Preparation You Cannot Borrow

Transcript

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[0:01] Our reading for the sermon is from Matthew 25, 1 through 13. It's a parable, so that's exciting. And just a little bit of background, we're continuing in Matthew. We're right at the end of the lectionary for the year. In fact, the new lectionary year starts on the first Sunday of Advent, so we're really right at the end, and we've been working our way actually through Matthew, although we've had a Romans session and such. But if we hadn't done the Romans series, we would have been in Matthew a lot. So we're finishing up Matthew.

[0:31] And this is Jesus during the Passion Week. He's entered Jerusalem. He's begun this week-long conflict with the religious leaders, starting with his disruption of the operation of the temple. And so there was conflict between Jesus and the religious leaders, a lot of sort of arguing back and forth, debate. You could say Jesus continued to basically confound them. They were not able to trap him into saying anything that would be bad for him. And he continued to sort of demonstrate that he was far more wise and knowledgeable than them. But now, when that is finished, it says at a certain point, they no longer asked him any questions because they knew they were pragmatic. They knew that they couldn't get anywhere with it. So then Jesus takes his disciples aside, and he begins to teach them. Because his time is coming near, he wants to prepare them for what's coming in the future. And he begins to tell them about what we call the end of the world. The end times. He tells them there's going to be wars and rumors of wars. There's going to be some tribulations and disruptions in the world. And so that's a different sort of set of teachings that we're in right now. It's really just between him and his disciples.

[1:40] He wants them to know and to be prepared. So the message in this section of Matthew really is about readiness. It's about, are you going to be ready for when these things come? The Son of Man will return. Are you going to be ready for it? And so today, though, instead of just teaching about it, instead of just telling people about what's going to happen, he tells a parable about what's going to happen. And it's a bit about what we call the apocalyptic. It's kind of this literature in the Bible that's here and in many other places in the Bible. In Daniel, especially in Revelation, but other places too, including the Gospels, where there's a prediction about the future, but it's still a bit secret. It's not quite entirely revealed. And so there's some mystery. There's some mystery surrounding it, which I think is fascinating. It's just fascinating and interesting that there's this mystery that Jesus says, I'm not going to tell you everything. And one thing that we hear over and over again in this section, but elsewhere too, and we'll hear at the end of this parable, is you don't know when this is going to happen. You know neither the day nor the hour when this will occur. So this will occur, but you don't know when.

[2:48] And that's an important thing to know. So God has his own schedule. God's not going to lay it all out for you in advance, but he wants you to be ready for what's happening. And then we're going to hear a little bit about how, maybe some best practices or some helps for interpreting parables, because this one's a fun one to interpret. And if you want to take notes on how to interpret parables, you can take notes on that. But let's go to the reading. It's from Matthew 25. I'll start at verse 1. So Jesus speaks. He says, When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.

[3:35] 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, Nope, there will not be enough for you and for us. You had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.

[4:06] 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. .

[4:28] Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this word. And we ask that you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus' name. Amen. Well, first off, I want to show you some artwork. It's going to be up here on the screen. And we'll have Steve show the very first one there.

[4:57] Do you see that? This is, um, this is, what's the name of this? I got it. Is this Strasbourg or Magdeburg? Magdeburg. This is the cathedral in Magdeburg, Germany. And it's, you know, this, often you go to cathedrals, and either in the stained glass or in the statuary, some of the Bible stories are depicted. And there's not a lot of statuary for this one, because it's a more obscure parable. But here you have a picture of the wise, these are the wise brides. These are the wise bridesmaids. And let's hide that one and show you the next one, which is the foolish bridesmaids. Now, can you tell the difference? Like, one of them is holding, like, her skirt to her face, and she's crying. That's the third one. That'd be the second one from the right. And then the second one from the left is doing a classic medieval face plant, her face, palm to the face, like, whoa, what was I thinking? Don't you love, I mean, these sculptors were like, ding, I'm going to make her face like this. Like, how did, you know, so intricate. So let's go to the next one.

