Does Today’s Scripture Help You To Keep Improving While Awaiting Jesus?
Good Morning Friends,
There is a trajectory to today’s lectionary text that is about faithfulness and holiness and continuous improvement in relationships and love and marriage and how God can be part of it all. There is a trajectory in today’s lectionary about the coming storm as well. And as it happens the text falls on the eve of the 40th anniversary of my wedding to Amy. We got married when Hurricane David was heading to Florida and now forty years later the forecast for Dorian has our home in the cone of uncertainty. So, I for one, am awake and attentive as to how marriage and storms and sanctification are intertwined. I am ever more aware of the need for the Holy Spirit to help us keep trusting God as we wait and stay prepared and keep loving. So, Does Today’s Scripture Help You To Keep Improving While Awaiting Jesus?
Scripture: Finally, brothers and sisters, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that, as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God (as, in fact, you are doing), you should do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication; that each one of you know how to control your own body in holiness and honor, not with lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one wrong or exploit a brother or sister in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, just as we have already told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness. Therefore whoever rejects this rejects not human authority but God, who also gives his Holy Spirit to you.
1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 (NRSV)
“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
Matthew 25:1-13 (NRSV)
Message: As I have written before we must have both the Holy Spirit, personal experience and Scripture combined for revelation. So, today’s text is a good learning experience for me given that I am entering a phase of my life called retirement. Now each of us might experience today’s parable differently but each of us is represented in this parable of the bridesmaids. We either have oil in our lamp or not. We either have joy in our relationships or we do not. We either have God as a partner in our relationships or we reject the Holy Spirit. Friends, when people get married, they often take a vow to love, honor, cherish and obey each other. It is a promise that is part of our culture, but it is also a sacrament that is part of our faith. And we all want to have a faith that makes a difference in our lives. Now some things get in the way of that and other things lead us to holiness. Some things bolster the work of the Holy Spirit…things like forgiveness instead of blame and transformation instead of information. To help us, today’s scripture from Thessalonians sets out four qualities of obedience in the first three verses and then gives examples of what this holiness looks like and does not look like in our relationships with others. We learn that obedience is about our call to walk in a way that pleases God and aligns with the work of the Holy Spirit. Obedience is to progress over time to transform us and energize us. And so, obedience is about listening for the voice of Jesus. Obedience is about our desire to satisfy God’s will… to become sanctified. Friends, God has called us to purity and sanctification, and this comes through love. And this is true in marriage and it is true in the church, and it is true in the image of a relationship between God and Israel. It is even true in our expression of our sexuality but not in the way you might think. We are not all meant to be celibates. Jesus was not a prude about sexuality. The thing is that our sexuality is just part of the story. Marriage is much more. Love is so much more. Don’t settle for less than the best. Allow God to redeem all things in your life. Keep improving.
And So, when there was a storm on the Sea of Galilee, the disciples wanted Jesus to stay awake, so He helped them. But when Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, the Apostles found it impossible to stay awake. Here Jesus realized that no one could do it for him. So too in our life, there comes a time when it is too late for anybody to really help us. There comes a time when no one else can help us with our own spiritual development. Today’s parable from Matthew is about this topic but has always perplexed me. On one level it seems designed to encourage us to be prepared and ready but to also not make a foolish mistake. That is ok but there is an uneasy and disturbing challenge and a warning about how to live life embedded in it. We need to be ready now. We need to patiently wait. We need to stay awake! We need our sleep! We are forced to face the tension of opposites. We are to expect Jesus now but be prepared for him not to come for a very long time. Today’s Gospel parable of the ten bridesmaids brings a strong ethical and theological message home that is meant to bother us. The Kingdom has a door that can and does close and it is pointless to speculate when. The foolish virgins in the Gospel reading looked, dressed and marched like bridesmaids. They were charming on the outside but dim and dull on the inside. They are not the bride. If Jesus is the bridegroom, the church is the bride. But what of the wise virgins? In Jewish culture one of the acts of entertainment at weddings was to have ten virgins perform a dance around the bride and groom. It is a gender counterbalance to the requirement that there be ten men to witness the wedding. Their story reminds us that we should wait patiently, wait expectantly and wait faithfully, but we should choose wisely. Jesus’ second coming should never bring us thoughts of panic, doom or discouragement but it should help to motivate us to stay awake in the reality that a delayed decision to act could result in the tragedy we face when we know about Christ but not know Christ. Here we cannot overlook our responsibility. A relationship with God cannot be borrowed. Stay alert as if the Lord will come tomorrow but prepare as if he will not come in your lifetime. When it comes to the most important of tasks, of actively living in faithfulness to God, we cannot just call ourselves Christians, we need to deliver the goods. We need to have the right equipment. When it comes to Kingdom work, we need to be ready for both a wedding and a war. We need to be prepared and we need to let our light shine to the glory of God while we wait for Jesus to return.
Pray we wait patiently, expectantly and faithfully. Pray we are emotionally and spiritually prepared. Pray we are spiritually disciplined in our daily habits. Pray we have no delusions of adequacy. Pray we face our natural instincts. Pray we realize that it is possible to look like a Christian and not be one. Pray our faith changes the way we live. Pray that we not get caught up in world’s routines and forget that things are not always going to continue as they are. Pray we are wise and not foolish. Pray we keep our lamps lit with the light of Christ in our very souls. Pray our character is clothed in Christ. Pray we have the courage, concentration and vigilance to stay awake. Pray we make a commitment for the long haul. Pray we realize that we cannot order others to resolve the problems created by our own inadequacies. Pray we have a love that looks forward. Pray we know the love of God and all the joys of being human. Pray we glorify God in our individual bodies and collective bodies. Pray we obey God’s call to sanctification in our relationships. Pray we honor the sacrament of marriage. Pray we watch our thoughts, for they become words. Pray we watch our words, for they become actions. Pray we watch our actions, for they become habits. Pray we watch our habits, for they become our character. Pray we watch our character, for it becomes our destiny.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 