Göttinger Predigten
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Pentecost 23, 11/12/2017
Sermon on Matthew 25:1-13, by Luke Bouman
Matthew 25:1 "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; 4 but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5 As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a shout, 'Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.' 7 Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' 9 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.' 10 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. 11 Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, 'Lord, lord, open to us.' 12 But he replied, 'Truly I tell you, I do not know you.' 13 Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
Keep Awake
I was maybe 5 or 6 years old and was too excited to sleep. My parents had informed me that my Uncle Bob was coming to visit, sometime during the night. It was a special visit. Bob was bringing his new wife, Kayoko, from Japan to meet the family for the first time. Uncle Bob was the stuff of legend for a young boy. He was in the Air Force, stationed in Japan, and he got to fly airplanes for a living. This was back in the day when air travel was less pedestrian than it is today. Not only was flying a big deal, but Japan was exotic and mysterious and the idea of an Aunt from Japan was something great beyond my imagination. But since they would be flying on military aircraft, the travel was unpredictable and we didn’t know exactly when they might arrive. We only knew the visit would be brief, by morning they would be gone. My parents had warned me to go to bed and go to sleep right away so that I could wake up for the visit. But I couldn’t sleep. It was too much to anticipate and too much for my little brain to comprehend to allow me to quickly fall to sleep. I lay awake listening for the door, ready to bound down the stairs. I fought sleep as long as I could before succumbing to peaceful slumber. I awoke the next morning to the bitter news that Uncle Bob and Aunt Kay had come and gone. My parents had tried to rouse me, but I was so deep in slumber that they couldn’t get me to wake up. The only consolation I had was the present of a toy air force jet that was left behind. I was inconsolable.
For the 50+ years since that night, the admonition to “Keep Awake” remains one that is buried deep within my being. I read or hear this text and I am once again a young child who was unable to stay awake. It is that experience, more than anything else, that sends me in a different direction than the normal preacher when I approach this text. Typical sermons that I have heard have related this text to the “second coming” of Jesus. Preachers teach, and not altogether without reason, that we must always be awake in our lives of faith for the coming of Jesus. We are admonished, encouraged, even invited to stay awake to the promise and the possibility of imminent fulfillment of our Lord’s Return, something that we will attend to over the next few weeks of lessons and more fully in the coming Season of Advent. I do not mean to dispute that interpretation. It has a long and honored history and its place in Christian theology is honored and secure. But to this, I would like to add a thought or two.
I have come to understand that Matthew is not sharing Jesus’ words with his readers for the future coming of Jesus only. I think that Matthew is inviting his hearers to understand that they are to be awake to the presence of God in Christ at all times, to the coming of Jesus at all times. This is not a story so much about being ready for a moment, as it is a story about being ready for a new reality that is present in every moment, though not well seen. The coming of Messiah is never how people expect it. It won’t be with political or military victories. It won’t establish Israel in the same way as it existed of old. It comes unannounced, with love and care and justice for all the peoples. It comes not through killing, but by dying and rising. And while Jesus died and rose once for all, this lesson suggests that when the community is faithful, when our lamps our lit and our lights shine, they shine as we, too, are prepared to die and rise with Jesus. Only Jesus can die and rise for others. Each of us can only die and rise in Jesus. And we do this daily as we follow. We do not know when our lives will be required of us, but we know that in our baptism, in the daily dying and rising to Christ, we are living wet, as Dan Erlander suggests in his booklet, “Baptized we Live.”
But in this is the very heart of the good news of the Gospel! In the text, the bridegroom comes! He never fails to come! This is a reminder to us that God did not come once and then leave. God comes and continues to come. This is not simply a future hope. This is a hope for each and every day. This is a hope for a world in desperate need of a God who shows up. In Christ, our God has shown a commitment to our world in surprising, often subtle ways. God is committed not to the wealthy and powerful, sustaining and upholding them at the expense of the poor and suffering. God is committed to justice for everyone, a justice that turns our world upside down.