[6:07] And that's a close-up of the face. Like, ugh, what have I, I forgot the oil. You know, just no good. All right, let's go to the next one. This is Strasbourg. And here are, this first one is on where my hand is here. That's actually the devil. It looks, but this is the devil. But the devil's wearing a dress. So this is a bit confusing. But the devil's wearing a dress, and he's holding an apple, because what, he's tempting them to be stupid. And then you have three foolish bridesmaids, and they're all, their faces are all kind of contorted and goofed up. But let's go to the next one, because I think this is fabulous. As you see the, see the one on the right is the bridesmaids. She has a really derpy face. You know the word derpy? Like, ugh, like, kind of like, like the, she's sort of like the village idiot of girls, I guess. I'm not sure. Let's do another one, because there's another close-up. I just say that not because, I'm not trying to make fun of anybody. But I think that medieval, the medieval sculptors were like, let's try to depict somebody who's foolish. Let's make their face a little, you know, goofy. And so here's one of the foolish virgins, or the bridesmaids. Okay, we can hide that one too. I don't think there's any more, are there?

[7:19] Nope, okay, we're done. So a little bit of artwork, a little bit of, you know, you can go to Europe and find these places. It'd be kind of cool, right? But, so let's look at the parable itself. And I'm going to get you guys to maybe think a little bit, because at the end I'm going to kind of try to see if we can figure out what all the moving parts in this parable mean. But I want to look at the parable itself. And so the central idea in this parable is that there's a wedding. There's going to be a wedding with people moving around the town. They're expecting to meet somebody. And then they're going to go somewhere else. You see, there's kind of like a walking trip in this parable. People are moving, they're supposed to meet somebody, and then they're supposed to go somewhere else. Now, scholars have said this, some scholars say this exactly matches like a wedding from the time of Jesus. The bridesmaids would go out and meet the groom and then come with him back to his parents' house. But then other scholars say, well, no, they'll come back to her parents' house, or they'll all go to his house.

[8:23] And there's not a lot of agreement on exactly what marriage customs were like at the time of Jesus. And it's actually entirely possible that one family had one set of customs and another family had another set of customs, or one class of people had a set of customs and another class had another set of customs. So we don't know the exact details, but what's more important is that the parable itself tells us what's happening. And I think this is where some scholars have gotten stuck and maybe we could get stuck. And so one of the first interpretation helps to us is, don't expect the world that the parable is creating or describing to match the real world too closely. There's not always going to be a one-to-one relationship. Let the logic or let the world that the parable constructs speak for itself and work for itself. Does that make sense? Kind of like we don't need to kind of figure out exactly if this is historically accurate or not. All we know is that in this parable, there's ten bridesmaids. They're expecting to meet the groom. And from there, they're going to go to a banquet, whether it's his house, his parents' house, her house, some other house, the VFW Hall, we don't know. It's somewhere else. Doesn't matter.

[9:28] They're going to go somewhere. So we'll let the parable world do its own work, okay? So it's enough to say that there's a wedding, etc. What matters is that they go somewhere in the town where they expect him. And when he comes, then the other thing that they're expected to do or they're expecting for themselves is, it's at night. They expect that when they meet him, they will have lit lamps. They have their lamps lit already. And that will light them on their way in the evening to the place where they need to go, to the banquet, so they can arrive safely at the banquet. All right? So that's what the internal sort of logic of the parable says, is they need to have enough oil in their lamps to make a walking trip through this town. So some of them, as we say, they bring extra oil. These are the wise ones. And some of them don't. These are the foolish ones, the derpy ones, right? And so this wouldn't...

[10:30] Yeah. And so some bring extra and some don't bring extra. But they all have, from what I can take of it, they all have their lamps lit. And actually, all of them started out the journey with enough light, so they thought, to make the whole trip. It's just some brought extra, right? Five of them brought extra and five of them didn't. What they didn't expect, and here's where the twist comes in the parable, is that there's a delay.

