From Patheos:
The Fear of Abandonment: Advent Reflections on Matthew 24:32-44
November 19, 2010
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By Alyce McKenzie
This is the first reflection in our Advent Series, "The Hopes and Fears of All the Years," by biblical scholars and preachers John C. Holbert and Alyce McKenzie. For an overview of the series with links to all the reflections, click here.
First Sunday in Advent:
Matthew 24:32-44
Snow Globe Scene or Live Nativity?
I've always been fascinated by snow globes. First made in France in the 1800s, they quickly became a staple in gift shops around the world. Snow globe scenes can run the emotional gamut from trivial to touching. They portray angels, Easter bunnies, Smurfs, Teddy Bears, Halloween haunted houses, Santa in his sleigh, etc. They range in price from affordable by everyone to pricey globes made by Spode and Lennox. Some are motorized so the snow is battery-circulated. Some include a music box.
I found one on EBay whose base is the city of Bethlehem, and whose contents are the Holy Family. It plays "O Little Town of Bethlehem" when you wind the key on the base. And that's how many people view the stories and scenes of Advent. As timeless and irrelevant tableaus, encased in glass. That's how many view the people who show up in the stories and scenes surrounding Advent. They don't seem real. They seem like extras from the some first-century actors' guild. Like still figures in a snow globe scene.
This Advent series seeks to do them justice as people with real hopes and fears and therefore, with a real connection to us and to our hopes and fears.
The Necessity for Watchfulness
My NRSV Bible gives our text for November 28 from Matthew (24:36-44) the heading "The Necessity for Watchfulness." It is sandwiched between Jesus ‘ teachings about how to recognize signs that the Son of Man is about to arrive and several parables that commend readiness for the imminent judgment that awaits (ten bridesmaids, talent, sheep and goats).
In between comes this weird text that features barren fig trees, people snatched from their plowing, and a thief casing out your house, figuring out the best time to break in.
We could probably make a snow globe with a barren fig tree in it, with the scene from the field or mill, or one that has a little Thomas Kincaid type cottage and a thief trying to break in. These might make nice holiday decorations. Or not.
This text expresses our common human fear of abandonment, our fear of being "left behind." It tells us that we need to be keeping watch so we don't miss the Son of Man's return and get "left behind," abandoned.
What snow globe scenes of abandonment are on the shelves of your memory?
Sad Snow Globe Scenes
A friend moving away, the moving truck pulling up in front of his house.
A relationship ending because the one we love "wants to see other people."
Kids going off to college.
Young adult children moving to another state with the grandchildren.
Parents divorcing; loved ones dying; isolation in prison or another institution, where, for the third visitors' day in a row, no one comes to call.
These scenes from our lives evoked by this text would make depressing snow globe scenes.
The text includes three features that make it very difficult for us not to fear abandonment as we wait for the Son of Man:
1) This task of staying alert for the Son of Man's coming is to replace all other priorities
2) Yet that task is made very difficult because there are convincing false teachers who also produce signs.
3) On top of all of that, the Son of Man is deliberately choosing the most unexpected time to show up (24:44).
We're afraid we're the fig tree that is tough and leafless even though summer is near.
We're afraid we're animals not judged worthy of survival, or not part of a pair, when the Ark pulls up.
I know the text talks about people partying, but as a child I worried more about the animals that didn't make it. (They showed us a cartoon in Sunday school, which apparently exacerbated my 6-year-old fear of abandonment.)
We're afraid we're the householder asleep beside the door while the thief is breaking in.
We're afraid we're the one left in the field, now working alone. Or the one grinding meal, only now working alone. We don't want to be abandoned. We want to make the cut, get the invitation, receive an acceptance letter, make the team, and be part of a family. We don't want to be abandoned.
I heard of a grown woman who still tears up at the memory of being 7 years old on a family trip and being accidentally left behind at a gas station as the family station wagon drove off. She remembers the feeling of the concrete under her thin-soled sneakers, the smell of gasoline, the family car growing smaller and smaller in the distance, the sound of someone crying that turned out to be her. They came back as soon as they noticed she was missing, but the memory of those minutes remains.
I still remember the tactless rejection letter I got when applying for a teaching position years ago.
"While our search continues, it no longer includes you." Why would I still remember something like after all these years?
Because the fear of abandonment, rejection, not being chosen, being passed over and left behind, and being completely alone to face the future is one of the fears that abides through all the years, through all the centuries, from the last verse of "O Little Town of Bethlehem" to today.
I'm not saying we should be completely without fear. Make no mistake, there is a bite to these texts at the end of Matthew, these apocalyptic panoramas, these readiness parables (ten bridesmaids, 25:1-13; talents 25:14-30), these scenes of sheep and goats (25:31f).
Our Abandonment of God
We should fear, not God's abandonment, but our not being alert and ready, not living in expectation of the return of the Son of Man. We should fear the possibility that we might abandon God. Romans 8 tells us that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ. Not principalities, powers, height, nor depth. The only one who can separate us from God is ourselves. We can abandon God by our lack of receptivity, by our failing to invite the Son of Man into our lives, and by our failure to get ready for his arrival. It's no good saying nobody told us how to get ready. The whole gospel of Matthew is about that. Be a hearer and a doer of the teachings of Jesus. When the Messiah arrives, it is too late to prepare oneself for the kingdom. Only those who are ready will participate.
Matthew 24:36 prohibits the project of seeking to calculate the times and predict Jesus' return. As Douglas Hare points out in his commentary on Matthew, "Not even the Messiah knows when the end will occur! Not even the highest archangels are privy to the Father's intention! How foolish it is for humans to think they can play with biblical numbers and ambiguous prophecies and discover what was hidden even from Jesus!" (Douglas Hare, Matthew: Interpretation Bible Commentary, 282)
His Name Is Emmanuel
The good news of Advent is that the Son of Man is appearing in the skies of our inner lives right now. The beginning of Matthew's gospel says, "His name shall be called ‘Emmanuel,' which means, ‘God with us.'" Our fears of abandonment are met by our God who comes to make his home in our lives. God is with us when all human supports fail us. God is with us when we experience isolation and rejection. God with us is the hope on which our Advent and Christmas seasons are built; this is the vision of home toward which they point. In this sense Advent is the Hope of Homecoming bumping up against the fear of abandonment.
I said earlier that this text contains three troubling features:
1) This task of staying alert for the Son of Man's coming is to replace all other priorities
2) Yet that task is made very difficult because there are convincing false teachers who also produce signs.
3) On top of all of that, the Son of Man is deliberately choosing the most unexpected time to show up (24:44).
On reflection, these three features of this text seem more helpful than annoying. They seem like a spiritual guide to Advent.
During Advent we make getting ready for the coming Son of Man our priority.
During Advent we ignore false teachers and materialistic priorities to listen to him.
During Advent, we realize that the most unexpected time for the Son of Man to show up is right now. The most unexpected place is right here.
Hope of homecoming (expressed in Isaiah 2:1-5) bumps up against our fear of abandonment. We still have time to be ready. For the Son of Man's return is every time we look up and see the face of the Crucified, Resurrected one appearing in the skies of our lives.
Phillips Brooks wrote the lyrics to "O Little Town of Bethlehem" after a Christmas visit to the Holy Land in 1865. The last verse addresses our fear of abandonment with the hope of Emmanuel.
O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin, and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell
O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel!
Sources cited:
Douglas Hare, Matthew: Interpretation Bible Commentary (Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox Press, 1993)
Read John C. Holbert's Old Testament reflection for this week here.
Alyce M. McKenzie is Professor of Homiletics, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. Visit her Patheos Expert site here.
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