Sermon 11/8/20: More delays??? (Pr. Craig Mueller)

November 8, 2020

Lectionary 32a

Matthew 25:1-13

Pr. Craig Mueller

More delays???

I hate delays. I remember one in my least favorite airport, LaGuardia. Back when we did such things. A flight delay. Three hours of waiting in a cramped airport. Sitting on the floor and feeling weary. Ready to get back to Chicago. 

The next three Sundays we have parables from Matthew 25. The last three Sundays before Advent, a new church year we could all use! The context of all three is vigilance in the face of delay—the delay of Jesus’ second coming.

We were told to expect delays this past week. Election results could take days or weeks. Be patient. Yet we still found the waiting stressful and emotionally exhausting. I sensed a weariness in myself and others.

We were to be prepared for anything, right? There were scary and dire predictions of what could happen in the aftermath of the election.

Being prepared is one of the themes in the parable of the ten bridesmaids. Though many find this story troubling and baffling—we’ll get there—I have to admit I love this story. Maybe it’s the rich images. Or the music it has inspired. The Advent hymns “Rejoice, Rejoice Believers,” and “Wake, Awake, for Night is Flying.” The Bach cantata on Wachet auf (the “wake, awake” tune). Not to mention the spiritual “Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning.”

All the bridesmaids get weary and fall asleep. We can relate, right? Just a week ago I read two interesting articles that come to mind. One mentioned how for many today, the days just blur together. Isolation, monotony, and chronic stress are destroying our sense of time. One person remembered the adage, “the days are long, but the years are short.” Except in the pandemic it feels like “the days are long, and the year is long” too. Doesn’t last January seem a forever ago? The

Speaking of the drowsy bridesmaids, the other article was titled “it’s 3am and you’re up.” Stress, worry, and grief have affected our sleep. And people are up in the middle of the night—bedtime a distant memory and daylight an eternity away. There is a delay in returning to normal, whatever that is anymore!

The five foolish girls don’t have enough oil. And the wise gals didn’t share theirs! Hmph! They’re running on empty. So they go to the village to buy more. Symbolically, they look outside themselves rather than to find inner resources. We all do that. Go online. Snack. Binge on something. Buy something. Numb the feelings. You

But after a long delay and while the foolish five are still shopping, the bridegroom comes. In the middle of the night. With a shout. And he ushers the wise five in a procession to the wedding banquet. This marriage feast is one of the primary, if not the preeminent image of the dominion, the reign, the kingdom of God. Most scholars agree that the ten bridesmaids represent the church. The feast is the joy of union with Christ, the bridegroom.

Except we are troubled that the foolish five are denied entrance. The door slams in their face. There is judgment for not being prepared. Seems harsh if we literalize it. Yet doors do shut. Life is unfair. And often we are not ready.

As Mark Bangert writes, “The foolish maidens were foolish because they expected everything to be on schedule. No delays. The foolish didn’t anticipate a sudden change of plan. They didn’t prepare for every possible contingency so as to insure their presence at the feast. They didn’t realize that this feast was everything, that to be there called for investment of one’s total being and every resource—surplus included.”

We are often the foolish ones, unable to see the bigger picture. Many of us felt a sense of disappointment this week. As our own Bishop Curry writes, there is no clear win for anyone in this election. As a society and church, “we remain polarized and polarizing, separated unable to perceive our neighbors, hear our neighbors’ pains, view our neighbors as humans like us, and invite them into the life-saving work of Christian community.”

No wonder our hearts are a bit heavy, despite the results of the election. As one of our hymns today puts it, “the evening is advancing and darker night is near.” In the aftermath of the shootings at Mother Emanuel several years ago, the congregation kept on “getting up in the morning.” They’d been in the middle of the night for a long time. And they’d been storing up oil for generations. As the famous presidential historian that is always interviewed said, we must remain vigilant!  

Even amid delays for justice, delays for equity, delays for a brighter day, God’s faithful people keep their lamps trimmed and burning. For the time is drawing night. As the spiritual puts it, “children don’t get weary till your work is done.”

Paul also wrote to the Thessalonians struggling the delay of Christ’s second coming. Paul assures them of the promise of the resurrection. And he exhorts them to comfort one another with these words.

Give us oil for our lamps, O God. Give us courage to keep on keeping on. Even when weary, keep us awake to the coming of Christ even at darkest midnight, when all seems hopeless.

We seek this bright wisdom with all our hearts. Yet the reading from Wisdom of Solomon reminds us that Wisdom seeks us. She goes about seeking those worthy of her. She graciously appears to them in their paths.

I return again to the wisdom of Bishop Curry: “As this election draws to a close, perhaps the question before us is not about who won or who will win—though certainly, these outcomes will make a difference for all of us. But perhaps our question, as the church, is about how to move beyond the winner/loser binary. Perhaps it is not about who won, but about how we will be a church where everyone benefits, where everyone is transformed, and where the world, especially the least, the last, and lost, benefit in return.”

Even when we can handle no more delays, Christ comes and welcomes you to the feast of life: in your midnights, in your sleepless nights, when you have nowhere else to turn, when your oil is running out, when you are foolish and hoard, when you are tired of waiting, tired of delays. Time is running out. The oil is running out. The darkening days of November reveal this.

Surprise! Christ comes at an unexpected hour—even and especially in these strangest of times. And God makes all things new!