Does Today’s Scripture Help You To Stay Awake While Contemplating How God Will Use You?
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. 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 Stay Awake While Contemplating How God Will Use You?
Scripture: For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power. For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
1 Corinthians 1:17-25 (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 it helps to 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 about a year into the phase of my life called retirement and my wife is about a year out. 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. But do not be discouraged about when God might use you. Paul tells us in today’s text what kind of person that God uses. It is very evident that God’s measuring rod is different than ours, for God has the ability to look beyond who we think we are. We judge based on the outer appearance of what we see in the mirror. But it is not about you and me. It is about what God chooses and indeed it might be foolish things, weak things, base thing, despised things and powerless things. These are the things that God often chooses…things which are opposite from what we would choose. He chooses what the world calls the foolish things to shame wise men. He chooses what the world calls weak things to shame the mighty. He chooses what the world calls dishonorable things like the Cross to confuse the exalted. He chooses what the world rejects to humble the noble. And He chooses what the world calls the powerless things to bring to defeat things that are powerful. The Bible says God’s ways are not our ways. Thankfully it does not say God’s ways cannot be our ways. Friends, we are to see in a new light, because we are His sons and daughters, our ways can be God’s ways. It is apparent that God does not choose people based on our wisdom. God has chosen what the world calls foolish to shame the wise. Still we must wonder if we will be awake for the experience. Paul, in today’s passage to the church of Corinth makes this point about staying engaged. You see, there is the sacrament of baptism and the sacrament of marriage, but they are all subordinate to the sacrament of the Cross and the Gospel in the Word that makes it clear that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Christ is not divided on this. Paul’s message on the subject is that our preconceived notions of power and wisdom are different from the power and wisdom of God which perfectly blends justice and love. The problem is that sin creates a barrier between God and people and the Cross in perfectly blending justice and love is the only way to resolve it. The thing is that the Gospel of the Cross is the supreme and ultimate revelation of God’s redeeming character that is the crucial element in Christianity. The meaning of the cross is the power of God that makes the wisdom of the world foolishness. In Jesus’ day on earth, had he given the word thousands of swords would have drawn from their scabbards and Rome would have been hard pressed to contain all the pent-up idealism and fanatical nationalism of the Jews. Christ crucified was utterly repellent to their apocalyptic hopes. Yet Paul knew that in the experience of people in time the cross would become the greatest uplifting power in the universe. And so, God’s folly of self-sacrifice would transcend all human wisdom and far exceeding all human power. Indeed, God works in mysterious ways.
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 but Jesus and our own resolve. 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! But we need our sleep! So, we are forced to face the tension of opposites. So, we have to trust God to choose for us. Yes, 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. 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 not afraid or hold back or quit. 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 do 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
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