And now we wait

Matthew 25 1-13

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

Imagine being part of Matthew’s Christian community. You have been waiting expectantly and obediently for Christ’s return for 10 years… 20… 50. Faithful Christians are dying. The end of the world is not here, nor can we see it coming. What is going on here, God? Where are you?

This was close to 2000 years ago. We have century upon century of waiting, weeping, looking for Christ to make his promised return. Things keep happening – great and terrible things, wonderful and frightening things. Times keep changing. But still Christ does not come.

We have a story of 10 young women, 5 wise and 5 foolish. I suspect most of us identify more with the poor foolish girls in this story – who among us really feels that we are wise? Certainly we will have moments of wisdom, times when the Spirit seems to speak through our lips and we marvel at what we have wrought, but most of the time I for one feel like I am far from the stable, wise young woman who is perfectly prepared for whatever life may bring. Where is the lesson for me here? How do I ensure I am not left out in the dark and cold when those with more wisdom than I refuse to share their bounty?

Matthew of all the Gospellers was concerned with the judgement to come.  It is important for him to emphasize to his community two things with regard to Jesus' return. One is that they don't know when it will come, so speculation is futile. The second is that it will come, so preparation is crucial. In the parable of the Faithful or Unfaithful Slaves that directly precedes the parable of the closed door, the Master comes back sooner than the slave anticipated and found him abusing his powers. In this parable, the Bridegroom comes later than the foolish bridesmaids anticipated and they had not gathered the provisions needed to welcome him. The waiting for those poor foolish virgins has led not to preparation, but sleep. How do we wait?

We are all familiar with waiting. We wait with excitement and anticipation and anxiety. We have been waiting for almost a full 12 months for a new rector. We wait for an endless time to welcome a new baby. We wait for test results and for news of an inevitable death. Sometimes we wait with patience, knowing that good things are coming in their own time. Sometimes we fill in our time with activity, trying not to sit still lest the weight of what is to come crushes us beyond what we can stand. My favourite coping strategy in the wake of dreadful anticipation is denial - not just a river in Egypt! But this kind of passivity, this deliberate ignorance of what is coming – in the face of the kingdom of God, it does not suffice.

 

How we wait matters, because how we wait shows how faithful we are to he who comes. Jesus told this parable in his own in between time, when the potential of death and disaster must have been an unimaginable burden. If we accept that Jesus was fully human, with all the frailties and limits of humanity, then we also must accept that Jesus also struggled with doubts and fears, and with the uncertainty that comes from not knowing what is to come. Even with his resurrection and exaltation, Jesus’ death would have been meaningless if it wasn’t for his life. It was what Jesus did in those 3 short years before his crucifixion that show us he was the son of God and the light of the world. We are given more than this for our ministry – what will we make of it?

So we fill our waiting time with meaning. With prayer and contemplation, seeking God in our inner selves and those around us. We take the sacraments, pulling us out of the realm of time and space and connecting us with faithful people of God throughout all places and times. We work towards justice, seeing God’s very own self in our neighbours and needing to show God’s own partiality to the lesser and the least. We pass our faith on to our children, even while knowing faith can fail and we are weak. We work towards making this world of ours as close as we can to the kingdom of heaven because what we do now matters. 

We wait. We wait in expectant anticipation. We wait in despair and hopelessness. We wait, but we never wait alone. Unlike those poor foolish bridesmaids, we have an advocate, a supporter, a Spirit of God that will never leave us to run out of oil in our lamps. It is in this waiting that we are given the opportunity to live like life matters, and to love in the service of God.