The 12th Sunday after Pentecost – August 7, 2016

Gospel: Luke 12:32-40 – the Rev. Canon Hap Lewis

Mark Twain once said that he heard a preacher who was powerfully good. He decided to give him every cent he had with him. But the preacher kept at it too long. Ten minutes later, Twain decided to keep the bills and only give the change. Another ten minutes more Twain said, “I was darned if I’d give him anything at all. Then, when he finally stopped and the plate came around, I was so exhausted, I decided to steal $2 just for spite.”

Now I know you sympathize with Mark Twain. But I also feel for the poor preacher in Twain’s story. One of my problems in sermon preparation is how much to cover. When you come to a passage like the one at which we are looking this morning, and in your general sermon planning, you have decided to deal with it, how do you narrow the focus? I have to keep reminding myself that there will be other Sundays for me and for you, and other preachers to deal with this text. Above all, I have to trust you and the text to the Holy Spirit, and pray that the sermon will be the catalyst to arouse your curiosity, stir your thinking, and prod you to deal with the text on your own.

I also have to be aware that there are some suggested truths in the text that I have dealt with recently in other contexts. So, that’s the way I arrived at the focus today: “Blessed are those who are awake”. I state that as a Beatitude — a Beatitude of Jesus. Though not among the ones found in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is pronouncing a blessing: “Blessed Are those whom the Master finds awake.” Blessed are those who stay awake, alert, and ready for what life presents them — to be awake in order to be responsive and responsible to all the unexpected visitations or calls and opportunities and relationships.

Now I’m not ignoring the fact that Jesus is teaching about the Second Coming. There is praise here for the servant who is ready when the Lord returns, and He is going to return. We don’t know when or how, but you can’t read the New Testament faithfully and miss that message. The primary truth Jesus teaches us about the Second Coming is that it is certain, but we cannot know the timing. So, His call is to stay awake — to be ready. So, in a narrow sense, Jesus is referring to the Second Coming of Christ — but in the wider sense, He is referring to the time when God’s summons enters a person’s life. So the text speaks to the whole of life, and that’s the way I want to look at it this morning. The need to stay awake — to stay alive and alert.

First, we need to stay awake because we never know when we are going to be surprised by new possibilities. Most of us have lived long enough to know the unexpected will happen — we can count on it. I’ve certainly found it so in my own life. I surely didn’t plan to be here in this pulpit at this stage of my life. But isn’t that the way life works? We need to stay awake, because we never know when we are going to be surprised by some new possibility. So don’t settle down. Don’t allow yourself to become dull and drowsy. Don’t allow those feelings of being trapped or cornered to prevail. Don’t be seduced by the deadly thoughts that you don’t have any options. God is alive and working the world and when God is alive there are always new possibilities The first word of our scripture lesson expresses the hope that is ours: “Fear not, little flock, for it is your father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” We need to stay awake, because we never know when we are going to be surprised by a new possibility.

Now the other side of that coin is that we never know when something important is going to be taken from us. Do you see the connection? Whether it’s the opening of a door, or the closing of a door, the demand is that we stay awake. Bishop Peter Storey from South Africa tells a story of three men in town for a convention. They were assigned rooms on the 51st floor of the convention hotel. They had been out for an evening — having had a late dinner and entertainment. When they came in, the elevator was out of order. Can you imagine that? In a room on the 51st floor and no way to get there but to climb the stairs. It was a terrible dilemma, but they had no alternative. Being creative, they decided that they would devise a way to make that climb bearable. For 17 stories — as they climbed the stairs — they would tell funny stories. Then, for the next 17 stories, they would tell scary stories. Then, for the final 17 stories, they would tell sad stories.

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Well, it did work. For 17 stories, they laughed and laughed as they told funny story after funny story, taking their minds off of their arduous climb. Then, for the next 17 stories there were the scary tales — and that helped because it seemed to energize them. Then as they began the last trek — up the steps of the last 17 stories — they began to tell sad story after sad story. When they got to the 50th floor, they had run out of stories seemingly. No one spoke up. Then it happened. One fellow broke the silence, “Fellows, here is the saddest story of all. I forgot the key at the reception desk.”

The key — whether a door is being opened, or a door is being closed; the key is that we stay awake. Because we never know when we are going to be surprised by a new possibility; nor, do we ever know when something important is going to be taken from us.

It’s true in the whole of life — doors open and doors close. There are limits to our dreams and ambitions. “When we are young, our dreams are big and exciting, and we believe we will realize them all. We will have our own prestigious law firm, be a renowned surgeon, a media superstar, president of the corporation, Nobel Prize winning scientist, sing like Pavarotti, dance like Fred Astaire write like Camus, paint like Wyeth, and play golf like Jack Nicklaus. Every young couple who comes here for their wedding assumes that theirs is going to be the ideal marriage, the perfect union. I do not dispute such dreaming, nor do I disparage ambition and idealism. In fact, give me an idealist any day over a cynic “Yet, those who have weathered turnings of the seasons know that between the dream and the reality falleth the shadow, as T. S. Eliot observed. Along about age 30 or 35, that shadow descends, and we may learn that we do not possess the gifts we imagined we had, that we are not going to sing, paint, or play golf like anyone but ourselves. This is the time when we become too old to be young, and are still too young to be old; time when we must saddle our dreams and accept the fact that some of them will not come true, that certain ambitions will not be met.” So, we need to stay awake, because we never know when something’s important is going to be taken from us.

Let me focus that in a very specific way in closing — Our relationships with each other. Time is fleeting, and we never know what’s going to happen to any one of us — we need to stay awake in relationships — to be caring, affirming, concerned, attentive — investing ourselves in family, in love, in ministry, because we never know when something important is going to be taken from us. Richard Sewall, Professor of English at Yale, shared a word in a Convocation Address at Williams College, which I would like to share with you:

“I want to share with you a little of what I have learned this year, the high-water mark of my experience as a human being. Two things, intimately bound, are closest to my heart now: love and death. “You’ll have to know that my wife, Matilde, died of cancer of the pancreas in November, and from that experience I have learned this: Never be embarrassed to talk about hallowed things like love and death. We Americans are a bit finicky about both. There is very little serious talk about love, and as for death, we hide from it... What has tortured me these months since Matilde died are the things I didn’t say, the love I didn’t express. Why was I so dim, so finicky, so inhibited, so embarrassed.” Doesn’t that make the point. We need to stay awake, because we never know when something important is going to be taken from us. So, Jesus pronounces a wonderful benediction — a beatitude that we need to receive — “Blessed are those who stay awake.” And He’s talking to all of us — no matter where we are in life — or what life offers us.

That’s it — to stay awake and alive to life — no matter where we are. AMEN

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