Sermon at The Church of the Holy Apostles, New York City
November 9, 2008, The Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A
The Reverend Elizabeth G. Maxwell
Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
Psalm 78
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13

     In the name of God,  who was, and is, and is to come, Amen.

     What a wild and momentous week this has been.  Whatever our politics B whatever our politics, surely in the historic election of an African American to the presidency there is some deep shift happening in our national psyche, something in that powerful symbol of inclusion and possibility that takes a profound step towards the healing of our nation=s original sin of racism, founded in slavery and division.

     At the same time, this Sunday after election day, I am aware of how fiercely that I hope that our president- elect can indeed lead us into some of the change that he campaigned on.  I would guess that hope might also transcend our politics, whether we voted for Barack Obama or not.  Even though we do it at every service, I have never felt such heartfelt urgency to pray for a political leader.  Our country, and not only our country, but the world with which we have never been so obviously interconnected, needs courageous and wise and skillful and visionary leadership.  It needs change, from the crisis of our staggering world economy B which, make no mistake, damages the poor among us the most- (I think of the guests of our soup kitchen who have long known that there was an economic crisis, long before Wall Street was in crisis)- to the scourge of war and the need to find ways of settling our differences differently and in peace, to issues of security, to the urgent call for respect for human rights, particularly including full rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people,  to, of course, Aour planet in peril.@

   This is a time that calls us to come together and to pray.

     At the same time, as our good friend Barbara Crafton reminds us in her blog on the scriptures for this morning, the salvation that we hope for and the bridegroom of today=s gospel is Christ, not our president-elect.  That=s a relief, particularly in a time of great challenge and change.  We have a very human tendency, I think, to project our hopes, our fears and our larger-than-life expectations onto a charismatic leader.  That=s another reason to pray: to pray that he won=t get sucked into our projections and to pray that we will not give away our own responsibility.

     That is one way, strangely, that today=s text speaks to our condition.  But it is a strange and difficult text, isn=t it?  It is multi-layered, reflecting not only the original story that Jesus may have told, but also the experience of Matthew=s own community late in the first century of the Common Era as they dealt with the delay of the Lord=s expected return, with pressures to find their identity, to find community:  cohesion to withstand persecution and to keep faith alive.

     We tend to read such stories as linear, and we tend to interpret them as allegories so that this means that and nothing else.  But a parable is far more like a prism, like a snapshot, even like a dream B a series of images that can startle us, that can challenge us, that can mean many different things but that are at the same time limited B that tell one story, but do not address every situation or try to tell every story.

     So, Jesus says: AThe kingdom of heaven is like this:  there were ten bridesmaids who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.@  Interestingly, this reflects accurately the customs for weddings in Jesus= day.  The bridegroom and the bride=s family would have protracted negotiations about the bride-price, and the bridegroom might be delayed by travel or by those negotiations.  He might arrive at any time, at which point the bride=s attendants would be there to help her move with him from her family=s house to his family=s house.  If he came at night, they often lit the way with torches.

     In the story, the women doze off B all of them doze off, not just the foolish ones- and so they are awakened by a cry that comes at midnight.  AThe bridegroom is coming!@  Five of the women, called Afoolish@ by Matthew, do not have enough oil, and they ask the Awise@ ones who do to share.  But the wise bridesmaids refuse, saying Athere is not enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some oil.@

     I had a momentary temptation to go down an environmentalist road at this point, reflecting on how we=re all running out of oil, but that=s not what this parable is about.

     So, to the first issue that troubles me.   Why don=t the wise bridesmaids share?  Why does Jesus seem to commend them for not sharing?  The gospel as a whole witnesses to profligate generosity, from the feeding of the five thousand to the widow who gave her very last coin.  What is going on here?  At worst, we might take this parable as counsel to all be good little bridesmaids and hold on to whatever we have because there=s not enough for anyone else to have some.  This is surely one of the spiritual dimensions of the crisis of our time, this kind of individualist and isolationist thinking.

     But what if the oil symbolizes something that actually cannot be shared?  What if it symbolizes something like our personal spiritual journeys- my life, your lives- each with a deeply personal and particular set of challenges and blessings and truth?  What if the oil is the witness that only you or I as individuals, or we as a particular congregation can make?

     We do not make our spiritual journey alone.  We don=t do it by ourselves, that=s true, but it is also true that we must do it ourselves.  As the old spiritual says, you must walk this lonesome valley... and nobody else can walk it for you...@ 

     Oil is also used in anointing, in sealing.  Having just had the occasion to use oil in baptism last week, I remember so clearly how the baptisand is marked as Christ=s own forever with the oil of chrism.  Oil burns to give light, and it confers on us a vocation as light bearers.

     That light is the unique gift that each of us carries, and we can=t give that away.   We can=t give it away to our children or our parents, to our friends or partners, to our clergy or our elected leaders.  It is our responsibility and privilege.  The call to bear light is personal and intimate; it is also communal.  It is as big as the world, and our responsibility is to let our light shine.

     The bridesmaids= lights reveal and illuminate the coming of the bridegroom at midnight, the presence of God, the reality of the beloved in the dark, in mysterious and unexpected places and sudden moments that jolt us from sleep.  Though the story has been interpreted as being about the coming of Christ at the end of time, it=s more helpful for me to think about it as his coming at all times, unexpected and sudden.

     Later in this very same chapter, Jesus will speak of seeing the divine beloved in the hungry, the prisoner, the homeless, the sick and the stranger.  We awaken also to see her in beauty, in possibility and the need for creativity in those close to us, and in the depths of our own hearts.  The light that the bridesmaids carry reveals the divine presence and it also radiates forth, bringing the gift that they alone can give.

     And so the five wise maidens go into the marriage feast, but when the other ones B the foolish ones B return, the door is shut and the bridegroom says to them, AI do not know you.@  This is the other difficulty for me in this passage.  It leaves us looking at this closed door and recoiling from the sense of exclusion that it brings.  I want to be clear that I don=t believe that this is the deepest truth of our faith, of who God is.  It surely is not the gospel=s final word.

     I am grateful for the other stories that help to mitigate this one, the stories of boundless hospitality in which the last to arrive become the first, for the image of Jesus himself as the door.  I am grateful above all for the story of the stone rolled away and the door to the tomb wide and mysteriously open.

     But, because I dislike it so, it does seem important to linger awhile this morning with this story, this image- to honor the closed door, to sit with it a moment.  When I do that I immediately become aware that our choices have consequences.  We do run out of gas and we do come up short.  We do refuse our calling; we miss the invitation to the feast.  We refuse to love and be loved.  We think that what we do won=t matter and so we let things slide.  We despair of making any difference at all.  We neglect the gift that is in us, by which I mean not our particular talents so much, but the gift of the spirit deep in our inmost being, the gift that is our life, our truth, ourselves.

     All of us at times are the foolish bridesmaids, and sometimes the door does close.  What was possible ends.  There might be other possibilities, but not those possibilities.  Limits are real.  I think here of the environmental crisis and its challenge of a brief window in time in which to slow the consequences of global warming, but I think also of smaller opportunities and urgent calls to bear light, to show up, to make changes, to love where love is needed, to pay attention and to do what is ours in this moment before the moment passes.