Judgment Day: Christmas, Part 2

When he shall come again in power and great triumph to judge the world, [may we] without shame or fear rejoice to behold his appearing. Amen.
"one will be taken and one will be left"
Taken… When we hear it relating to people, it has scary associations. Like Elizabeth Smart taken from her home at knifepoint… the movie Taken with Liam Neeson where his daughter is kidnapped by human traffickers. Sometimes we talk about people being 'taken from us' by disease, drugs, accidents, mental illness....
When we hear that two will be in a field and one will be taken and the other left – what does being taken mean? What do you imagine?
Two folks standing out there in the garden, pulling radishes, and suddenly one shoots up into the stratosphere, and the other left standing, staring at the sky?
One interpretation of this passage, made famous in the Left Behind series, imagines it somewhat like this – just on a larger scale, like a cosmic evacuation on the eve of a military strike. God, with a handful of rescue ropes tied to his most valuable assets, yanks them up and out of there right before he pushes the big red button.
In this view, to be taken is to be rescued out of the world by God while others are abandoned, left to die with the enemy.
What kind of Good News is that? Not very. It offers salvation only to folks who are on the right side and important enough to rescue. It's a cosmic Halo mission, and you may or may not make it to the chopper to get out before the bombs start falling. It's a gospel that believes the world is doomed to destruction. A gospel that sees God as a powerful and highly unstable leader who may at any moment decide to nuke the whole planet. It's a gospel driven by fear: fear of the enemy, however you would like to define them, but mostly fear of God, because he may go postal and blow you up with everybody else if you don't figure out how to become necessary.
In our culture, everything is charged with fear these days. Everything around us is telling us how to prepare for hurricanes, for floods, for being charged by a bear, for surviving a broken elevator chain, for escaping from a psychopathic serial killer. Buy a security system, a gun, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher – I mean, you never know. Try to secure your position at work so you don't get axed, watch what you say. In relationships, you can't trust anyone; never let down your guard. It's not paranoia if they really are after you. The Left Behind gospel plays right into those fears.
But is this the kind of message Matthew's intends when he says keep awake - you don't know when the Lord is coming… he'll be like a burglar? Should we sit up all night on the couch with a .45? What if he opens the door – shoot him?
That's one of the problems with bad theology. It leads you to conclusions that don't make any sense with the rest of the story.
Let's try another way to read this passage, especially the part about some being taken and others left. What about that word left? Does it mean rejected/abandoned? As in one will be accepted and the other rejected? Just because we have a word pair doesn't mean they're opposites, like good/bad, yes/no, hot/cold; some word pairs are simply related things: parent/child, today/tomorrow, call/response.
Here's one way we use taken/left that doesn't mean accept/reject. We were picking some radishes out of the garden a couple weeks ago. Some we took; others we left. We didn't reject them; they weren't bad. They just weren't ready yet, so we left them a while longer. I don't know if that's a justifiable interpretation here, but I think it's worth considering. At least it makes more sense to me with the rest of the gospel.
And what about taken. What are some other ways we can use it – other than to mean stolen, kidnapped or killed, as in 'he took my wallet' 'that lunatic took our daughter,' 'leukemia took my mom.' What about "receive" or "accept" as in 'take a compliment' 'take a call' 'take help that's offered.'
If you offer someone a compliment, don't you want them to accept it? If you give someone a call, don't you want them to answer? If you give someone a gift, don't you want them to take it? What if that's an accurate way to understand "one will be taken"? One will be accepted, received by God; one person's life as a gift, which God takes. "Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee..."
Christmas will be coming up a few weeks from now; this period of Advent is preparing for it. We're not waiting for Jesus to come, though. We're waiting for him to come back. We say it all the time: "Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again" "We remember his death; we proclaim his resurrection; we await his coming in glory." Advent is actually preparation for Judgment Day – Christmas, part 2. We're not primarily reenacting a period of waiting for Jesus to be born, to pretend like it's happening again. We're preparing for what happens next.
Think of Christmas morning as a day of judgment – it's a moment of truth… All the things that have been hidden under wrapping paper are finally opened and everybody sees what was given.
Now think of Judgment Day like Christmas morning, when God takes and opens the gifts we've offered. That's what Advent is about, working on the gift you're preparing for God. Your life - or what you trade it for - will be your gift, the reciprocal part of the exchange. At Christmas, we opened the gift God gave us. On Judgment Day, he'll open the ones we give him.
When he shall come again in power and great triumph to judge the world, [may we] without shame or fear rejoice to behold his appearing.
Amen