Proper 27 A + Waiting + 11.12.23

 

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(Joshua 24:1–3a, 14–25; Ps. 78:1–7; 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18; Matthew 25:1–13)

 

Who doesn’t love a prepper? Why, preparation is an American pastime. I have heard that our siblings from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints have a hill full of supplies in case of catastrophe and I even stumbled upon a prepper store in Camarillo one time with tubs of preserved food and more – I must admit that one scared me a little.

But the preparation talked about in today’s passage from Matthew is not the preparation we can do in this world. We get all hung up on oil and lamps or torches but this is primarily a metaphor. We have a clue in the first sentence, where instead of saying the kingdom of heaven is like, we are told that it will be like this. A wedding feast would have been a very typical social and cultural event in the ancient near east. Very different from our own festivities, weddings were affairs of at least a week. It was the tradition that the bride would come to join the groom at a home built adjacent to that of his family as a part of the culmination of the festivities. So, these virgins, here translated bridesmaids, we assume are part of the bride’s crew, waiting as part of the bridal party who will be collected and brought to witness the move of the bride into the groom’s home.[1]  

But we can get all caught up on the cultural aspect, on whether the virgins have oil or not, and whether they share the oil or not, but likely that’s not the point. It is a metaphor for our awaiting the Bridegroom of our hearts spiritually. In this portion of Matthew, Jesus is preparing his disciples for his death, but he is also trying to prepare them for the fact that he will not be gone forever, but will return to us- this is the theme of the passages we have been reading from First Letter to the Thessalonians also. So, we are reminded that, yes, being ready is good for earthly things but not something we can actually do for the Kingdom of God in the same way.

There is a beautiful part of the Sabbath liturgy in the Jewish temple wherein the worshippers sing a song to welcome the “Bride of the Sabbath.” People sing “Lecha Dodi,” which means “Come my Beloved” and it is said that “in Talmudic times, Shabbat was perceived as a bride, and the day itself was thought of as a wedding ceremony.”[2]  We envision the sabbath coming to us as a bride decked out in finery, and we are to welcome this time of rest with the same joy as we would welcome a wedding and the joining of two lives.
In the same way, Jesus will come to us and invite us into the truer, more beautiful joy of the Kingdom of God, a joy that we have tasted a little of, but will not fully know until we see him again. It is that bridegroom whom we await. And we prepare in a few weeks to enter the season of waiting, of Advent, in which we ritually await the coming of the Kingdom even as we remember the first time Christ came to earth in the form of Jesus.

I said earlier that we cannot be prepared for the Kingdom of God. Well, I was not entirely correct. I think one of the things we can do is to keep the rituals alive, those that remind us of the question: For what are we waiting? If we look at the reading from Joshua today, at first Joshua seems to be convincing the people that they cannot follow God. “You cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God.” But some have indicated that this passage is in fact a ritualistic one.[3] In order to fully commit to God, the people have to choose God multiple times and Joshua acts as a witness to their choosing of God. They cannot wriggle out of this one! They are committed. It is sealed in history, and the people of Abraham must keep the faith.
Ritual is very important to us as we live out our faith. Coming to church and placing our trust in the one who is to come is a vital step in our journey of preparation for the coming Kingdom. We must also try to find ways to keep our oil supply well stocked. If one interprets the “oil” here as meaning what will help us to be ready to welcome Christ when he comes, I wonder what that means? What will prepare us for the moment when the beloved knocks on the door of our hearts? What will make us ready? I suspect it is daily prayer, devotional and Bible reading, and fellowship with other Christians, including acts of service. If we stay prayed up and gather in Christian community, we are refilling our oil. We do not rely on others to have done the hard but beautiful work of connecting with God for us, but are trimming our lamps daily.
There were a lot of references to the movie “Mean Girls” in reading of the passage from Matthew in my brainstorming group this week. A question was posed- were the wise virgins wise but mean young ladies? In any other circumstance, their response does not seem Christian. But if the oil that we discuss is not literal lamp or torch oil, but rather the inner light that we must kindle, it all reads rather differently. We must trim our own lamps and fill our own oil. No one else can build a relationship with God for us. However, we can support and encourage each other in building up our faith and that is what we do at church.
And we serve a faithful God. We know that unlike the bridegroom of this tale, the bridegroom of our hearts will never turn us away. But let us be sure all the same that we know Christ, and Christ knows us, when he comes to knock upon the door of our hearts.

Amen.

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[1] Bruce J Malina and Richard L Rohrbaugh, The Social-Science Commentary of the Synoptic Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 123.

[2] Gabriella Tzin, “Lecha Dodi: Welcoming Shabbat the Bride,” Published on netivyah.org on February and August, 2019, Lecha Dodi: Welcoming Shabbat the Bride | Netivyah.

[3] Bryan Whitfield, Commentary on Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25, (Commentary on Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25 - Working Preacher from Luther Seminary). For November 12, 2023.