Joshua 24:1-3;14-18; Matthew 25:1-13
Rev. Laura J. Collins
Stewardship Dedication Sunday, November 10, 2002
After 9/11 there was much speculation throughout our country about how prepared we could have been or should have been for such a terrorist attack. Pundits and analysts dug through reports which detailed the work of various global terrorists groups and our own nation's lack of readiness for attack on our own soil. We pored over the details of how the CIA and the FBI failed to share key tidbits of information with each other that might have prevented this tragedy.
Could we have been ready for suicide bombers to fly into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? While I certainly don't know the answer to that question, today's parable from the gospel of Matthew tells of tale of being prepared -- of people who have wisely imagined the possibilities and those who have foolishly failed to think ahead.
This parable of the ten bridesmaids, five of whom had adequate oil for their lamps, five of whom did not, is often heard in the context of the Second Coming of Christ. Surely many of the first Christians heard it that way, as the early church fully expected Jesus to return in their lifetime. We, however, are many generations removed from that expectation.
Our questions are placed more often in the present tense -- or even in the past. "Where was God on September 11?" some people asked. To ask that question fairly, we might ask where is God on any day of any year, since on any given day more people die of preventable diseases and malnutrition than died on September 11 in the terrorist attacks.
As I heard the questions raised about the presence of God on September 11, I wondered to myself, where was God on September 10? And here is what I mean by that: for those looking to find God on September 11, I wonder if they had looked for God on September 10? And my suspicion is that for those who felt an intimate connection to God on the 10th, that connection did not disappear on the 11th, but for those who did not seek God on the 10th, in the midst of life's more mundane routines, finding God in the rubble of the 11th must have been that much harder.
All of us have questions, have moments of deep doubt and anguish, have times of spiritual dryness or crises of faith. How well we make it through the travels in the spiritual desert may well have something to do with how well we've managed the oil in our lamps. In the parable, all of the bridesmaids start out with lamps full of oil. They are all prepared, in the tradition of the time, to wait for the bridegroom so that they can light the way to the wedding party. But for some reason, the bridegroom gets delayed.
If we imagine that the wedding party represents a great celebration with God, then the delay can be seen as the times when God seems to be absent. When God's timing doesn't match our own. When we wonder where God is and why God doesn't show up.
In this tale, all the maidens are prepared to meet God-- to get to the party-- but not all are prepared to be delayed. Not all have enough resources to cover the times of absence, the dark night of waiting and wondering. Only the wise women have that extra supply of oil to carry them through the unexpected circumstances.
I imagine that all of us can think of our own examples of times when we needed some extra oil to keep our lamps burning.
When our primary relationship hit a crisis and we had to figure out whether we'd built up enough of a store of trust and respect and communication to carry us through.
When we have faced a terrible disease or a chronic illness in our families, and we had to dig deep and find out where our inner resources lay.
When we have lost a job or faced financial failure and needed to discover whether our self image could survive the change of circumstances.
In the midnight of despair, we cannot borrow somebody else's faith. We need our own.
And not just a faith for the usual routine. An extra supply that will last when the night gets long. For me, this is one reason that church is so important. I have personal resources -- a personal relationship with God, I have family resources and friends who give me spiritual guidance and encouragement and hope ... but I know that personally, I need more than the usual supply of resources to make it through life.
I need a spiritual community, a religious tradition, a grounding in God, that is more than I can provide for myself. I need to turn to a practice that has been in place for hundreds of years before I stepped into it and will remain in place long after I am gone. I don't just need God -- I need the community which God has provided.
In the story from Joshua, the whole community is called together. The people have forgotten the covenant with God who brought them out of slavery in Egypt and out of the desert into the promised land. Joshua chastises them for their negligence and demands that they make a choice. Are they really going to be the people of God or are they going to rely on their own resources? He tells them what he has chosen:
"As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord"
To be the people of God, the Hebrew people needed to reestablish the covenant. With Joshua's words, they remember what God has done for them in the past and they make a choice: they too will serve God day by day and once again, be the covenant people.
We baptized three young women today. They and their parents, by coming to this sacrament, are choosing to be part of the covenant God has given us. We, as the community of faith, also entered that covenant with them. We made promises to nurture them in faith, just as we do at each baptism. By choosing to be baptized, these young women are saying that they will live in God's light and be prepared to offer that light to others. By being their covenant community, we are promising to provide the oil they need to keep filling their lamps.
In a few minutes we will dedicate our pledges to this congregation's ministry and mission for 2003. In doing so, we enter another kind of covenant with this community. And we are preparing ahead, like the wise bridesmaids. We are saying that whatever the future brings -- long, dark nights or times of great celebration -- we will be ready.
By taking care of the church today, we are helping to make sure that the oil for this community is adequate to carry us through the days ahead. I am always amazed as a pastor at the number of people who call when they want to get married or have a funeral and expect a church and its staff to be instantly available to them, though they have not set foot in one for years. They want a church wedding, because that's what they've always envisioned, but they've done nothing to assure that a church might exist when they needed.
Beyond the use of the church for those special affairs is the larger question of spiritual preparedness. Joshua reminded the Hebrew people that they needed to make choices. Did they really want to chose to serve God? When they remembered all that God had done for them in the past, they made their choice: they would walk with God into the future.
The parable calls us to be spiritually ready to be the ones who can provide light when the night gets long. It asks the question: how are we filling up our supply of oil? How can we assure that our lamp will keep burning until the party begins?
The party. Remember? The point of the lamps was to light the way to a great party. That's what we're really getting prepared for: the joy of celebrating God. If we aren't ready to see God when the going gets dark, then we might also miss out on the times of joy. Being spiritually ready means being available for joy. Knowing where to look for it, knowing it when you see it and being ready to walk through the door into the celebration.
Being committed to God means making choices, keeping promises, being willing to watch and hope in the midst of dark nights.
And it also means enjoying the long hours of delight that come when we have found our way home to the One who sets the feast.
Buttrick, George A. The Parables of Jesus. (New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1928).
Dodd, C.H. The Parables of the Kingdom. (London: Nisbet & Co. Ltd., 1948).
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