“Jesus replied by saying, ‘In the evening you say, “Good weather coming, sky’s red.” But in the morning, “Stormy weather today, sky’s red and gloomy.” You know how to read the sky but not the signs of the times'” (Matthew 16:2-3).
I was a young teenager or maybe pre-teen the first time I came upon the “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning,” saying in some pop science book for kids. The idea behind it is that if the sky has a lovely, reddish hue at the end of the day, it means the clouds are moving out and fair weather coming in behind it. In the morning, by contrast, the same colors indicate the clouds moving in, and less favorable or even stormy weather rolling in.
While nothing’s ever one-hundred percent accurate, the red sky rhyme along with a number of other sky-watching type forecasting does pan out a lot of the time. Sometimes, more accurately than the array of tools modern meteorology has at its disposal.
Those tools—models and simulations and others—have had a lot of people’s attention in the Southern U.S. this week. Cold, bitter cold weather was coming, no doubt about that. But what might accompany that cold shifted from day to day and even within the same day. One day it was significant snowfall, another it’s an ice storm to rival 1994 (a nasty bit of weather). Even now, as the morning snow has turned to sleet, it’s still a wait and see situation whether or not the branches and power lines will be coated in ice by sunrise Sunday.
So, in a week of shifting signs, this passage came along in my reading. Luke has something similar to it, and both end with this critique that the people around Jesus at this time aren’t discerning the times, the present moment that is before them.
This was brought up a lot in the end-times stuff I read in the nineties. The signs, the prophecies scattered throughout the Book of Revelations and the Prophets were there to be interpreted. And in so doing, it was undeniable that the Rapture and the Tribulation was nigh. Based, of course, on the signs of the times.
But a lot of those readings turned out to be incorrect. The nations and events that were the sure harbingers of what was to come dissolved or passed without incident (if they happened at all). Beyond the religious world, there’s prognostications how anything from elections, to sports events, or even who might be the next musical sensation. And many of those turn out to be wrong.
It’s confusing, then, that Jesus appears to chastise his audience for not correctly reading the times in which they live. Surely he knew just how unpredictable this world is, how an offhand word or unexpected variable can transform the moment. Are we just too ignorant or short-sighted to understand the way of things?
Matthew places the verses above as part of a long series of statements and stories by Jesus and follows just after the parable of the Faithful and Unfaithful Servants. The first part of this story presents the servant who is going about their work, doing the things that need doing because they doesn’t know when the manager might return. In the second, we see the servant who says, “Eh, the boss won’t be back for quite a while,” and begins to act like he owns the place—drinking and eating to excess and mistreating his fellow servants.
This parable is often interpreted (inside and outside of Scripture) as more of an allegory than a story. It’s treated as though Jesus is describing the end of time when he returns and brings with him reward and punishment. But that is in stark contrast to the vision Jesus presents us with in describing the Reign of God.
Maybe the story and the verses that follow are about this world more than about the world to come. Perhaps his admonition to read the signs of the moment are less about Jesus’ return and more about the unpredictability we experience in our lives.
Both servants in the parable live in a moment of uncertainty. They don’t know when the manager might return. There are, perhaps, indicators that they might be close, but none of them knows when he or she may arrive.
Jesus, then, in today’s verses, is speaking less of the signs and portents of the end of the age and more to those who feel that the moment at hand will go on and on. He’s admonishing all of us for thinking that the present moment is an indicator, a sign of what’s to come. His words are meant for us when we are toiling away against the tide of inequality and injustice in a world that seems as though it’ll never be different. And they are meant for us when we are giving in to our worst appetites—for food, drink, or power—because, surely, we will enjoy this for the rest of our days.
Looking at local and national weather forecasts, there’s still quite a range of the moisture we’ll see and what temperatures we might see in the coming week. We’ve prepared as best we could for whatever may come. And, at the moment, the fierce cold beyond the window seems like it’ll be with us for some time.
But who knows. The sun is still shining somewhere above. The clouds might move swifter, farther east.
And a red sky greet us at sunset.
Jesus, in uncertain times help us to live with the knowledge that the signs today can change tomorrow.