“Don’t be like Dave.” So, goes the commercial
that describes lazy or foolish employees as guys named “Dave.” Of course, they
give a disclaimer that should deny all persons of a Davish orientation any
leverage for suing them, but the idea is about a type of guy (or gal) that cuts
corners and neglects responsibility.
I wonder if Matthew’s community saw the foolish
Bridesmaids in the same way – an obvious ploy to describe what not to do. At
the same time, the wise Bridesmaids remind us that sometimes there’s a story
before the story.
I believe we’ve been given these readings today
– at this time of year – as a kind of pre-Advent check in. You’ll notice after
the sermon that the hymn that celebrates this passage is from the Advent
section of our Hymnal. I don’t mean to say that the council that created the
lectionary calendar was so wise that they knew we would need this reading at
this time, but I’ll give that to the Holy Spirit that guided them.
So, these readings are a reminder to get ready
to get ready. I suppose it’s only fair, given that Christmas advertising –
which has nothing to do with Jesus – started up in some places before
Halloween. In fact, I’ve heard it said that if there is a war on Christmas it’s
against Halloween and Thanksgiving, and Christmas is clearly the aggressor.
And that’s why our readings are so important
today. They ask us what we value and why. They demand of us that we recognize
who God is, who we are, and what our relationship is all about.
Joshua asked the leaders of the twelve tribes,
“Who do you serve?” And we need to hear that, too. We need to hear it because
even though we claim to love God – and maybe we really want to – our loyalties
are constantly divided between what H. Richard Niebuhr called centers of value.
Niebuhr actually argued that we could be more accurately described as
“Henotheists” or even “Polytheists”.
Henotheists believe in God, but their concept of
God is limited by their own worldview – by their own view of who and how God
loves. They tend to take comfort in nationalism and in criteria that defines
who is acceptable and who is not. Polytheists, on the other hand, have multiple
centers of value that they move between.
That one actually stings a bit for me. All I
have to do is look at my calendar or my bank account and I can tell you that
there are a lot of differing priorities that take my time and my resources. It
makes me wonder what would be left if we truly put away all the little gods
that we hold as centers of value, and how we could even do that and still
survive.
I think the how question is answered by first
asking why. For the Israelites, the “why” was pretty clear. Joshua reminded
them of all the good that God had done for them and for their descendants –
liberating them from old captors and old gods – and then said, “But you can
choose who to follow. Of course, if you follow other Gods this God will consume
you.”
Oh. OK. Well that seems a no brainer. No one
wants to be consumed. We don’t want to be consumed, because we want to be the
consumer. Our whole society is built on that idea – that we are the ones to
consume. Yet we are a nation swallowed in debt and deficits. We are a nation
that holds the abundance of stuff as a value over and above our relationships
with others and with God’s good creation.
And when we see that we are being consumed by
our consumption, many of us cry out like the Israelites – or maybe like the
foolish Bridesmaids, or perhaps even the Dave’s of the office world – “Oh, but
we love the Lord!”
Maybe we commit to depend prayer. Maybe we read
a book on God or even, I don’t know, begin to study the Bible! Yet somehow God
seems unmoved in the face of disease, or debt, or mean people. Ceilings still
fall, and we increase our vocabulary to include words like “Church Shootings”.
It’s an imperfect world. Screws fall out of doors after heavy use, and we find
ourselves just trying to make sense of it all – or at least get some answers.
Well, fear not. The answer is that there is a
party on the way. There is this great banquet in which we are invited to
participate, and we would be wise to be ready for it to break out at any
moment. Now, before we get too excited about that, I think we need to remember
not to expect too much out of our parable.
Matthew told this story to answer a specific
need of his community, and also to connect the dots between some other stories.
For those in his original audience, they were asking how long it would be
before Jesus came back, and he was telling them not to worry about when but
instead to be prepared.
At the same time, as a part of a larger story, Matthew
was weaving in threads from other parts of other stories about connecting our
faith and our actions. And in the end, it all comes together in the knowledge
that when our faith moves us to actions of compassion and service of those in
need, we find that we are already in the presence of God. We find that the
party has broken out and we are on the dance floor moving however awkwardly we
can.
So, be ready. Especially when the world wraps
around and makes us so weary that we could faint. The only difference between
the wise and foolish Bridesmaids was that some of them were prepared for a
longer wait. Some of them realized that sometimes you have to get ready to get
ready.
And the first thing that we must do is something
that we have to do over and over again. We have to clear out the old gods of
self-centeredness and reorient our lives around the one who came not be served
but to serve. In that way, our lamps will be full and our wicks will be trimmed,
and the Kingdom of God will appear in fits and starts at the grocery store, or
in a friend’s house, or on a soccer field, or in the house of someone still
recovering from the flood of 2016.
So, decide this day who you will serve, just as
you must decide every day – and sometimes moment to moment. For there is a
world that wants to consume you with stuff and a God who wants to consume you
with love and patience and kindness. And all because of two truths: You are
beloved, and so are they. No matter how foolish we have been. Chances are that
there are still shop keepers and others on the outside of the party in the
parable that Jesus still loves. So, if you find yourself on the outside, I
would bet the best place to find Jesus is with other outsiders.
And that’s a different kind of party. I don’t
mean to say that we do as those that deny the invitation do. I mean that we
have to realize that every chance interaction and every opportunity to serve
someone in need with a heaping plate of kindness – a recognition of their
humanity and ours – is an invitation to the party that started two thousand
years ago and is still going on today.
I like the way that Christian
author Robert Capon (“The End of the Storm,” in Kingdom, Grace, Judgment:
Paradox, Outrage and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus [Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2002] p.501) said “that the ultimate point here is that a party is
happening: "Watch therefore," Jesus says at the end of the parable,
"for you know neither the day nor the hour." When all is said and
done—when we have scared ourselves silly with the now-or-never urgency of faith
and the once-and-always finality of judgment—we need to take a deep breath and
let it out with a laugh. Because what we are watching for is a party. And that
party is not just down the street making up its mind when to come to us. It is
already hiding in our basement, banging on our steam pipes, and laughing its
way up our cellar stairs. The unknown day and hour of its finally bursting into
the kitchen and roistering its way through the whole house is not dreadful; it
is all part of the divine lark of grace.”
Let it be known far and wide that
we are prepared. Show it in your actions. Tell it in your conversations. Sing
it in your songs. Make it plain who you serve by putting away gods that consume
you with anxiety in order to be ready for the God who consumes everything with
love and justice and mercy!
Be ready to party. For the
Kingdom has come in part, and is coming in fullness – even here, even now –
especially in places of greatest need. Who will you serve? As for me and my
family, we will serve the Holy One of Israel. The God who is. The One who is more
than you and I can imagine, who yet calls us to imagine what it might be like
for the church to fulfil these great ends:
- The proclamation of the gospel for the
salvation of humankind
- The shelter, nurture, and spiritual
fellowship of the children of God
- The maintenance of divine worship
- The preservation of the truth
- The promotion of social
righteousness
- The exhibition of the Kingdom of
Heaven to the world
So – if you aren’t already – go get ready to get ready, because
there’s a party about to break out. And I, for one, don’t want you to miss it.
Amen!
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