This is the real challenge of this text; not only to recognize that God is always in the process of coming, not as an event but as a promise already realized but not yet completely fulfilled. This “already/not yet” nature of God’s coming is part of the wisdom of constantly being prepared and awake. Beyond this, the challenge is that there is a real struggle to understand the answers to both questions: How does God come? and When does God come? There are a lot of competing understandings out there and sorting through them takes time and discernment. I imagine that, in some real sense, having our lamps trimmed and preventing our oil from running out depends a great deal on what we think the answers to those questions will look like. Things are not always as they seem. The world seems dominated by hatred and violence. These things seem to be winning out over love and grace. Yet, God’s love and grace are not only present, but have already won the victory over sin and death, over hatred and violence, over fear and oppression. The powers of this world tell us lies that invite us to put faith in political institutions and in our own power to preserve our lives at any cost, even if it means doing injustice to others. My friends of African descent have been reminding me of this as they have become more outspoken about the violence that is done to them in the United States, my own country. This violence is something that I, a white person, often do not see, or perhaps better have chosen not to see because it is part of a system of white privilege that benefits me even as it hurts anyone who is not white. These friends remind one another to “Stay Woke!” They remind one another to see through the lies and the mistruths that are spoken when non-white communities and people experience injustice and the paltry attempts of my white brothers and sisters to maintain it. They admonish one another to note and not stay silent about these things. They mean this and so much more when they say, “Stay Woke!” I am only just now waking up to the fact that my humanity is diminished, I am unworthy and unready to receive Jesus, when I am not awake to the lies and to the deeper realities that it is in my suffering brothers and sisters that Jesus comes to me every day. I am like the foolish bridesmaids, off on some errand, when I fail to see that the one who once died on the cross for all continues to come and die when any of God’s children suffer. Jesus admonishment in this passage is for me. I have not been as awake as I imagine when I attend only to my own personal Jesus and my own ticket to the afterlife rather than attending to the Justice God intends for my siblings in the human family. If I am to be truly “awake” and ready to greet Jesus as he comes, it is when I stand with the poor and the suffering. If I am to be truly ready, it is when I use whatever power I have not to protect and defend myself, but for the sake of those who have less power than me. It was how Jesus lived. It is how he came, born humbly, living earnestly, dying faithfully. It is how Jesus comes every day now, and only when I attend to THIS reality, do I stand ready with my lamp burning. I must admit that I fail miserably at this each and every day of my life. There is the very real possibility that Jesus will not know me at the door when I come late to the party, as this story suggests. But then, I am reminded, once again, that this story is not so much about my future habitation and destiny, as it is about how prepared I am to greet and welcome a messiah who comes for the suffering, not those who benefit from the suffering of others. It is about today, and as such it is about whether I will exclude myself from the wedding feast as I feast upon the misfortune of others. But there is also the reality of the gracious and loving God. This God does not suffer my failures lightly. This story is truly for me and for all the faithful. Every day, every encounter with another human being, is the opportunity for me to greet the coming Jesus. Each day, each hour, I am presented with a new opportunity to answer the call from the watch tower. Each day I learn more and more how much I need to attend to the opportunity to greet Christ in my brother and sister in need. It is there, in the darkest hours of human suffering, that my lamp is called upon to shine. Like most of us, I am on a journey from fearing to embracing this calling. There, in the ordinary every day places of life, Jesus comes. He comes with words of love and care for all. He comes with water for washing, forgiving and renewing. He comes with bread and wine, food for the journey, binding us together as one. All of this in anticipation of the final fulfillment of the reality of God’s coming, of God’s presence with and for of all of the creation. My uncle Bob and Aunt Kay would visit other times, times for which I was very much awake. I missed one visit, but made sure I didn’t miss any more. Jesus comes into the world in surprising and often hidden ways. The more I experience that presence, forgiving my lack of awareness and inability to stay alert, the more I stay awake for the next visit. It comes today, as surely as it comes every day. We do not know what the specific future will be at any moment in time. We do know that whatever it will bring, God will be there, coming to us. “Keep Awake, therefore, for you know neither the day or the hour…”