What's On Your List?

Matthew 24:36-44

But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so, too, will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Then two will be in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken, and one will be left. Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.

But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.

Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

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What’s on your list? That’s the question I asked and got asked most over the past few days. If your family is anything like mine, Thanksgiving weekend is when we trade Christmas lists and start imagining what we hope to unwrap. Maybe you do something similar. Or maybe you’re one of the brave ones who heads out into the crowds to score the deals on those lists.

I like going out not so much for the sales, but to soak in the spirit of the season. Lights are up, people are dressed up, bells are ringing outside while Christmas music blares inside. Santa waves between photos. And at this point, people look happy—not yet crushed by the unrealistic expectations we all put on this season.

There’s something energizing about it.

But then you show up to worship this morning… only to be shocked by what we just heard. We come to church in December expecting stories of hope from a pregnant Mary, the quiet faithfulness of Joseph, or the peace of a cooing baby Jesus.And instead — we get none of that.

What we always get on the first Sunday of Advent are these strange, end-of-the-world texts. This morning, Jesus compares his return to the days of Noah—people going about their lives, unaware, until the flood came suddenly. He says his coming will be just as unexpected.

Then it gets even more unsettling: two men working in a field, and one is taken. Two women working in a home, and one disappears. When I first read that this week, all I could picture was two pastors in the office; one taken, one left behind. I’ll let you decide which.

And finally, perhaps most troubling of all, Jesus compares his coming to a thief breaking into a house at an unknown hour and robbing it. A thief?! What is going on here? It’s strange, unsettling, and so out of step with our cultural Christmas expectations, where a certain man arrives right on time and leaves us piles of wonderful things.

What we get in this passage feels a lot less like Santa… and a lot more like this:

That’s hilarious and terrible, and I’m definitely not recommending you do that to your children. Though if you do… please send the video.

But the Grinch showing up at an unexpected moment to take things away isn’t all that different from the metaphor Jesus uses about himself in today’s passage. He says the day and hour of his return we cannot know; not even he knows. But when we least expect it, in a way we won’t anticipate, Jesus promises to return.

If we imagine ourselves as the homeowner in this metaphor, it sounds like bad news — because a thief breaking in means we’re about to lose something. But what if this sudden, unexpected loss isn’t a threat at all. Maybe we need someone to break in and take certain things away; not like the Grinch stealing presents, but like a holy thief who steals what we don’t need, what harms us, what we can’t let go of or get rid of on our own.

After all, some of the greatest gifts in life aren’t the things we receive… but the things we’re finally freed from.

Just ask Sir Anthony Hopkins.

The famous actor sat down with the New York Times for one of their installments of The Interview. The first question David Marchese asked him was: “Can you tell me about what happened on December 29th, 1975, at 11 o’clock?”

Hopkins responded:

I was drunk and driving my car here in California, blacked out, no clue where I was going, when I realized that I could have killed somebody — or myself, which I didn’t care about — and I realized that I was an alcoholic. I came to my senses and said to a friend at a party, “I need help.” It was 11 o'clock precisely — I looked at my watch — and this is the spooky part: some deep powerful thought or voice spoke to me from inside and said: “It’s all over. Now you can start living.” And suddenly the craving to drink was taken from me.

When asked later about that voice, Hopkins simply said, “It came from deep inside, and I don’t have any other theories except divinity — what I call God.”

Like a thief in the night, God broke into Anthony Hopkins’ life when he least expected it and took from him a desire he couldn't take from himself. What a gift.

And is that not a gift you want, maybe even one you desperately need?

Wouldn’t it be great for Jesus the holy thief to break into your life and take what you’ve never been able to let go of yourself? Not your Christmas presents, but the things that truly rob you: an addiction you can’t shake, the fear that grips you, the worry that wakes you at night.

What if Jesus stole away your self-doubt? Or absconded with your love of money and stuff? Or slipped off into the night with your anxiety, your despair, your perfectionism?

