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Sermon for Sunday, November 9, 2008
Pastor Sara Kay Olson-Smith
Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Texts: Amos 5:18-24; Psalm 70; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13
Grace to you and peace, from God our Creator and from Christ Jesus who gives us oil for our lamps.
Every time I hear this parable I think of two different songs, one the wonderful gospel song, “Keep your lamps trimmed and burning” and then another song, which we sang on car trips when I was growing up (this when we only had an AM radio in the car, so we had to do a lot of entertaining ourselves):
Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning, burning, burning.
Give me oil in my lamp, I pray...
Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning, burning, burning,
keep me burning till the break of day....
Immediately, of course, the song would leave its biblical roots to other sorts of verses...
Give me gas in my Ford, keep me truckin’ for the Lord
Give me gas in my Ford, I pray..
Give me gas in my Ford, let me floor it for the Lord
keep me truckin’ till the break of day...
or...
Give my umption in my gumption, help me function for the Lord...
or ...
Give me wax for my board, keep me surfin’ for the Lord
And so we would sing as we drove across the plains of Nebraska to visit our families...
I think about this song, not only because it always makes me laugh and brings back wonderful memories of my Father and our family vacations, but because it reminds me that our ability to live as God’s people, to do the things that God has called us to do, to wait with patience, to grieve with hope, to work for justice and some days to just plain get up in the morning, is dependent on God, on Jesus empowering us, on the oil in our lamps which keeps us burning.
There are lots of ways to interpret this morning’s parable of the 10 bridesmaids. Some have used it in judgment of people, claiming that some people – never ourselves of course – didn’t have enough faith, or enough good works, or enough whatever to achieve the welcome into the Kingdom. The reality is that all of us fall short, and God forgives us somehow, for it is not us, but God who is the ultimate judge of the world. All we can do is trust in God’s compassion and live in the humble, graceful work with our own lamps trimmed and burning.
Thanks to the costly grace of God, we are promised the welcome of Jesus at the banquet through Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection. We do not have to fear that day when Jesus is to come. With this welcome comes expectation. We are freed and empowered to live and shine in this life, and are called by Jesus to wait and watch and serve and love. This parable is difficult because it reminds us that grace comes to us with expectations.
As we wait for that day to come, we are expected to be people who wait, with our lamps trimmed and burning, to live and to love and to serve, or sometimes just get up in the morning to do the best we can with what we’ve got. The only way that we can do this is to keep some oil in our lamp. The promise is that – unlike the world’s situation – the Spirit gives more than enough oil, and gas to keep us going.
We, of course, know what it is like to have our oil disappear, to be burned out, as they say, or to be just plum exhausted. All of us have been there. The people of this community know what it is like to shine and serve and give - to care for their loved ones who are in need of constant and consistent care, to worry about distant or close friends and relatives who are not well, to raise children and care for grandchildren, to work long hours to make ends meet, to worry if what is saved will be enough, to struggle through persistent illness, or to serve the poor and those around us, and to take care of the ministries of this congregation.
There are lots of things in our lives which drain the oil from our lamps, which deplete us and exhaust us. Yet we listen to this story of the bridesmaids who ran out of oil, unable to shine and wait for the bridegroom. We remember Jesus saying, “You are the light of the world.” If we are to be the light of the world, there needs to be something that empowers our shining. We don’t shine because we are fabulous and can go nonstop and have some wild ability to just give and serve and proclaim with the endurance of the Energizer Bunny. We can’t shine by running ourselves into the ground. We can shine because we are connected to the energy source of the universe, the life giver of the world, the one who gives power to all that we do.... Jesus.
In these moments, as we feel our lamps running low, we can sing that old song we used to sing in the car:
Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning, burning, burning.
Give me oil in my lamp, I pray...
Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning, burning, burning,
keep me burning till the break of day....
As Linda wrote about in her Friendly Article message this past month about prayer, Jesus is the source which keeps us going. Our relationship, our closeness to Jesus is that which empowers our serving, which motivates our life, which keeps oil in our lamps. Jesus fills our lamp when we connect with him, when we “plug-in,” so to speak, in prayer, in Bible reading, in connection with other people of God, or in simple things like a nice walk in prayerful silence, in slowly enjoying a nice cup of tea in the morning that is time just to yourself. These pit stops are gifts that God gives us to be the people God calls us to be. We cannot be the light that the world needs, that God has made us to be, unless we take care of the lamps, refilling the oil that God pours into us.
In doing so, as we connect with Jesus (as Jesus connects with us), we come to know Jesus and to be known by Jesus. Even as we wait for that day to come, we wait, as Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians, in hopeful grief. We wait in hopeful grief knowing that on that day to come we shall all know, fully, the Lord, and meet with the beloved saints. While we wait we can also know that Jesus relates to us now, that we can live connected to Jesus, even now.
It is kind of like this, in a way. My Mom is coming to visit in a few weeks for Thanksgiving. Already we are getting ready, waiting, preparing for her coming. We got some new sheets for the guest bedroom, are thinking about what we can do when she gets here, planning out when we need to start cleaning. So we wait, anticipating her coming, but we also stay connected. I talk to her on the phone. We send e-mails back and forth, tell stories about what’s going on in life, so I can continue to know her, and she to know me.
So as we await the coming of Christ, as we wait in hopeful grief, in our weariness and our exhaustion, preparing and waiting and hoping for that great day when justice with flow like waters and all will be righted in the world, and life will prevail, and we will meet Jesus, our bridegroom, as we wait, prepare, we keep our lamps trimmed and burning. We stay connected to our power source, to Jesus, the one who empowers our light to shine.
Give me oil in my lamp... we pray. Give me gas in my Ford (and fortunately we don’t have to pay per gallon for it). Give me wax for my board. We pray that God will empower our service, that God will continue to give us strength for the day, that God will hold us up. We can trust that God will do this, for God is an ever-flowing fountain, an endless source, and the Redeemer of the universe.
God has called to us and made us to be lamps. “Therefore let your light so shine before others that they may see your good work and glorify God in heaven,” we say at baptisms. God has made us to be lights to shine forth and prepare the world, and ourselves, for his coming. God has given us what we need to shine, has given us the oil we need to keep our lamps trimmed and burning. God has come to us, as Jesus, that we might know him, stay connected and receive strength and hope.
Jesus gives us the oil in our lamps, to keep us burning until the break of day. Jesus gives us this oil in the many ways. Jesus is present in our world as we await for that final day of his coming. Jesus gives us this oil in the oil that came on our foreheads in our baptism, and fills us as we remember that we are God’s beloved, gifted ones. Jesus gives us oil in our lamps through Jesus’ presence in the Word proclaimed and lived, read and studied. Jesus gives us oil in our lamps through Jesus’ presence in the bread and the wine, where we are filled, forgiven, nourished and sent . Jesus gives us oil in our lamps through Jesus’ presence in our gathering with one another. Jesus gives us oil in our lamps through Jesus’ presence in our going out to make disciples. Jesus gives us oil in our lamps as we minister to the least of these. Jesus gives us oil in our lamps in moments of quiet prayer, in silence and stillness and rest.
In these moments of connection with Jesus, our lamps are filled, even to overflowing. Jesus gives us oil in our lamps, to keep us burning....burning until the break of day.
Thanks be to God
Amen .
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