Over the
weekend our government put US embassies in the Middle East and the northern
part of Africa on high alert. Fearing a
threat from Al Qaeda, military personnel are ready to scramble into action to
protect the diplomatic corps and other civilians.
My recent time in Israel, where
military is always at the ready, reminds me how essential preparation is. Even entering Israel’s airspace in a
commercial plane requires certain protocols, and one dare not fail to comply.
How does an individual or community
sustain a sense of urgency about life?
Vigilance is easier when there is a known threat—a family illness, a
financial catastrophe, a racial incident.
I worry, however, that unless the challenge is pretty personal, many of
us are content to simply be grateful for our comfort, our protection.
Scripture
beckons the people of God to be pilgrims, traveling lightly as in the
Exodus. Jesus’ instruction to his
disciples likewise urged them to take little with them on their apostolic
mission so that they might be receptive to the hospitality offered. Self-sufficiency was not to be their demeanor
among potential believers, yet they were to be prepared.
A sense of
urgency pervades the Gospels, a note we tend to muffle in our preaching. The reign of God is near, and persons must
repent and join the new movement inaugurated by Jesus. He is recruiting followers
whom he expects to be ready for the unexpected, the crucial opportunity to
serve.
Be
dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for
their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door
for him as soon as he comes and knocks.
Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes . . .
(Luke 12:35-37a)
Two actions
demonstrate readiness: lighting one’s lamp and listening. Truly “off the grid,” persons in the first
century were responsible to make sure a light source was available (remember
the “wise virgins.”) Running out of oil
or misplacing one’s lamp sidelined its owner from active participation in
urgent tasks. Perhaps a contemporary
analogy would be an individual or church that has forgotten Jesus’ call to
incarnational discipleship and lives in self-protective ways, extinguishing the
light of the gospel.
This text
also summons the practice of listening.
Can we discern when God is addressing us, beckoning us to urgent
tasks? Faithfulness requires such
attentive discernment.
Molly T.
Marshall
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