Being Prepared…
November 19, 2017
Rev. Stephanie Ryder
Matthew 25:1-13:
‘Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, “Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.” Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.” But the wise replied, “No! There will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.” And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, “Lord, lord, open to us.” But he replied, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
My son, Brooks, was on his way to the gym when he received a frantic text from a friend: Meet me at the top of Wolfe Grade. Brooks did a detour and met his friend, who had run out of gas. What his friend wanted was for someone to operate the steering wheel while he pushed his car in neutral to the gas station. My son did so, albeit with complete astonishment and trepidation. When they arrived at the gas station, my son shook his head, bewildered. “What?” his friend said, “Like your car has never run out of gas?”
My son was 18. “N-n-n-n-o-o…” he replied. He was confused, because he didn’t think it’s the car that runs out of gas, but the people that don’t put enough gas in the car to make it to their destination. It’s not really the car’s fault.
Maybe Brooks will never have the experience of running out of gas. I certainly have. It’s not fun at all. It’s really scary. Especially on a dark night in the rain on a busy 4 lane street in San Francisco. I haven’t run out of gas in a long time… but then, I don’t have a gas car, I’ve had an electric car for five years. I plug it in at night into the wall like a cell phone, and it’s all ready in the morning when I awake. I’m very fortunate that I don’t have a long commute. My car runs 100 miles with a full charge.
Last week, however, I was about to head out to the Presbytery meeting at Westminster Woods in beautiful Occidental, and I realized I hadn’t plugged in my car the night before. It is 59 miles to Occidental according to mapquest, and I had 60 miles of charge in my car. Additionally, I didn’t know the route to Westminster Woods (I have been there a few times but always as a passenger), and so I was relying on the GPS on my cell phone. I forgot that there is no cell service in Occidental and I didn’t have a paper map. Does anyone anymore? Well, needless to say, I hadn’t properly planned ahead.
We read the gospel passage from today two weeks ago at Compassionate Kids, and the following week I asked who remembered the story from the prior session. One child raised a hand and then said absolutely perfectly, more perfectly than I can even say it now, trying to repeat it: “There were 10 bridesmaids and 5 of them didn’t bring enough oil for their lamps so they had to go to the store to buy some and by the time they returned the door was shut and so they couldn’t go to the wedding.”
I’m still just completely in awe. These kids are really something else. When we talked about the passage and asked what we thought Jesus meant by telling the disciples this story, one child answered, “I think it means that we need to always do our best, and try really hard to do what God wants us to do so we don’t waste any time.” Have you heard this story before, we asked? “No,” said the compassionate kids. Sometimes, I’m just left speechless with their spiritual brilliance. Jesus said whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter and I get it with these kids. It’s a high bar.
Indeed, the wise bridesmaids are prepared with oil for their lamps after a long wait. They have been responsible. They are ready for the bridegroom with their lamps lit. They have done the will of the Lord. They accompany the bridegroom into the banquet, into God’s glory.
We more jaded and less compliant adults, though, may wonder, why did the wise not share with those who had none, the five who were unprepared? Isn’t this kind of going against the gospel message? Weren’t we just told last week that there is always plenty to go around? So why the contradiction here?
There was a young child complaining one Sunday morning, “Why do we have to go to church? None of our friends go to church! Why do we have to?” “It’s important to develop a relationship with God,” the parent replied. “It’s my responsibility to teach you about God, and we need to do it now, because sooner or later, it’s going to be all you have, and you’ll be really glad you have it.” The child never asked again. That’s not to say they went to church every Sunday, but they never again asked why they had to go to church.
This relationship with God, this faith in something more powerful than our human selves, is perhaps what the reserves of oil represent. The wise have stocked up. They are prepared for anything. They have enough light to keep going. But it’s an individual relationship, this development of faith, that takes practice and diligence and care, and in that sense, it can be shared with others, but not perhaps, enough to keep another person going… We have to give it to our children, like the psalm says, educate them and instruct them and share with them the stories, and ultimately it is up to each one of us to keep the flame going or not.
I’ve recently taken up yoga again. The instructor reminds us to breathe through the difficult poses. The point is to learn to breathe normally even when your body is contorted and held in a very awkward and uncomfortable position, like triangle pose. With practice, you can do it. So when the position is called, there isn’t fear, but calm, steady, breath to accompany the movement, the shift.
It’s the same with faith. It has to be practiced, experienced and stored up in reserves to be effective. It’s not necessarily something that can just be handed over from one person to another.
A little background on weddings in Jesus’ day: Guests met at the home of the parents of the bride and celebrated there until the groom arrived. When he arrived, the guests and the bridesmaids went with their lighted lamps to greet him. Everyone walked together to the parents of the groom’s home, where the wedding banquet was held.
In the story Jesus tells his disciples, the groom is held up. He’s so late that the bridesmaids fall asleep. When he finally arrives at midnight, the bridesmaids jump up to accompany him in the processional but 5 have run out of oil. There’s not enough in the others’ reserves for them to make the trip. The five without oil go to find some and in the process, miss it all. They are shut out. Jesus doesn’t want this to happen to his disciples, to miss out on God’s glory.