[10:57] There's a delay. The groom doesn't expect, doesn't show up when they had hoped to. And so this is a plot twist we're going to look at a little bit later. So then what do they do? While they're waiting, they get drowsy. They fall asleep. And this is a detail that's going to be important later, too. So hold on to this question or this idea of sleeping, all right? Of delay and of sleeping. Now somebody says, OK, he's almost here. Somebody, the town crier says, OK, the groom is finally here. He's about to show up around the corner. And they wake up and they hear it. The time is getting closer. And so for the ones who are prepared, it's not a problem. They reach into their pouch or whatever and they fill up their lamp again and they have enough because they brought extra. And then the ones who haven't prepared, they ask the wise ones to share their oil. Right? And now they're sleeping. And now the response seems a little counterintuitive because I want you to think about this. If somebody is wise, wouldn't they also be kind and generous? Wouldn't you expect that? Like wouldn't the nice, smart bridesmaids share what they have with the ones who just didn't plan enough in advance, right? Well, in this case, in this parable, and this is where the tension comes in, which is great,

[12:11] the wise ones say, actually, no, we're not going to share with you. If we shared with you, then none of us would make it to where we are going. There's just not enough. There's enough for our lamps to go where we're going. But there's not if we share with you, we'll all run out before the time we get there, supposedly. That's the internal logic of the parable. So, again, remember that. It has its own logic. And here's another sort of interpretation help for a parable is don't get lost in questions like this. You know, you have to ask yourself instead, what is the parable? What is the parable about? If this was a parable about sharing, then they would share.

[12:51] But this is a parable about preparation. Remember? It's deep inside this section that Jesus is talking about the time to come and the time to be ready. And at the end of the parable, which we've already read, says, be ready. Stay awake. Be on watch. You don't know the day or the hour, you know, when this is going to happen. The bridegroom just in this parable shows up when no one's expecting him, or at least much later than when people were expecting him. He doesn't come early. He comes late. So the interpretation help for the parable is don't try to make the parable about something that it's not. It's not a parable about sharing. So asking the question as to why aren't they nice enough to share, that doesn't help because it's not a parable about sharing. It's a parable about preparation, preparedness. Okay?

[13:33] And parables don't often have more than one theme. It can't be about both sharing and preparation. It's usually just one theme. We could write another parable about sharing. Somebody else could write that. But that's not the point. That's not this one. Okay? So now the foolish ones go and they try to buy some oil. Right? That's their goal. They're like, well, we're going to, it's better late than never. Let's go run and get some. So they wander off. And of course, that's when the groom does show up. So there's a little bit of tension, a little bit of dramatic license here, which I think is great. Good stories always have some sort of twist in it. Like, oh, they went off to get some oil. They're going to be racing back. And they get there. And the town squares. The town square is empty. Right? This is just good storytelling. You know?

[14:19] Not only that, they have enough oil. They light their lamps. We're just kind of filling in some blanks here. They go to where the banquet is. Right? And they knock on the door. And the bridegroom comes to the door and says, I don't know you. I'm not going to let you in. You're out there. I'm not going to let you in. Right?

[14:43] And so the final comment on the parable from Jesus, he sums it up. He says, keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. So I'm going to stop there and kind of say, well, of course, this is a hard teaching because not only are some sort of selfish people not sharing, but now the bridegroom seems like a really rude guy because he's like, I don't know you. You know? I'm not going to let you in. Now, again, this is a parable. This isn't a parable about hospitality either. It's not about that. Right? It's about being prepared. But so the hard teaching comes in, though. Right?

[15:26] It's not about hospitality or inclusiveness. It's about preparation. So why couldn't the wise ones share with the foolish? And that's another kind of a good question. Now, if it was real oil, right, of course they could. Or I don't know. I think the other thing was the five who had nothing could have said to the five who had something, can we walk right behind you?

[15:50] You know, five lights is better than zero lights. With five lights and the bridegroom, I bet we could all make it there. But again, that's not what it is. You see where I'm going with this, right? The oil is not actually fuel.

