Matthew 24:36-44; Romans 13:11-14
December 2, 2007
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
There’s a Men’s Wearhouse TV commercial showing a man wearing a nice suit and people admiring how great it looks while he’s walking down the street. The tagline is “You’re going to like the way you look!”
We all like to look good. And particularly during the Christmas gift-giving season, we go shopping for clothes to give to loved ones. By the way, I wear a size 15 shirt with shorter sleeves!
This past week, we read that if someone were to give all the gifts on the Twelve-Days of Christmas, it would cost $78,100 to buy the 364 items, from a single partridge in a pear tree to the 12 drummers drumming, repeatedly on each day as the song suggests. With this year’s increase in the minimum wage, eight maids a-milking went from $41 to $47 per hour and with higher food costs, six geese a-laying went from $300 to $360. And reflecting higher gold prices, those five gold rings went up 21.5% from $325 to $395.
We live in a culture where we are taught, through advertising, years of schooling, and all the rest that we are able to save ourselves by ourselves, principally through the accumulation of stuff. We think that we will find meaning through what we buy or aspire to buy. In previous generations, they found their identity in what they produced, we now find our identity in what we consume.
When we think that we can save ourselves by ourselves, we are still living in the works of darkness. We have yet to see the light. If we think that we can buy our way into salvation, we have not yet learned how foolish our ways are. We would not be living honorably in Christ. We would be partying about our own achievements. We would be wasting our time in all kinds of debauchery and licentiousness, quarreling and jealousy. In case you didn’t know like me, debauchery is engaging in extreme indulgence especially in sexual pleasures. And licentiousness means disregarding any accepted rules and standards and being morally unrestrained. Unfortunately, we all know what quarreling and jealousy are all about.
Just imagine if I had one of those Men’s Wearhouse suits and all of you guys are jealous about how good I look, this is what Paul is warning against. We would end quarreling and wasting our time on the works of darkness.
Armor of Light
Paul reminds the Roman believers that they do not belong in a black-and-white world anymore. Night is gone. Darkness is over. The light is here, and they must live in it. As Christians, they are children of light and children of the day. Since that is the case, they must conduct themselves honorably by respecting their neighbors. Being children of light, they are to live together as a community of faith not reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Being children of light affects all aspects of one’s life—the larger political state they live in, the neighbors with whom one lives and works, and the brothers and sisters with whom one worships.
Being a Christian means that there are limits to our social behavior. If you embrace the Christian faith, you’re expected to abstain from certain prescribed behaviors and practice certain other prescribed behaviors.
When Christians live like party animals and especially with all of the Christmas office partying that are going on, Paul rightly says, “Stop it!” Reveling, drunkenness, debauchery, licentiousness, quarreling and jealousy are not a Christian lifestyle. Everything we do—at home, church and work—should be to bring people to God. This includes personal morality and ethics. Paul tells us to put on the armor of light.
Armor is meant to protect a person in battle. And when people start partying and having food fights, we need to wear an armor to have the strength to be more of a soldier of light. How can we become a witness of our faith when reveling and partying get out of hand?
Dark Corners
Although we are already the children of light wearing the armor of light, our disobedience as human beings continue to lead us back to living an immoral life. We seem to end up exactly where Paul is warning us not to be.
Sometimes it is so hard to imagine that there could ever be peace in the world when “swords are beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.” Unfortunately, we are in our fifth year of war in Iraq. This is a very dark corner of our world that needs more light.
Sometimes we give up and say, “It is just human nature that we fight and kill each other.” So we estimate what may be a reasonable crime rate for a city like Oakland and just accept that crime is part of city life today. This is a very dark corner of our world that needs more light.
Sometimes we just accept the reality that there will always be a certain amount of dishonesty and irresponsible behavior in our workplaces and owners and supervisors chalk up the theft and loss of goods as the price of doing business. This is a very dark corner of our world that needs more light.
Sometimes it is hard to admit that in our own personal life there is over-indulgence in the amount of food that we consume, the material goods that we buy, the nice suits that we must have, or the insatiable desire for more money so that we may live more comfortably. This is a very dark corner of our own world that needs more light.
But do any of these things stop us from putting on the armor of light and praying fervently to our God for angels to descend into the darkest places and to chase evil out of every dark corner of our world? Can we pray for a world in which one child will not bully another, one spouse not hit another, one person, one gang, one heart not erupt into feelings of anger and hatred against another for whatever reasons?
