Message: God’s love is Coming and Coming and Coming
Do you
have any recurring bad dreams? I have them, and it seems that they
usually have a consistent theme. For me, they usually happen in two
places I’ve been to frequently in my life: the airport and the church.
Given the locations, it’s easy to guess what my bad dreams are. I miss my
flight at the very last minute, because I’ve mistaken the flight
time, or there was heavy traffic, or I could not find or get to the gate, or
sometimes, even though I am right in front of the airplane, I
can’t get on the plane. One time I dreamed that it took so much time for
me to pick an outfit out of my closet, you guessed it – I missed my
plane. Very traumatic. Another bad dream is the church dream - it is
really bad. It’s about time. Everyone is present, and the wedding or the
funeral is about to start. And I cannot print my sermon. I cannot find
my sermon on the internet either (even though I mailed it to myself or posted
it on my blog, so in case I cannot print it, at least I can open my phone and
read it… But in my dream, I can’t find my sermon anywhere on the
internet.) Then, I look at the congregation, trying my best to look confident,
and start to preach a message, in English, from my heart. Maybe, that’s
the point of that dream, the real lesson. Do not be dependent on your prepared
sermon. When you think about things a lot, and put a lot of preparation
into one thing, one great event, one great moment, your anxiety may invade
your dreams with scenarios where you will never get to do what you have planned
all along.
So,
the saga of these bridesmaids can tighten our chest a little.
Getting ‘ready’ for the return of the bridegroom. We like to think that we
would do whatever it takes to get ready, get there, get things done,
have everything in place, and to never be excluded from the party.
However, the reality is that most likely, in our lives, we have not
always been ready, gotten things done, got to the party, and enjoyed the
fountain of joy and blessings that belongs to on-time, prepared people.
No. Even if some of us may be superhuman and have everything done
at the right time and right place, all the time, those people may
have dreams where they are always late, unprepared, shut out
from the festivities - the dreams that continue to show us and teach us,
on a subconscious level, what to do when we falter, what to do when we
fail.
We are
not foolish, or unlucky, just because we do not dream of a beautiful
rose-coloured sunrise or sunset sky in our near future. We become anxious
when we feel the press of the clock or calendar; if we do not achieve one
thing, the next thing to come will crumble in front our eyes like a line of dominos,
a chain of demoralizing events. Imagine the panic in the heart of the
five bridesmaids in today’s reading: When they came to the night in
question and they discovered they had no oil in their lamps. They made a
last-minute run to the corner shop to replenish their supply. We can also
imagine their disappointment when they return to discover that
they’ve missed the big event altogether. There’s an interesting
connection between two points this Gospel story makes - - that the
“foolish” bridesmaids discover that they have run out of oil and that their unpreparedness,
their lack of prudency will lead to a separation from the bridegroom, from
the great party to which they have been invited. The story
juxtaposes the tension between the now-or-never urgency of faith and the
once-and-always finality of judgement.
This
traditional reading of the story – “Get ready, be prudent to earn
inclusion/salvation” – teaches us the importance of being awake, being constant
in our work to bring God’s new reign of peace and justice into
reality. But it still makes me wonder about God’s love. How does God’s love
work and how would God’s love play a role in this story? Wedding stories
seem like they should be ultimately about love, forgiveness and love, rather
than about the finality of judgement and consequent exclusion of unprepared
bridesmaids. One time I asked my friend, “When do people say that someone
has grace?” I asked her this question because I wondered why I was
sometimes told I handled a situation with grace or that I carried the grace. My
friend answered, “Good question. I think mostly when a person is able to
combine gentleness with kindness and generosity, we call it ‘grace’.” But this
grace as a human trait – gentleness with kindness and generosity – can be
limited, because it’s based on certain expectations of those who are on
the receiving end of that grace. God’s grace, I ponder, is more about love or
loving that sets no conditions, knows no boundary, and is
bottomless in giving away blessings. It is the grace that
reverses our human expectation of who should be accepted, who should be judged,
who should be part of us, or who should be beyond our care - just
like the bridesmaids who were called “foolish.”Last
Wednesday, some of us got together in our church backyard – the first meeting
since the last week of June. I was thrilled to meet our people again in person.
As I drove to the church, I turned on the radio. Usually I just listen
to music, my favourite channel being 106.1 or classical music Winnipeg. But
this time, as I knew a lot of discussions were happening regarding school re-opening
and Ottawa’s recent pledge to financially assist provinces – about which many
people were frustrated, as each province had already made plans based on their
limited budget – I turned on CBC radio, and it started the World at 6 news
show. I was immediately bombarded by the all the disheartening news from our
society and from the world. During the 30-minute drive to the church, I was
blown away by the unceasing, relentless flood of “bad dreams” the
radio station was sharing with me. I was reminded again that there are so many
things that pull us, pull my people away from peace. I was relieved to know
that once I got out of my car and saw the green backyard and my church
people, I would be embraced by everyone’s warmth and love-filled, kind eyes.
Our world is an upsetting place
now, and it will be for a long while, especially with the Covid pandemic, but
also with the historic and ongoing pandemic of racism, climate change, world
economic greed and political selfishness. We live in a very traumatic
time, a time of grief, a time of loss, a time of deep agitation. We seek
stability, like the bridesmaids who ran to look for more oil for their
lamps, and we fear being left behind, like the same bridesmaids,
locked out of the wedding feast. And yet, we trust that God still speaks
to us, through the minds among us who can still read, who can still
continue to speak God’s stories through the lens of God’s grace, which never
fails us. I would like to conclude this sermon with an excerpt I found
in Outside the Lines, which retells today’s Gospel story. I understand it and
want to share it with you as God’s saying to us, Do not give up. Do not
give up. There’s no lost chances. No lost time. No lost love. You are not lost.
I’m coming back. I am coming back. I am coming back to you.
“For me, ultimately, it’s all about love. A dear friend, Jodi Houge, pastor of Humblewalk Church, a feisty congregation in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, shared some thoughts with me from her sermon on the parable of the ten bridesmaids. In the parable, Jesus offers a picture of the kingdom of heaven by telling a story about ten bridesmaids who went to meet their bridegroom in the evening. Half of them forgot oil for their lamps, while the other half wisely took extra, so the second group entered the wedding banquet while the others were locked out when they went to buy more oil. It’s a story that would dishearten, except that Jodi said, “These bridesmaids were foolish only in forgetting who the Bridegroom is. Love appears, with enough light for everyone. And if they miss Love this time around, there is another wedding next week, because this Bridegroom just keeps coming and coming and coming with light and love for you.”
For all of us. I really want to share this message with you. God's love is not a one-time event, lost when we don't trust ourselves and our world. God's love is a dream where you catch your plane, you find your sermon, where everything you think is lost is still there, held out for you, for as long as you need. God's love keeps coming and coming and coming with light and love for all of us.
Marcus Mosely - At My Table
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