YOLO

Tuesday
greetings! 

So as many
of you know, each summer I go off to work at a week long retreat called
JYP.  Each year the staff always puts on
an ongoing skit through out the week to help entertain the campers and to also
show that you don’t always have to take things so seriously.

This year
our theme for the running skit was ‘The Family Feud’.  We polled the youth as they arrived and used
their actual answers in the skit.  It was
like taking a peek at how the brain of a middle schooler works.  It was very, very interesting to say the
least.

One of the
questions was, “What is a way that cool people greet their friends?”

Top 5
answers on the board….#3…..YOLO….

For those
of you who do not know, YOLO stands for You Only Live Once.

How that
is used as a greeting, I still do not know. 

YOLO! 

It has
become one of the most popular sayings, acronyms, twitter hastag, etc.  It can be heard as a theme in almost any rap
or hip-hop song.   This saying is often times credited to the
rapper Drake in his 2011 song, “The Motto”. 

In reality
the saying, “you only live once”  is
attributed to Mae West.  It is the same philosophy
as in the common expression “carpe diem” and even has roots in the 18^th
century in the works by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  Then of course there is that ever popular 1855
Johann Strauss jam we are still waltzing around to called “Man lebt nur einmal!”  Which is German for “You Only Live Once!”

Well now
that we have been properly educated on this term, let’s take a look at the
lectionary for today…YOLO.

So the
Gospel reading for today is Matthew 24:42-47. 
It is very similar to Gospel reading that we heard this past Sunday. 

Let’s be
real, you probably don’t fully remember that do you?

Well today’s
reading goes like this…

Jesus said to
his disciples, "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.
"Who
then is the faithful and wise slave, whom his master has put in charge of his
household, to give the other slaves their allowance of food at the proper time?
Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. Truly
I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all his possessions."
When I hear
this, I typically think of it like when you are a teenager and your parents
leave the house and give a list of things they want done before they get
back. 
So naturally
you sit around and do nothing until you see the car lights pulling up the
driveway, the dog starts barking and ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
You have never
gotten of the couch so fast in your life! 
You turn the TV off, start throwing the dishes in the dishwasher,
throwing all your stuff into your room and closing the door, hiding the laundry
that you were suppose to do… In about 45 seconds you try to knock out as much
stuff as you possibly can before sitting down and start doing the homework you
were suppose to finish before you were allowed to watch TV.
Let’s be
honest…we have all been there.  I know I
have done that many times.  I can admit
that because no matter what, your parents always know that that is what you
Have done.  Just sometimes they let you think
you fooled them.
Now, even if
they let you think you got away with it, do you feel guilty?  Maybe just a little bit? 
Do you feel
good when you deceive your parents?  I
know I don’t.  It is one of the most disappointing
feelings in the world!  Letting someone
down that cares for you like that!  Geez
Louise, it is not a fun feeling.
So in this
scripture from Matthew, it is called The Eschatological Discourse.  In this part of Matthew, Jesus is pretty much
setting the stage for his parusia, or his reappearing (second coming).  Jesus is answering the disciple’s questions
and preparing them for when he will not be there.
The reading
for today was his response of what they should do to be ready for his
reappearing.
When we look
at how we live our lives and the choices we make, are we just doing our own
thing while our parents are away?
When the time
comes, is our plan to jump up and run around the house trying to clean up
everything last minute?
How would you
even do that?
When will this
parusia happen?  When should we start “doing
our list of chores” that our parents left for us?
Unlike when
your parents leave and say, “We will be home by 10!” Jesus does not tell us
when.  It will be “at an unexpected hour.”
We are asked
to be prepared.  We are asked to be
faithful. 
Are we? 
Look in a
mirror and think…How am I living my life? 
How should I be living my life? 
For me, the
answers to those questions are not the same.
But I want to
try to make the gap between the two smaller.
I don’t think I
can rush through that list in 45 seconds when I see the car lights pull
in. 
It means
making changes now.
YOLO