Is 2:1-5 / Rom 13:11-14 / Mt 24:37-44
A few years ago Masterpiece Theater broadcast an interesting play entitled Memento Mori. It's about a group of elderly, eccentric London aristocrats each of whom receives a series of anonymous phone calls with the same frightening message. "Remember, you must die," says the caller. "Remember, you must die."
The reaction of each of them speaks volumes. The first to receive a call is a very rich, very self-centered old woman. When her call comes, she's utterly shocked. She'd never even considered that her perfect little self-contained world might come to an end. Her arrogant façade crumbles, fear eats her up, and she dies.
Next in line is an elderly gentleman. After receiving his call, he decides to go for broke and take just one more nubile young wife — his fourth. Unfortunately, it's more than his heart can take. And he too is gone in a trice. Another old gent dismisses the caller as a prankster, and thinks no more about it, while the nastiest-tempered member of the lot takes the call as a signal to settle old scores and get even with all his enemies before it's too late.
Each in turn reacts thoughtlessly out of a lifetime of habit, till finally the last old woman is called. She thanks the caller, "I'm so glad you called," she says. "You know, at my age one forgets so many things. It is good of you to remind me of this most important fact." And with that she sets about rebuilding her life, healing old wounds, and putting aside all that doesn't really matter. She got the message!
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As Advent begins today, the Lord is giving us this same kind of wake-up call: "Remember, you must die." So how are we going to respond? By panicking or despairing or binging or the old reliable — shopping? None of the above. We're going to respond to the wake-up call by waking up! Waking up to what we may have been missing, namely, the preciousness of the present moment — cherishing each moment, and living it graciously, generously, and single-mindedly — as if this were our only moment. That's all that God asks: if we'll attend to today, He'll handle eternity.
It sounds so easy, just one moment at a time, lived with care. But we have a hard time doing it, because the moments have always been there, as long as we can remember, just rolling in one after another — like waves. So we take them for granted, treat them as throwaways, and make very little of most of them. We get into little ruts, and fall into habits that numb our brains and let us go through the motions of living without noticing we haven't got a life.
Like the rude guest at the cocktail party, who talks to us distractedly while watching for someone more interesting, we regularly look right over the present, with its special people and unique opportunities, and squander our attentions on trivia or on nothing at all. We settle for the table scraps of life instead of relishing the banquet that's within reach.
Advent's wake-up call is an invitation to stop settling for table scraps or for half a life. It's a call to seize this day and to cherish every single part of it as God's personal gift to us. It's a call to value the things that really matter. And it's a promise that, if we take care of our moments, God will take care of eternity.
May God grant that we learn to cherish the gift of life by giving our whole selves wisely and graciously to each moment. Then, when our life's course is run, and that last moment is upon us, we will walk into the arms of our Lord without fear and without regret. Amen.
