Getting Ready for the Second Coming

Recently I suggested a different perspective on “Christ will come again”: maybe, just maybe, this statement does not so much affirm an actual future event as express a longing for (and faith in) restoration. The whole discussion reminded me of a quandary that plagued me during my fundamentalist days: the gospels seem to indicate that we should “get ready” for the Second Coming—but how?

A recent trip through Matthew 24-25 surprised me with a straightforward answer. In this passage, Jesus presents four parables that deal with “getting ready.” Here’s what struck me:

• The servant left in charge of the master’s households (Matthew 24:45-51). If the servant gives “the other slaves their allowance of food at the proper time,” he is blessed; if he beats the servants and “eats with drunkards,” he is punished. The moral: treat other people with justice and respect.
• The wise and foolish maidens (25:1-12). Five of the maidens run out of oil for their lamps, so they cannot meet the bridegroom when he returns at night. The other five have prepared and are (here’s that word again) ready for the bridegroom. I may be reading too much into this, but I believe it expresses the need to cultivate and feed the interior life—to “keep the flame alive,” as it were.
• The parable of the talents (25:14-30). The master leaves three servants with money. Two of them invest the money and earn back double what they invested; the master commends them. One, saying that the master is a “harsh man” and being afraid of his wrath, buried it in the ground—to keep it “safe”—and was rebuked. The moral here involves stewardship: manage wisely your gifts and talents, and use them to bear fruit.
• The sheep and the goats (25:31-46). At the Second Coming, the king separates people as one would separate sheep and goats. The “sheep” go to eternal life; the “goats” go to hell. What separates them? How they treated the sick, the hungry, the naked, and those in prison.
  

So, in summary, how does one “get ready” for the Second Coming? By practicing justice, acting as wise stewards of God’s gifts, fostering the life of the Spirit within us, and serving the very least among us. Or as the prophet Micah puts it (Micah 6:8), “What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?”

In other words, we get ready for the return of Christ by doing what we’re called to do every day of our lives.

This is why I think—whether you believe in a literal Second Coming or not—that we need not pay a great deal of attention to it directly. Our job is simply to do what God calls us to do, day in and day out. By fulfilling God’s will, we make ourselves ready for God’s coming, regardless of what that means.

Living in the Mystic Now

Mysticism confuses people. When they hear the word, they often think of wild visions or ecstatic trances or whirling dervishes. And sometimes that comes with the territory, or so mystic writers (like St. Teresa of Avila) testify.

I’m experiencing something different.

Lately, I have felt driven not into ecstasy, but deep into real, everyday life. Just by paying attention to what’s happening around me, I’ve learned some essential lessons. For instance, as I’ve dealt with the people who cross my path every day, I’ve run up against my capacity to hurt and be hurt. I’ve seen that I’m just as fallible and occasionally noble as anyone else: no more, no less. I’ve noted how God weaves himself sublimely, almost invisibly, through the day.

None of this is earth-shattering, of course, and much of it seems pathetically obvious. But maybe that is a key practice of mysticism: to draw simple yet life-changing lessons from the reality around us.

Many spiritual traditions look at it that way. Zen calls its practitioners to be present to the moment. Spiritual writer Eckhart Tolle exhorts us to “be here now.”

I believe that quiet, constant attention, that “being here now,” works its magic in us. Not only do we learn about reality, we start to align our lives around it. When we see what is, we see our own feelings and prejudices for what they are—and can reach beyond them to what is beyond us. Our compassion for others expands. Most miraculously, we begin to sense the presence of the Divine like a constant hum throughout the day.

The beauty of Christianity, I think, lies right there: in the constant presence of a loving God permeating this everyday life, working with the messes we often make—and the good we sometimes do—to weave the human cosmos together in ways far beyond our imagining. This God, I think, is our hope that, as we live purposefully in the here and now, our lives take purpose well beyond.

Where Vocation Lives

We were spending a week with my aging parents in Florida, and our 10-year-old was bored and restless. Try as she might, she could not figure out what she wanted to do. There weren’t many choices: go to the pool, read, or…what?

So I asked her to try something that’s worked for me. She quieted her mind, focused inward, and tried to listen for anything that bubbled to the surface. After a minute or so, she said, “I think I want to play with pipe cleaners.”

So, much to the bemusement of my parents, we went out and bought pipe cleaners. And she was happy and engaged for the rest of our stay.

I wonder if vocation is like that.

Saturday’s religion section includes a story of a woman who was on track to become an attorney. When her mother took ill, however, she came back to our region to care for her—and found a part-time job as a youth minister. “It was then,” she wrote, “that I realized working with teens and sharing my faith has always been my passion.”

Note: has always been my passion.

I suspect vocation is like that. The calling lives in us all along; our challenge is to discover it—to sort through the many facets of ourselves and find the one thing that strikes right to the heart of who we are.

Not that the path to this discovery is entirely introspective. Nowadays, we get our kids involved in all manner of activities. The purpose is not (I hope!) to push them into a particular activity, or teach them to become overachievers; we’re simply giving them the chance to see what really ignites them.

In other words, we’re helping them find their vocation.

That trial and error is important (in moderation). More important, however, is what we do during the trial and error: we pay attention to our souls. We ask ourselves: What happens when I do x? Do I sense a peace, a purpose, when I do y? What passion sits at the base of my being?

Simple attention drew our daughter to the one thing that would fulfill her during that vacation. Simple attention can help us find our own vocation in life, then pursue it for what it is: the will of God for us.