We all have a common evil seed. It is a seed of darkness that will fill the empty space where light and love have been denied entrance. It means that we as soldiers of the Lord have work to do. We are to search out places where there needs to be light.
There are places where there is actual hands-on work to do like helping someone who is in immediate danger. We can take action to confront the evil of war, take back our embattled streets from senseless killing and violence, and create an environment of honesty, integrity, and accountability in our workplaces. We need to believe that peace is possible and when you doubt, offer your doubt up to God and keep praying and believe that peace is possible.
And when it comes to our own personal lives, we need to find that dark corner. We need to go to the Lord in prayer. Go there everyday in prayer with your armor of light illuminating that place. Bring light and hope to your loved ones and relationships that may be living in that dark place and let them know that God is watching over them.
Waiting for the Lord
Today we also have a Gospel lesson from Matthew 24:36-44 that tells us that instead of spending time and energy wondering about what God has in store for us, we are to devote our energies to wearing a armor of light. Although we cannot know the day and hour when we will be judged, we have been told what we need to know. We are called to live responsibly in the light of what Jesus has taught us.
In the days of Noah, there were people who didn’t believe in what Noah was doing. Noah’s neighbors figured they could do whatever they wanted. They were eating and drinking, getting married and downright partying. There was free-wheeling living that everyone seemed to be doing not giving any concern for what might be coming. This sounds a lot like Paul warning us against reveling, drunkenness, debauchery, licentiousness, quarreling and jealousy.
Some of us might think that since the day of judgment is coming, why bother to change? Why bother to think about abstaining from certain behaviors and practice some other certain behaviors. If the bad things are going to happen, let’s just get on with the fun things.
We are bothered by this because God first took time to bother with us. God could have just let us be in darkness. We could have just gone ahead and live with the false idea that we can save ourselves from ourselves. We could just say that with a common evil seed, there’s no hope in trying to save us. But it was God out of his love for us that he took time to bother with us.
Night is gone. The day is here. As children of light, we believe that out of God’s love for his creation, he gave us Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Jesus was born as a little baby to Mary and Joseph in a manger in the little town of Bethlehem. Since this act of grace and love, we are no longer living in darkness, we are called children of light. And while we wait for Jesus Christ’s return, we are to abstain from these immoral and unethical behaviors and put on the armor of light.
When we are waiting, we believe that there’s going to be some kind of fulfillment at the end. Waiting points to some point in time beyond which the waiting will no longer be necessary. While we modern people with more and more scientific abilities to predict a precise moment when something is about to happen would like to know the day of judgment, Jesus tells us that even the Son himself knows neither the day or the hour when God’s will is to be made known. Just to know that the Lord is coming for us either at the end of time or at the end of our own time is a good enough truth to get on with living. So while we wait, we must be ready and alert, not doing what Noah’s neighbors did, not engaging in bad things like reveling, drunkenness, debauchery, licentiousness, quarreling and jealousy. Instead we are to put on the armor of light.
Putting on the Armor
Putting on the armor of light changes us and if everyone were to do it, there would be no more war because everyone’s hearts would be full of love, and compassion, and sharing and caring and the list would go on and on.
The one whom we are waiting for is the one who makes all things new for the whole world. He is the one we follow because he is the very source of light and love. Christ made light and love a part of creation. But through cosmic battles with fallen angels and the disobedience of human beings, simply to listen and follow instructions, we now seek to follow the Lord and savior and help make God’s reign here on earth come once again. Paul said “salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers.” Are you ready to put on your armor of light?
We have been promised that Christ will come again. Are you ready? Or do we have more reveling, drunkenness, debauchery, licentiousness, quarreling and jealousy to do? Are you ready for the magnificence that has been promised? Can you turn away from what you are so focused on like being jealous that I have a nice Men’s Wearhouse suit and pray for peace in the world and begin to imagine it and start to make yourself ready for it?
What do you think? Your armor of light is waiting for you, and it is just your size.
Let us pray.
Lord, forgive us when we act like we are still in darkness. The light has come in Jesus Christ. Open our eyes to this great miracle that is dawning upon us and make us ready to receive you when you intrude into our lives. We want to wear the armor of light. Amen.