Living Ahead of the Curve--December 1, 2022

Living Ahead of the Curve--December 1, 2022

"Besides this, 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 first became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near." [Romans 13:11-12a]

These days, when the alarm clock starts buzzing at our house, it is an act of faith to believe that it's really morning.  The light on the display says it's 5:00am or 6:00am, but the absence of light outside the window makes it look identical to midnight.  And from time to time, I will confess, I almost have to talk myself into accepting the fact that it's time to get out of bed.  After all, to my eyes, it looks like the dead of night, and to my perfectly comfortable arms and legs, staying in bed seems like the ideal plan.

My guess is that you have been there, too, before.  I suspect you are more disciplined than I am and can will yourself out of bed even on a very dark morning with less self-persuasion, but you probably know what it's like to have to tell yourself it really is morning even when it's still dark outside.  And you probably have had to remind yourself that you do need to get up and face the day.

But for that one moment, the decision to put your feet on the floor and begin the day flies in the face of the outside evidence.  Choosing to arise, take your shower, get dressed, and step into the day is, at least in that moment, a sort of defiant hope that a sunrise really is coming.  Waking up and getting out of bed is an act of faith in spite of the external circumstances outside your window and your own internal impulse to stay as comfortable as possible for as long as possible.

While I don't know what time the apostle Paul would have set his personal alarm clock for, I do get the sense he's thinking along the same lines for us as the followers of Jesus.  Except it's not just the start of another workday that he wants us to wake up for--it's the dawning of God's new day and the coming of Christ.  Paul sees--and wants us, his readers, to see as well--everything in our present life illuminated by the hope of Jesus' coming in glory and the fullness of God's Reign.  For Paul, the coming of Christ is as sure and certain as the arrival of the sunrise. And just as the world looks completely different once the dawn has come, he knows that all creation is in for a transformation at the coming of Christ's Reign of justice and mercy.  For now, of course, the world looks like it's stuck at midnight, weighted with gloom outside and the tempting impulse to just pull the covers over our heads and go back to sleep.  But Paul is convinced that it is worth it, right here and now, to begin to live in light of the promised future for which we are keeping watch.  It is worth it, even if the rest of the world thinks we look utterly foolish for doing so.

Of course, in Paul's day, it would have been laughable to suggest that the Roman Empire wouldn't last forever and that some new rightful figure would arise on the world scene.  It was even more preposterous to say that the one they were waiting for was actually the same one the Empire had crucified.  Even still today, it sounds like nonsense to many to suggest that there is another way of living, rather than the Everyone-For-Themselves-Dog-Eat-Dog logic that passes for conventional wisdom these days.  Paul doesn't deny that all of that crookedness, violence, and greed is how an awful lot of the world operates right now--he just dares us to live out of step with it, by starting to live in light of the new way that is beginning through Jesus.  He dares us to be ahead of the curve: to start now while it still looks like midnight outside to wake up now in anticipation of the dawn the world can't see yet.

It reframes our whole understanding of the Christian faith, and our entire life, really, to see things this way.  It means that our way of life--what we sometimes call "Christian ethics"--isn't so much about controlling bad behavior in order to avoid punishment in the afterlife, but more about beginning to live now in the kinds of right relationships we look forward to in the new creation.  When Christ comes, we believe that there will be no more greed, violence, and hatred--so we begin to practice living now without those vices, like people who know to leave behind their pajamas and put on clothes for the day ahead.  It's less about fearing punishment and more about stepping into God's promised future.

What if we changed that piece of our thinking today?  What if each day now was begun with the question, "How will we live and act in the fullness of God's reign when Christ comes?" and then we started to step in that direction?  What if we no longer worried about how we look to the rest of the world, but rather saw ourselves trying to live ahead of the curve?  What if we believed Paul's alarm clock voice telling us the night is far gone, even we can't see the dawn yet when we look out the window?

That's the challenge for this day.  It's time to put our feet on the floor... and to rise to greet the new day.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage and strength to live in light of your coming reign, even when that makes us seem out of step with the violence and greed of the world around.