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"Missing The Present"

Matthew 25:1-13
November 9, 2008

"God's kingdom is like ten young virgins who took oil lamps and went out to greet the
bridegroom. Five were silly and five were smart. The silly virgins took lamps, but no
extra oil. The smart virgins took jars of oil to feed their lamps. The bridegroom didn't
show up when they expected him, and they all fell asleep. "In the middle of the night
someone yelled out, 'He's here! The bridegroom's here! Go out and greet him!' "The
ten virgins got up and got their lamps ready. The silly virgins said to the smart ones,
'Our lamps are going out; lend us some of your oil.' "They answered, 'There might not
be enough to go around; go buy your own.' "They did, but while they were out buying
oil, the bridegroom arrived. When everyone who was there to greet him had gone into
the wedding feast, the door was locked. "Much later, the other virgins, the silly ones,
showed up and knocked on the door, saying, 'Master, we're here. Let us in.' "He
answered, 'Do I know you? I don't think I know you.' "So stay alert. You have no idea
when he might arrive.

In times of anxiety and change, people tend to act out, to say and do and believe things
that are on the edge of fantasy and ridiculousness. I think it’s just part of our DNA that
we think with the more reptilian part of our brains when things are in flux, and we go to
the lowest common denominator, emotionally, spiritually, politically. We are in the midst
of great change, but it’s the kind of change that we find ourselves are arguing about,
and fearing, and all of that kind of stuff. The election is over, and whether you are
happy or unhappy about the election results, I think you can sense that we are in the
midst of a difficult period in our country, with the economy in shambles, many of our
incomes being cut, if not actually losing our jobs, and two wars to fight. In the midst of
these kinds of times in the West, people have tended to focus on apocalypse, the end
of times, the end of days, and the return of Christ.

Throughout the history of the West, you can look at the rise of anxiety and trouble, and
trace a concurrent uptick in talk about the end of the world, and lots of speculation
about how it is going to end. When 9/11 happened, in some Christian circles you had
talk that the world was about to end, and there was even speculation that President
Bush was the anti-Christ because post 9/11 he enjoyed such high approval ratings,
and seemed to be unifying the country. People pointed to the book of Revelation to
say that he fit the profile of this figure that would signal the end of all things, though the
word anti-Christ is never actually used in the book of Revelation—actually, the word is
only used in the letters of the New Testament, never in the Gospels. And then there is
now an email going around that Obama is the anti-Christ, saying that the book of
Revelation foretells that anti-Christ will be a man in his 40’s who is a Muslim with lots of
charisma—I even heard a person say this on talk radio, screaming it into the ear of the
hosts. The problem is that the book of Revelation says no such thing, and, of course,
Islam didn’t exist when the book of Revelation was written, and it says nothing about the
age of this mysterious figure, and every figure with a bit of charisma has been tagged
the anti-Christ, from popes to presidents. And, of course, keep in mind that Obama is a
Christian, in fact, he is a member of our denomination, the United Church of Christ, so
according to this email, we’ve all switched religions and didn’t even know about it, now
that we are Muslims in the UCC.

Stuff like speculations about the last days, and ridiculous theories about who the anti-
Christ is runs rampant during times like this, despite the fact that the New Testament
seems to imply that there are multiple “anti-Christs”, that anyone who sets himself or
herself against the Christ is an anti-Christ. We’re anxious right now, just like we’ve
been at different times in our history. For example, the rise of the Seventh Day
Adventists goes back to a time after the Civil War and the economic upheaval that
followed it and to William Miller who believed that Christ was coming back soon, and he
had worked out a particular date in the late nineteenth century, only to disappoint his
many followers when Christ didn’t come, though eventually Adventism later went into a
different directions, contributing a lot to the Christian tradition, including a strong
emphasis on personal wellness and heath. The Jehovah Witnesses were another
group that speculated about the end of days, with Charles Russell, its founder, claiming
that Christ had returned spiritually in 1874 and would eventually return physically in
1914, which happened to be the year that World War 1 broke out, creating a lot of
excitement amongst his followers. Obviously, Christ didn’t return that year, but the
followers of Russell re-organized themselves, still claiming that 1914 had been a pivotal
year in the God’s plan for the world. These types of speculations about the end of
days are relatively harmless and are almost normal, because they are so common, and
they can even sometimes benefit the larger church, as in the case of the Seventh Day
Adventists, but sometimes, sometimes the fever for the end of all things can lead to
unspeakable tragedy, as in the case of the Branch Davidians, with its charismatic
leader David Koeresh leading to a confrontation with the federal authorities in Waco,
Texas, in 1993—dozens and dozens of women, men, and children were killed in that
horrible tragedy. (Koester, Revelation And The End Of All Things 14-18)

But all of these speculations about the end of days and the return of Christ should
remind us of how problematic the whole issue of Christ’s return has been for us, his
followers, for some two thousand years. Almost since the very moment when Christ
said he would return again to reclaim his followers and fully bring about the kingdom of
God, the writers of the New Testament have had to deal with those who were anxiously
awaiting Christ’s arrival in their lifetimes. The letters of the New Testament are replete
with words about the time being near for Christ’s return, actual physical return, some
two thousand years ago, especially as Christians had to deal with more and more
persecution from the Roman Empire. The apostle Paul and others were confident that
Christ was coming soon, but it never happened, and the slow churn of history
continued, and the promise of Christ’s return has been unfulfilled, so far. I do think that
Christ will come again, but I don’t know if it will be in my lifetime, or a thousand years
from now, or a million years from now, and I don’t think it really matters, because of
texts like the ones we have before us today.

