedding where people stayed so long the wine ran out. All this to say that the servants are left to run the household and the master’s business operations until he gets back, whenever that may be.

This isn’t the put your feet up and slack off kind of waiting and then rushing to clean the house when mom and dad get back from vacation; this is the keep working hard and staying ahead of everything so that when the master gets back, there’s no issues or problems for him to have to deal with because the servants did their jobs so well. “Be dressed ready for service and keep your lamps burning” is the command. While a servant was working, they would tuck their robes into their belt or sash so they wouldn’t trip over it while they worked; they were ready then to work, travel or fight to protect the master’s property and business.

Part of the servant’s task is to keep watch at the gate so that when the master shows up, the servant’s there to open the door and welcome him home. This is all about honour and respect for the master. At the same time, the master is able to quickly see how well his servants are doing if he can see the lights burning brightly as he arrives home after sunset. This is the master’s first reassurance that his servants are on the ball instead of slacking off. Jesus tells his followers, “It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes.” We get a sense that this is a good master who loves to recognize his servants when they do well.

Then Jesus puts a huge twist into the parable, something totally unexpected, he tells his followers, “Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them.” I’ll admit, in all the times I’ve read this parable, I never really clued into what Jesus says here, that after spending time celebrating at the wedding, that as soon as the master gets home, he gets dressed ready for service and serves his servants. This is no normal master. When Matthew and Mark record similar parables, neither of them mentions anything about the master serving the servants, because that normally doesn’t happen. It starts getting you thinking about who this master is, Jesus must have a certain master in mind then.

This is where echoes come in. In Mathew 20:28 and Mark 10:45, Jesus tells his disciples, “Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many,” and in John 13, Jesus actually washes his disciples’ feet at the dinner table and them tells them to do as he has done, to be humble servants instead of desiring power. The disciples may not get it here in Luke’s gospel, but as we hear the echoes and follow them in the Bible, we see that the master Jesus is referring to here is himself. This is where the Christmas message comes in, God created us in his image, but that image got twisted by our sin and we need someone to fix that since we’re unable to. Jesus comes to earth and become human to serve us by taking all our sin on himself to the cross so we’re right with God again. After doing that on the cross, Jesus goes back to heaven and sends his Spirit to guide and remind us of what Jesus taught, what he did for us, and what he has called us to do for his kingdom here until he returns again to claim all of creation for his kingdom.

Time and again, we’re reminded to stay alert and busy with Jesus’ kingdom work until he returns. Jesus warns us in Matthew 24:36–41 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.” Paul reminds the church in 1 Thessalonians 5:1–6, “Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”

As we read the Bible, we learn waiting is part of the Christian life. God has his own timeline for how things should go in order to accomplish his plan of salvation. As we listen to Jesus in this parable, we’re called to wait patiently for Jesus’ return with eagerness and anticipation. This isn’t a passive waiting, a put up your feet waiting where we expect Jesus to do his work here on earth while he’s in heaven with God and we’re here on earth.

We’re called to watch for where the Holy Spirit is at work. We’re called to make disciples and join the Spirit and grow faithful flourishing communities; to create places where people are able to grow and thrive, no matter their skin colour, their culture, their histories. We’re here to build communities shaped by justice and mercy, to point to the way of Jesus, a way of health and wholeness, a way of peace and coming together instead of building barriers and walls. This means being aware of what is happening in our communities. We know that racism is alive and strong in our communities, we’re learning that addictions are destroying more and more lives, we learned that the murder rate in Alberta is the highest in our country, a sign that there are mental and emotional health issues in our province that are not being addressed. Many of these are things that cannot be tackled by Bethel alone, it takes those whom God has placed a passion in their hearts to gather with others passionate about the same issues, both from within our church and our community, to pool resources, skills and people to build strong communities. Shalom takes hard work, active waiting is not about easy. I’m here to encourage you in the passions God has placed in your hearts, to help you do some of the connecting needed, and to help discover resources.

We work and we watch while we do the work of the kingdom so that when Jesus returns, he’s going to be greeted with joy and celebration, and he’ll find us faithfully doing what he has called us to do in his service while we wait. We don’t mind waiting for Jesus as we join the Spirit in the work of his kingdom.