Rev. Joan Pell Sierra Pines United Methodist Church Sermon: 11/12/2017 Stand-Alone Sermon Scripture: Matthew 25:1-13 Running on Empty <Read Matthew 25:1-13 NRSV> 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. In our scripture today, Jesus uses another parable to explain once more what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. Only this time instead of helping others and inviting everyone to the feast, there is no sharing and some are barred entry! Ten bridesmaids are waiting for the bridegroom to arrive and he is so late that they fall asleep and then five of them run out of oil for their lamps. The other five refuse to share their spare oil and so the five without oil went off to get some and of course, that s just the moment that the bridegroom arrives and so they miss him, and by the time they get back, the wedding party is underway, and the bridegroom refuses to let them in. That s not very nice behavior! It is really a rather mean story. It makes it sound like hoarding and stockpiling resources is a really good thing and if people are in need then it is their own careless fault and they can t join the party. Take care of yourself and do not worry about others. You must be prepared and hang onto your oil in case there is an oil crisis. Is the Kingdom of Heaven really no different than the empires of earth, where -1-
we store up oil for our own survival? Is it one big oil conglomerate?! 1 With Jesus parables, you usually have to dig a little bit deeper. We know from the sermon on the Mount that we are not to store up treasures on earth, but instead store up treasures in heaven. We know we are told not to worry about what we will eat, drink or wear. We know if we knock the door will be answered to us. We know not to judge the splinter in another s eye while there is a log in our own. We know we should forgive not seven but seventy times seven times. We know Jesus fed 5000 unprepared hungry people who had not packed a picnic. So is this parable really telling us to ignore what Jesus said before or is there something else going on? When we read scripture, if it does not seem to pass the love test, then perhaps we have understood it wrong. Looking at it in context, chapters 24 to 25 of the gospel of Matthew deal with a call to the disciples to be ready, faithful and responsive as they await for the return of Jesus. So this parable is about the second coming using the imagery of a 1 st Century wedding where once the bridegroom appears then the bridesmaids accompany the wedding party with lamps and torches from the bride s house to the groom s house where the ceremony would begin. So, if it is a parable about the need to be prepared as we wait for Jesus, then what is it intended to teach us? I want us to ponder two things this morning. FIRST. What is the oil? What is it that we need to be prepared with and must not run out of? SECOND. How should we wait? And you ll have to wait for me to get to that bit! FIRST. The oil. The problem that the 5 foolish bridesmaids had was not falling asleep. All the women fell asleep. The problem was that while they slept, their lamps used up the oil that was in them, and without any spare, they ran out of oil for their lamps. This was an oil crisis, a fuel crisis! Or perhaps, in today s society, we would say gas crisis. It's fairly simple. When the arrow on the gas tank points to empty, you are going to run out of gas. I remember driving my son Nigel on a school field trip. I had him and a couple of other first graders in my gas-guzzling minivan and we were going to go whale watching from Point Reyes Lighthouse. I had not filled up with gas beforehand thinking I had enough to get there and could stop for gas on the way back. As we got close to Point Reyes, I realized that I was getting low on gas, but we had to be there at a certain time and I didn t want to be late. Just after I passed the last place of any size, the fuel light came on. From prior experience with that car, I knew I had at least 2 gallons in the tank. The car said I could do 50 miles, and I had 25 miles to go. No problem, I thought. Except it was a windy slow road, and about half 1 Anna Carter Florence, Filling Stations in Day1 (November 4, 2007). http://day1.org/1065- filling_stations -2-
way there, it said I had ZERO miles left in the tank. Now I was worried. But after an anxious ride, we made it! Only, I still had to get back, and that gas station was 25 miles back along the windy road and yes, it was the closest gas. On the return trip, I was convinced that I would run out of gas - I did have the reassurance that one of the other parents was tailing me. In the end I made it to the gas station. How I am not sure, because the tank took its full capacity in gas. I am convinced I ran on empty, but it is NOT an experience that I recommend! And I certainly felt foolish. For years afterwards, my son would beg me to fill up if he noticed the fuel gauge getting low and if it got as far as that beep and the fuel light coming on, he would really be panicking. In our parable, we were not told why the 5 wise bridesmaids did not help the 5 foolish ones. Perhaps they only had enough for themselves. Perhaps they knew the foolish ones had barrel loads at home. Or perhaps they were hoarding it and the ones called foolish were really poor and did not have any money. The parable does not say a word about motives or extenuating circumstances. In a sermon she preached Rev. Dr. Anna Carter Florence from Columbia Theological Seminary in GA suggests this: 2 The parables only concern is what they brought with them when they left the house. Maybe this is not a story about how much oil you have. Maybe this is a story about the oil you carry with you. When your lamp goes out, you may have gallons of oil sitting at home; but it's not going to do you any good there. What does the oil you carry with you look like? What is the oil? Perhaps it is not a commodity that we buy and sell. If a two-year-old doesn't get a nap, they are going to crash. If you have worked eighty-hour weeks for longer than you care to know your relationships are going to suffer. It's not really something any of us can avoid. There are some kinds of fuel that just are not negotiable; and if you eat junk food for twenty years, your body is going to let you know about it. There are also some kinds of oil you can't borrow from anyone else. Teenagers learn this, at a certain point; you can borrow someone's homework and get by on the assignment, but you can't borrow the hours they put in studying for the test. There are some kinds of preparation we can only do for ourselves. There are some reserves that no one else can build up for us. You can't borrow someone else's peace of mind or their passion for God. You have to find it yourself. 2 Anna Carter Florence, Filling Stations in Day1 (November 4, 2007). http://day1.org/1065- filling_stations -3-
