Sermon 11.30.2025: God's Eminent Imminence: Keep Awake!
“Rejoice, rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.” But when? There is no holy itinerary for God’s arrival — no day or hour, no platform or gate. In Matthew 24, Jesus teaches us that if we want to live good and meaningful lives, we must keep awake: stay alert, attentive, expectant. God’s ever-dawning presence is always on the verge.
Advent 2025: Soon and Very Soon
This Advent, we acknowledge our need for radical hope. The scriptures from this season encourage us to prepare for God's best, yet it sometimes feels like we are living in the “worst of times.” Can we hold fast to the promise that “soon and very soon” we are going to see the hope, peace, joy, and love of God manifest in our lives and int the world? Soon and very soon, friends, soon and very soon. This Advent, we wait with hope.
Scripture
Isaiah 2:1-5
The word that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!
Matthew 24:36-44.
[Jesus said,] “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.
Then two will be in the field; one will be taken and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken and one will be left. Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.
But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."
Sermon
Keep Awake
“Keep awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” Sounds ominous. As if God were a
thief in the night—ready to surprise us with a pop test, a snap judgment. But this isn’t a passage about fear at all. It’s about awareness. About staying present. About being fully alive to how God shows up in this world.
Advent: Imminent, Eminent, Immanent [3]
I know from experience—and many committee meetings—that Presbyterians love parsing words, so here goes: imminent, eminent and immanent.
1) Imminent means something that is about out to happen. It’s
soon and very soon. It’s close. It’s almost here. Example: Christmas is imminent.
2) Eminent means something exalted, lifted up, outstanding.
Marci preached an eminent sermon last Sunday, and today it’s some guy named Victor. But there is yet another word—“immanent”—spelled differently but pronounced the same, and not in my title today.
3)
Immanent means inherent, an essential characteristic. Used to describe God, immanent indicates the image of God “present within”. God is part of our original human operating systems.
Divinity is immanent.
Jesus’ words today are about all three. God’s coming is
imminent—closer than we think. God’s reign is
eminent—rising above the chaos of our world. And God’s presence is
immanent—within and among us, in-between every cell, every breath, every body. All three are appropriate and important words to define Advent.
[4]
As in the Days of Noah
So when Jesus says, “Keep awake,” he’s not telling us to fear; he’s calling us to notice the oncoming nature of God in present time—God’s Eminent Imminence. Jesus recalls the days of Noah: “They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage…until the flood came.” It’s like how my Aunt Gretna used to scold her fourth-grade class by saying, “It’s all fun and games…until someone loses an eye!” Both statements are warnings against mindless, reckless behavior. In the days of Noah, the original danger wasn’t the flood—it was reckless indifference. The people chose to ignore what was happening right in front of them.
Happy Anniversary
Tomorrow is our anniversary, you and me. Twelve years ago, Lou and I stood before this congregation,
introduced as the Rev. Victor Floyd and his husband Lou Grosso—the first out minister hired at Calvary
with
eyes open.
We arrived not knowing what would unfold. but we kept awake to possibility. And although it won’t be recognized by our government, tomorrow is also World Aids Day. I shared my HIV status with you a few years back, and you responded with empathy and a flood of memories of friends and neighbors you still grieve. It’s important for me as a minister to come out again and again. Representation is important, and it’s often exhausting.
Universities are currently being extorted into cancelling their queer students.
[5] And with the elimination of international US AID programs, the current administration let 1.6 million of God’s children die annually of AIDS.
[6] Were I the president responsible for those numbers, I’d try to ignore World Aids Day, too. But this bad news is not the end. Jesus Christ is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. God’s love is on the way. God’s coming is now. And over these twelve years, you have taught this man again and again what it means to keep awake— to hope, to do justice, to watch what God will do through the people.
Nice People
I’m from northwest Georgia. In the South, calling somebody “nice” is about a good a compliment as you can get.
Oh, I don’t know them that well, but they sure seem nice. And the way his wife dresses, so nice. Her hair looks so nice, in the front.
