Pentecost 26a Proper 27

Matthew 25:1-13

November 9, 2008

Prepare for Delay

Pastor Bruce K Modahl

As we approach the end of the church year and work our way to the end of Matthew’s gospel the subject quite naturally is about the end. The day of the Lord is fast approaching. It all starts when Jesus laments over Jerusalem. His disciples were oohing and aahing over the temple buildings like the small town folk they were on a trip to the big city. He tells them, “Soon and very soon not one stone in that temple will be left upon another.” They want to know some details. Jesus’ answer points to his death. He is the temple, the meeting place between God and humanity. His crucifixion is the desolating sacrilege. This is the cosmic crisis that shakes heaven and earth. The sun refuses to shine at the moment of his death. Caesar’s forces become mute and helpless when the stone rolls away from his tomb. Upon Jesus turns the passing of the old order and the birth of a new creation in which everything is set right. It is also clear from his answer to the disciples that the fulfillment of the new day embodied in his resurrection is yet to be. It awaits his return. “But about that day and hour,” Jesus says, “no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Jesus then tells his disciples three parables to help them learn how to wait. We have the second of the three in today’s gospel reading.

It is easy to find fault with this story. Down through the years people have poked all kinds of holes in it. Jesus seems to condone selfishness. The five with the oil refused to share with those who ran out. The moral of the story, Jesus says, is to keep awake. But all ten of them fell asleep. The five who ran out of oil were so excited to be in the wedding that they ran out on a midnight shopping trip. There were no 24 hour stores. They had to wake some shop owners to sell them oil. And then they hustled back to the wedding. It hardly seems like the bridegroom Jesus to crack the door open, look out on their smiling faces, illuminated by their now-burning lamps and say, “Go away; I don’t know you.” The fact of the matter is all ten were prepared for his arrival. What five of them failed to prepare for was his delay. Be prepared for delay is what this parable urges. We might not be able to overcome the darkness but we can light our lamps in its midst and band together as children of light until the light’s return, until Christ shall come again.

What does it look like to prepare for delay? According to the prophet Amos it looks like letting “justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an every-flowing stream.” Christa Hayden is the Cambodia Aftercare Director for International Justice Mission, one of the ministries we support. She writes, “I am sitting on the hard tile floor of a Cambodian jail, trying unsuccessfully to light a mosquito coil while wiping sweat out of my eyes, shooing ants away and swatting at mosquitoes. It has been several years since I graduated with my master’s degree in social work. I definitely cannot remember any of my professors lecturing on mosquito management in Southeast Asia! However, I have three small teachers with me, and they all pitch in to show me the fine art of keeping a mosquito coil lit and balanced on its tiny metal tray.

“My wise teachers are actually three Cambodian girls, ages nine, 10 and 12, whom we helped rescue tonight from sexual slavery. International Justice Mission investigators and Cambodian national police worked together to free these children from months of torture, forced drug use, rape and pornography at the hands of a foreign pedophile and the local female traffickers in his employment….

“The oldest child and one of my Cambodian colleagues are intently talking in a corner of the room about the child’s experiences… tears flow…. A small space of… freedom… has been created in the middle of a police station.

“For the next three days, my teammates and I will take turns staying day and night with these three girls throughout their interviews with the local authorities…. The long road of healing and restoration will continue as the girls are placed in a loving… aftercare home.” Preparing for delay looks, in part, like the work of International Justice Mission.

We prepare for delay by training. A Jesuit priest had a brother who was an Air Force pilot. The priest went to visit his brother at the base where he was stationed. As a part of the tour around the base the brother took him into a flight simulator with him for a practice flight. At the end of the simulation the priest crawled out with the room swirling around him. “How often do you do this? he asked. He was astounded at the amount of time they logged in the simulators and in actual flight time. His brother told him, “We spend so much time training because in a real crisis we don’t rise to the occasion. We fall back on our training.” We prepare for delay by training.

Preparing for delay looks like the grandfather in a wonderful story Tim Gautreaux writes. The story is called “Welding with Children.” The welder in question is Bruton, who is home alone minding his four granddaughters because Tuesday is his wife’s day to go to the casino. He starts thinking about his own four daughters. “None of them has any religion to speak of,” he says to himself. “I thought they’d pick it up from their mamma, like I did from mine, but LaNelle always worked so much, she just had time to cook, clean, transport, and fuss. The girls grew up watching cable and videos every night, and that’s where they got their view of the world, and that’s why four dirty blondes with weak chins from St. Helena Parish thought they lived in a Hollywood soap opera.” He finds the Bible story book his own mother read him long years before. He unplugs the television and gathers them around to listen to him read. “But while I was reading, this blue feeling got me. I was thinking, What’s the use? I’m just one old man with a little brown book of Bible stories…. How can that compete with daily MTV, kids’ programs that make big people look like fools, the Playboy Channel, the shiny magazines their mammas and their boyfriends leave around the house, magazines like Me, and Self, and Love Guides, and rental movies where people kill one another with no more thought than it would take to swat a fly….”

That is the darkness, isn’t it? But he persists. He persists in keeping the girls close to him as much as possible. He takes them to Sunday School and church every Sunday. He turns off the television to read to them. He gives order to their lives in contrast to the disorder in the lives of their mothers. He keeps the lamp trimmed. He failed to do that for his own daughters but he is keeping the lamp trimmed for his granddaughters and is passing on its light to the next generation. That’s how we prepare for delay.

Paul in the second reading teaches us about preparing for delay. He says, “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” He goes on to assure them that even though the bridegroom is delayed those who have died in the faith will not be locked out in the dark when he comes. We grieve over those who have died and with those who are dying, but we do so as those who do have hope. Susan accompanied her sister and her “little dad,” as she calls him, on their journey to the grave. Now she sees her dear friend melting before her eyes with the same disease that killed her sister and father. She writes, “I’m asking the Holy Spirit to pray for him because I ‘ain’t got nothin’ left’ and don’t know what to pray for. [At the end of my visit] I hold his sleepy head in my hands and say, ‘My friend, child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.’ And I make the sign of the cross on that big forehead of his. Then I put my hand on his heart and say, ‘I know that I am held in the hands of God and I am perfectly and utterly safe, and so are you.” She is grieving as one with hope and she is falling back on her training.

In school chapel last Wednesday we celebrated All Saints’ Day. We were a few days late, that didn’t matter. We walked up and down the center aisle and splashed around some water from the baptismal font so we remember our baptism into Christ’s death and resurrection. It is by our baptismal faith that God declares us saints. We sang a song with saxophone accompaniment. It is a call and response song. Sing it after me. “

I’m going on a journey,

and I’m starting today.

My head is wet,

and I’m on my way.

Christ’s mark is on me;

it’s on you, too;

it says he loves me,

and he love you, too!

I’m becoming this day

a saint of God.

It really doesn’t matter

what roads I trod.

Wherever I go,

God’s been there, too.

God’s love has touched me

and will carry me through.

There are other saints

who have said amen.

They’ll keep me faithful

to my journey’s end.

Along the way

I want to be

the kind of person

that God set free.

What it all comes down to is being the kind of person that God set free. Amen.