“When the foolish took
their lamps, they took no oil with them…”
--Matthew 25:3
I admit it. I am a
procrastinator. Always have been. Probably always will be. I need the pressure of deadlines to keep me
motivated. Take this column, for
example. We send out the synod’s “Weekly
News” e-newsletter on Friday mornings. I
frequently write it on Friday morning. I
write sermons on Saturday night (I think and pray about them all week, but
write on Saturdays when the deadline of Sunday morning is looming.) I have always felt a certain affinity to the
foolish bridesmaids and their empty lamps.
Trust me, poor preparation has a way of catching up with you.
I say that as a way of bracketing what I am about to
say: I don’t think this parable is about
praising the wise bridesmaids nor judging the foolish ones. Jesus says that this parable is supposed to
teach his disciples something about the Reign of God. Something about the Kingdom of Heaven. It delivers a similar message to what we’ve
heard in recent months from other parables in Matthew: the “Weeds and the Wheat” (Matthew 13:24-30) and the “Parable of the
Wedding Banquet” (Matthew 22:11-14) to name a few. Through these parables, Jesus teaches his
followers that the Reign of God is not always easy to see in the midst of a complex
and often difficult world. Not everyone
is going to “get” it. Even more, some
will openly resist its message of hope, and promise and Good News. I think Jesus tells these parables because
the disciples were sometimes completely dumbfounded by the fact that the people
around them missed what seemed so obvious to them (and which they regularly
proved they didn’t understand either).
My second confession is that sometimes I don’t get it
either. Sometimes I think I clearly see the
Reign of God breaking in all around me.
Sometimes I wonder where God is in the midst of the insanity of the
world. When someone guns people down in
their house of worship, or at a concert, or nightclub, or nightly on the
streets of our cities, the Reign of God seems horribly distant. When I gather at a banquet with a group of
several hundred friends who are working for peace, justice and reconciliation
in the world like I did last night, I see glimmers of the Kingdom shimmering in
the night.
But, Jesus never leaves the disciples or us standing
foolishly on the doorstep of the Kingdom with our empty lamps and dying
flames. Jesus tells us what to do. “Keep awake,” he says. Use the assets God has placed in your hands
in God’s service. Care for hungry, the
thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the imprisoned. Teach people all he has commanded us about
loving God and loving neighbor. Invite
people to join you on the way. But then
he takes it one step further. He opens
the door to the Reign of God for all – yes, even for foolish procrastinators –
by dying on a cross and rising again on the third day. It is the promise of that act of love that keeps
our lamps full and our lights burning throughout even the darkest of nights.
Peace,
Bishop Mike
Please pray for all those who suffer from violence.
As always, thank you for
reading.
No comments:
Post a Comment