But nice is, well, just nice. It’s meh. It’s fine. It’s okay. I love San Francisco, because here “being nice” ain’t quite normal. We tend to unveil more than nice. Sometimes we reveal too much, but you know where you stand.
Ugly Things, Like Politics
Writer Naomi Shulman’s mother was born in 1934, Munich. She watched her neighbors disappear, and how nobody stood up for them, nobody had enough gumption to do the right thing. Shulman concludes by saying:
Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along,
refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused
on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads
as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people?
Resisters.
[7]
Anybody here ever read
Night by Elie Wiesel?
The Diary of Anne Frank? Watched
Schindler’s List? Perhaps you wondered how you might react had you been there in 1930s Germany. My friends, we are all answering that question right now, in real time. This world teeters on the brink—political violence, hatred dressed up as religious piety, democracy strained to its limits, wars waged in our names. It’s tempting to look away, to scroll past, as in the time of Noah. But Jesus says: Don ’ t sleepwalk through this moment. The flood of suffering around us is a call to awaken, to recognize God’s heartbreak over this world’s trouble. All of this is on loan from God. How we tend it is a sacred obligation, our duty—as Abraham Davenport put it.
“The Time is Always Right…” [8]
Advent is about waiting—but only for the sufficient amount to time. Let the waiting be over whenever God arrives, and the kingdom of God is always arriving, imminent in every act of courage, in every gesture of love that refuses the mistake of waiting too long. Now is the time to show up for our neighbors under attack. Now is the time to stand with leaders who dare to go against the emperor. Now is the time speak up for all the cities that losing autonomy, all the universities and teachers who are sold into silence, all of the LGBTQ people who are being intimidated back into the closet. Now is the time when we have to decide. Or will we play nice and let our lives be determined by a very small group of wealthy men who think they’re better than the rest of us?
Notice Wonder
Jesus comes to teach us a new way of seeing: how everything is infused with divine presence. And how, through faith, God only increases with time. Keep awake. See the world as the angel told Mary. The poor are filled with good things, the rich are empty, the mighty are dethroned, the lowly realize their worth—an upside down and inside out world is on the way. This kind of awakening reorders everything—family, power, control. Richard Rohr calls the coming of Christ a “betrayal of the prevailing institutions” [9] for the sake of a deeper vision: the rebirth of Divinity, within and among us.
And friends, that reign doesn’t wait for the end days—it erupts in every moment love breaks through fear, when mercy interrupts violence, when a gay pastor stands in a pulpit and says, “This, too, is God ’ s beloved body.” Yours is God’s beloved body.
Celebration: Hope
Hope says, I see the unraveling of this world as it is—and I still believe God will win. Twelve years of grace and challenge, laughter and so many griefs and losses. I’ve seen in this community what it means to keep awake—to show up at rallies, to deliver casseroles to new parents, to pray with our whole lives.
Keep awake—not out of fear, but out of wonder.
Keep awake—to the God who comes in your neighbor’s need.
Keep awake—to the Spirit stirring in your own becoming.
Keep awake—to the Christ who is not only eminent and imminent in all the spellings—within us, among us, and breaking into the world again and again through us. When we live like that—then every moment becomes a special occasion, a feast day. Every table an altar. Every act of courage, every word of love, a sign that the reign of God is with us.
In the name of Jesus, amen.
[3] Dictionary discussion. <https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/eminent-imminent-immanent-difference-usage>
[4] Advent means “arrival.”
[5] < https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/northwestern-university-trump-administration-settlement-antisemitisminvestigation/>
[6] < https://www.hiv.gov/hiv-basics/overview/data-and-trends/global-statistics#:~:text=86% knew their HIV status,Central
Europe and North America.>
[7] < https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8201162-nice-people-made-the-best-nazis-my-mom-grew-up>
[8] … to do the right thing.” a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.
[9] Center for Action and Contemplation, Richard Rohr, “Leading Us to Somewhere New” November 2, 2025 <
https://cac.org/daily-meditations/leading-us-somewhere-new/#:~:text=In his teachings, and in,a radical transformation of
consciousness.>
