Keep Awake (or, They Knew Nothing) - 1 Advent A - November 30, 2025

Aug 28, 2026

Keep Awake (or, They Knew Nothing) - 1 Advent A - November 30, 2025 explores how ignorance and denial are used in sitcom culture, then turns that reflection toward the gospel’s warning to “Keep Awake.” The sermon contrasts Sgt. Schultz’s “I know nothing, nothing!” with flood imagery of people unprepared for sudden judgment. It raises questions about why God arrives unexpectedly, how apocalyptic math works, and what it means to face death and uncertainty with humility rather than certainty.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryReligion & Spirituality

FormatPDF

Pages6

Reading Time15 min

AccessFree to download

Opening reflections on ignorance and sitcoms

Sgt. Schultz and “I know nothing, nothing!”

Gospel warning: “Keep Awake!”

Flood judgment and being unprepared

The nature of God’s arrival

Why God comes unexpectedly

Keep Awake (or, They Knew Nothing) 1 Advent A – November 30 , 2025 I grew up in this country in what I still consider the Golden Age of American Sitcoms: the 1970s and 1980s. This was the time after the reign of The Three Stooges but before the onset of Friends, so make of that what you will. Depending on the weeknight, in our four-person household with its five TVs we could choose from among one or more episodes of Alice, Three’s Company, Welcome Back Kotter, Barney Miller, of course All in the Family, its erstwhile spinoff Maud and the subsequent Golden Girls, Sanford & Son, Cheers, Happy Days, M*A*S*H, One Day at a Time, Gomer Pyle USMC, The Andy Griffith Show, Petticoat Junction, The Beverly Hillbillies – reruns, mostly, by this point; we watched a lot ofTV at home – and, of course, Hogan’s Heroes. I would imagine that any leadership skills I have or stage presence I possess, not to mention any sense of irony and comic timing, are at least in part due to the writers and actors of these shows. Thank you all for being a friend. A turn of phrase that was key to one of them came to mind as I reflected on the gospel this morning – and gives us the subtitle for this morning’s sermon. It is Sgt. Schultz’s typical response when being questioned by one of his superior officers about something he’d ill-done or left undone, knew about but was not supposed to know about, or had seen but wanted that he had not seen: “I know nothing, nothing!” he would say, emphatically, standing up ramrod straight as he did so, emphasizing his portly stature in a way that is much more familiar to me at this phase of life than when I was in my teens. Ignorance, or the feigning of it, in Sgt. Schultz’s case was usually bliss, sympathetic characters in sitcoms being outfitted with plot armor, at least until they are shot down over the Sea of Japan. In the good sergeant’s case, the armor did not fail, and his colonel never, to my knowledge, followed through on his constant threats to punish him for things ill done or left undone by sending him to the dreaded Russian Front. Dread, indeed, was that killing field, and it is only at this distance that in reflect that the shows of that period, in the late summer of the Cold War, had a far greater number of sympathetic characters from the Wehrmacht than it did from the Red Army or of anyone born east of Berlin or west of Panmunjom. “I knew nothing, nothing!” then about why. Who knew then that my life would see I the communist regimes turn to capitalist ones or to dust, and fascist ones rise again in the most unlikely of places, such as our own. But that is what has happened, and I can only laugh with some bitterness at the comic portrayals of bumbling Wehrmacht officers and martinet Nazis in Hogans’ Heroes. The writers of that show could not have imagined that the real thing would happen again – or perhaps they actually did, and gave us their comedy as a preview and a reminder that laughter against such evils is a helpful medicine, if not the only one we need. Those in today’s gospel who‘know nothing, nothing’, and in whose wake the rest of us are reminded to ‘Keep Awake!’ are given to us neither as heroes nor villains. They come as faceless people doomed to die and who, because of this, no longer matter. Most of them are those whom the Lord, in the story of the flood, has sentenced to Death by Water. They have no idea that he has, never mind why he has, and it comes upon them with no effective warning. That is nature of floods, of course. No matter how much we think we prepare for them, they do tend to catch us unawares, or having not prepared quite enough for what they destroy. It’s not clear to me that any of the ancients would’ve been saved even if they had listened to Noah, or asked why that crazy old man was building himself a mid-size megayacht1 so far from shore and with so many rooms set aside for lions and tigers and bears, oh my. Jesus, in this gospel passage, uses the victims of that

FAQs

What idea connects the sermon’s subtitle to Sgt. Schultz?

The sermon recalls Sgt. Schultz’s emphatic reply, “I know nothing, nothing!”, when questioned about what he has seen or knows. That phrase becomes a framing image for the gospel message and the “Keep Awake!” theme.

How does the sermon use the flood story to describe judgment?

It portrays many people in the gospel as those sentenced to “Death by Water” who lack knowledge of both what will happen and why. The sermon emphasizes that floods arrive with little effective warning, catching people unaware.

What questions does the sermon ask about God’s character and timing?

It asks why God seems to come like a thief in the night—showing up when no one is ready or even looking for hospitality. It portrays this as unsettling and invites reflection on humility amid uncertainty.

Aug 28, 2026

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