Scripture Matthew 24:32-44

Jesus said, “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that the Son of Woman is near, at the very gates. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

“But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Most High God. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Woman. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Woman. Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Redeemer is coming. But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, the owner would have stayed awake, and would not have let the house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Woman is coming at an unexpected hour.

Sermon

I have a question for you: Do you like to know the ending of a book or a movie before you’ve read or watched it? Or do you do everything possible to avoid knowing the ending? I’m the latter… I will avoid reviews, shush people who’ve already read or seen it, and in every way bury my head in the sand, metaphorically speaking, in order to NOT know the ending of something I haven’t yet read or watched.

Then, this week I heard this, by the marvelous preacher, Anna Carter Florence:

When I was in high school, I had an English teacher named Miss Hayes who was famous for giving away the endings of the books we read. In fact, she’d do it deliberately. On the first day of class, she’d stand up front with the list of novels and short stories we were going to read that semester and speed-talk through every plot, like a movie reviewer. And because she was so good at it, we were always drawn into the story—spellbound 16-year-olds, ready to go home and tackle Moby Dick or The Scarlet Letter—and then, with no spoiler alert…she’d tell us the ending. Every time. We’d groan, and she’d grin, and say, “The most important thing about a story isn’t what happens. It’s how it happens. I’m telling you the ending so you can read the story backwards.”[i]

And, in a way, that’s what both Jesus and the lectionary for the first Sunday in Advent are doing: They’re telling us the end of the story. And the end of the story is this: God’s love makes right everything that is wrong. God’s love banishes everything that is evil and amplifies everything that is good, and spreads it over the whole world, so that all creation lives in peace and joy and gratitude.

I don’t need to tell you in detail about the chaos our world is facing in this moment. You know of the wars, including the culture wars. You know about the fraying of the social safety net, gutting people’s medical care and their ability to obtain food. You know of the deep polarization in our nation and world, and you know all about the climate disaster we are facing. You know of the epidemic of isolation and despair we see all around us.

These things we know. But this is not the end of the story. We also know, as Jesus says in the tiny parable at the beginning of our passage, that we can see signs of things all around us that are beautifully hopeful, that point towards the ending we’ve already been told. When the fig tree puts out its fruit, we know, says Jesus, that summer is coming. This isn’t a threat. It’s an image of abundance and hope. We know the end of the story, and the end of the story is abundance and redemption. Our faith teaches us that Christ will return at the end of time and make everything right; this we know. What we don’t know is when or how. It’s clear from Jesus’ words, that no one knows when, not even him, and it’s folly to try to figure out God’s timing. But our passage gives us little hints about how, about what those signs might be.

For instance: Jesus summarizes the story of Noah. As Noah builds the ark, apparently, his neighbors shrug, and keep going to work and living their lives until the floods sweep them away. But there’s is a hopeful truth in this tragic story, because there are Noahs all around us. They include the hunger heroes who staff our food pantries, and the substance abuse counselors who help people to find their lives again, and the teachers who see and recognize and create safe spaces for troubled kids. There are Noahs in every hospital, underpaid and overworked nurses who provide top notch care for ailing people, and chaplains who pray with patients in their fear and anxiety, and aides who make them smile. There are Noahs who treat every person they encounter as human beings deserving of dignity, no matter their situation. There are Noahs all around us, and they are signs of God’s love that will spread through the world, that is already spreading through the world. They are beacons of hope.

Another hint comes in the strange verses that, apparently, inform the theology of the rapture, called “dispensationalism.” “Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left.” (Mt. 24:40-41). Dispensationalism is the invention of a nineteenth century British man, John Nelson Darby. Due to a unique concoction of verses from Matthew, the first letter to the Thessalonians, and the book of Revelation, he believed that God would snatch the faithful from the world once the beginning of the end of time had arrived. Those people would be raptured into heaven, giving them a dispensation from the pain and difficulties of what he refers to as “the tribulations.”

This was a fringe theory until the 1970’s and the publication of Hal Lindsey’s “The Late, Great Planet Earth,” which I somehow got a hold of when I was in the seventh grade. In the 1990s the juggernaut that was the Left Behind series took dispensationalism into the mainstream. All mainline Protestant denominations, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican and Episcopal Churches, and the Orthodox churches reject it outright. It is not sound doctrine. An overture rebuking this theology was passed at the PCUSA General Assembly in 2001.