[16:02] And the oil is not actually the source of light. If we want to make one interpretation here for this parable, the oil is preparation. The oil is preparation. You can't share preparation with another person. It's not possible. Imagine if you wanted to run a marathon and you want to run it in a year. So then you exercise or train for five days a week for the next 52 weeks. And then on that day, you're at the starting line and you're pretty much ready to go. You're going to do all right. Imagine somebody who's been sitting on their couch for that whole year shows up that day, too, and stands next to you and says, can you give me half of your workouts?

[16:39] You know? Can you give me your muscles or your whatever, your cardio fitness? And you'd be like, one, no. And two, it's impossible. You know, we can't share preparation. We can't share that. It doesn't transfer. It's not like Bitcoin or something, right? It doesn't work. So that's why this doesn't work. That's why they can't share in this thing. Because oil isn't oil. The oil is their preparation. The oil is their readiness for the coming of the bridegroom. All right? So some things can't be shared. And preparation is one of them. So now, the parable also is more than just about being wise or foolish. We have a parable for wise and foolish. Some of the younger people, what's the parable about the wise and the foolish?

[17:31] Remember? The builders? The wise and foolish builder? I'm going to read you that one really quick because it's so short. It's one of the shortest parables we have. This is what Jesus says. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears the words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against the house, and it fell. And great was its fall. That's it. That's the parable. We have a parable about wisdom and foolishness. We already have that parable, and it's pretty simple. And actually, that parable is not just about wisdom and foolishness. It's about hearing and doing what you've heard. That's what that parable is about. And it's almost such a short and obvious parable that it's probably more of a proverb than a parable. There's not a lot going on there that you kind of have to pick apart, although we call it a parable. It's closer to a proverb in my mind. So our parable today has wise versus foolish, but it has so much more.

[18:45] And this is where I kind of hinted at you that we're going to have to look at it just a little bit closer because there's a lot more meaning inside of it. All right? The wise will fare better in this than the foolish, just like the other parable.

[18:57] But this one also has something that has to be prepared for that doesn't come when you expect it, right? In the parable of the builders, there's some kind of cataclysm coming. There's some kind of rain, big storm. You know, what could that be? It could be the end times or a time of tribulation, probably is what that is, right? But it just means that those who have done, have heard and done will be prepared for it, will be ready for it. What they've built will not be destroyed. Okay? In this one, you have something you're preparing for that doesn't come when you expect it. And so the readiness is not just for the moment, but it's this description of what may come, or an answer to a question that's lingering. What do I mean by that? I'm going to kind of say that again in a different way.

[19:43] We're going to get now to what I think the parable means. And this is not because I'm smart or anything, because I've just read what somebody else said, but I think they're right. Happens to be one of the scholars in our denomination. His name is Klein Snodgrass, and he's retired now, I believe, but he was a professor of New Testament at our seminary in Chicago. And he wrote probably the thickest book on parables that anyone's ever written in his life, and so well researched. And it's basically now a reference book for everybody.

[20:11] And his work is good. You can borrow that book from me if you want. But let's look at the parable and interpret it. And we're going to see where some of these questions come in and what sleep may mean, right? And what delay may mean. Remember, I kind of said we were going to look at sleep and delay.

[20:31] So now I'm going to ask you, the groom is Jesus. Probably, yeah, most likely. The wedding banquet? Heaven. Yeah, the feast in heaven. Yeah, the wedding banquet is heaven, where we celebrate with God. We're in God's presence. Heaven is described as a feast so many places in the Bible. It's beautiful. And the anticipation, right, is what? The church is waiting for what?

