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Sermon for the Twenty-Third Sunday after Pentecost – Nov. 8, 2020
Matthew 25:1-13
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Bridesmaids and groomsmen have responsibilities. They have expectations. When I’m doing wedding rehearsals I always tell the wedding party three things: Show up on time, don’t lock your knees, and you’d better be sober at the ceremony. There are other responsibilities, of course. Bridesmaids are there to tend to the bride, helping her get dressed, watching the train on her gown, holding the bouquet during the vows. Groomsmen are responsible for putting on tuxes and holding the wedding rings. There are speeches and toasts to be given at the reception. Then, when it is all done, they all line up to throw birdseed or rice or confetti when the couple goes off for their first night together as husband and wife.
Weddings in Jesus’ time were in some ways quite different from weddings today, but there are some things that are similar. Like today, there were specific expectations, specific responsibilities for the people involved. The families spent the year between the betrothal and the wedding saving up money and gathering supplies for the feast, which would involve the entire village. The bride would start to collect and prepare the belongings she would bring to her husband as a contribution to their new family. The groom would prepare himself for the obligations of being a husband, which included, as the day drew closer, preparing the special honeymoon suite, called a chuppah in Hebrew, where the couple would spend their first night together.
Bridesmaids had a specific responsibility on the wedding night. They were to wait with the bride for the groom to come for her. The exact time was supposed to be a surprise, so they were expected to be prepared to wait. As they waited, each of them was responsible for an oil lamp. This oil lamp was not only to be used to light the room as they waited for the groom to arrive, it was also to be used in a grand procession of light as they escorted the couple to wedding feast, and then, eventually, to the chuppah, to that special honeymoon suite prepared by the groom. Those lamps were to light the way.
Today we hear Jesus tell a parable about the kingdom of heaven. It is a future-oriented parable. Jesus begins, “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this…” And so this parable is about his future return. Jesus describes ten bridesmaids. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. The foolish bridesmaids didn’t bring any oil with them! This was a serious shirking of their responsibilities! What were they thinking? This was such an important part of what they were supposed to do! They knew they might have to wait as the groom put the finishing touches on the honeymoon suite. They knew they might have to wait as the groom took his time, building up a sense of anticipation!
Well, the groom was indeed late. He was so late that all ten of them dozed off! When he finally arrived, they woke up and went out to greet him, but the five foolish bridesmaids found that their lamps were starting to flicker and go out. They asked the other five to give them some of their oil, but they wouldn’t. They didn’t want the whole procession of light to go dark half-way to the wedding party! The foolish bridesmaids ran off to try to find someone who would sell them some oil in the middle of the night. When they finally returned, it was too late. They were not allowed into the party. “Truly I tell you,” the groom said to them, “I do not know you.”
Jesus has a clear message for us in telling this parable. The message is this: “Don’t be a foolish bridesmaid!” “Keep awake, therefore,” Jesus says, “for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Jesus is calling us to be like the wise bridesmaids, to keep our lamps trimmed and burning brightly, to have enough oil for the long haul! The oil here represents faith. Tending to those lamps, keeping them shining brightly, represents the disciplines of faith. It represents being in the Word. Recall Psalm 119, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my pathway.” It represents being in Christ, the Word made flesh. We keep that lamp burning by being people of prayer and worship and scripture. We can’t expect to syphon off of someone else’s oil, riding their coattails into the kingdom. We can’t expect to be able to replenish our oil out there in the marketplace of the world in the dark of night. We are each individually responsible for tending to our lamps, keeping them full of oil, as we await the coming of our Lord.
This parable seems to me to have a special urgency for us today as we are waiting, waiting, waiting for church life to get back to normal. Just about every day I worry about those who seem to be letting their oil run out, those who are essentially taking nine months and counting off of church until things are entirely back to normal. I worry: will there be any oil left in their lamp when this is all over?
This parable is urgent as I see so many people getting so obsessed with worldly affairs, so impatient with God, that their light seems to be flickering, their sense of hope fading.
Especially today, none of us can afford to be a foolish bridesmaid. We cannot let ourselves run out of the oil of faith. We cannot neglect the disciplines that keep that light burning, even if we have to find different ways to practice them. We cannot expect that some vague association with or proximity to other bridesmaids is going to save us. And if you think you can find some oil at midnight out there in the darkness of this world, think again.
This parable can sound stern and even threatening as it clearly outlines our responsibilities as bridesmaids. Our Lord has clear expectations of us as we await his coming, and we dare not shirk our duties.
But let us not forget that at the center of this parable is an image of great joy and hope and love and celebration. At the center of this parable is a wedding party. And so we don’t just hear a word of warning. We don’t just hear an exhortation, as important and urgent as that is for us today. We also hear a word of promise: “The kingdom of heaven will be like this…” Jesus says. And then he goes on to describe a wedding party!
And so as Christians our posture towards the future is not one of fear or dread or despair. Instead, we are invited to live in joyful anticipation. The bridegroom is coming! So keep awake. Keep your lamps full of oil. Keep the faith. Hang on to hope. Rejoice and be ready.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church