33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time - November 13, 2021

My average morning begins like this and I wonder if it might sound similar to many of your mornings too:  I wake up and for a moment there’s still a bit of the fog of sleep clouding my mind, a bit of peace or maybe just nothingness. But then my mind realizes what day it is, “It is Tuesday.” And with that one thought the whole day seems to come crashing into that single moment...I identify what I need to do to leave the house - shower, make my lunch, hunt for my daughter’s socks (we have a million pairs but somehow every morning we have one single sock). And my mind doesn’t stop there - I recall what meetings I have and what patients I know I have to see today, my mind lingers on the details of the meeting I am feeling most anxious about or the patient that feels most distressing. And the thoughts continue, before my feet hit the floor, while I am still lying down I might even fret about dinner and wonder whose turn it is to put our daughter to sleep and who gets to kick their feet up a little earlier before beginning the cycle all over again the next day.  

In one single moment, I try to live through the upcoming 12 hours and predict any possible hazards.

It is not a fun way to wake up but it is my norm.

It is also not a very fulfilling way to live life but it is often the unquestioned and promoted lifestyle of our society.

We are preoccupied people - wondering what’s next…and our elaborate imaginations seem to encourage us to live in the worry/curiosity of what’s next rather than what’s right before us today.

On face value, our readings today seem similarly preoccupied, and reinforce our future focused minds. Both our First Reading and Gospel are Apocalyptic Readings, focused on the end times - what will it look like, who will be there, what will happen to us.

But if that’s all these readings are about, there’s not much value to them because even though they allude to signs of the end times they also say that no one knows when that time will occur. Not super helpful for our anxious, preoccupied minds.

As humans, when given limited information we are really good at filling in the blanks. I have no idea the amount of time and energy that has been spent trying to decipher apocalyptic readings, to identify signs proving its coming but I know it is a lot. And the amount of energy we are tempted to use up in worry and anxiety wondering if we will be the chosen ones or those left behind.

But what if these readings aren’t about some future reality, what if they are about the here and now?

What if they are a description of the present reality and also a commitment from God to us about this very day?

The readings today are about an end but it isn’t about some futuristic end, it is describing the end that is already upon us - our end: our own individual deaths but also (as one theologian reflects) the end of our own particular generation and the reality we have lived through - all of this that seems so substantial, so important, so all-consuming will simply cease to be. That is the truth of this very moment, this very day and the totality of our lives - it is ending.

When I started graduate school at St. John’s, one of the monks took us on a tour of the campus and Abbey. The tour included a stop at the cemetery and he shared that Benedictine spirituality requires “keeping death always before you.”  A seemingly depressing way to live, but not the way he described it, sharing that it isn’t meant to be morose or gruesome, rather knowing that the end will come gives us both freedom and focus. It helps us not to take ourselves and our reality so seriously - that meeting I have today that is making me anxious - oh it’s okay, it will start and finish like every meeting does and it is not a big deal. And it allows us to focus on this unique life we have and the present moment before us.  No longer anxious about that meeting I can actually enjoy the warmth of my blankets before I get up for the day, I can notice how good my hot cup of coffee feels in my mouth, I can see my bright-eyed daughter running to me saying, “Mama Bird, you woke up!”

Our readings today remind us to live in the here and now, because this singular moment is the only moment that we can truly be present to and attend to.

The real revelation within these readings is not about when the end will come but rather who God is and who we are in God.

They are an assurance that in our dying, in our destruction and in the moments that truly are scary and filled with anxiety, God is here and the Word of God will never end. Moreover, just as our recent celebrations of All Saints and All Souls reminded us there is a whole crowd of witnesses around us. Our first reading says that the angel Michael is standing guard over all of us, he always has and always will, we are protected.

And if we believe that promise then we can live in this present moment, we can wake up to now because truly it is the only place that we can truly exist - the only place where we have agency to bring more love and light into this world.

Our first reading says that the wise will shine like bright heavens and the leaders of justice like stars forever more. We are in the process of being transformed, we are in a constant process of conversion and each moment we live in the here and now allows more opportunity for that transformation to occur.

And of course, we are going to stumble and fall in our attempts to be present to the now - to live wise and intentional lives that strive for justice. But our second reading reminds us that Jesus has already lived, died and risen for us.  He is helping us make the same journey and in that respect the end has already come.  He has already defeated the end because now the end has been radically transformed into everlasting life. So we are assured once again when our minds become filled with anxious thoughts, when we try to fit a lifetime of worries and what if’s into a single moment that God has already conquered and we are simply traveling the journey of revelation into our own beautiful identity as God’s beloved.

Our readings today are not a threat but rather a wakeup call. Let us be here, right now, in these bodies, in this limited time and let us celebrate and work hard because this is the only day, the only moment that matters because it is the only one that we are actually living. And though the heavens and earth will pass away, the Word of God will never end and will never abandon us.