[20:59] Redemption. Close. What? Redemption. Close. Yes. They're waiting for Jesus to come back. They're waiting for Jesus for the bride. So the groom is already here, right? Jesus is talking to the disciples. He's talking about the future, about when he himself will come back. Jesus is preparing them for what's going to come. He's saying, I'm going to come back someday. He's told them this a few times. I'm going to come back someday. Now, the question that has arisen in the church after Jesus, and Jesus, I think, in a very prophetic way, prepares people for this is, when will this be? When will the Lord return? When will the Lord return? In fact, there was thinking that the Lord would return in their own lifetime. Even Paul thought that the Lord would return before he died. Now, the question is, why didn't he? And scholars have a lot of ideas about that. The best one I've ever heard is that God still has work for us to do. He still thinks that we can do something in this world. And as long as he thinks we can still do something in this world, he'll delay the sending of his son back so that we can bring in people into this banquet. This banquet still has empty seats that need to be filled, and God's not going to send

[22:08] his son back until we do that. I like that. That kind of puts us out into the missionary world, all right? But there's this expectation that the Lord will come, right? But what does Jesus build into this parable?

[22:21] Delay, right? Delay. He says, guess what? The kingdom of heaven is like this. It's like the bridegroom who comes back later than when everybody thought he would. And what are they going to do in response to that? Okay, so now we're going to do a little more things.

[22:44] The sleep. Our second reading got into this. What's sleep? You know, Pam. Sleep is death. Sleep is a euphemism for death in Greek all the time. But also in 1 Thessalonians or 2 Thessalonians. I cannot say that word.

[23:02] Thessalonians. Oh, I know. Okay. I'll have to do like you practiced beforehand saying Thessalonians, Thessalonians, like the anchors do. Sleep is death. So what's happening here? The people are waiting for the bridegroom to return. He doesn't come on time. They get drowsy and they fall asleep. Is Jesus saying that the faithful, some of them will die before he returns? I think so. Some of you will die before I return. And it turns out because of the grand sweep of history that all of them will die before he returns. Some died before he returned because none of them have lived 2000 years yet. You know, that just hasn't happened.

[23:39] So sleep is death. They get drowsy and they fall asleep. But somewhere in that world where they're asleep, they can still hear the voice. Again, we're pushing a little too hard. Remember, don't push a parable too hard because it doesn't always have a one-to-one mapping. But somewhere in this sleep world, they hear the voice.

[24:00] This is the bridegroom's just around the corner. And that's when the foolish ask the wise for some of their cardio health, you know, for something that they can't really borrow, for their preparation. And the wise say, we can't even share it with you. Now, what's the preparation, right? What's the oil, right?

[24:19] Well, what do you think it is? I mean, we said it's preparation, but what is it preparation for? What is that preparation? Yeah? Ready? What now? The wedding. The wedding. Well, yeah. Yeah, you're right. The preparation so that you can go to the wedding. Yeah. And we saw that a couple of weeks ago, too, where somebody had to show up with the right clothes, right? And if they didn't show up with the right clothes, they got excluded from the wedding. It's kind of a very related kind of idea.

[24:49] Yeah. Where you're going is heaven. And the preparation is, have you prepared yourself to be accepted into heaven? The preparation is, have you come to believe in Jesus? Is your Savior? The preparation is, have you heard the word of Jesus and done what it says as opposed to just hearing it and being like a foolish person whose house is built on sand? And so this preparation is your salvation. This preparation is your ability to stand at the judgment and say, please forgive me. And the Lord will say, for the sake of Jesus Christ, I will forgive you. And you will enter into these pearly gates here. So the preparation is your life of faith. And you can't share it. You can't give that to somebody else once you're dead. See where we're going here? So when can you share your oil?

[25:41] Before. Before you die. So actually, this parable would work. The oil could be shared before they even set out on this trip. If the wise ones had said to the foolish ones, you know what? You should bring some extra. You should have enough preparation in case the delay. The delay happens unless the delay happens now. Now we're pushing it a little bit too hard. So I'm going to wrap up here. But do you see how this simple parable, which is actually kind of hard? It's like a hard parable because there's some hard words in it. It's kind of full of life. You know, it's kind of full of life. There's another tie in to our reading from Thessalonians, which is this idea of the word meet where we're going to go and meet Jesus in the air. That word is the same word. And it's only used three places in the New Testament. There is the word meet Jesus in the air. Here is used of the wise bridesmaids who meet the bridegroom in the town. And the third place it's used is when the Christians of Rome hear that Paul is on the way. This is in Acts. That Paul is on the way in Acts 28. They go out of the town to meet Paul and they accompany him back into the town. This is a Greek word that's used. It's used to describe what happens when a king comes to a town.