We make all these lists of things we want, and buy presents for each other thinking they’ll finally help us “start living.” If only we had the right clothes, the new bag, the latest tech — then we’d feel whole. But not one thing under the tree can actually do that.

Yet if Jesus takes even one of those burdens from us? Then we might sound a lot like Anthony Hopkins: Now I can start living.

This may sound like a new way of talking about what Jesus does for us, but it really isn’t. His entire life is an in-breaking into our world in ways no one expected: a poor peasant baby born in Palestine. And through his death and resurrection, he took from us what we could never take from ourselves, our sin, our shame, our separation, so that we could start living, here and now. It is a beautiful exchange.

Another Lutheran pastor once suggested that instead of making Christmas lists, we should make Advent lists, writing down the things we want Jesus the holy thief to take from our lives. Because the Gospel today tells us that Christ will come again. And if it’s anything like the last time, he’ll take away what we cannot remove on our own.

So what are you holding on to? Or maybe, what’s holding on to you, keeping you from living the life God wants for you?

Our culture loves to tell the lie that following Christ will give us more blessings, more stuff, more comfort. But the truth is often the opposite. Throughout the Gospels, he breaks into the lives of his disciples and takes things from them: safety, certainty, old identities, fears that defined them. And sometimes that taking is the very best gift.

In the welcome area, you’ll find small sheets of paper titled Advent Lists.

As you leave today — before you go back to checking off the gifts you’ll give — take a moment to write down the things you want Jesus to take from you this season. And as you write, consider this:

Are there things you can help lift from the lives of those around you: guilt, shame, pressure, loneliness?

When we ease those burdens for one another, we share in Christ’s liberating work. We help grace break-in to our lives so that we might live fully here and now.

Maybe the next time someone asks you, “What’s on your list?”

you’ll have a different answer.

Amen.

The Power of Being Seen

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Luke 21:25-28

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

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His nickname in prison was Trunk, as in Trunk Full of Guns. It wasn’t a bad nickname to have in prison because people thought you were a little crazy, which helps when you are a scrawny teenager who's never been in a fight. As Trunk tells the story in an Esquire Magazine article ten years ago, it was July 6th, 2003. He was nervous, but determined. He and two teens even younger than him were armed like a militia; rifles, shotguns, machetes, handguns, and 2,000 rounds of ammunition. Trunk wasn’t going to a range.

They took to the streets at around 3am. After a failed carjacking attempt, Trunk told his would be accomplices to head back to his house, regroup, and rethink their plan. That’s when the police officer spotted them: three young men dressed in black trench coats and armed to the teeth. Reflecting on that moment, Trunk says, the officer: “jumped behind the door of his car and told us to drop them. It was a standoff. I saw that he was shaking. I kept thinking that he must have a family. I was like, 'I don't want to be the bad guy.' I never wanted to be the bad guy. I still thought of myself as a decent person. I was still able to put myself in his shoes. I hadn't gone past the point of no return.” Trunk still had empathy.

When the officer shouted Down, no one moved. But then slowly, Trunk gave the command to put down their weapons. He spent ten years in prison, a best case scenario for him. And oddly enough, Prison is what saved him, because according to Trunk, he had no other choice but to learn how to talk with other people. If he didn’t, he would have been crushed.

Many years later and Trunk now helps people who were just like him: ostracized, unnoticed, and unseen.

When asked if anything would have prevented him from feeling the way that he did or attempting what he did, Trunk said “I wanted attention. If someone would have come up to me and said, 'You don't have to do this, you don't have to have this strange strength, we accept you,' I would have broken down and given up.” If someone had just seen him, really seen him.

The worst sin, says George Bernad Shaw, toward another person is not to hate them, but rather to not see them, which says to them you don’t matter. We have become quite accustomed to that sin. We struggle forming relationships with the people around us. David Brooks in his book, How to Know a Person, which is the book that jump started this whole series, says “we’re living in the middle of some sort of vast emotional, relational, and spiritual crisis. It is as if people across society have lost the ability to see and understand one another, which has produced a culture that is brutalizing and isolating.”

