From the Gospel of Saint Luke:
Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes; truly, I say to you, he will gird himself and have them sit at table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those servants.
Please wait a moment with me.
Last week, Fr. King noted that we should strip ourselves of our encumbering possessions, in order that we might come to our treasures in heaven, with "a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys."
Today, we will be concentrating, not on things, but on time. Our stewardship of our goods must be paralleled with a stewardship of our time.
You might recall my having recounted that, when I first visited the Holy Land twenty years ago, I became faint when our tour group was visiting Gethsemane. The guide told me to rest; they would go on, and return to fetch me later.
An hour later, when I rejoined the bus, as we were leaving Gethsemane, I recalled our Lord's event there on the night before His passion. We all are familiar with the night Jesus went to the Garden of Gethsemane with the disciples.
Taking only Peter, James and John with Him and telling them to watch, He went further to a secluded spot and prayed. When He came back and found them asleep, He said to Peter, "What, could ye not watch with me one hour?" Now, two thousand years later, our Lord in His infinite charity took Deacon David apart for one hour in Gethsemane.
A second opportunity for proper use of waiting time came to me the next day, when I was scheduled to go over to Jordan. When the Jordanian authorities would not permit me to cross the Jordan at the Allenby Bridge, I had still another day in Jerusalem. What to do?
Here we are: I walked the Way of the Cross, the Via Dolorosa, with ample time for meditation on our Lord's final earthly journey. The point: when faced with unexpected time on our hands, are we going to use it for our profit, or are we going to waste it?
Thursday, as I was working on this sermon, there was a power outage in Cambridge. My office with 150 information systems professionals was frozen - with their laptops and workstations immobilized, so were the employees
Eventually, in fact, we were all told we could go home for the day, with pay. Have we become so enslaved to our gadgets in today's culture that we cannot function without them; have we become such servants of our laborsaving devices that we cannot work without them? Have one hundred fifty electronic communication professionals so well learned their trade that they cannot have meaningful activity or communication without electricity?
Perhaps part of the lure of Burma to Deacon David is the relative lack of wonderful gadgets and laborsaving devices. Perhaps the fact that the power fails frequently in Burma helps to account for the pervasive quiet spirituality, which seems such a relief from the West's frenetic busyness. We have much to learn from the contrast between the impotent data processing professionals and the profoundly resourceful Burmese.
The psalmist spoke of identifying the source of our power or strength, when he noted in Psalm 33, recited this morning:
"Let all the earth fear the LORD, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him! He spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood forth."
Back to Golgotha: what was it that Jesus wanted His three chosen disciples to watch for? What did He expect me to watch for? Why just one hour? And why does the Bible keep telling us to be watchful? In Revelation 3:3 we read, "If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee."
Note that the Greek word translated, "watch" here is gregorein, meaning to be awake or watchful. Thus Gregory is the watchman, but also the keeper of the grex, the flock. Thus Gregory is the keeper of the flock, the shepherd.
We have all waited for the arrival of an event or thing; we've all been frustrated when transportation is delayed or a celebration is late starting or a person does not arrive on time.
Think back to a few minutes ago this morning: what were you thinking about as you waited for the prelude signaling the beginning of Mass, or during the pause at the beginning of my sermon? Were you making plans for today; were you preoccupied with the heat; were you wishing a cold glass of water were available?
Or, were you in fact being a good watchman; were you thinking about today's celebration of the invasion of our sick world by the Good Shepherd, sent by the Father to feed his feeble sheep with His own Flesh? Were you ever attentive to the arrival of Jesus?
As Paul cautioned us at the end of the reading from Hebrews this morning, when he spoke of the Old Testament's heroes of faithful watching for the unseen promise:
"These all died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city."
Let us look at how the Bible itself defines for us the meaning of "watch." To be watchful is...
First - to be sure of one's salvation.
In First Thessalonians 5:4-6, we are warned, "But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober."
We have been put apart from the world; we have been given a special vocation, an unique identity, a particular role. The unredeemed will sleep in darkness. Saint Paul tells us that we are not the children of darkness; we who are in Christ are enlightened with that light we proclaim at the Easter Vigil, the very Light of Christ. We will not be fooled by the powers of darkness so long as we remain in the light.
Second - to be watchful is to be strong in the faith.
We read in I Corinthians 16:13, "Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong."
The faithful as seen by Saint Paul are not some faint, weak souls; he paints us as strong, standing fast, resolute, as well we will be if we are indeed watching for the Christ.
Third - to be vigilant against deceivers.
In I Peter 5:8, where the Greek word for "watch" is translated "vigilant", we read the lines which are the antiphon for Compline every night: "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith."
Note that Saint Peter instructs us here, not only that we must not give in to the Devil and his wiles, but that we must actively watch out for him; we must be alert. Thus, waiting on the Lord is not some sleepy passive somnolence; it is alert, aggressive, active, attentive.
And fourth, to be watchful is to serve God faithfully.
In the Gospel of Saint Luke, we read this morning, "Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them."
The point with the "watching" we are to do is that it is not some mysterious attitude, but, as the Bible says, we are to be mentally alert and sober and awake; actually, to become awake, and then remain so, mentally and spiritually
Both in Acts and right after the section of Hebrews we read this morning, Saint Paul is alert to the "evil wolves," to the fornicators and profane persons who will be coming after him. Paul told his audience - and tells us today - to watch out, but to watch out for what?
In Acts 20:28-31, Saint Paul is quoted as saying, "Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with the blood of his own Son. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. Give attention to yourselves, and to all the flock which the Holy Spirit has given into your care, to give food to the church of God, for which he gave his blood."
He encourages us to be strong in this vigilance, when in the section of Hebrews immediately following this morning's lection we see:
"Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with all men, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fail to obtain the grace of God; that no "root of bitterness" spring up and cause trouble, and by it the many become defiled."
The final word was spoken by our Lord in today's Gospel:
"But know this, that if the householder had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an unexpected hour."
We weak sheep are indeed fortunate that our Shepherd is coming this morning to alert us and to feed us with His life-giving Body and Blood, in the name of God, +Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen