Life is a cumulative experience. When I first heard this, I thought that people were talking about clouds. I used to love to lie on my back and watch those cumulative clouds. I thought that it had something to do with finding the silver lining of the cloud. It was not until a few years later learning arithmetic that I learned that there was a difference between cumulus and cumulative.
I bring this up today, because we all know that life is cumulative. We need to learn to roll over before we can crawl. We need to crawl before we can walk. We need to walk before we can run. I’m not going into hopping, skipping, and dancing.
Well, reading Scripture and understanding God’s word for us is also cumulative, and it is that cumulative learning we depend on today. Without our cumulative learning, this story looks very harsh.
Okay, there were five foolish maidens, and there were five wise maidens. What about it? For some reason they come to light the way of the bridegroom to the wedding hall, and the bridegroom is delayed. Really, the bridegroom drags his feet. Maybe he is having a case of cold feet about the marriage, or maybe there are some things that cause him to tarry on the way. At any rate, the bridegroom is delayed.
While they are waiting, the maidens nod off. Notice, they all fall asleep. Suddenly there is a cry, and all of them awaken, but they have all been burning oil while they were sleeping. Now, when they trim the wicks of their lamps they notice that some of them don’t have enough oil to complete their vigil awaiting the bridegroom. Notice it does not say that they have actually run out of oil, only that they fear that they will run out of oil. Asking those who have extra oil, the foolish maidens are rebuffed and told to go into the market, to the oil dealers, and bargain for more oil.
Doing due diligence, these five foolish maidens leave, negotiate the price of more oil, return to their place of vigilance only to discover that the bridegroom has already arrived, and they are no longer able to light the bridegroom’s way to the wedding hall. Frantic, they knock on the door crying, “Lord, Lord, open to us!”
Now they receive the most devastating news of all. “Who are you? I don’t know you! Go away! Don’t bother me!”
Okay, do you remember what happened last February? For instance, where were you at 2:00 in the afternoon on Valentine’s Day? Or, what were you doing on Presidents’ Day? Do you remember us reading much of Jesus’ sermon on the mount during that time?
You see, reading the Gospel of Matthew, like life, is a cumulative experience. Do you remember hearing Jesus say, “Every good tree bears good fruit, but every bad tree bears bad fruit.…You will know the trees by their fruit?” If you remember that, do you also remember Jesus saying, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven’”? These words of Jesus come to us from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, and, yes, that was already last February. Just hold that thought for a moment.
Do you remember during Holy Week hearing that Jesus was tried, crucified, and was buried? That Jesus did what Jesus did for the sake of the world? Do you remember on Easter Sunday reading that the stone was rolled away, being told that Jesus was going ahead of his disciples to Galilee? Yes, life is cumulative, and we need to remember that today especially. Otherwise we are confronted with an image of a very vengeful, judgmental God. Without the context of our other learnings and readings, in this story, we are challenged by a Jesus-like bridegroom we don’t recognize. We are left with incomplete understanding. We are not even clearly told whether the foolishness of the maidens was that they didn’t bring enough oil or that their foolishness was that they were willing to leave their posts of watching to go into the market to buy more oil.
So, what are we supposed to learn from this story? We are told in no uncertain terms that we should be watchful, that is, we should be engaged in life. We should be engaged in doing our Father in heaven’s will. We should understand that the message Jesus speaks is the same at the end of the Gospel of Matthew as it was at the beginning. We should be aware that the time of the bridegroom’s coming will be a surprise.
At this stage of the sermon, I am guessing you are thinking about the bumper sticker that said, “Jesus is coming. Look busy.” That is not what Jesus is talking about today. But if we think that we can claim our place in this story with the wise maidens, then we are probably setting ourselves up for a rude awakening. At the same time, if we align ourselves with the foolish maidens we are doing ourselves an injustice.
Today we are called upon to take our cumulative knowledge of God and God’s intentions for the world. In our Lutheran language, we need to hear, “Through the person of Jesus Christ, God intends that all should be saved. God intends that all should be saved. But, by actively turning away from God we can lose the gracious gift of salvation God gives. Even then, if we truly repent of our ways, God is anxiously waiting for us to re-enter that relationship of loving grace that we have come to know in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
So, what are we to do with these foolish and wise maidens? We are to see ourselves in them. How many times have we been distracted from our vigilance, from our walk with Christ? How often have we been distracted by the needs of the market, by that single thing we think we need in order to have a better, more comfortable, fulfilling life, only to discover that our relationship with Christ has suffered for our own wants and needs? How many times have we ignored the call of the marketplace to come to worship, to help those who are less fortunate, to be a little Christ to our neighbor? How many times have we chosen to strengthen our relationships with Christ and our neighbor, to see Christ’s face for us in our neighbor?
This is going to be an important learning for us because, in a couple of weeks, we will again be faced with being on the right or the wrong side of God’s work. So, it is that today we need to understand that we are both the foolish and the wise maidens in this story. We have already been given enough to light the way of the Bridegroom to the wedding hall, and, if we are not distracted, we will continue to be that light, not only for the bridegroom, but for the people who follow in the bridegroom’s entourage, for all the saints, for the Church on earth, and the hosts of heaven, gathering in prayer, praise, and thanksgiving for God’s active presence in our lives and the abundance of what we have.
We come to this reading today with the cumulative life-learning knowing that we have sinned against God in thought, word, and deed, not only by what we have done, but by what we have left undone. We also come, knowing that we have praised God with what we do and what we undo.
We come to this place today, hearing this story, knowing that we are simultaneously saint and sinner; always in a state of grace and always knowing that we need to be forgiven. We come to the door of the wedding feast not just crying, “Lord, Lord, open to us”, but knocking on the door with the promise that it will be opened to us, finding what we are seeking, that is, a stronger relationship with Christ and our neighbor.
So, in our watching, that is, in our engagement with the world, with all of our imperfections, the foolish and the wise, we remain vigilant. When we see Christ coming in the cumulus clouds with his angels in glory, we might joyfully cry out, “We are here Lord. What took you so long?”
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