This parable is told in the last week of Jesus’ life, just days before he is betrayed in the middle of the night, arrested and crucified. “Keep awake,” he says, “You do not know the day nor the hour.” He doesn’t want them to lose their faith, to have it run out, ever, even thought the situation is dire. He wants them to be able to breathe through the difficulties, to have light in the darkness, enough gas in the tank, charge in the battery. They don’t know what’s coming, and they must be prepared. We don’t know what’s coming, and we must be prepared.
At the time the book of Matthew was written, the early Christian community was anxiously awaiting Jesus’ return, when all would be made right with the world. He had died, risen, returned and ascended, and had promised to come back. They thought it was imminent. So they felt it important to wait faithfully, with expectation and hope.
This is our task today as well. There are so many ways that we prepare in the process of waiting for something to happen. Many of us now have prepared a grab and go kit of our most precious belongings in the case of a sudden fire evacuation. Or if we haven’t prepared it, we have likely at least thought about it. Some have set bags by the front door, others have placed irreplaceable files and photos in a fire-proof safe, others have downloaded their most important documents onto a thumb drive. Just in case.
The disciples in Matthew’s day are becoming discouraged with each day that passes and Christ doesn’t return. They’re prepared! Where is he?
There are moments of preparing and waiting that seem endless and intolerable. Like preparing for the interview and then waiting for the job offer or filling out all the college applications and waiting for the response letters. Like following all the medical protocols and requirements and tests and then waiting for the biopsy results. Waiting to see if the treatment has been effective or not. We do a lot of preparing and waiting. Yes we do.
I wonder if what Jesus meant was how we go about these waiting periods when we don’t know the time nor the hour is to remain faithful. To remain close to God, hopeful, positive, gentle and loving and supportive to ourselves and others. One way to do this, to remain calm and hopeful and present and fearless, is to pray.
There was a lot of discussion in the news this week about thoughts and prayers, and the appropriateness of this as a response to the mass shooting two weeks ago at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. In desperation, horror and overwhelm, people are criticizing prayer as a plausible response. As not enough. As inaction.
One journalist, William McGurn of WSJ, writes in response to the criticism of those who offer thoughts and prayers, “As the families that come each week to the First Baptist Church appreciate, prayer is not a magic talisman against suffering. In a faith that commands its adherents to pick up their crosses, prayer is a way to praise the Almighty and, when necessary, ask for courage and resolve to do the right thing.”
Stephanie Paulsell , a Harvard Divinity School professor says, “This response to gun violence has become so routinized that the phrase “thoughts and prayers” has its own Wikipedia entry, which explains that thoughts and prayers are frequently offered as a substitute for taking meaningful action.
“In the wake of each new tragedy, she writes, ”my students watch their news feeds and timelines fill up with people’s ridicule of thoughts and prayers. They struggle with how to respond. They too find it revolting that the appeal to prayer has been co-opted by political interests. But they also believe thinking and praying to be meaningful actions.
The students were surprised to learn that 3rd century Greek scholar and theologian, Origen of Alexandria, was also crafting a response to those who think prayer is worthless. Why pray, he was asked 1800 years ago, if God already knows everything, including what we need and what will happen in the future? Why pray if prayer is not going to change anything?
Origen’s answer was that prayer is not useless but rather a mark of our freedom as rational beings alive in the world. Prayer does not immobilize us; it activates us. God uses our freedom, Origen insists, for the benefit of others. When we pray, we participate in God’s work.
Contemporary theologian Howard Thurman teaches that prayer is the hunger for God within us calling to the God who created us. Prayer is what we were made for, and if we seek God in prayer, Thurman says, we won’t be able to stop ourselves from praying for others. The question of whether it does any good or not is almost beside the point. We pray for others because it is “the most natural thing in the world,” not because we know what the outcome will be.
Yet Thurman, like Origen, believed that prayer does have effects in the world. Prayer opens our life to another’s need and helps us see what that need has to do with us. More mysteriously, Thurman says, our prayer for another might quicken the spirit of the person for whom we pray, awaken their own hunger, and so put them in the path of “the vast creative energies of God.” These two effects of prayer help us to understand and be of use to one another.
Simone Weil, a 20th century French philosopher, mystic and political activist, describes prayer as a focusing of our attention, a turning of our gaze to God and to our suffering neighbor—which requires a willingness to be present to them. It is to be fully present even to what is invisible to us, to remain turned toward love even in the midst of our neighbor’s affliction and our own.
Perhaps those bridesmaids with no oil… perhaps those with no light… maybe if they hadn’t left, if they hadn’t turned their back on the bridegroom, maybe their lights would have somehow been lit enough for them to make their way.
In closing, I want to share that in my panicked and unprepared state in Occidental, with not enough battery charge and not enough cellphone service, somehow, maybe miraculously, I made it to my destination. The only explanation is that it was a gift of God’s grace. There was an electrical outlet at Westminster Woods and I prepared this time by bringing my charger in my trunk. I received a full charge for the ride home.
Can we trust today that we have the light of God within us? That we need only seek, and we will find, knock, and the door will be opened? Whether it is a neighbor or friend that comes to our rescue in a time of need or a miracle of God or both, can we be prepared with trust that God will provide enough grace for us to make it through?
Let us sing together hymn #350, Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning.
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