Separation. Reconciliation.

Text: Matthew 24:36-44 Other texts: Romans 13:11-14

Separation. Reconciliation.

Separation and reconciliation. They make the world go ‘round. Literally. Our planet longs to move on in a straight line, free from the sun. Without the sun, that’s just what it would do. But the sun pulls it back, every second the sun pulls the earth away from its headstrong straight-ahead path, and therefore the earth circles the sun. Even though its momentum seeks independence, it is grateful for its constant reconciliation with the sun. For without that, there is no life here. No us. No Advent.

In a similar way the electrons circle the core of the atom, allowing large things to form like people and churches. And inside those cores, quarks circle each other. This is not a permanent condition. Particles break loose from time to time. Good thing they do, or there would be no energy for life or electricity or much else. But in the short term, at least, things do not fall apart, the center does hold, we have a world that exists long enough for us to be grateful for it.

It is not just physics. Children orbit their parents, then run away to the playroom, the playground, the playing fields, in widening curves. And then return for comfort, hope, safety, peace. Lovers circle one another, binary stars. They drift away, run away, or are pulled away by other callings, to work or war or wondering about the green pastures on the other side of the fence, and then if lucky are drawn back to one another in a partial unity that is both fragile and rugged.

We are not permanent creatures. In the last few months at Faith we have had a bushel of births and deaths. We come and go. Together and not.

Separation is inevitable. So when Jesus speaks about two women, one taken and one left, that is not remarkable in any way. That’s life. Ordinary life. Matthew wants to show Jesus talking about a remarkable time, the end time. Matthew, like his contemporaries, was interested in the end of the world. Because, among other things, the world for them was not so great. Jesus lived on this earth in a time when the end of time seemed welcome, the separation of all of us, or some of us, from this worldly world. And a reconciliation, at the same time, of people with God, with God’s love, living in a unity with others and with God that would be more close than the closest lovers. A new place and time.

Two will be in the field, but one will be taken and one left. That is the way of things. We do not have to conjure up some sort of cosmic dislocation for that to happen. It happens all the time. In the simplest ways. Friends move away. Or we do. Spouses or partners part. Children grow up and move on. Interests change. People get sick and out of the loop. People leave us through death.

It is the way of things, but it is not what we want. We want to be close to one another. To not fight and quarrel and do battle. To not be estranged and awkward and at odds. To not be lonely. To not be hateful to others. To have no love unrequited. We want reconciliation.

We want this for ourselves, our individual selves, in our own lives with our own families and friends and colleagues, even, and neighbors.

We want this for our world, for the nations and peoples of the world.

We want this for us and God.

The story of God and humans is a story of separation and reconciliation. In the days of Noah, as Jesus says. God gives up on humans, washing them and creatures all away, then in the end saves them after all. Isaiah tells Israel that it and God are estranged, but in the end the two are back together again. We get angry at God and, it seems, God at us. But never for long, and never forever.

Imagine the disciples living at the time when Matthew’s Gospel was written, long after Jesus had died and been raised up. Imagine how frightened, sad, and hopeful they must have been. Imagine how desperately they must have wanted Jesus back, as desperately as we want an old friend back, as desperately as someone who has lost the one who gives one’s life meaning, as desperately as one who is left behind.

In Advent we long for the coming of Christ and the re-coming of Christ. It is an emotionally complicated time. We anticipate separation and reconciliation. The coming of Jesus at Christmas and the return of Jesus—who knows when. No one knows, Jesus says. The mystery of faith, we say in the prayer of thanksgiving: Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.

Some find the end-of-the-world stuff creepy. Especially in these days when people write about it with such glee and triumphalism. But the separation we hear about in this story is not the point of the story. That is the context of it, the sorrow of it. No one hearing this story would have been pleased by hearing that in the field one will be taken and one left. That is not a good thing. That is just plain sad.

What is a good thing is that we continue to expect in some time to find hope, peace, joy, and love. That the son pulls us back around. That we expect in some time to be reconciled to one another, all of us, all people, all peoples, and that we expect to be reconciled with God.

Advent is a time for reflection on our life now and on what might come into our lives in the future. It not a time for us to be either gloomy or self-righteous. Put aside the works of darkness, the apostle Paul says, and put on the armor of light. In these weeks ahead, be with God. And be with one another.