So, what if we think about oil in terms of our spiritual lives and our task to be a lamp, a light for others? We can only be lit lamp for as long as there is still oil in the lamp. When the oil runs out, then the lamp light goes out, and you have nothing to give. A Christian with no oil, can't be the light of the world for anybody, no matter how much they want to. When you run spiritually dry, then you cannot be a lamp. Remember the safety speech we hear on airplanes? "In the event of an emergency, oxygen masks will drop from the ceiling; please be sure to secure your own oxygen mask first before assisting others." What fills you up spiritually? What replenishes your oil? If we put it off, then eventually time will run out and we will get caught out. The time comes when we all have to draw on the oil we already have, and that oil is going to come from what fuels us spiritually right now. Our personal spiritual disciplines fill us up. We cannot minister to others if there is nothing there. We cannot survive the dark times ourselves if we are already running on empty. John Wesley called these Acts of Piety - Daily scripture reading. Daily prayer or meditation. Participating in study together. Weekly Worship. Monthly Communion. Periodic Fasting. Perhaps there are other ways that fill you too: A walk by the river. Walking a Labyrinth. Journaling. Painting. Coloring your prayers. Cooking. Gardening. Reading. Being in mission to others. As we come to Advent, we have two daily devotionals for you to consider choosing between and using through the season. One of them will perhaps create some room for God to show up. And the other is about waiting in the darkness. Advent can be a crazy busy secular time leading up the Christmas festivities. What about taking time daily to fill your soul, so that you have some spiritual resources to cope with the season. Something to draw on. So that when Christ arrives, you will be there to see it and recognize his presence. One of the best ways that I find to replenish my soul is to study with others and to read widely. If you ve been in a study group talking about questions like why there is so much suffering in the world, and what that tells us about the nature of God, then when something bad happens, there are resources to draw on to make sense of the circumstances. It is doesn t stop bad things happening, but it provides an understanding and the ability to see those who come and help you as being Christ to you. We learn together to see where Christ is in the world. -4-
Or perhaps it is a retreat where you talk together about where God is nudging you, what you think you are hearing Jesus saying to you, and how you feel called to Get Out of the Boat and walk on the water towards Jesus. And those around the table encourage you, or point out to you what they are seeing. Or perhaps it is a Walk to Emmaus spiritual retreat where you have an unplanned amazing discussion with Jesus around the breakfast table. And then those who were at that table with you sharing that experience decide to encourage you on your faith walk by texting you uplifting daily messages. Some of us have been reading and talking together about a book called Falling Upward and how it is in the making sense of the difficult events of our lives that we can grow spiritually. We need each other, and we need a deep faith to cling to as we walk through these times. In the dark times, we will need the assurance of the abundant promises of God and a peace that passes understanding. That assurance and peace come from the promises that we will have immersed ourselves in as we carried out those acts of piety and filled ourselves up with oil. Those gifts of hope, peace, love and joy are the ones we are going to be talking about this advent. Others might be relying on us too. Like my son who got concerned if I let the car fuel tank get too low. He didn t like the thought of us running out of fuel. He knew we couldn t run on empty. We each have many people who rely on us to stay spiritually fueled and strong for them. We all have traveling companions who will be anxious for us to keep ourselves fueled up. Dark times do come and we will need that oil that we cannot borrow, and we will have to draw on the oil that we do have: those inner resources and spiritual reserves. So let s concentrate on filling our lamps and filling them out of joy, because then we ll be ready to see Jesus and even go to the party with him. SECOND and just very briefly an observation about Waiting. You know the old saying. Lord, grant me patience, and I want it now. We do not do waiting very well. We get impatient. The parable ended with Jesus saying, Keep awake for you know neither the day nor the hour Jesus seems to understand that there is some waiting that we will be called to do. It might be a longer night and wait than we are expecting, but morning will come. Waiting is an act of faith. It is a part of our faith journey. We need to learn to wait well. 3 3 Robert M McCellan, Feasting on the Gospels: Matthew, Vol. 2. (Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 254-259. -5-
We wait for all sorts of things. We wait for good news or bad from doctor s diagnoses, to business reports. We wait for better times for struggling relatives and friends and strangers. We wait for births and deaths. We wait for justice for all. We wait for peace for the world. The parable reveals a tension between living in the present and planning for the future. Mistake of foolish bridesmaids was not that they failed to believe the bridegroom is returning was not that they fall asleep but that they failed to invest in what will keep their lamps burning and prepare them to see God s kingdom when it comes. They failed to wait well. 4 What is required while we wait is an awakening of all the senses to what God is doing and promises to do in the world: Hearts that burn with prayers. Eyes that study God s word. Ears that hear the crying of God s children. Hands that reach out to those in need. Feet that find those who have been lost. And a taste to know God s goodness. 5 Let us pray. So let us fuel up and then wait patiently together because Christ came, Christ is here now and Christ is coming again. Thanks be to God. Amen. O Holy One, we are not very good at waiting, nor sometimes at filling our lamps. Open us to new ways of refueling so that we do not run on empty. Fill us with your assurance and peace as we wait for you to come in the night. Help us to see where your Kingdom is already breaking in, and give us the patience to faithfully and joyfully wait for your presence. Amen. Resources Jarvis, Cynthia A. and E. Elizabeth Johnson, Eds. Feasting on the Gospels: Matthew, Vol. 2. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013. Sanders, Beth. Soul-Filling Community of Faith in Day 1. November 9, 2014. http://day1.org/6200-soulfilling_community_of_faith. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. -6-