I was remembering recently a button that used to exist in the solitaire game software that came pre-installed on Microsoft computers. It was known as a “Boss button.” The idea was that if you were playing card games on your computer at work and your boss came by unexpectedly, you could hit this button and a meaningless spreedsheet with meaningless data would take over your screen, hiding the card game. It was sort of a digital, “Quick! Look busy!” solution.
The parable we encountered in worship today has a little bit of that “Quick! Look busy” feel to it. Two groups of bridesmaids in the story have two different ways of waiting while the return of the bridegroom is delayed, leading us to think about what we do when when the “boss” isn’t around. How do we wait when the waiting starts to get longer than we expected?
A worship video of this sermon is available here, and the manuscript can be found by clicking “Continuing reading” below.
The parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids, as this story is often called, does not exist in a vacuum. We’re here at the end of Matthew’s gospel. The triumphal entry took place in Chapter 21. The Last Supper takes place in Chapter 26, the crucifixion in 27, the resurrection in 28. Jesus is telling this story to his disciples as part of his response to their question, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
It was not uncommon while I was in seminary, around the time of final exams usually or maybe the day before big theology paper was do in a difficult class, to hear folks joking during coffee hour, especially those who tended toward procrastination, saying things like, “This would be a great day for Jesus to come back.” (I know, seminary humor is it’s own special category of humor.)
I remember the first couple of times I heard a joke like this I chuckled along politely, but inside I had no clue what the joke even meant, so if you’re doing that now, I’d like to think we are in good company.
The church I grew up in, a white, middle class, moderate Presbyterian church on the Space Coast of Florida – that is a community filled with engineers, educators, and retired military personnel – did not talk about the return of Jesus. At all. I’ve got my confirmation workbook right here. Twenty-six lessons and none of them talk about the return of Jesus, also called “the second coming.” And to be honest – I’m pretty sure I haven’t ever taught it in confirmation either.
I guess I’m perpetuating that similar company. It’s just… It’s just that it’s…. Hard. It’s confusing. Biblical passages that talk about the return of Jesus or the end times or what happens after all of this – they are full of metaphors, sometimes scary sounding narratives, mystical signs, and confusing symbols. We don’t know what it means, and maybe we’re even a little nervous to find out. What we have read or heard about the return of Jesus sounds like a whole lot of disruption, and frankly, many of us have it pretty good in this life time, so an agent of disruption isn’t someone we’re begging to come over for dinner.
And yet, this avoidance of the topic isn’t universal in the Christian tradition. There are some branches of the family tree, some traditions, some people for whom thinking about the return of Jesus is extremely important, for whom disruption of the status quo sounds like good news, very good news.
In his 1972 book, The Spirituals and the Blues: An Interpretation, black liberation theologian James Cone talks about an African American spiritual that sings “Slavery chain done broke at last/Going to praise God till I die,” Cone wrote “this is not a ‘spiritual’ freedom; it is an eschatological freedom grounded in the events of the historical present, affirming that even now God’s future is inconsistent with the realities of slavery.”
In other words, the biblical idea that Jesus will return, that he will set people free, and that he will disrupt the status quo was both very real and very, very good news to enslaved people. It had been for a very long time among people all around the world, including the disciples of Jesus’ time, for whom the current reality of life is one of hardship, oppression, and seeming hopelessness.
A very different version of this “good news” developed in mid-19th century England towards the end of the Evangelical Revival, known as the First Great Awakening in the United States, to where it was quickly exported. The idea, commonly talked about as the rapture, originated with the vision of a young Scottish woman in the 1830s, but it was picked up by an evangelical Bible teacher, named John Nelson Darby, who brought it to this country where it flourished.
The rapture taught that the end times could begin at any time and when they did the faithful, the really faithful, not those who were going through the motions, not those who said all the right words, but lived sinful lives on the side, not those who secretly had questions – the real faithful who had said the right prayer and went to the right church and had the right friends, would be suddenly lifted up into the sky without any notice.
This so-called theology of rapture saw a resurgence of popularity in the early 2000s with the publication of the Left Behind books, and it has even found it’s way into some political thinking, influencing US foreign policy. A rapture mentality is one that encourages “true believers” to look at this world, our social realities, even this planet as temporary and one that is moving toward divinely-ordained destruction. Under this world view, our existence and experience is not only temporary, but it is actually infused with evil and the only way to avoid being sucked into that evil is to be separate from it right now, and be separated from it when Jesus returns to lead an epic, violent war in a final showdown between good and evil.
All the problems in society and the ills that people face are the result of sin and the best anyone can hope for is to be raptured, removed from it by the grace of God, which is bestowed only on those who believe enough, correctly, and at the right time. Those who know this should be scared into living right. The good news, in this version, is not for the oppressed, the poor, or those in bondage; instead it is only for those who have this narrow view of salvation, Christian faith, and righteous living.
