Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning
Matthew 25: 1-13
I like weddings in John’s Gospel
And the problem is too much really good wine
In Matthew’s Gospel…well, they are odd!
Someone (God even)
Is either throwing a guest out for improper attire
Or barring them entry altogether!
I don’t know about you
But I want the foolish to get a second chance!
And…Why couldn’t the others JUST SHARE!
Slammed and locked doors
so…final!
sooooo harsh!
But…
The first law of parable interpretation says
That I mustn’t approach this story/parable
using my first 21st century vision.
Let’s dig a little
Judaea…Roman territory since 200BC
province from 6AD
A backwater…hardly on the radar in Rome
Free to worship
Not slaves…but not ideal
The Romans 2 goals: keep the peace and collect taxes
Pockets of rebellion rose up from time to time
And finally they had success in a coordinated revolt in 66AD
Predictably…and after hundreds of thousands of deaths…
A swift and crushing response by Rome
Temple in rubble
Jewish life in an existential Crisis!
How could God let this happen?
Is God still powerful…is God faithful to the covenant?
Is there any benefit in keeping the Torah?
In the absence of the Temple, and the cultic priesthood, and the economy of sacrifice two (at least two) movements fell into the vaccum and began to reground Jewish life
One was the evolving Rabbinic movement
Jewish life began to organize around communities led by learned Rabbis.
Another was offered by early Christians (not yet distinct from Judaism)
…such as Matthew’s community
And this is the backdrop of Matthew’s Gospel
The way forward,
Understood as in absolute continuity with all that has gone before,
is Matthew’s…Christian… vision of adopting a way of being…of living…in the light of hope, fidelity and vigilance/watchfulness…these are some of Matthew’s themes.
Matthew’s Gospel is organized into 5 sermons or discourses
The 1st is the “Sermon on the Mount”
Where we hear the famous beatitudes…
“Blessed are the poor, the peacemakers, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…”
As well as the language…the teaching…
about being the light of the world
“You are the light of the world.
A city set upon a mountain cannot be hidden
Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a bushel basket,
But on a lampstand,
And it gives light to all in the house.
So let your light shine before people, in order that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” (MT 5:13)
Scripture scholars understand the Sermon on the Mount as one tool for interpreting the whole of the Gospel. First things are always important.
Another interpretive tool is how the Gospel ends The last 2 verses, known as “The Great Commission”….(Endings are also important;)
“Go, make disciples of all the nations (the gentiles),
baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And behold I am with you all days until the end of the age.”
We need these two tools…interpretive keys
…this “light of the world” business
And this promise of companionship
To help unlock today’s parable
I know that right now
Many of us…some more intimately than others…
Might feel frozen…or at a loss to understand
the violence and war and cruelty
that is raging in many places around the globe
And we have plenty of our own
Closer to home
My friends…if our faith
Our traditions and prayer and Scriptures
All that reminds us WHO/WHOSE we are…
If this has nothing…
for us RIGHT NOW
Then it is not what we claim it is
If it has NOTHING
It has no power to save.
But we believe it does
I offer that this parable
of the wise and foolish bridesmaids
has light and it has companionship
Bridesmaids in our culture are pretty much
Let’s admit…unnecessary!
just a beautifully clad ceremonial photo op!
But in this story…they have an important, SINGULAR role
Their duty is to be there, ready to light the way.
These weddings were days long occasions.
Not just family affairs but occasions for everyone in the community
The Bridegroom travels to the home of the Bride
she gathers up her life…all that she has known
And is led by her groom back to his home and family
The story doesn’t tell us how faraway the two households were
…but even in our time any number of things might delay an arrival
…weather, run out of gas, flat tire
…some commentators suggest that the groom and the bride’s father
might have been haggling over extra bride-gifts
(think tipping)
The point is…delay would not have been particularly unusual.
The celebration would not begin without the couple.
The last line about keeping awake…can’t be about literal awakeness
After all---all 10 fell asleep
More likely it refers to being awake in the sense of being vigilant in preparedness…
The bridesmaids had ONE job
…to light the way for the wedding party
To bring them into the celebration
In a society ruled by honor and shame
(and one without electric light) …this
torch-bearing responsibility was no small matter
If they all arrived with burnt out torches
the result would have been profound humiliation
…and unending gossip!
In this light, the un-sharing bridesmaids really saved the feast!!!
Now, this parable, as it says in the first line, is about the “Kingdom of Heaven”
We are the light of the world…Matthew pronounces in Chapter 5.
We are Lamps…with trimmed wicks
and loaded with oil…At least potentially;)
Q: What is it about us…
or maybe, When is it,
that we glow in such a way
as to light the way to the Kingdom of Heaven?
This question made me recall those categories in the prayer of St Francis…
*When hating seems to make the most sense…love instead
*Wounds …my own or other peoples’…don’t pour salt in them…soothe them instead
*When I encounter someone lost…how about sharing what gets me out of bed in the morning
*In the face of despair…I can listen…even listening is an act of hope
*Is it dark?…Open a crack somewhere…that is how the light gets in
*Joy… not necessarily the absence of suffering but the presence of God
So… put on Joy…every morning put that on first…
I suggest that these actions
These St Francis Prayer Actions
are generators of Christ-like lamp-light
At our house
On the Saturday after Thanksgiving
We put up our outside Christmas lights
(only the outside…no skipping Advent;)
We have a row of bushes near the door to our house.
ONE string of lights is, like, nothing
…hardly noticeable
Three is still not enough
But 10! 10 strings of light well
…now we are talking
It is 10. But the effect is WAY more than 10!
It’s like 10 x 1 = 100!
So too with our lamps.
Putting our lamps together creates an almost irresistible sign of the Kingdom of Heaven
Some days we know ourselves as those vigilant bridesmaids
…gathering our light together to make a great splash to light the way.
Other times, when we’ve lost our way
…we might find ourselves extremely grateful to others for their vigilance in keeping their wicks trimmed and the oil supply at the ready…
The penetrating light from these Lamps
Is exactly what we need to help us recognize the sometimes tricky, and confusing
Signs of the times
…hidden causes of hatred, woundedness, emptiness
This light helps us see clearly so that we can act honestly…like Christ…
So that we can grow in Christ-likeness
Unlike In Matthew’s Time
Or the time of any of the Old Testament Apocalyptic/End-Times writers
The end of time, for us,
isn’t week-night supper table conversation.
Not usually anyway.
But when crisis comes
When someone I love gets a terrible diagnosis
Or I lose a job just when I’ve begun saving for retirement
Or there has been an unbearable rupture in one of my most intimate relationships
Or war and conflict seem to be erupting all around
In crises…When I don’t have any answers
When I don’t have any creative energy left
I might just want Christ to come again…right now!
Or at a minimum…make a guest appearance!
I think We’ve sort of forgotten something
Something essential to our Christian faith
Something we proclaim every time we gather for Eucharist
Christ has Died
Christ is Risen
Christ will come again
It’s the verbs that we need to pay attention to
HAS died –on the cross---in history
IS Risen (Is and still is…present…risen and among us…as promised in those last verses of Matthew’s gospel)
WILL come again (this is a promise and not a threat)
Christ will come again
Which means to me that some of the things I’m trying to figure out
Just don’t have to be figured out by me!
A promise and not a threat…but also a call.
To keep our lamps trimmed and burning
So that whatever Christ-likeness I bear may be a gift to someone else who needs it and though I’m not sure how the math works
…I just believe
That our light…
Somehow…
Reaches around the world.
This I believe
Thanks be to God
(sing/hum…Keep your lamps trimmed and burning…)
