Proper 27a
November 8, 2020
People Get Ready
Beau Surratt
https://youtu.be/lMraE1P_mPQ
People get ready, there's a train a-comin'
You don't need no baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
Don't need no ticket, you just thank the Lord
So wrote Curtis Mayfield, a 23 year-old black songwriter in Chicago in 1965, the height of the civil rights movement, when black voter supression spurred the march from Selma to Montgomery and peaceful protestors were assaulted by police.
Mayfield goes on…
There ain't no room for the hopeless sinner Who would hurt all mankind Just to save his own
Have pity on those whose Chances grow thinner There’s no hiding place. Against the kingdom’s throne
People get ready. Be prepared. See that your lamps are burning.
Welcome to the Advent…of Advent!
We may not TECHNICALLY be in the season of Advent quite yet, but you certainly wouldn’t know it from today’s readings. They are DRIPPING with Advent flavor. We think of Advent as a season of preparation for Christmas. But really Advent is more about preparing for the future, final coming of Jesus – called the parousia – when God will be all in all and, as we heard last week, the one who is seated on the throne will shelter us, when we will hunger no more, and thirst no more; when the Lamb at the center of the throne will be our shepherd, and God will wipe away every tear from our eyes."
But wait just a minute. This beautiful vision of the new heaven and the new earth from Revelation is a far cry from Amos’s day of the Lord that seems like fleeing from a lion and being met by a bear. (sidebar: Doesn’t it sound like Amos was describing 2020 – like fleeing from a lion and being met by a bear????)
Well, the good news is that we know God’s ultimate vision – we’ve tasted and seen glimpses of the new heaven and the new earth – we KNOW, we TRUST that Christ will come again and make all things new - but between now and when that is realized – between now and the second coming – this in-between time – it might just involve some judgement for you and me, and that might just feel a bit like resting your hand up against a wall and being bitten by a snake.
So, people get ready. Be prepared.
Jesus gives us a parable today – people of God at St. David’s in Glenview, who know Christ’s triumph over death yet live in this year of 2020 when a novel coronavirus, gun violence, racism, hatred, and prejudice are destroying the lives of God’s beloved far too soon, and when our national election has everyone’s anxiety at an all time high – Jesus gives a parable today to show us how to get ready – how to be prepared – and how to live in the mean time.
Waiting as we are for the bridegroom – for Christ – to come to meet us, we want to be prepared for his coming, of course. We are good, respectable people who know the social expectations of the wedding feast. So OF COURSE we are going to be like the wise bridesmaids and have enough oil to keep our lamps lit should the bridegroom be delayed. I know that’s my first inclination. The wise bridesmaids know the rules of the party. They have plenty of oil for their lamps. Be like the wise bridesmaids. Simple, right?
But Jesus’s parables are rarely as neat and tidy as we might want them to be. As New Testament professor Audrey West says, “It is better to be wise than foolish. But sometimes it is tough to tell the difference.”
Both the wise and the foolish bridesmaids have the same end-game in mind – the wedding feast. So that’s the most important thing, right???
Not for the foolish bridesmaids…they are more worried about having oil for their lamps – so much so that they leave to go get more when they realize they are unprepared only to end up not being let into the wedding feast. Foolish, right? But I wonder, had they been so shaped by the social conventions of their day that they were afraid they wouldn’t be allowed into the banquet if they didn’t have properly lit lamps like the more socially acceptable wise bridesmaids?
What about those wise bridesmaids? They have everything going for them. They know the rules and they are prepared. They have all they need. But when the foolish bridesmaids ask them to share a bit of their oil so that they too might light their lamps, without so much as a breath they snap back “Nope. If we give you some of our oil we won’t have enough for ourselves. You should’ve been prepared.” Their lamps are lit but their vision is limited. They too are more focused on holding tight their reserves of oil with clenched fists. They are focused not on the abundance of rich food and well aged wines of the wedding feast to come – on the new heaven and the new earth that God is preparing – but rather on the scarcity of their stores of oil.
All ten of the bridesmaids are focused on doing the right things to make sure that the bridegroom will welcome them into the wedding feast. But what if what the bridegroom really wants is not their oil, not their lamps – lit or not – what if what the bridegroom really wants is THEM – for all 10 bridesmaids to walk through the doors of that banquet hall together – what a grand and glorious celebration that would be!
So, it’s not about the oil. Let us not make the same mistake those 10 bridesmaids made. It’s not about the oil. It’s about the wedding feast to come. Our bridegroom- Christ himself – our bridegroom has prepared a grand feast, a new heaven and a new earth, rich food and well-aged wines. He wants US at that feast with him. And he has won the victory over death that makes the wedding feast possible and gives us a reason to light our lamps and prepare. And HE is the one who provides the oil.
And what about the oil that fuels those brightly burning lamps??? When we are baptized we are anointed with sacred oil, sealed by the Holy Spirit, and marked as Christ’s own forever. And we are sent. Sent to shine the light of our lamps brightly for all to see. And sent to be lamp lighters, giving our oil away and inviting all to the great and promised feast.
St. David’s beloveds, we have got plenty reserves of oil. Our lamps are lit brightly. And we enjoy sharing our oil. Our reserves of oil help light the way for the families of the ReVive Christmas Basket Program, Holy Famiy School, the Northfield Township Food Pantry, and more. Through all the toils and tribulations of 2020, no matter the results of any election, our vocation doesn’t change. We are baptized lamp-lighters, called to serve the most vulnerable of our world in the name of Christ.
And so, we pray:
Our hope and expectation,
O Jesus, now appear;
arise, O Sun so longed for,
above the darkened sphere.
With hearts and hands uplifted,
we plead, O Lord, to see
the day of earth's redemption
that sets your people free!
(Laurentius Laurenti (1700); Translator: S. L. Findlater (1854))