I'll Take First Watch

Brad Sullivan

1 Advent, Year A

November 27, 2016

Emmanuel, Houston

Romans 13:11-14
Matthew 24:36-44

I’ll Take First Watch

“I’ll take first watch.”  That is a frequent refrain on the AMC hit TV series, “The Walking Dead”, a show which I have been watching the TV show now for years.  For those unfamiliar with The Walking Dead, it is a show about a zombie apocalypse and the struggle for survival of those few humans left who are not the walking dead.  Whether the survivors are walking through the wilderness or living in the moderate safety of a walled-in community, there are constant threats from zombies (what they call “walkers”) and even from other humans.  So, “I’ll take first watch” is a frequent refrain on the show, a life or death situation.

“I’ll take first watch” was also about the first thing that popped into my head when I read this Sunday’s gospel lesson from Matthew 24, in which Jesus told his disciples to keep awake and be ready.   Jesus telling his disciples to stay awake and be ready for the second coming…keeping watch during a zombie apocalypse…they’re pretty close, right?

Jesus had given these calamitous images of what would precede his coming again.  There is going to be a lot of darkness in the world before the return of the light.  So, in the mean time, keep watch.  Keep your lights burning.

The apostle Paul had this to say about keeping our lights burning:

You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.  (Romans 13:11-14)

Ok, so that actually sounds like a bit of a far cry from taking first watch against the threat of zombie attack.  Then again, these ideas of keeping alert, of laying aside the works of darkness and putting on the armor of light kind of fit with the walking dead analogy. 

Keep ready, lest you become one of the walking dead.  Put on the armor of light, lest you become one who is living, but who has little real life within him, what Paul calls in his first letter to Timothy, “the life that really is life.” (1 Timothy 6:19)  Stay alert lest you become one who has lost compassion.  One who has lost humility.  One who has lost unconditional love.  Stay alert lest you become one for whom forgiveness is rarely if ever freely given, but rather is given only as quid pro quo for some form of restitution.  Stay alert lets you become the walking dead, one who demonizes the other out of fear.  One for whom fear and anger have taken hold so much so, that despair and hatred are a way of life.  Stay alert lest you become a lifeless walker, one for whom belittling, beating, or even killing out of fear, or one’s religion, is preferable to taking the risky road of love, the risky road of living in peace.  The list of the walking dead goes on and on. 

So, “I’ll take first watch” actually fits rather well with our Gospel for today, although taking watch does look decidedly different than arming oneself hand and foot to try to take down a zombie.

For us, taking the watch looks a bit more like the prayer of St. Francis.  Rather than simply pray this prayer, I am going to sing it.  This is something I do from time to time during sermons.  This is a particular arrangement that I wrote combining the Prayer of St. Francis with the Serenity Prayer.

Lord, make us servants of your peace.     

Where there is hatred may we sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.                  

Where there is discord, union.

Where there is doubt, may we sow faith.         

Where there’s despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, may we sow light.   

 Where there is sadness, joy.

Lord, grant us serenity to accept what we can’t change,

Courage to change the things we can,

Wisdom to know the difference,

And make us servants of your peace.

Grant that we may not so much seek  

To be consoled as to console,

To be understood as to understand,                 

To be loved as to love,

For it is in giving that we receive,                  

And it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

And it is in dying that we are raised to live.

Lord make us servants of your peace.

That’s what taking the watch looks like in Jesus’ kingdom.  The prayer of St. Francis is keeping alert in Jesus’ kingdom, putting on the armor of light, as Paul wrote. 

Paul, Francis, Jesus are saying that what we do really does matter.  For Paul, this may seem a little paradoxical, considering that he and many in the early church believed Jesus was coming back very soon.  They were thinking, “Any day now, Jesus is going to come back and redeem the whole world.”  Well, with the belief Jesus was coming back very soon to redeem the whole world, why would what anyone did matter?  Jesus was right about to fix it, and yet, Paul believed that what they did, the actions they took in their lives, mattered a great deal. 

Our actions matter not because our actions are ultimately going to redeem the world.  Jesus is going to and has already redeemed the world.  Jesus is going to restore all of creation.  Some would think then that nothing we do matters.  Not so.

Jesus is Lord of all creation, and Jesus is Lord of each of us.  He has offered to be Lord of our hearts.  Why?  Because if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.

We can’t bring about the ultimate redemption of the world.  We can, however, help in the redemption of countless lives in the mean time.  We can help in the redemption of countless broken relationships.  We can help in the redemption of countless seemingly hopeless situations.  We can help in the redemption of the countless poor choices people make and poor paths people take.  We can be the light for those in darkness, helping them to see the light of Jesus, and the light of his way. 

We get to keep watch, to keep the light shining in the darkness.  Like stars shining in the night, the darker the night seems, the more stars you see.  As my five year old goddaughter, Avery, said while dancing and singing to herself in her house, “Every single star you see is one good act.”  The more we keep watch, the more stars people see, the more we shine in the darkness to guide people to the light of Jesus, to the life that really is life.

So, be a servant of God’s peace.  Be a light in the darkness.  Take first watch.  Amen.