Watching and Waiting In Right Field
A Sermon by The Rev. Winston W. Welty
Advent 1B, Mark 13:24–37, 11/27/11
In the Name of the God for whom we wait,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Well, we hear from our kids that it’s now official: north of the border the
malls have all been decorated for quite some time now, the Christmas Muzak is at
full volume, the big countdown’s begun, and they’ve sent us Amazon wish-lists for
each grandchild. When I a kid was growing up in Indiana, the Friday after Thanksgiving our small-town newspaper began running a front-page box reminding us
how many shopping days we had left till Christmas; it was my version of an Advent Calendar. Sometimes I thought Christmas would never come. I watched, and
waited, and the longer I waited the longer it seemed. Watching and waiting is easier said than done, and I’ve never been very good at it.
I played baseball as a child, and I wasn’t very good at that either. But the
rule was that everyone on the team had to play, so for an inning or two each game I
was sent to stand out in right field; that was my job, to stand in right field. I remember one game vividly, the summer I turned ten years old, just before we
moved to New York City. It was a hot, humid late July afternoon and my team was
ahead in the sixth inning of a seven inning game. I’d spent all afternoon warming
the bench, so when the coach sent me out to play right field, I was ready. If baseball is about anything it’s about waiting and watching; it manages to pack 15
minutes of fast and furious action into 2½ hours. And the thing about playing right
field in Little League is that very rarely does that 15 minutes of action happen anywhere near you. That’s why I always played right field; it was one position where
I could do very little damage. That was fine with me; I was no star athlete and really wasn’t sure what I’d do if the ball came my way.
So there I was in right field, glad to be in the game, but not really expecting
anything to happen. It was hot, the bugs were bad, the sun was shining in my face,
and the game was dull. My mind began to wander, and to amuse myself I started
scratching in the dirt with the heel of my sneaker. But it was hard to see; the setting
sun was right in my eyes and I’d left my hat in the dugout. Nothing was happening,
so I took off my mitt and put it on my head to help cut the glare. Suddenly I heard
a shout and out of the corner of my eye I saw a ground ball bounce by me. I looked
up and saw everyone waving at me, standing in right field with my baseball glove
on my head. I turned to chase the ball, but it was too late. I’d been waiting, but not
watching, so I missed my chance for baseball glory.
“Beware,” says Jesus, “Keep alert…” or you might miss all the ways in
which God comes to you. But keeping alert, waiting patiently, is even harder now
than it used to be. I pop a leftover in the microwave, punch 30 seconds and wait.
Now, a 30-second meal is quick, no matter how you slice it. But inevitably 20 seconds later I’m standing there saying, “Come on, come on…” Our attention span
-2-
has gotten so short that if I go five minutes over my normal sermon time, I know
I’ll hear about it. That’s the kind of world we live in, a hurry-up, microwave,
rushed, high-speed internet world. We’ve forgotten how to keep alert, to be watchful, to wait. Patience isn’t taught anymore, and that affects all of us in negative
ways.
By being in such a hurry all the time, we miss out on some of the more subtle aspects of living. Even worse, we pick up an attitude about life. Built into our
hectic lives is the notion that if I miss something I can always go back and pick it
up later, and that’s not always true. A fast-paced lifestyle is fine as long as everything goes smoothly. But things don’t always go smoothly: the dog gets sick, or
you’re up all night with heartburn, or you have a fender bender on the way to
Church. Suddenly, your fast-paced, already-crowded lifestyle is overloaded and
things start falling apart. Appointments are missed, meals are skipped and, more
likely than not, we steal the time we need from those who love us enough to tolerate the theft. It’s the price we pay for the life we lead: nerves are shot, relationships
neglected, and lateness increasingly accepted. The birthday is missed so we send
apologies and a belated card. Or we’re late for a meeting and we apologize and do
our best to get up to speed. After all, it was out of our control. We couldn’t help
that the dog got sick or the tire was flat on the car. So we begin thinking that being
-3-
late is OK, that it’s never too late to finish a project or make a decision. Things can
always be done later.
But that’s deceptive; not everything can be done later. Sometimes it is too
late. It’s too late to buy car insurance after the fender bender, too late to save the
marriage after the spouse has moved out, and too late to field the ball after it’s sped
by you. Sometimes it’s just too late, as today’s Scripture reminds us: “About that
day or hour no one knows…Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the
time will come…or else He may find you asleep when He comes suddenly.” Jesus
is emphatic here…in fact He reiterates, “What I say to you I say to all: Keep
awake.”
The message is clear: don’t get caught flatfooted, standing in right field with
a baseball glove on your head. But we’ve forgotten what this means. We no longer
know how to wait, to be on the alert, to be prepared. In the cartoon version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer there’s an insipid little song that declares: “There’s
always tomorrow for dreams to come true.” We might like to believe that, but we
know better. We don’t talk about it in polite company, but every day we live with
the reality that there may be no tomorrow. Being prepared is important; we simply
cannot assume that we can go back and pick up the pieces of something that’s
missed. Sometimes it’s just too late.
-4-
I remember Charlie Johnson. Charlie was a music teacher who was new to
the school district, and new to the parish where I was Rector. The Sunday before
Thanksgiving he told me he was going to Nebraska to see his son for the four day
weekend. He was going home on Wednesday after school to eat some supper, wash
the dishes and then leave. But sometime between eating supper Wednesday night
and doing the supper dishes Charlie collapsed and died.
“No one knows,” Jesus tells us, “when that day or that hour will come…”
The childhood prayer comes to mind, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the
Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to
take.” That last sentence, the part about dying before I woke up, always scared me
a little. But even my six-year-old mind understood the underlying meaning of those
words: “Be ready…!” I may have understood better then than I do now that the
world’s an uncertain place, in which all sorts of things can happen. Knowing where
I stood with God was important to me. Knowing what I believed was important to
me. Not for some future time. Not for “down the road” someplace. But for right
now, today.
It’s still important, for each of us, every day. It was important for Charlie
Johnson. Knowing Charlie, I believe he was waiting, watching, and ready. I hope
the same’s true for you, for me. We live lives full of the unexpected. Even if we
plan for every contingency, the unexpected will happen. It happened in the Garden
-5-
of Eden. It happened again at the Exodus, and again on the first Christmas: the unexpected, breaking into our ordinary lives, disrupting our expectations, keeping us
on our toes.
Are you waiting? watching? looking for all the ways God breaks into your
life at unexpected moments? Or are you standing in the outfield with your glove on
your head, preoccupied with things that have no eternal value? Today we begin
another year in the life of St. Andrew’s Church. A beginning is always a good time
for reflection, for self-examination, a good time to pause and ask ourselves if we
are ready, if we are waiting, if we are watching. Lift up your eyes. Watch. Wait.
Your salvation’s coming…don’t miss it.
Let’s pray.
Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come. By your merciful protection awaken us to the threatening dangers of our impatient lives, and keep us alert and
watchful until the coming of your new day, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
-6-