Keep Me Burning

You can find the audio for this sermon here, or by copying the following into your web browser: http://s3.amazonaws.com/dfc_attachments/public/documents/3199407/VN810273.MP3.

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine with me the most beautiful wedding you have ever witnessed. The church adorned with fragrant flowers, candles enlightening the space with such warmth, the groomsmen dressed to the nines, the groom anxiously waiting at the front of the church, the bridesmaids reflecting the bright radiance of young love, and if you listen closely you can almost hear the music of this special moment. [Foster plays a few notes of bridal entry music]

I truly appreciate Foster for helping me out with that one. You can obviously open your eyes now. In that time of thinking about the most beautiful wedding you’ve ever attended did the thought at all cross your mind of some mishap, misstep, or mistake in the ceremony? Probably not! Yet, every wedding I’ve ever attended had a moment in which something went wrong. These moments though seem to add some tenderness to the nuptials: The groomsmen almost forgetting their tuxedos. The bride’s hair falling down from the humidity. A rain shower forcing the reception into a cramped space. Or even the bridesmaids forgetting the oil for their lamps. Wait, what?

Jesus uses the tender moment of a wedding ceremony in today’s gospel to help us understand something about the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet, from our vantage point his message of what heaven is like comes off as harsh, scary, and hellacious. To better understand what Jesus means we need to know more about wedding customs of Jewish people two thousand years ago.

Just like today, marriages back then were fraught with emotion. Two families coming together to form a new family tends to expose the underlying tensions, strengths, and weaknesses of both the bride’s and the groom’s upbringings. Yet, unlike today, the ceremony would have begun at the home of the bride. As the bridegroom approached, the guests including the bridesmaids, would have lit torches, which we are reminded of in today’s ceremony when the bride and groom leave their reception accompanied by guests lighting sparklers. The festive occasion back then would continue with all the guests processing to the groom’s home where his parents would have been preparing a feast for the ages!

In today’s gospel lesson though something goes horribly wrong. The groom does not show up. Often the ceremony would have begun at sunset, but in this story dusk quickly fades to dark and the groom is nowhere to be found. Ha, you thought the best man forgetting the ring was bad, think about the groom being delayed for six hours. So instead of the festive occasion of heading towards the groom’s estate, the guests and the bridesmaids wait and wait and wait. Finally though they all feel drowsy and every one of them falls asleep.

“Look, here is the bridegroom,” someone shouts, “Come out to meet him!” To make it from the bride’s house to the groom’s house one would need a lantern at midnight, as there were no street lights or cell phones with flashlights built into them. To be prepared for such a situation would be wise certainly, but I am unsure if it would have been normal. It seems that these wise women would have been the girl scouts of their day, always being prepared.

So we know what happens next the foolish ones ask their wiser companions if they might borrow some oil, but the journey being long and requiring an abundance of fuel the wise ones say no. Desperately the foolish maids go seeking oil from a merchant. The likelihood of someone coming to the door at midnight for such a request seems more foolish than forgetting oil. In their hurrying around these women miss the procession and arrive once the doors to the party have long been shut. Even after knocking and crying out, “Lord, lord, open to us,” the opportunity has been lost. The master does not recognize them, saying, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the hour nor the day.

We might have heard someone on the street corner yelling this last statement out, so that we might repent and turn away from our sinful ways. Many people believe the end of days, the rapture, will be scary. So they take keep awake to mean become paranoid, but interpreting Jesus’ parable in this way seems to miss the point and overlook the truth of Christ’s return.

The groom who represents the returning Christ comes late. Actually later than even any polite person could have been expected to wait, except those five wise women who packed the extra oil. We’ll come back to the oil in a minute. The foolish five ran off when they realized their sisters would not give them any oil. I wonder though why these fools did not just stay put. Even if they could not borrow oil, they could have borrowed the light of those who had the oil to keep on burning. Certainly the groom would have allowed them to enter if they were walking together arm in arm!

Still that is not how the story goes. The five fools go off in pursuit of oil to rekindle their lamps from some other source. Yet, I wonder if these women could have asked the groom for some oil to keep their fires lit. Again, this is not how the story goes.

We might hear keep awake and believe that we are to live a paranoid life looking for Jesus to pop out from behind every corner we walk around like a sort of holy jack-in-the-box. Yet, that is not what this parable indicates to us. The maids, all of them the foolish and the wise, fall asleep. The difference between them is preparing for the coming of the bridegroom, that and oil.

We need oil in our lamps to keep them burning. Give me oil in my lamp keep me burning, as the old song goes. We cannot get that oil, it seems, at the last minute from our fellow banquet-goers. However, I look around this church and I see oil everywhere I look. Not kerosene, nor something else flammable, not even olive or palm oil, but rather the oil of hope, the oil of peace, and the oil of love.

If you need oil for your lamp I believe that God has drenched us in it here at St. John’s. Whether it’s in practices of piety, prayer, study, outreach, spirituality, or some other Christian action this is a great place to fill up your lantern. Yet, no one can do it for you. Each of us must spend time daily replenishing our stores of oil.

So keep awake, or rather be aware of the light of Christ that shines within you. And take care so that you have enough oil to make it through the dark nights ahead, for we all have been invited to a heavenly banquet, but we know neither the hour, nor the day. Amen.