The Kingdom

Lamps Lit

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Lamps Lit” Matthew 25:1-13

We don’t like to wait. It can make us feel grouchy, frustrated, annoyed, and bored. Americans spend an average of thirty-two minutes waiting at the doctor’s office, twenty-eight minutes waiting at airport security, and twenty-one minutes waiting for our significant other to get ready to go out. All that waiting adds up. As a nation, Americans spend thirty-seven billion hours waiting in line each year. The bad news is that New York state has the longest waiting times in the country. A survey of twenty-five New York communities found that our average wait time in stores is six minutes and fifty-one seconds. That sounds about right. The worse news is that our patience is growing shorter as digital technology, like smart phones and on-demand streaming services, lead us to expect instant gratification. The average person grows frustrated after waiting sixteen seconds for a webpage to load or twenty-five seconds for a traffic signal to change. Does any of this sound familiar?

Our gospel reading today reveals that the struggle to wait isn’t limited to twenty-first century New York. Jesus told this parable of the Ten Bridesmaids to his disciples as they gathered one evening on the Mt. of Olives, overlooking Jerusalem.  It was the final week of Jesus’ earthly life.  Powerful enemies in Jerusalem were conspiring to bring about his arrest and execution.  Jesus knew what awaited him at the end of the week, even if his friends were unwilling to accept it.  And so, he told a story of a wedding banquet too long in coming and bridesmaids who missed out on the celebration.

In Jesus’s day, when a young girl reached marriageable age, her parents would seek an appropriate bridegroom.  First, a contract, stating terms of the dowry, would be agreed upon.  Then, at the end of a year-long engagement, the bridegroom would collect his bride, paying her parents the bride price and bringing his new wife home to the house of his father.  On the blessed night of the wedding, bridesmaids waited at the father’s house.  With lamps lit, they would go forth singing and rejoicing, leading the couple to the marriage tent, where their wedding vows would be consecrated.  After the wedding, a festive weeklong party began.

In Jesus’ story, the wedding party didn’t go according to plan. The groom was delayed. As the long hours dragged on after dark and the bridesmaids waited, they fell asleep and their lamps burned low.  When the shout at last went up, “The bridegroom is near!”, the maids rose to tend their flames, but only half the girls had anticipated the wait and brought extra oil.  While five maids went out with glowing lamps to rejoice with the wedding party, the others ran off to bang on the door of the local oil merchant.  When they returned to the father’s house, it was too late. The door was closed and there would be no late entries.

This is not my favorite parable. For one thing, it takes a lot of explaining. For another, I’d like to soften its sharp edges.  Let there be a super-abundance of oil to share.  Let the bridegroom throw open the doors and welcome the latecomers to the party. But Jesus knew that his story required sharp and uncomfortable edges to get our attention. We can bet that every disciple who listened to Jesus on the Mt. of Olives sat up straight and opened their ears.

In Jesus’ day, the wedding feast was a common metaphor for the beautiful feast of the Kingdom of God that would come at the end times.  Jesus’s friends knew Jesus was the bridegroom, the Messiah, sent to usher in a new age of righteousness and holy living.  But there would be no wedding feast that week.  Instead of a wedding procession of joyful bridesmaids with lamps aglow, there would be a funeral procession.  Jesus, beaten, bloody, and broken, would be paraded through the streets to his brutal execution.

Jesus hoped that his friends would live with a sense of urgent patience, even after he would be taken from them. God’s Kingdom would come, even after long delay. Jesus hoped his friends would live like those five wise bridesmaids, well-equipped and ready to serve, even if the shout went up at midnight. The disciples, who listened to Jesus and looked out across the Kidron Valley to the holy city, glowing with the light of thousands of household lamps, would have heard Jesus’ story as a bold exhortation to wait with patience and vigilance through the long years to come.

One of the great challenges of preaching this parable is that people like us don’t have a sense of expectant urgency when it comes to Judgment Day. We leave that to the evangelicals, and even they don’t do it very well. We don’t wake up each morning, wondering if this is it, if the Lord will come in glory. We struggle to have a teaching like this feel relevant and useful for faithful living. We don’t like to wait six minutes and fifty-one seconds at the grocery. We can’t be bothered to waste our time looking at the apocalyptic clock, waiting for it to strike midnight.

But what if this parable isn’t just about Judgment Day? After all, in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus begins his ministry with the warning that the Kingdom of Heaven has come near. Professor Dirk Lange, who serves as assistant general secretary at the Lutheran World Federation, teaches that Jesus’s return is a “now” event. Let me explain. The appearance of the risen Lord on the Emmaus Road was a true experience of Christ’s return. Our monthly celebration of the Lord’s Supper is an ongoing wedding banquet with Jesus at the table. The vulnerable people whom we encounter—Jesus called them the least of these, his little brothers and sisters—they are an ongoing revelation of the Jesus who walks among us, inviting our compassion and help. Perhaps the question for our faithful waiting isn’t, “Is this the Day of Judgement?” Our question is better phrased, “How will I see Jesus today? Will I be ready to serve him? Will my lamp be lit?”