[27:03] And the people come out of the town to meet the king and have like a procession or a celebration or a parade. And they parade the king back into their own town. So they kind of go out and back in again. And so the sense here is really that the bridesmaids, the wise ones at least, go out to meet the king, the savior of the world. And they walk back with him to the feast. Now, this is why. Some people like N.T. Wright, totally unrelated somewhat here, thinks that heaven will be on earth.

[27:34] Because Jesus is coming to earth from heaven. And we will go out to meet him there. And if we go out to meet him, we bring him back to earth and he'll reign over the earth as heaven. We don't know. But it's pretty good thinking about it. Which makes you think, where would you like to live on earth when it's heaven? New Jersey? New Jersey won't exist. Sorry. Not sorry. No. Would you want to live in the Redwoods? Do you want to live in Yosemite? Is the whole world going to live in Yosemite? They'll make room for it? I don't know. But it's an intriguing thought.

[28:05] Anyways, that word meet is the same. And the same too that Paul says. Those who have fallen asleep will not come before those. We're all going to go up there and meet the Lord in the air and we'll bring him back to the earth. Okay.

[28:18] So, last thoughts. This is a hard parable to hear. Jesus is in the middle of a hard time of conflict. Jesus is not. He's looking at his own death. In the eyes a couple days later. So, he's not mincing words right now. He's not sugarcoating anything. He never does anyways. But he's definitely not doing it this week. Because his death is just around the corner. So, he's like, I've been fighting with religious leaders. I'm not going to sugarcoat this for you. I'm going to tell you this in a parable so you're going to think about it. But the reality of the parable is hard. Because there are some people, looks like 50% of them, that are going to come to the gates and knock on the door. And I'm going to tell them, I don't know you.

[28:57] This is a hard word. This is not an inclusive word. This is not a feel-good, fuzzy, friendly word. This is Jesus being honest. Right? And it seems uncompassionate. But I would wonder, is it more compassionate to tell the truth and warn people of what they need to do? Than to say, well, hopefully it will be alright in the end. Good luck. What's more compassionate? I think Jesus telling the truth of how heaven works. What does he say? The kingdom of heaven is like this. Now it's hard. But I think there's good news in it too. The ones who prepare will enter the feast with the Savior. Those who have the preparation, and I'm looking at all of you right now, I'm going to count in that category. You're all going to get there and you're all going to have extra oil. I'm sure of it. And I hope you are too. You need to be sure of it yourself. But I'm pretty sure of it for you guys. So that's the good news. You're going to enter the feast.

[29:52] And the other part of the good news is that there's still time. For those who are still alive. There's time to prepare if you haven't. And there's time to help other people prepare if they haven't. So I want to turn this warning into action. And we don't know the day or the hour. So I want us all to live each day faithfully. Right? Doing what you can to prepare yourself through discipleship. Your job is to take care of your own discipleship. Your own preparation. Make sure you're right with God. Come to church. Come to church. Confess your sins.

[30:24] Receive the comfort of God. The comfort of God's grace and forgiveness. It's a beautiful thing. And then when you have all that as your oil. As your preparation. You can start sharing that with other people too. It's not too late before they die to share what you have with somebody else. So we need to be open to the Spirit leading you and me with urgency. Urgency. To share what we have while we still can. And I think that's what I want us to take away from this parable. Let's pray. Father we thank you for this word. This difficult word. This promise. We have this hope Lord that you will return when the time is right. And we will certainly welcome that day. Lord but until then teach us to be your disciples and teach us to share what we have. In Jesus name.