Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Bernard Delcourt OHC
The Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Proper 27 A, November 12, 2023
Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13
Click here for an audio of the sermon
In some religious traditions, Advent still begins on the sixth Sunday before Christmas, the Sunday after St. Martin's Day (November 11, yesterday). Advent was that long between the fifth and eighth centuries. You can still find traces of that in the readings of the few Sundays before our current four-week Advent.
The season of Advent in the Christian calendar anticipates the "coming of Christ" from three different perspectives: the physical nativity in Bethlehem, the reception of Christ in the heart of the believer, and the eschatological Second Coming.
Our parable today focuses on the third perspective, on the coming of Christ; His coming in glory at the end of times. The world today makes you hanker for the Second Coming, doesn’t it? Reading, listening and watching (as little as possible) about the world today, can indeed be more anxiety-producing than the end of time. Can all this be over yet, Jesus? But more on that later.
This parable stresses the importance of constant personal spiritual preparedness. Are we always willing to say yes to God’s grace and face the consequences? If you are like me, there are days that your preparedness is wavering.
But in my understanding of God as manifested to us in Jesus, God’s grace is like the sun and the rain. They fall on everyone, the good and the challenging, regardless of merit.
The evangelist Matthew was very concerned with encouraging his community of believers to endure and persevere in the faith.
Matthew is clearly writing for a Jewish Christian audience living within the immediate proximity of the homeland itself. Matthew's is the most Jewish of all the gospels.
At the time of Matthew’s writing, this community was going through incredibly challenging times for their faith. The temple at Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Romans and the population of Jerusalem scattered to the winds.
Many were hoping for Jesus to return very soon and get everyone home safe and sound in the Kingdom of God.
With the parable of the ten virgins, Matthew is saying “not so fast, folks!” And we still need to hear that message today when it would be so nice to have the Second Coming of Christ take us out of wars and climate change disruptions right about now.
Matthew is suggesting that we will need to wait and that we will have to be prepared for a long wait. Our energy for the wait may be flagging at times. Indeed both the wise and the foolish will fall asleep at times. But in the end, the Bridegroom will be coming in a glorious wedding procession to start times of feasting and revelry in togetherness.
So it seems the point of this parable for the people of God is to live joyfully and expectantly for we are invited to the wedding feast. But we are to live prepared in Christian hope, attempting to discern the will of God and to do it as well as we can.
As Presbyterian pastor John M. Buchanan puts it: “Christian hope rest on trust that the God who created the world will continue to love the world with gentle providence, will continue the process of creation until the project is complete, and will continue to redeem and save the world by coming into it with love and grace, in Jesus Christ.”
In the meantime, there are faithful people genuinely frightened about where human history seems to be headed. Living in hope does not mean immunity to the harsh realities of history. We can’t hide from the realities of the world.
On the contrary, living in hope means living confidently and expectantly, trusting that the Lord of history continues to come into life with compassion and redemption and hope.
So, even in the face of awful trends in the world’s current affairs, we are not to lose hope. We are to trust that God is engaged with it all whether we discern it or not.
In Letters to a Young Poet, the poet being a 19 year-old officer cadet in the Austro-hungarian army, Rainer Maria Rilke writes:
“Why don’t you think of him as the one who is coming, who has been approaching from all eternity? … What keeps you from projecting his birth into the ages that are coming into existence, and living your life as a painful and lovely day in the history of a great pregnancy?”
Are we, humanity, willing to be pregnant with the Savior once more? Can we accept to participate in this stupendous pregnancy?
On the one hand, we ought not to be lulled into thinking that there is no sense of urgency in preparing for the Lord’s coming. It is foolish to put off obtaining the oil of the “deeds of discipleship.”
On the other hand, the prospect of the end should not produce panic and anxiety. Even the wise maidens were able to go to sleep.
So rest assured, God is coming. Or even, wake up and see that He is at hand.
Still, you may wonder this week, do I have enough oil in my lamp to welcome the Beloved, the Bridegroom. How am I doing the will of our Father in heaven?
In case you need a reminder, as Jesus says earlier in the gospel according to Matthew: “love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:38-40)
And you may have to do this for quite a while. After all, we may be the early Church, the church of the first two millenaries of many more to come. Only God knows the time.
And finally, I think Matthew ended his parable with retribution for the foolish because that’s how he felt at the time about those who did not see God’s grace and respond to it readily. But I happen to be a universalist. I believe God’s grace and mercy are endless. Only those who will, to the bitter end, deliberately refuse to accept God’s grace and mercy will not enjoy God’s deepest embrace and love, but it will be self-inflicted pain.
I believe in a God whose invitation to love is always open even after the wedding party has started.
The Bridegroom is coming home. Let us rejoice and prepare for the feast! Amen.
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