So… do those verses mean, as we Presbyterians read them? I steered our Bible Study wrong on this past Tuesday. I told them that, at the time the gospel of Matthew was being written down, the church was undergoing persecution, and these verses referred to people being arrested, taken by the authorities to be questioned and possibly punished for their beliefs. I got the part about persecution right, but I got the other part wrong. Here, Jesus is referring to the beloved community gathering its people close when danger was near. These people were being taken to safety.

Of course, we have a modern day parallel around efforts being made in our nation to protect innocent immigrants from being taken into custody. Many of these individuals are either already citizens, or are documented as either refugees or being in the process of walking the path to citizenship. We all witnessed the community response last summer in Owego, at the taking of Roger Huang, beloved owner of a local Chinese restaurant, as he was on his way to a Green card hearing in Buffalo. People in cities around our nation are responding to these abductions with love and action, arranging the help of attorneys for their missing neighbors, establishing neighborhood watches, and joining in prayer for the people they care about—sometimes, people they don’t even know. These, too, are beacons of hope.

We do not know when the last days will come to pass. But Jesus has given us at least two pathways to hope, ways of being in the world we can already witness in our own place and time. And there’s one more. Jesus says, we should “be ready,” for he will return at an unexpected time.

How can we be ready? One way is to place our hope and confidence in his assurances: We know the end of this story: God’s love makes right everything that is wrong. Hope and love will win. We can pray about it: We can give thanks every day that God’s love will win. We can give thanks for the ending we cannot yet see, but whose glimmers we can catch as we witness the noblest instincts of humanity in action. We can give thanks for the Noahs, the helpers, and the hunger heroes, and we can pray for more and more people around the world to take up their work.

Another way we can live in hope is to do our part to make God’s world hospitable for God. Writer Christine Sine explains

In his inspirational book “A New Heaven and a New Earth” Richard Middleton suggests that humans were supposed to transform the whole earth into a fitting place, a hospitable place, not just for all creatures, but also for God to dwell. Can you imagine it? God longs for a beautiful place where all creation flourishes and enjoys abundant provision, a place in which God, too, feels welcome and comfortable, able to walk once more in a hospitable relationship with humankind.

It seems to me that the Celtic saints were very aware of this upside-down relationship. When they invited strangers and animals into their homes and monasteries, they did so with the expectation that they could be entertaining angels or Christ as a guest unawares.[ii]

This theory echoes these beautiful verses from the book of Revelation:

“See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God;

he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.” ~Revelation 21:3-4

How can we make the world more hospitable for God, a place where God feels welcome? This is not something any of us can do on our own. Community is key. Each of us can do what we are able, to protect the environment. We can choose to live peaceably with one another. We can try to make our own spaces—our homes, our offices, our prayer spaces, and our hearts—welcoming, not only for other people, but for God. Sine puts it concisely: “In our lives it means doing away with hatred and discrimination and indifference to other humans and to all creation.”[iii] Such an interior environment can provide us with hope, even as it inspires hope in others. To live in confidence and hope, to be a part of community, even in the midst of a chaos-filled world, is our best possible preparation for whatever God has in store for us.

The first Sunday in Advent reminds us of what our faith has already told us: That, in the end, God will right all that is wrong, and banish evil while ensuring that good spreads across the world. Before we get to the story of the babe born in Bethlehem, we get to start at the end, reading our faith story backwards. In doing that, we discover that we can choose lives of peace, and joy, and gratitude now. We can choose to notice the signs of God’s plans unfolding, and we can choose to do our part in those plans. We can live in hope.

Thanks be to God. Amen.

[i] Anna Carter Florence, “Reading Our Story Backwards,” Day 1, Episode #4210, Sunday November 20, 2025, https://day1.org/weekly-broadcast/68ec9b346615fb2e140021ed/reading-our-story-backwards-episode-4210-anna-carter-florence-matthew-24-1-8-32-44-november-30-2025.

[iii] Ibid., p. 67.

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