And all sorts of data backs this up. In the last twenty years, suicide rates have increased by 33%. More than ⅓ of all teens say they regularly feel sad and a sense of hopelessness. We are spending less time with friends and more time alone, making us feel more lonely than ever before, especially young people and young mother in particular. Not to mention that the time we are spending with family and friends can feel tense due to our political climate and ever growing distrust of one another.

In Luke, Jesus speaks of a time when there will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars. There will be distress among the nations, confusion about what’s happening on the earth, and people overwhelmed with fear. When these things happen, our redemption is near, says Jesus.

When we read these texts, often the question is when, when will these things occur? When is our redemption coming? The truth is we are caught up in this in-between time. On one hand our redemption has already come with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Yet on the other hand, we are still waiting for Christ’s return, for things on earth to be as they are in heaven.

We are living in this already, but not yet time. And Advent captures the essence of that time so well. The Christ child has already come, but we prepare ourselves for when Jesus comes again. Which is why asking when is the wrong question. Instead of asking when these things happen, Luke encourages us to ask how, how shall we live in the meantime?

And one of, if not the best answer, to how we can live right now, in this season when we are so lonely, so quick to dismiss, so overcome with fear of the other, is to raise our heads, look each other in the eye, and truly see each other.

We need to learn how we can know and understand one another. We need empathy. This can all be learned.

But for us followers of Jesus, it is not just some skill set. It is also a spiritual practice, a way of being in the world, one that we have lost along the way. Our schools and universities no longer teach these skills.

And a life of social media doesn’t help, because, as Brooks notes, “social media you can have the illusion of social contact without having to perform the gestures that actually build trust, care, and affection. Stimulation replaces intimacy. There is judgement everywhere and understanding nowhere.”

But social media isn’t all to blame. For some the problem is egotism, or all about me thinking. For others it’s anxiety, worry and fear about how others see you. Nothing shuts down a conversation quicker than that fear.

And still for others, perhaps most prominent right now, is the notion that you already know who a person is because of some small piece of information you know about them. They voted this way so they must be like this. They look a certain way, so that means they act and think this way. Some of the generalizations may have some truth to them, but they are also false to some degree, not to mention hurtful.

How can we prepare to welcome Christ when we can’t engage with the Christ who is in our neighbor? How can we sing “What Child is This” when we have no interest in the child of God right next to us.

Afterall, our God is El Roi, the God who sees me. That’s the name Hagar gives God in the book of Genesis. You are seen and known by God. You are loved deeply and understood completely. And if we know how God sees us, then we will know how we ought to see not only ourselves, but others too.

Advent is about preparing ourselves so that we might see, know, and understand Jesus Christ. And the best preparation we can undergo to receive Christ is to see and know others the way God knows and sees us.

When we do so, we are giving others the grace, love, and attention that we have received and that others so desperately need; just ask Trunk.

So this month at Cross of Grace is all about learning how to get to know the beloved child of God sitting right next to you; the neighbor across the street; the family member you struggle to speak with, the stranger at the coffee shop, or the quiet kid who feels like nobody notices him.

This is holy, practical work and we will cover real, pragmatic skills throughout this series. And we will put those skills to practice along the way. On Wednesdays over dinner, we will do some exercises to strengthen our listening, learn how to ask better questions, and how we can grow in empathy.

And then every day in December, starting today, our digital Advent Calendar devotional will reveal an article, a song, a prayer, a reflection, something that will aid us in this spiritual practice of seeing others more clearly.

Because if we can see others the way God sees them, the way God sees us, maybe we won’t be so lonely, our culture won't be so brutal or isolating.

There is still hope. We aren’t past the point of no return. Our redemption is drawing near, if we just open our eyes to see.

Amen.