Sermon on Matthew 25:1-13

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

A lot seems off about today’s parable. Despite labeling some bridesmaids as “wise” and some as “foolish,” their behavior wasn’t that different. All of them brought full lamps that would be sufficient if the groom arrived when expected. And all of them fell asleep while they waited—not very vigilant of them.

And when their moment arrived, some of them had thought to bring extra oil in case the groom was delayed, but others hadn’t. Those who were prepared refuse to share, which doesn’t seem to go along with many of Jesus’ other teachings. What happened to “love your neighbor as yourself”? Or “do to others as you would have them do to you”?

And then, the tardy groom not only refused to let in those bridesmaids whose only mistake was not having enough oil to last until the groom’s late arrival—he didn’t even acknowledge that he knew them! If this parable is alluding to the wedding feast of the Lamb, what happened to the images of abundance, grace, and hospitality that go with God’s table right before us?

This parable just seems so unfair!It’s a tough story that reeks of selfishness, judgment, and exclusion.

But let’s remind ourselves of another image of the Reign of God that we heard in the first reading last Sunday. These are selections from Revelation chapter 7:

9After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. ….

17for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,
  and he will guide them to springs of the water of life,
 and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

This is a picture of the abundance, inclusion, mercy, and joy that’s coming at the end of time. It’s by God’s grace that we participate in the wedding feast of the Lamb—now and in the future. It’s not anything we do that earns us our place—it’s what God does.

It’s hard not to fixate on the ending of our parable when some of the bridesmaids got locked out. But if you read the end of this parable and think to yourself, “what if that’s me?” remember this: God knows you and loves you.

In baptism, God made you part of God’s family forever. In communion, we’re united with the family of faith from all times and places. God’s table now and forever is open and abundant. There’s a place set for you. Do not fear.

So, when we release our fear, what can we receive from this parable?

There’s a common thread between this parable and the parables that bookend it. All three have to do with what people were doing while the person in charge was away: whether it was how they treated their coworkers, whether they prepared sufficiently for a delayed arrival, or whether they used the resources entrusted to them wisely.

Jesus was preparing his followers for a long wait. It’s been 2000 years, and he hasn’t come back yet. That’s a long time to wait. There’s a variety of possibilities for how to approach that waiting.

One wayis to try to expect Jesus to arrive at any moment. There are good things about this approach: there’s an urgency and a sense of hope. You can’t let yourself get complacent because he could come back any time. It’s taking seriously the commands to “keep awake.”

But there are some drawbacks. If you’re expecting Jesus to return next week, you’re probably not thinking about making lasting change in the world. A lot of the good Christians have done over the centuries has involved infrastructure and systems, as unglamorous as that sounds. If Jesus is coming back tomorrow, there’s no point in building hospitals or schools or creating programs that empower people to get out of poverty. With this approach, it can be possible to forget that there’s long-term work to be done while we wait.

The other end of that spectrum is getting complacent and acting like Jesus will never return. It does lend itself to long-term work, because if this is all there is, it’s up to us to make it better. But it’s hard to maintain momentum and urgency with this approach. Plus, it ignores large swathes of scripture and disregards the hope of the Reign of God being made complete.

In this parable, Jesus seems to be addressing the whole spectrum. On the one hand, his followers were going to need to bring extra oil. They were going to need to be prepared for the long haul.

On the other hand, he knew we would fall asleep—it’s hard to keep up momentum when what you were preparing for is delayed. So, he warned us to stay awake, to be prepared, that the moment of his return could be any time.

It’s good to be watchful, but what this parable emphasizes is how you prepare.

It’s not necessarily wrong to let our guard down sometimes. None of us can be prepared all the time, no matter what we tell ourselves.

So, we have to depend on each other. Have you ever sung in a choir or played a wind instrument in a group? To sustain a note longer than any one person could, you stagger breathe. One person takes a breath while everyone else holds the note. Then, the next person breathes. And the next, and the next. And the note continues. The work continues, even as we help each other take the rest we need.

2,000 years is far too long for anyone person to keep the work of the Reign of God going. But we keep the body of Christ going by supporting each other, encouraging each other, continuing on when someone needs a break.

If one or two bridesmaids had run out to the market to get more oil while the others rested, instead of them all falling asleep at once, perhaps they could have greeted the bridegroom together. The celebration could have been complete.

So, being prepared for Jesus’ return means loving our neighbors now—both in immediate acts of mercy and long-term systemic ways—and also resting so that we can continue this work for however long it takes for the Beloved Community to be made complete.

One ancestor in faith whoembodied this was Dorothy Day, and it’s her birthday today. She cofounded the Catholic Worker Movement, which has done immeasurable acts of mercy and justice in the world.

Here’s the postscript from her autobiography, The Long Loneliness. It illustrates so beautifully the way God inspired the movement with one small act of love after another, fueled by community.

“We were just sitting there talking when Peter Maurin came in.

We were just sitting there talking when lines of people began to form,
saying, ‘We need bread.’ We could not say, ‘Go, be thou filled.’ If there were six small loavesand a few fishes, we had to divide them.
There was always bread.

We were just sitting there talking and people moved in on us.
Let those who can take it, take it. Some moved out and that made room for more. And somehow the walls expanded.

We were just sitting there talking and someone said, ‘Let’s all go live on a farm.’It was as casual as all that, I often think. It just came about. It just happened…

It is not always easy to be joyful, to keep in mind the duty of delight.

The most significant thing about The Catholic Worker is poverty, some say.The most significant thing is community, others say.
We are not alone anymore.

But the final word is love.
At times it has been, in the words of Father Zossima, a harsh and dreadful thing, and our very faith in love has been tried through fire.

We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other. We know him in the breaking of bread,
and we are not alone any more. Heaven is a banquet
and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship.

We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.

It all happened while we sat there talking, and it is still going on.”

God can work that way with us, too, if we let one small act of mercy follow another small act of compassion, feeding our neighbors, supporting each other’s rest so that God’s love is acted out through history.

Let God’s love fuel your lamp as we love our neighbors together in big and small ways until the Beloved Community is complete.