23 PENTECOST - PROPER XXVII -
A - 17 MATTHEW 25. 1-13
I am sure you have heard the
old saying, “don’t fall asleep at the switch?” I have heard it all of my life
but it wasn’t until I was ten or twelve that I finally asked what it meant.
My grandmother told me about
the switchman who watched for the oncoming train. He was the one who would
manually turn a heavy lever that would switch the tracks so that the on-coming
train would not collide with one coming from the opposite direction but pass
safely parallel to it. Obviously, he could not afford to fall asleep!
Today’s gospel ends with
Jesus’ admonition “keep awake!” It comes at the close of his parable of the ten
bridesmaids. He is speaking about the kingdom of heaven and is using an
everyday example the people could easily relate to, a wedding feast.
Jesus’ parable gives us a
glimpse of first century Jewish wedding customs. The bridegroom was expected to
come at night to the house of the bride that he might take her to his own
house. He was expected to be punctual. She and her bridesmaids await the
moment. The bridesmaids are to go forth to meet the bridegroom when the cry is heard
that he is near.
The bride has ten maids of
honor, and their lamps are to be ready, trimmed and burning while they wait.
Therefore, the oil needs to be abundant in the event he is delayed. It is not
like that today, where we receive a nicely engraved wedding invitation
containing the exact time and location of the wedding. Moreover, it is usually
not the bridegroom we wait for but the bride!
In Jesus’ parable, five of
the bridesmaids were wise enough to bring plenty of oil, just in case, there
happened to be a delay. Five of them did not. They all dozed off, but when the
cry came that the bridegroom was about to appear, the wise ones trimmed their
lamps and were ready to follow him. The others were left in the dark, their oil
being depleted, and were left behind.
They eventually made their
way to the wedding feast, but by then the door was shut. They found themselves
outside looking in. The point of the parable is our need to “stay awake,” to be
prepared at all times for the coming of the bridegroom, that is, Jesus Christ
himself, for we know neither the day or
the hour of His appearing.
In the first lesson, the
prophet Amos describes the “day of the Lord” as something to dread. “Why do you
want the day of the Lord,” he asks God’s people. “It is darkness not light, and
gloom with no brightness in it.” The prophet’s words were meant to be a warning
to the king and the people of the Northern Kingdom to repent. If they did not
the “day” of the Lord’s coming would be to them as the prophet described.
In contrast, St. Paul refers
to the “coming of the Lord” as a means of encouraging the young Christians at
Thessalonica to remain steadfast in the faith. It is a day to look forward to.
What Jesus is saying in his parable of the ten bridesmaids is that when He
comes again “with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet”
those who have made themselves ready to receive Him will be gathered to Him and
made like Him in His eternal and glorious kingdom.
For those who have not prepared
for His return, well, they will left behind. That kind of shatters some folks
idea of “I can do what I want with my life and in the end all will be well,”
doesn’t it? Today’s parable may seem harsh to some. It paints a different
picture of God than the one we prefer to think of. Why would God close the door
on anyone? Maybe the question should be “why anyone would chose to close the
door on God?”
There were ten bridesmaids
waiting for the wedding to begin; only five brought enough oil in case their
wait was longer than expected. These were “wise” Jesus said. Even though they
feel asleep, they kept their lamps trimmed and when the cry came that they
bridegroom was near, they rose and were ready to follow him to the banquet.
God desires that we should
all be ready to come to him and join the bridegroom at the wedding feast when
the cry goes out. All are invited. It is the choices we make here, that
determines our preparation for that day, and whether or not we are welcomed
into the banquet or find ourselves left out.
To be a disciple of Jesus is
to follow him into all Truth. We don’t have the luxury of shifting through the
gospels and deciding which parts we will accept and which ones we will discard.
That is to fool ourselves into believing that it doesn’t matter what we do or
say or what we truly believe as long as we love God, all will be well in the
end.
Such thinking places us in
the company of the five who Jesus said were not prepared to meet the
bridegroom, because of their lack of oil, and thus missed the wedding feast.
The delay in the bridegroom’s coming is a test of our hope and our love of God.
We can’t afford to fall asleep.
In the life of the kingdom,
here and now there will be inevitable delays where we long for visual
manifestations of the Spirit of Christ. How invaluable in the church at such
crisis are those whose cruses are full to the brim with the oil of patience,
hope, and truth and whose lamps on the darkest nights are bright and
incandescent.
“Stay awake,” Jesus said. We must
be prepared for His coming by being prudent in building up reserves of strength
and fortitude, so that in all circumstances, favorable or unfavorable, the
light of our hope, faith, and love of God and our desire to be with him, does
not go out.
Rather that it remains
illuminated by the light of His presence, which shines forth in our hearts and
awakens our hope in anticipation of His coming and our expectation of being
united with Him at the wedding feast of the Lamb. AMEN+
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