November 12, 2017 – The 22nd Sunday after
Pentecost, Proper 27A
© 2017 Evan D. Garner
Audio of this sermon can be heard here.
Occasionally, one or two
of you will come out of church and tell me that the sermon I have preached was
written just for you. That’s nice to hear, of course, but we both know that it
isn’t true. “That’s the Holy Spirit’s work,” I often say, and I trust that if
you feel that kind of direct connection with the sermon it’s because God is
moving powerfully through both of us in ways that neither of us could
anticipate. I don’t craft a sermon for anyone in particular, and you don’t come
to church so that your individual needs can be addressed. Instead each of us
offers ourselves to God and, in so doing, asks God to speak to us and through
us. If the preacher makes you squirm, maybe it’s because you needed to squirm a
little bit. If the preacher gives you hope, you probably needed some hope.
In today’s gospel lesson,
however, Jesus isn’t speaking to anyone. He’s speaking to you. And he’s
speaking to me. During the last six weeks of readings, Jesus has addressed his
words mostly to those outside his inner circle—to Pharisees, Sadducees,
scribes, and elders—but today he tells a parable of the kingdom directly to his
disciples. He isn’t challenging those who questioned his authority. He isn’t
pointing out the flaws of the hypocrites. He’s asking his committed followers to
consider whether they have what it takes to enter the kingdom of heaven. He’s
asking us, “Do you have the faith necessary to follow me into my Father’s
kingdom?”
Jesus said, “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 of them were wise.” Notice
how Jesus makes the distinction between them from the beginning of the parable—not
as a judgment on their actions but as a defining characteristic that explains
how the two groups will behave. And what distinguishes the wise from the foolish
bridesmaids? The wise took extra oil for their lamps, but the foolish took
none. Then, when the bridegroom was delayed, all of them slept. Both the wise
and the foolish, they all became drowsy and dozed off. The test of kingdom-worthiness,
therefore, is not one of whether they could stay awake but whether they were
prepared for a delay.
When the bridegroom came,
the call went out, and all of the bridesmaids awoke and trimmed their lamps in
preparation for the feast. In horror, the fools discovered that they did not
have enough oil to last through the festivities, and they begged their wise counterparts
to share with them, but this wasn’t a Hanukah miracle. There wasn’t enough oil to
go around. So, at the urging of the wise bridesmaids, the foolish ones went out
into the marketplace to buy some for themselves, but, by the time they had
returned, the wedding feast had begun. The doors were already shut. It was too
late.
It is easy to conclude
that the moral of this story is a first-century equivalent of the Boy and Girl
Scout motto: be prepared. But being a faithful disciple of Jesus isn’t about
carrying an extra flask of oil, bringing an umbrella on a cloudy day, or having
an emergency kit in case a tornado hits. The issue that Jesus raises in this
parable isn’t one of preparedness but of relationship. When the foolish
bridesmaids knock on the door and request entry, they were not turned away
because they were late. Instead, the bridegroom says, “Truly I tell you, I do
not know you.” The fools found themselves excluded from the wedding feast not
because they were poor planners but because they never knew and loved the
bridegroom in the first place.
What makes a good
bridesmaid or groomsman? Well, what are the responsibilities entrusted to a
wedding attendant? You have to buy the terrible dress or rent the matching tux.
You might be expected to coordinate the bachelor or bachelorette party. There
is a good chance you’ll need to make a speech when you toast the happy couple.
And you certainly need to show up on time—on time to the shower and the
luncheon and the rehearsal and the ceremony. But what else? A truly faithful
bridesmaid or groomsman is one who is devoted to the bride or groom. When
something goes wrong, the faithful groomsman is there to fix it. When something
goes missing, the loyal bridesmaid is there to find it or get another one. When
the rehearsal starts late, the faithful attendant doesn’t sneak out the back
door to take a phone call. When the sermon goes on too long, the devoted attendant
doesn’t pull his cell phone out to check the football score. The bridesmaid or
groomsman who truly loves the bride or groom is one who, for the span of a
wedding weekend, puts everything else aside and spends those days focused only
on the needs of the bridal couple.
How are we waiting on
Jesus? 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 of
them were wise. The wise ones didn’t want anything to get in the way of their duties,
so they brought extra oil just in case. I have never been to a wedding that
didn’t start on time, but, to these bridesmaids, it didn’t matter how unlikely
a delay was. Their wisdom is a product of the love that they have for the
bridegroom. It never occurred to the foolish bridesmaids that they would need
to bring provisions. They bought their dresses. They brought their lamps. They
showed up on time. What else did they need to do? With them, something was
missing. They came to the wedding feast expecting to enter on their own terms.
Their folly was thinking that all they had to do was show up.
Jesus has brought all of
us to the threshold of the kingdom. God has prepared a place for us at that
great messianic wedding feast. But we cannot simply show up. We cannot
participate on our own terms. We must be utterly and unequivocally devoted to
the one who has called us to the banquet. A fool is someone who has built his
or her life around nonsense, who lives each day without any bearing on the
truth. It is folly to think that we can follow Jesus into the kingdom when and
where and how it suits us. This is not our wedding. It belongs to God. But we are
the ones who have been invited and entrusted with the sacred responsibility of
serving as God’s chosen bridesmaids and groomsmen. Will we be faithful to that
calling?
Do not forget what it
means to be faithful. Thanks be to God that we are not judged on whether we get
it right all the time. Sometimes we lose our focus and fall asleep, and, still,
we have a place in God’s kingdom. But those who do not know the
bridegroom—those who do not know what it means to love our Lord so completely
that their whole lives revolve around him and his invitation—cannot know what
it means to live in the kingdom of God.
When the fulfillment of
the kingdom and the arrival of the bridegroom are delayed, it is easy to forget
that we owe our lives to the one who has promised to return and bring us into
God’s celebration. It is easy to think that we get to choose our own priorities
and set our own schedule. “Keep awake,” Jesus says. “Be vigilant.” Not because
Jesus might return at any minute but because he might be delayed a long time. We
must keep watch for the one who is coming. We must let our every day, our every
night, our every word, our every action be one of availability for God. We have
been called to wait upon the Lord. Only those who truly know the bridegroom and
honor the one who calls them by devoting their whole lives to that call are found
worthy of the kingdom of God.
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