Staying awake

 This week's Bible study is on Luke 12:35-40:

“Get dressed for service and keep your lamps burning; be like people waiting for their master to come back from the wedding celebration, so that when he comes and knocks they can immediately open the door for him. Blessed are those slaves whom their master finds alert when he returns! I tell you the truth, he will dress himself to serve, have them take their place at the table, and will come and wait on them! Even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night and finds them alert, blessed are those slaves! But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”

 Jesus calls us to be ready and alert at all times. He compares it to the responsibilities of the night watch. But in our modern, always-connected world, we don't really have a way of understanding what that means. (Except maybe for those of us who have worked as security guards or served in the military.)

Back before 911 call centers and cell phones, you used to have to wait for stuff. If you were supposed to meet someone, you waited around until they arrived. If they were an hour late, you waited an extra hour, a minute at a time, wondering where they were, but waiting in faith that they would arrive. If they were your ride, you would have your stuff with you and be ready to hop into that car.

And if you were worried about a break-in, you would take turns staying awake so that you could hear if someone was trying to break in. If you heard someone, you could then wake up all your friends and descend on the invader with knives and baseball bats to ensure they didn't get away with your stuff.

The thief is not going to send you a note to tell you he is going to stop by at 3am, with a list of the things he intends to take. You have to be alert so you can catch him before it's too late.

And, in Jesus' day, if your boss said "I'm off to celebrate, and I'll be back sometime next week. Not sure when yet, but be ready," you're weren't going to get a text message with a live map to tell you where he is and what time he is due home. Every night that week, you and the other slaves would have to sort out who is staying up when, so that you could be ready when your boss finally came home full of joy.

So what Jesus is saying is that we have to be alert like the guard was alert or like the house slaves were alert, because he isn't going to tell us when and where he will encounter us. (Yes, I know, we all have that one eschatology-obsessed Christian friend who is convinced that they alone know the day and hour of Jesus' return. But no, they don't know either.)

In principle, we understand the obligation to stay alert, but have any of us actually stopped and asked ourselves what that would require of us? Like if Jesus walked in on us right now, would we notice him? Would he catch us doing the things he asked us to do? Or would we be in our phones, splayed out in front of the TV, eating out of a bag, reassuring ourselves that if Jesus ever came back we'd totally do the right thing?

Jesus knows that the onset of sleep is a real thing. After several uneventful hours or days of staring off into the darkness, it's easy to just assume we have time to close our eyes a bit or wander off and take care of some stuff that's been in the back of our mind. We postpone the preparations we told ourselves we'd make.

But that's exactly what Jesus warns us against! We have to stay awake. We have to constantly be in a position where, if we come face to face with Jesus, we are ready. Where if he walks in on us, he sees us doing what we're supposed to be doing. We don't know when the end times will be, and we don't know when our own end times will be. Some of us are getting pretty old, or are taking unnecessary risks. We have to live as though the end times are now.

So, from time to time, ask yourself, "Am I paying attention?" (Are you?) And think to yourself, "If Jesus showed up right now, is this what I would want him to catch me doing?" (Is it?) 

 Be ready and try to stay awake, because you don't know when he's going to show up.