What’s Next
Amos 5:18-24; Matthew 25:1-13
November 9, 2014
One of my friends and colleagues in ministry is fond of
posting to Facebook clips from the old West
Wing series in response to most any political event of any given day.
Clearly, she had a lot to work with last week, and posted a string of
election-related clips. That was all good fun, but just now the one West Wing bit speaking most to me is President
Bartlett’s habit of ending discussions with an abrupt, “what’s next?”
Not only does that strike me as appropriate to this moment
in our broad national history, but it also seems to fit our own small part of
it. Perhaps it also resonates in your personal life. Moreover, I think it’s
what Jesus is primarily concerned with in our gospel reading today, and, in
that concern, he echoes the prophetic agitation of Amos.
What’s next?
In the political sphere, some folks’ in these parts are
unhappy with Tuesday’s results, while others are quite pleased. Personally, I’m
more interested in what’s next. What’s next for the 840 million people around
the world who do not have enough to eat to be healthy? What’s next for the
nearly 16 million children in the United States who live in families that
struggle to put food on the table? What’s next for the hundreds of species of
animals and plants facing extinction due to climate change? What’s next for the
more than 2 million Americans in prison? What’s next for thousands of civilians
caught in the cross-fires in dozens of war zones? What’s next?
Amos’ words agitate me always: “let justice roll down like
waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.”
Jesus’ words echo hauntingly for me: “when I was hungry, you
fed me; when I was in prison, you visited me; blessed are the peacemakers; love
your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
This morning’s passage from Matthew comes in the midst of a
series of lessons about the nature of the kingdom of heaven. Matthew collects
them, and presents them with an air of urgency. “The time is coming soon,”
these stories tell us. “Are you ready?”
What’s next, you ask. Here’s what’s next: the kingdom of
God, or, less patriarchal, the kindom of God, or if you’d rather, the
commonwealth of heaven, or, my favorite, by way of Dr. King, the beloved community.
Throughout the gospels, this kindom, has a temporal aspect
of being always already and not yet fully realized. In other words, the kindom
is yet to come and thus, Jesus taught, we prayerfully demand of God, “thy
kingdom come on earth – right now.” May that be what’s next!
At the same time, this kindom is, Jesus tells his followers,
already among you, as close as the air you breathe. Its ultimate triumph is
assured by the covenant God has made to be steadfast and loving; a covenant
sealed in the story of Jesus.
Yet, as this weird wedding parable suggests, it’s pretty
easy to miss it.
This strange little story, oddly enough, reminds me of my
own wedding. Through my growing up years on into college, I had three extremely
close friends, one of whom is my younger brother, so, obviously, he was going
to be best man at the wedding. The other two were both somewhat musically
inclined, and one of them did some writing. So I asked him to write a song for
us, and for the two of them to perform it. They got it ready, but on the
afternoon of the wedding, one of them took a nap, got confused about the time,
and walked into the outdoor chapel – through a season’s worth of dead leaves –
when the service was mostly completed. When he sat down, my other friend leaned
over and said, simply, “you missed it.”
Sometimes, if we’re not careful, we sleep right through the
moment that we’ve been looking forward to and preparing for. What’s next
arrives, and we miss it altogether.
It’s also easy, I’ll confess, to miss the points in this
parable because it is strange and archaic. For example, we have no tradition of
virgins parading into a wedding feast with the bridegroom, as was one custom of
Matthew’s time. So, there’s that bit of oddness with which our desire to make
meaning must contend.
Further, Matthew was writing to a community that had
struggled to survive as faithful followers of Christ a full generation beyond
when their first members fully expected Jesus to return. “Come thou
long-expected Jesus,” indeed. So waiting, trying to keep awake – trying to keep
the faith alive and awake – had a particular resonance for them that’s pretty
much lost on us 2,000 years further on.
Moreover, that the women in this tale all carry the label
“virgin,” a state of idealized purity, would have suggested to Matthew’s
readers that Jesus was talking about religious insiders. Insiders they may have
been, yet they all fall asleep even though they know the bridegroom is coming. In
other words, even those who expect to be fully received into the great banquet
could miss the whole she-bang if they’re not careful.
They are much more likely to miss it if they stop asking
about what’s next. In other words, and I think this is particularly important
for religious insiders to understand, when we get comfortable and complacent
with the way things are we are no longer attuned to what’s next. That’s
particularly important for insiders, because we are comfortable. It’s easy to feel like we’ve already got a seat at
the banquet, and to stop thinking about folks who might not have ever even
heard that there is a banquet in the first place.
It’s so easy to get bound up in the way things are, and miss
out entirely on what’s next. Consider your own life – whether vocationally,
personally, spiritually. It’s easy to feel either completely comfortable – or,
perhaps, completely trapped – in the patterns of this moment, and miss out on
the invitation to make changes that draw you deeper into the kindom of God that
is among us.
Let me turn that into a couple of direct questions:
·
Are you spending your time on what really
matters?
·
Are you spending your money on what really
matters?
·
Are you using your gifts for what really
matters?
This is the “oil in the lamps” of Jesus’ parable. Spending
our time, treasure, and talent on the things that draw us closer to the way of
Jesus is the way we keep our lamps full and shining – shining a light in the
darkness as a beacon to what’s next.
This is a parable about the between times, about waiting
with expectation for the coming again of Christ into our lives. It’s almost
Advent – that season of hope, expectation, preparation and also of longing and
waiting.
Waiting is hard, but we all do a great deal of it in life.
This particular waiting – for the presence of Christ – has a different nature
than most of our waiting. We are invited into an active waiting, a waiting that
is not merely preparation. We don’t just talk about the need for oil in the
lamps, we find the oil and fill the lamps.
How? By tending to what’s next that’s in our midst right now
we make tangible the presence of Christ in the world.
As one commentator on this week’s lectionary texts noted:
Each time we work for justice (as Amos invites in the first
reading), we testify to the presence of Jesus. Each time we bear each other’s
burdens, we testify to Jesus’ presence. Each time we advocate for the poor, or
reach out to the friendless, or work to make this world God loves a better
place, we testify to the presence of the Risen Christ.[1]
That testimony, embodied and lived out in this world, is
what’s next. May it be so; right here, right now, among this people.
posted by David Ensign at
10:13 AM
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