Stay alert

This week's study is on Mark 13:32-37:

“But as for that day or hour no one knows it—neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son—except the Father. Watch out! Stay alert! For you do not know when the time will come. It is like a man going on a journey. He left his house and put his slaves in charge, assigning to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to stay alert. Stay alert, then, because you do not know when the owner of the house will return—whether during evening, at midnight, when the rooster crows, or at dawn— or else he might find you asleep when he returns suddenly. What I say to you I say to everyone: Stay alert!”

These verses are part of a conversation Jesus is having about his return. People always want to know when he is coming back, so that they can wait until the last minute to get their lives together. If you knew Jesus would return ten years from now, and that you would be alive to see it, a lot of us would be tempted to spend nine years, eleven months, and twenty-nine days screwing around, with "church" penciled in on the thirtieth day.

But Jesus says that nobody knows when that day will come. Not even the angels or Jack Van Impe. We're told with 100% certainty that this thing will happen, but we aren't told when. What do you do in a case like that? How do you allocate your time and make life decisions when you don't know whether we will be waiting for five minutes or five generations?

Jesus uses the analogy of slaves being asked to keep a house in running condition for when the owner gets back. Each is given the work they need to do, and the doorkeeper is asked to stay alert. But they don't even know what day or what time of day the master will return. It's a difficult task, but it's not impossible to imagine someone being able to pull it off. It's the same for us.

I read a lot of military memoirs. It's a good exposure to an area of human experience I hope never to experience personally, and often I find myself learning things I can apply to my Christian life. In one of the books, the author is in one of a number of trench outposts in a defensive line that had been mostly overrun by the enemy the night before. As he walks along the trenches the next morning, he finds a bunch of guys in the other outposts were killed while they slept, or were killed while playing cards or reading magazines. Even though they were at war, and had orders to stay alert, the men in some of the outposts had gotten tired and complacent, and it cost them their lives.

When I read this week's verses, they remind me of that story. The guys in that situation knew the enemy would attack eventually, but they didn't know when or how. Over time, it got to feel like it was something far off, maybe something that would never happen. Meanwhile there were things to do now, like catching up on sleep, socializing with friends, reading up on the news. But the enemy came silently and suddenly, and they had no time to make a defense. Woe indeed to those who were found sleeping!

People used to have the same attitude towards wearing seat belts in cars. They knew that eventually an accident could occur, but figured they could just put the seat belt on at the last minute if it looked like they were going to crash. The problem is that you don't always know when you're about to crash! That's why they're called accidents! One minute you're relaxing, enjoying the ride, unbuckling so that you can give the driver advice as she puts on her lipstick, and the next you're in a head-on collision with a semi. Intellectually you know that you should be wearing the seat belt, but in the situation, you don't make it a priority.

It's the same thing for us when our time is up. We know mentally that we need to be on the alert and to follow Christ, but in the moment sometimes we just want to unbuckle and move around. We want to sit back, coast a bit, take a nap, play some cards, and just act like nothing is going to happen. Except, as Jesus says, "Watch out!"

In a way, each of us is kind of like a group of slaves who are tasked to work as a unit. I've heard the doorkeeper in the parable described as our decision-making capacity on what to let into our lives. In that context, the secret to staying alert seems to be to carry on with the various threads of our Christian lives, slaves making sure the fridge is stocked, that things are clean, making adjustments to ensure the master will be pleased, while part of you is always on the guard as to what else makes it in. 

Do I start that new Netflix series? Do I become an unpaid political activist? Do I schedule something a little more fun on Bible study night? With our modern focus on trying to pack every moment of our lives full of activity and entertainment, the parable might have had the master come home to find the slaves had turned his house into an airbnb rental. "Sorry Lord, there's no place for you. We've got every room booked. Here's some money though."

Our ability to be good Christians depends on our ability to keep our focus where it belongs. Our inner foreman, our door keeper, needs to be sure that the slaves don't sleep in or forget their jobs. If even men at war don't always get it right, it's not a responsibility we should just default to thinking we have handled.

Jesus says it over and over again: Stay alert! He says it to everyone. He repeats it in nearly every sentence. Stay alert! Don't get caught sleeping. Remember what you are here to do. Remember whose house it is. Don't think you can just reach over and buckle up as the end approaches.

What Jesus is telling us is that we should live our lives as if he is returning today, but also live for the future. We don't know if he is returning today, but we also don't know if he is not. The best strategy in that case is to live in such a way that if he were to return, we would feel prepared.

Stay alert. Watch out. If the time was up now, would you be ready? If not, what would you have changed? What would you have avoided? What would you have started doing? The answers to those questions will probably change over time, but paying attention to them is what will make you ready in the end.