Everyone else is tainted by sin and evil, and if they can’t accept an invitation out of it, they deserve to be destroyed with it. There really isn’t any point or need to address the problems of the world – poverty, inequities, wars, genocide, oppression, climate change and threats to the environment – because all those problems are really just a part of the big cosmic battle of good vs. evil and Jesus will come someday to deal with that. We don’t have to and can’t do it ourselves anyway.
Which brings me to Matthew. Finally. (I know it’s been a long road to get here, and I thank you for hanging in there.)
Like I said before this parable about the bridesmaids and bridegroom comes as part of a response to the question Jesus’s disciples asked him about the end times, namely, “Is this it?” Jesus and his followers are well aware at this point that their situation is getting very dangerous. They know that the Roman government is closing in on them, that what they have been teaching and preaching and doing has been deemed at threat. They have been talking about a kingdom that is not the Roman Empire, with a very different set of rules from those of the empire, with a higher authority, at least among it’s adherents, than the Caesar. Nothing about this kingdom, this king, this authority sounds like good news to those who are in charge, but it has been the best news to those who have been under Rome’s thumb. Rome is ready to put an end to Jesus in order to put an end to this kingdom.
But that’s not how his followers understand things will go. With the witness of the prophets, the memory of the exile, the formative story of the release from enslavement in Egypt, God’s people, Jesus’s disciples, know that God’s kingdom will not be extinguished. Even if he ends up executed, his disciples consider, he must be coming back, and soon, to finish the work of liberation and redemption.
Jesus answers their question with quite a long discourse. He doesn’t have a lot of time, but he has a lot to say. The first part of the answer can actually sound kind of scary. There is mention of wars, famines, and earthquakes, the darkening of the sun and stars falling from heaven. But he ends this description with the statement, “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”
And that’s when he tells the parable of the bridesmaids. This is a story that does NOT use scary imagery, but instead talks about a time of great joy and celebration – a wedding banquet. Wedding and banquet imagery is all over the Bible signaling good news. There are banquets in Isaiah where all people eat freely. There is the love poem of Song of Solomon where wedding and marriage imagery can be seen as a metaphor for God’s love of humanity. The psalms sing of times when feasts and parties will demonstrate peace and unity among all people.
Jesus is saying we may not know when, or where, or how, but a big, party of a good time – very good news – is coming.
In the parable it is clear that word is out that the wedding is coming. The bridesmaids have all gathered at one house to wait for the festivities that begin in the evening. According to custom the bridegroom is expected to swing by the house, and gather the maids to take them to the wedding in the evening. They’re all there. They’re reading with their lamps to light the way during the procession. If it were modern times the wedding photographer would be snapping all sorts of unposed pictures while they check their hair in the mirror, tell stories, and maybe even have a champagne toast.
But eventually it becomes clear that the something is holding the bridegroom up. Ready for the evening, they go ahead and let their eyes droop shut and take a little nap. It seems harmless, and for the most part it is. When the groom eventually comes, delayed, but ready to go to the feast, they hop up and head out. There’s only one problem. Half the bridesmaids had extra oil just in case, and half of them only had just enough for everything to go exactly on time.
All of the bridesmaids were ready for the wedding, but only half of the bridesmaids were ready for the delay. Only half concerned themselves with what would need to be done if the great wedding feast and glorious celebration didn’t come exactly when they were thinking or hoping.
“Is this it?” the disciples ask Jesus. “Is this the time of the fulfillment of your kingdom’s reign?”
“About that day and hour no one knows, but keep awake. Be ready. And attend to the tasks of that celebrate now, even while you wait.”
This parable is a parable full of hope. The wedding feast is coming. The preparations are underway. The tables are being set. The band is warming up. The food is about to come out of the oven. People are putting on their finery and lining up for the parade. This we can trust, because God who has been faithful will be faithful still.
And at the same time, being full of hope doesn’t mean we sit back, fall asleep, and stop preparing, because we just don’t know when that will happen. The disciples, I think, were assuming that day, or the next week, but from today, 2,000 years later, we can see that they were on a faster timeline than God is. Preparations for the feast are underway. Jesus’ ministry has shown that to be true. The witness of his followers through the ages supports it. But the culminating party has clearly been delayed.
So the parable of the bridesmaids shows us how to live in that reality, how to live with the hope that what has been promised, what has already been started, is coming, and it’s something we can be a part of while we wait. Not only can be, but we are called to be. Hope doesn’t mean we look at the state of our world and fall asleep, thinking, “Oh, God will take care of it another day.” Hope doesn’t mean we can close ourselves off to the pain of the world and wait for Jesus to magically rescue us before it gets worse.
Hope means we stay ready.
Hope means we do what we can to prepare for that banquet, because who knows when the bridegroom might get a flat tire, who knows when the caterer will get lost.
Hope means we get ready by staying ready and working even now for the promised future all of creation will one day enjoy.
Hope means we actively participate in the work of the kingdom Jesus demonstrated, so that little by little, the good news that he proclaimed will feed his people, even before doors to the party fling open.
For Some Reason 