I’m going to suggest three ways that we can keep our lamps lit in this waiting time. Are you ready?

We begin by spending daily time with Jesus. We place him at the center of our lives with a faithful pattern of prayer and devotion. We deepen our understanding through reading scripture and spiritual writing. We praise him through worship and song. Those daily attentions in this waiting time assure us that the Lord is always with us, if only we will attend.

We can also take the time to see the Jesus who is revealed in vulnerability in the world around us. We see him at the Food Pantry picking up his monthly box. She awaits our visit in the corridors of assisted living and nursing homes.  He’s learning about Jesus in Sunday School.  She looks out her window and watches us head to church, wondering if we will ever invite her to join us. The bridegroom is near if we will only have eyes to see him.

Jesus’s parable suggests that it is not enough for us to patiently wait. We also need to be prepared for action. The wise bridesmaids heard the cry and leapt up to trim their wicks, fill their lamps, and greet the bridegroom. Will we shine our light before others (Mt. 5:16)? Carla Works, a New Testament scholar at Wesley Theological Seminary, says that, “To live in vigilance means for disciples to do the tasks that they have been appointed in preparation for the Master’s coming.” We know what we are called to do, but will we do it? Will we feed hungry people? Will we visit those who need our love? Will we teach Sunday School? Will we invite a friend or neighbor to church? Are our lamps lit? How will we greet the bridegroom?

I suspect that even if we heed Jesus’s difficult teaching, we still won’t like waiting. We’ll still grow grouchy, frustrated, annoyed, and bored as we wait in line at the grocery store. That’s because researchers say that the human attention span is a whopping eight seconds, one second shorter than that of a goldfish. But our waiting can be transformed as we pray for others and take time to attend to the hidden Jesus who walks among us still. Perhaps this world can look a little more like the promised Kingdom of Heaven if we keep our lamps lit and shine that light before others.

Resources

“How Much Time of an Average Life Is Spent Waiting?” in Reference, Science and Technology, April 3, 2020. Accessed online at https://www.reference.com/science-technology/much-time-average-life-spent-waiting-7b315c05172d2b4d

John Anderer. “Hurry up! Modern patience thresholds lower than ever before, technology to blame” in Study Finds, Sept. 3, 2019. Accessed online at https://studyfinds.org/hurry-up-modern-patience-thresholds-lower-than-ever-before-survey-finds/

Carla Works, “Commentary on Matthew 25:1-13” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 6, 2023. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Dirk Lange, “Commentary on Matthew 25:1-13” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 9, 2008. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org. Greg Carey, “Commentary on Matthew 25:1-13” in Preaching This Week, Nov. 9, 2014. Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Matthew 25:1-13

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; 4but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. 6But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ 7Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. 8The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ 9But 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.’ 10And 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. 11Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ 12But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ 13Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

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Cold Water

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Cold Water” Matthew 10:40-42

“That’s some good ice tea.”  It was James, in his polyester sport coat, pointy collared shirt, and freshly shined spats.  James fancied himself to be the heir apparent to James Brown.  Every so often during our Wednesday evening gatherings at the New York Avenue church, James would break into song and share his funkiest moves, feet shuffling almost too fast to be seen, body spinning then dropping into a split before popping back up, like magic. 

James had offered his appreciation for the tea in the general direction of the tea makers, Connie and me.  I was filling cups with the sweet, lemony tea, while Connie was perched on a chair, working on her latest crochet creation. The week before, I had cleaned out my yarn stash and brought Connie a big bag of odds and ends and never completed projects. If James thought he could compete with that for Connie’s attention, he had another think coming. 

“Hey,” James ventured again, “Hey, Connie! I said that’s some good ice tea.” But Connie only rolled her eyes as if to say, “He’s crazy.”  And he was.  In fact, everyone was, in one way or another, both the guests and the hosts at the 729 Club where I volunteered. 

“Connie!” I chided.  She gave me a baleful look and put down her crochet hook. 

“You are welcome, James,” she smiled as sugary sweet as the tea.  That made James so happy that he did a little spin and bow, every bit as deft and debonair as the Godfather of Soul himself.

“And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones…”

“I’d like some of that brown stuff,” it was a softly spoken request.  I turned away from the sink where I had been washing dishes and peered into the dim light behind me.  I spied him near the open back door, swaying a little bit, looking like he was about to bolt off into the dark.  I was on the reservation for my cross-cultural quarter of seminary studies.  My host was Sally Big Bear, a local spiritual leader, and this was her youngest brother, Habob.  I’d seen him around the edges of things but had never heard him speak.  Like many of the young adults on Rosebud, he struggled with addiction.

“I’d like some of that brown stuff,” Habob repeated, no eye contact, but his body language told me he was talking about the sheet cakes that rested on the kitchen counter.  Earlier, after dinner, Sally had parceled out pieces of cake to the large extended family that had come for the meal – sons and daughters, children, grandchildren, aunties, uncles, neighbors, and even seminarians. 

“Brown stuff?” I puzzled, looking at the crumby remnants, and picking up a knife.  “Chocolate?”

Habob’s brow furrowed, “No, not chocolate. The brown stuff?” He asked again, hopeful. 