You see, this text from Matthew is found in a part of the Gospel of Matthew called the
Little Apocalypses, in chapters 24 and 25, where Jesus is speaking of the end of all
things, and the beginning of something new, with his return to them at the end of the
story. Scholars call this piece of Matthew “the little Apocalypse” because it so clearly
relates to the expectations of that early Christian community that he would be coming
back soon, expectations you also see echoed in the book of Revelation. The parable
that Jesus tells here is about some bridesmaids who, according to Jewish custom of the
time, were to escort the groom and bride into their father’s house for a feast. Some
came prepared, making sure they had enough oil to trim their lamps until the couple
arrived, but others didn’t prepare, didn’t pay attention to the possibility that it could be a
long wait. All of them, of course, fell asleep, but when the center of attention arrives,
the ones who were unprepared had no oil for their lamps, and didn’t receive any help
from the others, so they were left outside, scrounging around for oil to buy, and then
later, not being allowed inside for the party. People hear this parable by Jesus as
being about his second coming, about being prepared for his arrival on the scene, and
it is that, but all the parables he tells in Matthew 24-25 have their focus not on the end,
but the time in-between, the time that we Christians are always finding ourselves living
in, despite those in every era that declare that we living during the end times.

Think about it for a second—this parable is about the bridesmaids, about us, waiting for
the groom to arrive. Its major focus is not on the groom, ironically enough, but on us,
and what to do while we wait for Christ to arrive. Again, the focus is on us, and not the
future, which has always been the mistake we Christians have made about these sorts
of things, something we continually see in every era of Christian history, a mistaken
focus on Christ’s coming, rather than on the work needed to be done UNTIL Christ
comes again. Note that the bridesmaids, the virgins, are not rewarded because they
knew the exact time when the groom would arrive—they didn’t know, of course—but
because they had prepared for a long wait, and had made sure they would have
enough oil for their lamps to give this bride and groom the kind of the welcome they
deserved. It’s not about getting the timing right, the timing of the bridal party arrival
right—it’s about using the time before the arrival in the right ways. This is a parable
warning us not to do what so many others have done in Christian history, which is to
think that the point of the story was the ending, rather than the point being about the
middle being lived in right here, and right now, the middle that you and I and all the
disciples for two thousand years have always found ourselves living in.

Keep awake, stay awake, says the Christ, to us listeners some two thousand years
later, but the waiting isn’t meant to stop us in our tracks, and halt us from the doing the
work of the realm of God. Recently, you hear some Christians talk as if we don’t have
to worry about pollution or war or trying to feed the poor and hungry in this world,
because Christ is coming soon anyway, and there is no point in caring for a world that
is soon to be re-made anyway. That means you can pollute this world because there is
no need to take care of it for future generations. It’s almost as if they have disengaged
from the very world that God came to make new, the world that Christ loved and lived
and died for, which is ironic, isn’t it?

But, again, there is something else we miss when we focus on the end of things, the
end of the story. We miss the middle, the middle we find ourselves in, and we miss the
ways that Jesus is always coming to us again and again and again. There is a literal
second coming, of course, or at least I believe there is, when all things will be made
new because of the full presence of the Christ in this world, but there are also other
second comings and third coming and fourth comings and multiple arrivals of Christ into
this world. When we mistakenly focus on the end, when we do not stay awake in the
midst of the night, we keep missing those times when the Christ arrives unexpectedly
into our lives. If we keep thinking that Jesus only comes into this world at the end of
time, at the end of all things, at the end of the world, we will keep missing him arriving in
our present time, in our present age, in our present lives, the lives we find ourselves in
the middle of. People often make the mistake of paying attention only to the past or
only to the future, when in reality what we ought to be paying attention to is the present,
this very moment in time. If we pay attention to this moment, the past can be overcome
and the future will be better for us, because we would have taken care of the one thing
we actually have control over—which is this very moment, this very hour, this very
action, this very choice, which can actually effect some of the future. We certainly can’t
control or change the past, and we can’t even really change or control the future, not
completely, anyway, except in the ways we deal with the present, except in the ways we
make choices in this very moment.

I think we miss so much of life by not doing what Jesus asks us to do, especially when
we focus too much on the future, including, especially right now, our financial futures. I
don’t know what the future holds, and you don’t either—all we really know is who holds
the future, and that is enough, really, to get us through the nights of worry that some of
us are experiencing right now. What we can do is to notice the second comings of
Christ all around us, sometimes on a daily basis, this Christ who arrives into our lives,
changing our lives, making something new out of something old and worn. The staying
awake part is hard stuff, and the work of preparing for the long haul, the long haul that
is life, carrying enough for oil for light in our lamps, the lights in our souls, is probably
even more difficult. But if we do stay awake, if we do prepare ourselves for the long
haul, then I do think we can begin to see how Christ keeps coming into our lives, over
and over again, showing us a new way, a new road, some new possibility. Often times
you see a sign on the side of some highway that says ‘Jesus is coming soon,” and that
is true, actually, just as Christ arrived in my life and your life yesterday, and the day
before that, and tomorrow and certainly next week, next year, next decade. Christ is
coming soon, probably today actually, in some way or another, but we can only see it if
we can stay awake and pay attention to the ways that Christ keeps showing up in our
livess, right now and right here, over and over again. Amen.