they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage up to the day
that Noah entered the ark,
and the flood came and destroyed them all.
There is a real risk that our daily routine can make us forgetful of God. There is a certain hypnotic quality by which the repetition of schedules often anesthetizes us to an awareness of God. Without intending it explicitly, we become idolaters like those mentioned in the Book of Wisdom. We take delight in the beauty of created things and are struck by the power of creation but at the expense of our duty to the creator. Our minds fail to make the leap to the one from whom all good things come.
Now if out of joy in their beauty they thought them gods,
let them know how far more excellent is the Lord than these;
for the original source of beauty fashioned them.
Or if they were struck by their might and energy,
let them from these things realize how much more powerful is he who made them.
For from the greatness and the beauty of created things
their original author, by analogy, is seen.
Wisdom provides the critique but she also provides the answer. We become able to remain attentive to God only when we see created things from a proper perspective. Eating, drinking, buying, selling, planning and building may keep us so busy that we come to see them as the entirety of reality. But if can our attitude is rather one that receives all of these things with thanks, as gifts, we will not be tempted to cling to them in the face of impending disaster. When God calls us to move we won't be so preoccupied as to ignore him.
If we are more attuned to the original source of beauty than the temporary manifestations we won't risk flood, fire, or brimstone. We will receive the invitation to the wedding feast and not reject it and instead go off to our fields or businesses (see Matthew 22:5).
Around 70 AD the Lord did call his people to come out of Jerusalem to avoid the catastrophe of the Roman destruction of the temple and much of the city. Those who were saved were those who were sufficiently ready that they were able to get up from their beds in the night and depart, and who were ready to step grinding meal midway and make hast. They had not the time to choose lesser things, neither property, nor even those who preferred to stay. They had to move at the Lord's command, when the Son of Man revealed. For our part we may think vaguely that we are ready to meet the Lord. But are what this ready? Or might we in fact risk destruction because our grasp on the temporary is too tight?
For they search busily among his works,
but are distracted by what they see, because the things seen are fair.
But again, not even these are pardonable.
For if they so far succeeded in knowledge
that they could speculate about the world,
how did they not more quickly find its Lord?
It is possible for us to live in a place of confident expectation of the coming of the Lord. We really can live in joyful hope. It doesn't require getting rid of all we own ahead of time or of isolating ourselves in Christian ghettos. What it does require is Wisdom. This is not something we can earn, create, or or acquire for ourselves. It is the gift of the revelation of Jesus Christ who himself reorders our loves when we allow him to sit in the first place in our lives, on the thrones of our hearts. When this is true we will be ready to follow him, for we will recognize that all of creation is singing his praise.
The heavens proclaim the glory of God.
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