Matthew 25:1-13
Prepared to Wait
James Sledge November
8, 2020
During
the day on Tuesday, election day, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and
saw a post from a “friend” asking everyone who believed in the power of prayer
to take a moment and share his post, a prayer for the nation. It wasn’t one of
those ridiculous posts promising something good if enough people shared it. My
“friend” was simply hoping that by sharing it others would offer the same,
short prayer for healing and guidance. At least I think that’s what it said. I
only looked at it briefly before scrolling on down the page. 
The Wise Virgins, James Tissot
I started scrolling almost as soon as I realized what the post was asking. I don’t really know why, but later it dawned on me that I do that most anytime I run across a prayer on Facebook. And not just when the prayers are trite or formulaic. I’ll scroll right past prayers posted by our denomination, by the editor of Presbyterian Outlook, and so on.
Perhaps this is just an aversion I’ve developed over the years from hearing too many prayers that sounded like magic formulas or seemed to view God like a genie or fairy godmother. Maybe seeing and hearing so many bad prayers has made me cynical and suspicious about all public prayers. Maybe.
Or maybe I have a deeper issue with such prayers, even when they’re not bad prayers. Praying for God to heal our bitter partisan divide or to give our leaders the wisdom needed to govern well involves some level of expectation that God might actually do something, might actually touch people’s hearts and remove hatreds, might actually change the hearts and minds of elected leaders. Perhaps when I quickly scroll past prayers on Facebook, it’s really just a way to avoid dealing with my own faith issues.
I’m not talking about not believing in God or even not thinking I can get close to God in prayer. I’m talking about doubting that God is really going to do something, to act in some decisive way that changes things, makes things better. A sense of spiritual warmth and contentment perhaps, but I’m not sure I actually expect God to do anything.
I doubt I’m the only one. The faith I picked up in the church of my childhood and youth largely relegated God to the spiritual realm. The only place where God actually showed up and did things, changed the course of history, was in the pages of the Bible, not in the world or in my church. I’ve often wished God would act, would do something to end war, suffering, and hatred, but things seem to stay the same. And so, like lots of people, my God ends up limited to offering a bit of personal, spiritual warmth and the hope of something more after death.
I think today’s scripture may well be addressed to people like me, people who’ve begun to doubt that God will act. Our parable is part of a much larger section sometimes referred to as the second Sermon on the Mount. The first laid out the basics of discipleship, what it means to follow Jesus. The second sermon also opens on a mountain with Jesus teaching his disciples. Unlike the first one, no crowds are allowed to overhear. Shortly before his arrest, Jesus teaches the disciples, teaches the Church, how they are to live and conduct themselves in the time between Jesus’ resurrection and his return.
The sermon has a number of teachings about what the end of the age will look like, how its arrival cannot be known or anticipated. In the meantime, the faithful are called to a certain sort of anticipatory living which Jesus illustrates with a series of four parables.
We heard the second of these, the so-called parable of the ten bridesmaids. It is a fairly straightforward, if somewhat harsh sounding parable, yet it is easy to misunderstand. At the end, Jesus says, “Keep awake…” But both the foolish and wise bridesmaids fall asleep. So what does Jesus mean by “Keep awake” or perhaps better, “Stay alert”?
The only difference between the wise and the foolish is that the wise bring extra oil. All go to meet the bridegroom. All carry lamps. All are ready to attend the banquet. All fall asleep. Yet when the foolish say “Lord, Lord,” to the groom, an allegorical stand in for Jesus, his response is, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.”
Interestingly, the first Sermon on the Mount contains very similar language. Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. And he says he will respond to such folks with, “I never knew you, go away from me…”
But why are the bridesmaid labeled foolish simply for not anticipating that the groom would be delayed? Why is that so terrible? It may help to remember that Matthew writes his gospel for people who had expected Jesus to return quickly. But it has been 50 years, and no Jesus. They expected him and the coming of God’s new day, a long time ago.
In this situation, the parable praises those bridesmaids who are prepared to wait and calls foolish those who are not. In Matthew’s community, and in the Church of our time, such foolishness takes different forms. Some imagine they will be able to anticipate the groom’s return, giving them a chance to prepare. This foolishness is seen in those who try to predict God’s timetable, who read the book of Revelation searching for clues so they can announce the advent of the end times.
Most Presbyterians are not prone to this sort of foolishness. We prefer another. We imagine that the groom’s delay is indefinite, and thus no readiness or waiting is required of us. We will believe in Jesus, call him “Lord, Lord,” but not be waiting for anything at all.
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We live in anxious times, and right now that anxiety remains high as we wait to see how the aftermath of this election will play out. But I wonder if our anxiety isn’t made worse by our foolishness that is so certain this is all there is. We’re not prepared for anything because we aren’t waiting for anything. Our faith is a mix of hope for something more after death and trying to be reasonably good and helpful people. It doesn’t really expect Jesus to show up. It doesn’t really expect God to do anything, ever. And I wonder if that isn’t our own version of wanting to attend the banquet, but not bringing any oil, not being prepared to wait.
New Testament scholar Eugene Boring notes that in Jewish tradition, oil is used to symbolize both good deeds and Torah. He writes, “The oil, or rather having oil, represents what will count in the parousia: deeds of love and mercy in obedience to the Great Commandment… Here, Matthew pictures preparation for the parousia as responsible deeds of discipleship, not constant ‘watching’ for the end.”[1]
In one of his many books, writer Philip Yancey says something that fits well with this. “The people of God are not merely to mark time, waiting for God to step in and set right all that is wrong. Rather, they are to model the new heaven and new earth, and by so doing awaken longings for what God will someday bring to pass.[2]
I wonder what difference it might make in our lives to long for what God will someday bring. Not just to long for things to get better or go back to how the used to be, not to long for our candidate to win or our political views to hold sway, but to long for what we pray for all the time, for God’s kingdom to come, for God’s will to be done on earth.
If we waited by modeling God’s new day, by “the exhibition of the Kingdom of heaven to the world,” as our denomination’s “Great Ends of the Church”[3] states, might we discover purpose and hope greater than our anxieties, trusting that the future truly belongs to God?
[1] M. Eugene Boring, “The Gospel of Matthew: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 8, ed. L. E. Keck et al. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 450.
[2] Philip Yancey, Disappointment with God: Three Questions No One Asks Aloud”, (New York: Harper Collins, 2009), 237.
[3] Book of Order, F-1.0304
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