Sermons

God-Send

Rod Frohman                                Third Presbyterian Church  September 5, 2004                                 Luke 12: 35-40

Labor Day Weekend is often the last big family reunion time of the season. School starts soon and church program returns to normal schedule. For this, or any other extended family gathering, there can be much preparation. To get the house ready for company one must clean the bathrooms, mop the kitchen floor, get extra beds in, borrow a queen size air mattress from the neighbors across the street. You might go out to Sam’s Club and buy things in bulk for the Labor Day Picnic like a #10 cans of Hershey's chocolate syrup. (That’s a lot of syrup, incidentally.) You vacuum, dust, pull the weeds, mow the lawn, and WAIT, look out the window. The children get hyped "When are they coming?” The anticipation drives everyone up the wall. If one’s mother, or in-laws are coming the major question is: “What will Grandma think about the house? Will it be clean enough? It is hard to have one's mother come to live with you for a few days. All those tapes of childhood get replayed dozens of times before her arrival. A lot of comic strip ink has been spilled on that subject.

Family reunions are times of opportunity, and tension. They are times when we can renew relationships neglected, try out new forms of behavior, savor remembrances, and make new memories. Especially for grandchildren awaiting arrival of grandparents, the time of preparation can be exquisite anticipation.

The Gospel text for today reads, 'Be ready then, for the son of Man will arrive at a time when you least expect him."

"Be ready then..." We know how to get ready for company coming, but how ready are we for a little divine intervention, the knock of divine opportunity on the door of our lives??

What kind of preparation is necessary? Prepared anticipation. Interesting juxtaposition of ideas. Prepared anticipation. Especially through the eyes of children we know what prepared anticipation means when company is coming, especially special company from a long way. But notice the emphasis of the text.

"Be ready then, for the Son of Man will arrive at an hour when you least expect him." It is one thing to know when the company is coming, it is quite another thing to be ready when you least expect company.

Now this uncertainty creates a certain level of anxiety . This is not a frenetic situation--not crisis or hysteria--but a certain level of tension--students know this feeling when they are getting ready to go back to school. How many trips to Target have you made in the last month?? The host and hostess know the feeling when important guests are to come for dinner. We sense in our anxiety that opportunity is knocking and we need to be ready for it.

But how does divine opportunity come?? Some say through crisis; such as death, divorce, and loss of job, getting a new job, buying a new house. But notice in this parable of the expectant servants there is preparedness, anxiety, anticipation, but no crisis. Basically what we have here is a household of servants doing what they are supposed to be doing--getting ready for the master to return. This is a Semitic setting. In that culture the servant lives and breathes to please the master, and takes great pleasure therein, and receives fulfillment and meaning from the master's approval. This is lesser pleasing the greater, but it is not servile in the sense of bootlicking.

This parable concerns those who find themselves within the household of faith.

And in the parable Jesus is creating a deceptively simple analogy: the Master is God and we are the servants, those who would seek fulfillment and meaning from a Divine opportunity--a little “God-send” in our lives. But remember it is “God- send” amidst the normal duties, roles and responsibilities of the servant life- style, not in the midst of crisis. It is God-send on a normal Labor Day weekend.

So this parable is especially for the regulars, the regular folk who even come to worship on Labor Day Sunday? What about us, we who dare to claim to be faithful servants in the household of God? Where is the God-shaped opportunity in our lives? And how do we get ready for it?

Well, this parable suggests, if we aren't a bit anxious about it, if we aren't looking for it, if we aren’t preparing for it, then it probably is not going to happen. When divine opportunity knocks on the door of our lives we can't be lounging around in our robes, feet up on the ottoman, watching TV or puttering around in the basement. It is more like children waiting for company with noses pressed to the window, looking for the opportunity, looking for meaning, expecting the Christ to come knocking at the door of our lives. This is a nuanced expectation. Keep in mind that this expectation is not generated because of anticipation of a "white-glove " or “GI inspection”. There are other parables about a moral clean up . Not here.

What the parable is about is a yearning, a longing, a following of one's dreams, of being open--yes and therefore prepared for the divine knock of opportunity.

It is very possible to have a clean house, but not be expecting any guests. And isn't that kind of sad. To sit and the splendid isolation of our own domestic purity, and to be caught off guard and maybe even resentful of unexpected guests. A clean house does not an expectant host make. A clean house just makes a clean house.

Why do we bother to get prepared at all? Why bother to come to worship? Why bother to be involved in outreach in our community? Why bother to study the scripture? Why bother to pray? Why bother to visit the sick and afflicted? Why bother to work for justice? Because in the midst of our preparation the master will come!!! Opportunity will knock.

Or as the text says,
"Happy are those servants whom the master finds on the alert when He comes. I tell you this: he will fasten his belt, seat them at the table and come and wait on them.” (12:37)

Wait a minute, did you notice the switch in roles? The Semitic Lord and Master of the house comes home, finds the servants ready for him. But then instead of sitting down in oriental splendor to be served a meal, He himself switches roles and becomes the servant. The servant is served, the waiter becomes the guest, and the customer serves the meal to the restaurant staff. It is very easy to miss.

"Happy are those servants whom the master finds on the alert when He comes. I tell you this: he will fasten his belt, seat them at the table and come and wait on them.” (12:37) Fascinating reversal.

This is precisely the nature of divine opportunity. We get all prepared to serve God and then God serves us. When we hope and dream and pray and work for the kingdom of God, when we ask for, yearn for, and work for change, growth renewal in our lives, then we will find it. But we won't find it unless our preparation is prepared anticipation. You have heard it said, “Whomever seeks will find, to whomever knocks it will be opened”. Yes, BUT, to whoever is open will come the knock. The one who expects will be rewarded.

"Happy are those servants whom the master finds on the alert when He comes. I tell you this: he will fasten his belt, seat them at the table and come and wait on them.”

I remember one time when our children were little when Grandma and Grandpa and Great Aunt Marcia and all the family were coming to visit. Our girls were climbing the walls, "When? When? When?" was their frequent plea, days in advance. On the day of expected arrival I could stand it no longer, so I took the kids swimming in the afternoon, knowing full-well that by the time we got back the guests would have arrived. When we got back from swimming they were there all right, and guess who was serving dinner? Grandma.