November 12, 2023, Don’t Miss the Exit, Matthew 25:1-13 – Mtr. Kathryn Boswell

saintphilipsnorwood ♦ November 13, 2023 ♦ Leave a comment

To listen to this sermon, click the link above. The text is below.

Last weekend I did quite a lot of driving, at least for me. I drove down through the mountains to the Cathedral of All Saints in Albany for the Bible Symposium on Saturday, and then Saturday evening I drove down to Middletown to visit my daughter Emily, and then Monday morning I drove back home. It was a wonderful weekend, but it’s always most wonderful to be on the way home. Once I turn my face toward home, I know the way, so I can stop consulting the googlemaps on my phone and just watch eagerly for the familiar road signs that let me know I’m getting closer and closer to my favorite place in the whole world.

We’ve come today to the time in the church year when our gospel readings are like those road signs. The parables we read today and next week remind us that we are drawing near to the Advent season. And Advent, of course, is our reminder that we are drawing nearer day by day to the moment of Christ’s return.

The Friday Bible study has been reading through a book called Surprised by Hope. It was written by N.T. Wright, and it’s all about the hope that we have because of the reality of Christ’s Resurrection. One of the points Bp. Wright makes, and one of the things we’ve been talking about a lot in class, is how that informs the way we live right now. Our future hope is why we have the thrift shop to provide our neighbors with basic needs. Our future hope is why we feed people, not just their bodies but also their minds and spirits. Our future hope is why we speak out when we see injustice in the world, and why we write our elected representatives to advocate for peace and compassion. Our future hope is why we love and care for our families, why we love and care for our pets. Our future hope is why we recycle and plant trees and flowers and vegetables.

But being a Christian is to live in a paradox. We live out the hope of the kingdom right now because we know we are waiting for something much more, much better. The kingdom has already begun to break in to this broken world. But, the kingdom has not yet arrived. The kingdom is now. But the kingdom is not yet. So we work and we love and we hope. But we also wait.

And who doesn’t hate waiting? But waiting is what Jesus’s story is about. It’s a parable, the story of ten girls: five sensible girls and five silly girls, who are all waiting for a party to begin. And waiting always takes longer than we expect it to. Waiting is always hard. Waiting is always too long. The girls all bring lamps, because it might be dark by the time the bridegroom arrives so the party can begin. All ten of these girls are gathered together, eagerly waiting for the bridegroom to come so they can escort him joyously into the wedding banquet and the feasting and dancing and jollity can begin. And they wait. And they wait. And they wait. And they wait so long that every one of those girls falls asleep.

But finally all of a sudden, they are waked up by a messenger, announcing that the bridegroom is approaching. All ten girls rub the sleep out of their eyes. All ten girls shake the wrinkles out of their dresses. All ten girls trim their lamps. All ten girls strain their eyes to catch the first sight of the bridegroom coming up the road. But five of them, the silly girls, take one look at their smoking, sputtering lamps, and suddenly they have that sinking feeling we all know, when we realize we’ve forgotten something really important. They never thought they would have to wait this long, so they didn’t bring along extra oil to keep their lamps burning.

Does it bother you that the five sensible girls won’t share their oil with their silly sisters? It’s easy for me to get hung up on that. But that’s not the point Jesus is making. We just have to take those sensible girls at their word – there isn’t enough for them to share. We have to leave it at that, because we have to watch for the point that Jesus wants us to catch.

Parables are all about leaving us with a powerful image; all about making an indelible impression on our minds. We will never forget the image of the shepherd carrying the lost sheep home in his arms. We will never forget the image of the father running down the road to embrace his wayward son. We will never forget the image of the kind Samaritan bathing the wounds of the man left for dead on the side of the road.

And here, here in this parable of the sensible and silly girls, Jesus has made sure that we will never, never, never forget the haunting image of those five silly girls standing outside in the dark, pounding on a door that won’t open to them.

We could say it’s just a story. But it’s not just a story. It is our Lord’s promise to us: “I am coming.” And it is our Lord’s warning to us: “Be ready.” No one knows when it will happen. Don’t stop hoping. Don’t stop expecting. Of all Jesus’s messages, I would say that he hammers this point home with more force than any other. Don’t be like those silly girls, left out in the cold, he says. Don’t be like the master of the house, robbed by the unexpected burglar. Don’t be like the wicked steward whose master comes home and gives him a thrashing. The images Jesus uses are unforgettable – they’re kind of scary, to be honest. It’s his way of giving us a powerful wake-up call. Stay awake. Wait for the promise.

Because the promise is the best, most joyful hope we could possibly have. “I am coming.” Don’t stop hoping. The wait will seem awfully long. But don’t give up. Because I am coming.

One time, when I was driving home from visiting my daughter Emily, I was very sleepy. It’s a pretty long drive, and if you’re driving alone it can be kind of boring – the highway just rolls endlessly on and on and on. And that time, when I got to my usual exit that takes me into Warrensburg and up through all those lovely roads that wind through the Adirondacks and through those cozy villages that bring me closer and closer to home – that time I wasn’t paying any attention, and I sailed right past my exit, and I got a little lost, and my drive home ended up being much longer and a whole lot more stressful than it should have been. All because I forgot to watch for the signs.

Once again, we’re drawing near to the season of Advent. Our readings, and all our Advent traditions, our Advent wreath, and the beloved hymns of this season, these are our road signs, warning us to stay alert! Telling us to watch for our exit! Inviting us to anticipate with joy the roads that are going to lead us home. It is very easy to live our lives on auto-pilot. We do good things, and some bad things. We go to church faithfully, or we don’t. We pray our prayers and we pay our bills, and it is very, very easy to forget to watch for the signs. It’s easy to lose sight of the obvious fact that the end of the journey is certainly going to come.

But it will. Today, or tomorrow. Next year, or next week. I don’t know about you, but to me it feels like it has been a very, very, very long night. It feels like the party is just never going to begin. It feels like the Bridegroom is never going to arrive. It feels like the door is never going to open. But we have his promise. Joy will come in the morning. That is our hope. Let us keep the light of our hope shining bright, no matter how long the night.

There’s a children’s song that has been running through my head all week as I have prepared for this sermon. It goes, “Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning. Give me oil in my lamp, I pray. Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning. Keep me burning till the break of day.” That is our prayer.