[Jesus said to his disciples:] “But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (Luke 12:39-40)
Jesus is the unexpected burglar, the sneaky nighttime intruder, the one hypothetically breaking and entering into your home in his own illustration. Jesus, so to speak, is the thief of God.
Before we go any further, can we just let that strange image sit with us for a minute? We are so used to respectable metaphors for God: the mighty king on the throne who establishes law and order in the universe, the strong and compassionate shepherd of the wayward flock, the righteous judge, the merciful redeemer, the owner of the vineyard, the master of the house, and the like. We are not ready, I suspect, for the sort of Messiah who thinks he is best described as a cat burglar. And yet here we are. It is a reminder, at the very least, that Jesus does not see himself as merely the Heavenly Enforcer of The Way Things Are, but he is also very much the Disruptor of the Order of the Day, the Holy Troublemaker, and the Divine Turner of Tables.
The gist of this image, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, is the unpredictable timing of Christ's coming in glory. Jesus says we can't pin down when he will come, bringing the fullness of God's Reign, so the only practical strategy we can pursue is to be ready at any time for him to come. Hence the comparison to being ready for a would-be burglar: since you never know what time a thief intends to come and rob you, you need to be alert, on guard, and ready at a moment's notice. Jesus isn't saying that he plans to steal from us, but rather than we can't predict the timing of his arrival, and so the appropriate way to live our lives is with a perpetual openness.
When we were in grade school and knew the teacher was going to be out the next day, it was tempting to skip doing homework because we thought that meant the assignment couldn't be collected the next day by a substitute, or when we thought a snow day was likely to cancel school. When the restaurant staff thinks they aren't due for a health inspection, they are more likely to be lax with rigorously following cleanliness rules. When the senator wins re-election, it is easy to stop caring about the concerns of constituents, because it feels like no one can take your place for the next six years. We all have times and places in our lives where we want to go on "autopilot" mode because we tell ourselves that we know there will be no review of our work for the foreseeable future. And if we had a fixed date we knew would be the time of Jesus' coming, it would be terribly easy to tell ourselves we could coast until the day before, like students cramming for a test. But Jesus doesn't give us that option. He insists we will not and indeed cannot know the timing of his arrival, and so we have no choice but to live constantly with the possibility of his coming. We have to treat him like the thief who might attempt to break in at any moment.
Now, the other thing to consider about Jesus' curious self-comparison with a cat burglar is that maybe Jesus knows that some part of us doesn't really want him to come, bringing the fullness of the Kingdom, because it will rearrange our lives and mess with our own plans. If we have built our lives on the assumption that the goal is to get rich or have more stuff, there is a part of us that gets squeamish about the idea of Jesus coming in glory to reveal to us that our possessions didn't mean anything and our money has no lasting worth. If we have spent our energy trying to puff ourselves up and push others down to make ourselves look like winners, it will be uncomfortable to have Jesus set up God's upside-down kingdom where the lowly are lifted up, the arrogant proud are taken down a few pegs, and the old ideas of "success" are thrown out the window. If we have arranged our priorities based on the current powers of the day, whether it was the Roman Empire in the first century or the "world order" in the twenty-first, we won't want Jesus to appear and reveal himself as Lord of Lords, before whom every empire crumbles to dust. It's been said before by plenty of preachers and theologians before, but it bears repeating: maybe part of why Jesus compares himself to a thief is his awareness that if he did show up in our midst, we wouldn't let him in, because we don't want him to come and mess with the order in which we have currently arranged our lives and our world, even if it is actually a terrible and crooked sort of order. We would raise the drawbridge, lock the door, and bar the windows in order to keep out the table-turning, trouble-making Son of God who is intent on rearranging our hearts, our lives, and our loves. But Jesus is insistent, like a thief in a heist movie, on getting in past our defenses.
On a day like today, our calling as disciples is to learn how to long for Jesus' coming, and to see it, as Jesus does, as a good surprise for the world. Yes, Jesus will surely overturn a great deal of the established way of the world in his coming, and that will make us uncomfortable at first, since so much of our lives has been built it. It's scary to imagine that empires and superpowers all have an expiration date if that's the only world you've known. It's frightening to hear that the institutions everyone says will last forever could be brought to an end. It's uncomfortable to know that we are not in control. But it is still deeply good, Jesus insists, that he is coming and will rearrange the values and order of the world in light of his own character. It is good that Jesus insists on coming when we least expect it, so that we can be reminded what really matters in life, and what really does not. It is good, too, for us to live our lives now with the awareness that our stacks of money, piles of possessions, and our impulse to look "better" than the next person will all be ultimately worthless, and instead what will last is love, joy, peace, and gentleness. It is good to be reminded now that we cannot control, schedule, or manipulate Jesus' coming or bend God's kingdom around our timetables, and instead to live ready for Jesus to come in glory at any time. And maybe just that realization will change the way we think of Jesus' coming--so that we no longer see him as a thief we have to fend off with vigilance, and more like a loved one coming home from the airport. You don't know when the door will open, but you know you will be glad to see a familiar face.
Today, may we surrender all our old need for control to the timing and rearrangements of Jesus, the Thief of God.
Lord Jesus, ready us for your coming, and lead us to live this day wisely in light of your unexpected ways.
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