Year A

Matthew 25:1-13

The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn

The Oil of Justice and Righteousness

A priest, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, is waiting in line to fill up her car with gas. The attendant, back in the olden days, is working quickly, but there are many cars in front of her. At long last, the priest is motioned to go to the vacant pump. “Sorry, Reverend, “said the young man. “It has been a long delay. It seems as if everyone waits until the last minute to get ready for a long trip.” The priest laughed, “I know what you mean. It’s the same in my business.”  Whether it is gas or God, we are all tempted to leave everything until the last minute. As life gets busy, for many, service and participation in the kingdom can take a back seat. We hope that God will not mind that we are elsewhere focusing on our career and our families.

The invitation of the gospel text today is to recognize that God is to be our priority; our time with and for God is to be a priority, even when we are busy. The parable of the Wise and Foolish Maidens unique to Matthew’s gospel provides us with some key themes found in the previous verses: the glorious appearance of Jesus, the Son of Man, its sudden and unexpected quality, and the exhortation to be ready for it. This parable has to be one of the least liked in the whole bible because it speaks stern words to those who are not ready for the moment of Christ’s coming and it leaves us with a vague understanding of just what “being ready” might entail.

If we looked to the prophet Amos today for our understanding of what “being ready” means with his bleak picture of the Day of the Lord, we might just decide this is not good news, forget it! In this text from Amos, God is talking to the people of Israel who have turned away from God and convinced themselves that the Day of the Lord will be a joy-filled celebratory day over their enemies for which they have only to wait, passively. Worship or their festivals, is a way to pass the time, performing ritual to celebrate their status as the chosen. Amos speaks here on behalf of a God furious with this attitude: an attitude under which the sick suffer unaided and the poor starve unheeded. Justice is not present in this place. For ritual without action in the world is meaningless.

In the coming Day of the Lord that void will be filled by a God for whom justice and mercy are always a priority. Amos reminds us that “being ready” is about standing under that stream of justice and letting it fill us with righteousness. “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” God loves us and expects much from us. Therefore, we are to help usher in the kingdom of God as we wait in prayer and deed because the “Bridegroom is coming!” “Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” Can you tell the text’s today are setting us up for the season of Advent which starts in three weeks? The thing is no one knows exactly when the Bridegroom will come, so constant vigilance and readiness must be maintained.

This is Jesus’ mandate to us today in another sermon that he preaches on a mount-this time a sermon preached to only his disciples on the Mount of Olives, a sermon with a description of the end of the age. In it, two groups are mentioned: the wise bridesmaids who are ready and prepared, and those foolish bridesmaids who are not. What made the foolish to be foolish was their lack of oil and what made the wise to be wise was their flasks of extra oil. Oil was an essential commodity to the people of Jesus’ day as it is today. The beautiful silver-grey leaves and gnarled trunks of olive trees were and are visible everywhere in Palestine, because, everyone needed lots of oil for daily life. Oil to cook and for fuel, it was the base for medicines, cosmetics and perfume.

Oil and grain were among the mandated sacrifices to be offered at the temple. It was used to anoint kings and priests. Therefore, it became a rich symbol of God’s favor and so not surprisingly, the oil that fueled the lamps became a symbol of human obedience to God, a way of talking about the kind of life that God can shine through to brighten the dark places of the world. The kind of life in which justice and kindness or righteousness can be seen to flow freely and to fuel one’s actions, as Amos reminded us. To have oil is to burn bright in this world with the nature of God and this is what being ready means and how we welcome the kingdom of God. 

When Matthew recorded this parable in his gospel, he did so for the sake of a young church that was getting off-track in its anxiety about the future. The first Christians thought Jesus was returning for them soon; and when he didn’t, many began to get caught up in trying to read the “signs of the times” to try and figure out when Christ would come-I have heard this speculation again since the beginning of the war in Israel- in spite of Jesus’ warnings that no one knows, not even Jesus himself, only the Father. Yet, this hasn’t kept people from speculating. Others, when Jesus did not return, simply gave up hoping in him, and returned to their former, non-Christian lives and commitments. It seems some things never change.

Paul, like Matthew, is also writing to Christians who live in constant expectation of the return of Christ. In fact, there were Thessalonians that were so obsessed with it to the point that they stopped working for a living. Others were worried about their loved ones who had died since Christ had not returned as expected. Would they be left behind or have some advantage when Christ returned? Some were telling believers that those who died would not witness or see the Jesus’ appearing in glory. So Paul is writing to address these fears and questions. He wants to assure then that both the living and the dead will experience Christ’s return that will be glorious.

We get a different take on the “the Day of the Lord” than Matthew gives us in his gospel but everyone agrees that it will be sudden. Paul and Matthew’s message today can be boiled down to “Ready or not, it’ll come, so you’d better be ready.” Paul bases his understanding on the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection of believers is bound up with the resurrection of Christ. Those who have died will miss nothing of the blessings of Jesus’ return and bound together in Christ we will all be with Christ forever. This is our hope that makes a difference in our lives.  A hope that is rooted in the promise of God though our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In the meantime, as we wait, we are to “persevere in the faith.

So how are we prepared to wait? It’s all a matter of having enough oil in the lamp and to live in hope for what has been promised, and for what will be but is not yet. Knowledge of God, faith, love and service are tools for living in this time before eternity. We are not to wait passively for it, or to think there is a cheap ticket into it, but instead stock up on the oil of justice and righteousness so that when God’s future arrival happens we welcome it because we have been faithful to Jesus’s teachings set forth throughout the gospels. We haven’t been asleep but have been put into action by the final exhortation: “Keep awake.” And the love of God will continue to appear in our lives surprising us, empowering us and urging us forward to meet the Bridegroom when he appears.