That’s when I saw it, more beige than brown, crowned with a frothy brown sugar and coconut icing.  “Ah!  Spice cake!”  I cut a large slab, balanced it on a paper plate and shrouded it in a cocoon of saran wrap.  “For you!” I said, holding it out with two hands, and Habob received it with the same sort of reverence that a child reserves for a favorite toy or stuffed animal. 

“Hmmm. Brown stuff!  Thanks!” he mumbled before slipping out into the South Dakota darkness with his treasure.

About three o’clock the next day we heard news that too many families get on the reservation.  Habob had been found dead in the abandoned house where he lived with other addicts.

“And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones….”

“Lady, can you help my dog?” It was Johnny Wayne, the seven-year-old grandson of Mr. Robert.  So far, Johnny Wayne had impressed us with his ability to cuss and cheat in bike races.  I was in eastern Kentucky with my Youth Group.  We were putting a new foundation under the back of Mr. Robert’s house. I’d spent most of the afternoon digging a ditch to lay drain tile to divert the water that would pour off Robert’s roof and under his home.  Now, I was drinking cold water, as much as I could get, and sitting on the front porch taking a break. 

“Lady, can you help my dog?” Johnny Wayne wanted to know.  She was a big red pit bull mix with a saggy belly that told me she had had more than one litter of pups. 

“What’s wrong?” I ventured warily. 

“She’s got ticks.”  Johnny Wayne wasn’t kidding.  From ears to tail, Rosie was littered with ticks, more than I had ever seen, little and big, making a meal of her. 

I confess that ticks repulse me.  They’re like little insect vampires, dropping from trees or jumping out of the grass to make our lives miserable.  And while I am a dog lover, I try to steer clear of anything that looks remotely like a pit bull.  My reluctance must have been written all over my face as I said, “Wow.  I’m not sure what you want me to do about that, Johnny Wayne.” 

The little boy tried again.  “C’mon, please!  Help her.  How would you like to be covered in ticks?”

I wouldn’t, and that’s when I realized that Johnny Wayne was good not only at swearing and cheating but also at getting grown-ups to do what he needed them to do. 

“Ok.” I relented and spent the next thirty minutes picking ticks off Rosie.  She rolled right over, as if she had known me all her life, while Johnny Wayne told me stories of all the good things that he was going to do with his father when he got out of prison.

“And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones….”

There was a big cardboard box, right on the stoop, blocking my way to the front door when I got home from work.  I’d had the “brilliant” idea to leave a well-paying job back east and test the waters of a career change by serving as a VISTA, Volunteer in Service to America.  Now, I was a volunteer coordinator and health educator, working out of the Jackson County, Oregon, Health Department.  That meant I spent all my time touting the benefits of WIC and the Oregon Health Plan while trying to convince women to get prenatal care and immunize their children, all for a princely monthly stipend of $600, which did not go far in a community where just renting a room cost about $350.  I ate a lot of rice and beans that year.

Taped to the top of the cardboard box was a note written in easily recognizable, large wobbly letters, “For Joann.”  The handwriting belonged to Ivan, a Vietnam vet who suffered from PTSD.  I’m not really sure how I had met Ivan.  He belonged to the Seventh Day Adventist Church in town, and sometimes he would join me on Sunday afternoons for hikes up in the mountains or drives down to the coast, activities which he felt a young woman should not be doing on her own. 

A box from Ivan could hold a lot of things – tracts touting the benefits of being an Adventist, pumice stones that he picked up along the banks of the Rogue River, or maybe some great thrift store find, like a Rubik’s Cube or a jigsaw puzzle, missing a few pieces.  But this night, when I dragged the box inside and popped it open, I found that it was full of vegetables.  There were cucumbers and tomatoes, big leafy collard greens, onions, and zucchini squash big enough to double for baseball bats.  Move over beans and rice, I had just hit the fresh produce jackpot!

When I called Ivan later to thank him for his kindness, I learned that he had grown the vegetables in a little garden plot that he had down at the Adventist church.  I could just picture him that summer, patiently pulling weeds, watering, and harvesting.  It was without question one of the kindest things that anyone had ever done for me.  But why me? I wanted to know. Ivan’s answer was heartwarming and humbling all at the same time, “Joann, the Lord would want me to do something good for you.”

“And whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple – truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

Jesus taught his followers about the importance of simple acts of kindness that we can share in the course of our everyday living.  When Jesus sent his disciples out on their gospel mission, he knew that they would depend upon the kindness of strangers.  Jesus also taught that when we extend hospitality to our vulnerable neighbors, the little ones of our world, we are really caring for him.  Hospitality, given and received, grants us a foretaste of the world that God would have us forge.  It’s a kingdom where all are welcomed, loved, and cared for.  It’s a world where James will spin Connie around the dance floor, and Habob will tuck into a second slice of spice cake.  Johnny Wayne will play ball with his Daddy, Rosie will be free from ticks, and the tables of the poor will abound with fresh-picked produce.  I want to be a part of that world.  How about you?

Matthew 10:40-42

40 “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous, 42 and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.”

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