With the rector out of town, the youth minister took over the pulpit this weekend! Four services and youth group in between them… I completely respect the priests at St. Michael’s and everyone else who has to preach weekly! Here’s the text I used; I’ll post the audio as soon as it’s up on the CSMSG website.
May the Lord grant that my words are acceptable to Him, and useful to His people. Amen.
Growing up, the day I looked forward to most during the year was my birthday. Each year I came up with elaborate plans for what I would do personally on that day, dropped a steady stream of hints about what gifts and new privileges would be appropriate for me to receive, and planned out my birthday party near-obsessively.
One year I pushed my luck. What I didn’t realize was that the birthday is only important to the birthday child, until a week before when shopping needs to be done and the house needs to be cleaned and all the “maybes” on the invitation list need to be followed up.
Strictly as a piece of useful information related to the sermon, my birthday is this coming Thursday, the 13th of November. When I was about to turn 11, I started planning the party around the 3rd of June. On the 8th of June, tired of every conversation around the dinner table coming back to the party, my parents banned me, under threat of grounding, from mentioning “my birthday,” “my birthday party” or “what you should get me for my birthday” (and even any words that could be made with those individual letters) until October.
“Lots of things can change between June and November,” they told me. “It’s no good planning the party now; you’ll just have to plan it over again later.”
I was crushed. While mom and dad might explain that they already knew what kind of party I would end up with, and didn’t want to hear the same questions a dozen times a day for five months, I believed they simply didn’t know how to look far enough ahead.
In today’s Gospel lesson my eleventh birthday has finally been vindicated. “Therefore keep awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour when He will appear.” In Jesus’ time, after the wedding ceremony and before the party, the two families would meet and finish their last minute negotiations over the dowry, the guest list, the living arrangements and “who’s going to give them the toaster?” The bridesmaids and party guests waited at the house where the feast would be held, carrying lamps to light the couple’s way in. These negotiations could take minutes or hours, apparently, and the partygoers never knew exactly when their lights would be needed. Picture parents waiting in carpool lanes at school (Is that my kid? Is she ready yet?) Or imagine waiting nervously by a window for a date to arrive. You’ll get the idea. There might even be false alarms before the wedding party actually arrived. (Picture a surprise party where the guests shout “Happy Birthday” to the UPS deliveryman and a couple of Girl Scouts before the guest of honor actually arrives.) And so the wise bridesmaids brought jars of oil along in their bags.
So far the message is “Be prepared.” And on that note I can close our Boy Scout troop meeting. But in order for this to be a message about the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we can’t stop before we ask, “How should we be ready?”
What does it look like for a Christian to be ready for God’s arrival? Kenda Dean, the author of “The Godbearing Life,” suggests that preparedness lies in a “ministry of finger-pointing.” Assuring us that the finger in this case is pointed toward God, not at the person being guided, Dean writes:
“Finger-pointing is always in a Godward direction. Godbearers point youth to the Scriptures, helping them open up the Word of God so that it speaks to them in compelling and accessible ways. Godbearers point to the tradition of the church and the lives of faithful men and women to offer models and heroes from whom we learn. Finger-pointers help youthful travelers know that those who make the journey for the long haul fill the backpack with prayer and meditation, worship and service, study and compassion, solitude and community; in short, the spiritual disciplines of the church.”
Readiness, then, involves keeping our lives aligned toward God. Notice that Matthew does not criticize any of the bridesmaids for falling asleep before the wedding party arrived; both the wise and the foolish ones did that. What Matthew calls the foolish bridesmaids to account for is falling asleep with work left undone. When they woke up, these five without extra oil had to rush around, trying at the last minute to make preparations they should have seen the need for much earlier. Readiness, by the example of the wise bridesmaids, came from thinking about every possibility, and bringing along everything they would need, so that their attention could be completely focused on the celebration they had been looking forward to. These wise young women were ready to honor their friends, as we must be ready to honor Christ.
One of my favorite exercises with the youth group is to set up this scenario: Imagine you’re in an airport sending a friend away on a long trip. Exactly one minute before he has to board the plane, your friend says to you, “I’ve noticed there’s something different about you, different from everyone else. You’re so kind, and patient, you forgive people. I’m sure it has something to do with that church you go to. Will you tell me what this Christian thing is all about?”
It’s not only our personal devotion, our individual practices of the Faith, or even our worship together in this place that point us toward God; another important part is our knowledge of God’s story, and our willingness to share it when we have the opportunity. From the book of First Peter comes the instruction, “Always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” If we are prepared for God’s arrival, when our lives are aligned with His story, we not only keep ourselves looking ahead, but we show everyone who meets one of us that we have something to look forward to.
I don’t know if you noticed, but for the last two years there’s been an election going on. And everyone in it talked about hope. Hope for our city, for our state, for our country. And I’m all for hope. But the problem with political “hope” is that it doesn’t—in fact, it can’t—look far enough ahead. Political hope is hope for the four years of a Presidential term, the six years of a Senate seat. It is a short-lived thing. Christian hope is much different.
I’m not looking forward, for example, to making my first million. Not that I don’t have a tidy list of things I could do with it, or that world peace, second dates, good grades, and my next birthday aren’t great things. But they are too close, too easy to achieve. I’m not ultimately looking forward to anything I could achieve in my own lifetime and by my own effort.
I’m looking forward to nothing less than a new Heaven and a new Earth, as last week’s reading from Revelation promised. I’m looking forward to the time when we will see, up close and in person, what it truly means for God to be our God and we to be His people. I’m looking forward to a time when God sets everything in His creation the way He intended it to be. C.S. Lewis describes it this way in “The Last Battle:”
“That was not the real Narnia. That had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow or copy of the real Narnia, which has always been here and always will be here; just as our own world, England and all, is only a shadow or copy of something in Aslan’s real world. And of course it is different; as different as a real thing is from a shadow or as waking life is from a dream.”
“Be always prepared,” the Gospel says. “Arrange your own life so that you can concentrate on His work. Point the way for others to the hope that you have—the true hope that God will let nothing stand between Himself and His people; nothing. Not this world or the next world, not powers or principalities, not death nor life, nor anything at all.” Stand pointing to God, ready to welcome Him. The party will be worth the wait.
