Are you a wise
bridesmaid or a foolish one? Are you always prepared or seldom prepared? This morning’s
Gospel reading might be telling us that even if we aren’t prepared in what we
call “real life,” we still tend to think of ourselves as being prepared for
God. But are we? And is being wise always enough?
Consider the
wise bridesmaids in this morning’s story for a moment. They brought plenty of
oil, didn’t they? There they were, waiting. But did you catch that all the bridesmaids fell asleep, not
just the foolish ones? I wonder what that says about our ability to wait. I
wonder if instead of focusing on preparation, we might look at staying awake
and alert and present.
Most of us get
impatient when we wait. In fact, some of us even use excuses about our
impatience. “I like things to happen fast. I like things to get done. I don’t
like to waste time.” These are some of the things we say about waiting. And we
complain about waiting: waiting in the doctor’s office, waiting in line,
waiting for service in a restaurant, waiting for results from a test, waiting
for someone else to do something for us. We live in an eager and instant
gratification society. Some of us even get impatient with God. Why doesn’t God
get on with it? Why don’t we have a new Rector yet? Why don’t more people get
involved? Why don’t people do what they used to do here?
Yet we forget
that time does not belong to us. Time belongs to God. Psalm 90, addressed to
God tells us about God, “For a
thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a
watch in the night.”[1]
We do not get to choose when the
bridegroom returns. We get to choose how we wait.
So what does it
mean to stay awake to the presence of God? What does it mean to be aware each
moment for the coming of Christ, the bridegroom? What does it mean to be
present, to be available to Christ for when he calls us not just in this
moment, but in future moments? And, what does it mean to be so preoccupied and
distracted by other things that when we turn back to begin waiting again, the
door is already shut?
Matthew’s
scripture this morning begins to point us in the direction of Advent, of
waiting and anticipation for Christ among us. We spend most of Advent in
waiting, waiting for the Christ to come among us again at Christmastide. But
what if Christ Jesus, the Messiah, is already among us, waiting to be noticed
and recognized and served? What if in our impatience with waiting we get complacent,
or fall asleep, or stop waiting?
How are you
about waiting? Are you wise or foolish about waiting? Do you come prepared to
wait, to sit patiently, or do you squirm impatiently? Do you come prepared to
see and hear and know something new, or are we so caught up in our impatience
we miss the things happening around us?
Do we keep our eyes and ears and
minds and hearts wide open to what might be delightful and joyful, tender and
true? Or do we shut our eyes and ears and mind and heart to anything new
because we like the old so much?
Perhaps Jesus calls
us to be neither wise nor foolish but awake and alert. Perhaps Jesus calls us
to wait alertly and wide-awake, with our eyes and ears and minds and hearts
open to seeing Jesus among us. To see Jesus waiting to be noticed and
recognized and served. Perhaps Jesus calls us to keep our eyes and ears and minds
and hearts open to what is delightful and joyful, tender and true. AMEN.
The Rev Nicolette Papanek
©2017
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