Ready or Not: The Choice is Ours” – sermon on November 9, 2014
Joshua 24: 1-22 (selections) Joshua called all the tribes of Israel to meet together. Then Joshua called the older leaders, heads of the families, judges, and the officers of Israel. These men stood before God. Then Joshua spoke to all the people. He said, “I am telling you what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to you: ‘A long time ago, your ancestors lived on the other side of the Euphrates River. I am talking about men like Terah, the father of Abraham. At that time they worshiped other gods. But I took your father Abraham out of the land on the other side of the River. I led him through the land of Canaan and gave him many children.’”
Then Joshua said to the people, “Now you have heard the Lord’s words. So you must respect the Lord and sincerely serve him. Throw away the false gods that your ancestors worshiped. That was something that happened a long time ago on the other side of the Euphrates River and in Egypt. Now you must serve only the Lord. But maybe you don’t want to serve the Lord. You must choose for yourselves today. Today you must decide who you will serve. Will you serve the gods that your ancestors worshiped when they lived on the other side of the Euphrates River? Or will you serve the gods of the Amorites who lived in this land? You must choose for yourselves. But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”
Then the people answered, “We will never stop following the Lord. We will never serve other gods! We know that it was the Lord God who brought our people out of Egypt, and did great things for us there. So we will continue to serve the Lord, because he is our God.” Then Joshua said, “Look around at yourselves and the people with you. Do you all know and agree that you have chosen to serve the Lord? Are you all witnesses to this?” The people answered, “Yes, it is true. We all see that we have chosen to serve the Lord.”
Matthew 25: 1-13 Jesus told his disciples: “At that time God’s kingdom will be like ten girls who went to wait for the bridegroom. They took their lamps with them. Five of the girls were foolish, and five were wise. The foolish girls took their lamps with them, but they did not take extra oil for the lamps. The wise girls took their lamps and more oil in jars. When the bridegroom was very late, the girls could not keep their eyes open, and they all fell asleep. “At midnight someone announced, ‘The bridegroom is coming! Come and meet him!’
Then all the girls woke up. They made their lamps ready. But the foolish girls said to the wise girls, ‘Give us some of your oil. The oil in our lamps is all gone.’ “The wise girls answered, ‘No! The oil we have might not be enough for all of us. But go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’ So the foolish girls went to buy oil. While they were gone, the bridegroom came. The girls who were ready went in with the bridegroom to the wedding feast. Then the door was closed and locked. Later, the other girls came. They said, ‘Sir, sir! Open the door to let us in.’ But the bridegroom answered, ‘Certainly not! I don’t even know you.’ So always be ready. You don’t know the day or the time when the Son of Man will come.”
Ready or Not: The Choice is Ours by Reverend Doreen Oughton
Many years have passed since Joshua led God’s people across the Jordan and into the promised land; many years since Joshua conquered the surrounding area at God’s command and with God’s help. Joshua is an old, old man, and he gathers all the elders of Israel first, to remind them of all that God has done for them. He gathers them and talks about the old days, the days before the Israelites came to the promised land, even before the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt. He goes all the way back to the one who God first chose from whom to make a nation, Abraham. Abraham’s father Terah, and the people of those times, worshiped other gods, gods like you might come across with the natives of this new land. Joshua tells them that they must get rid of these false gods and remain loyal to the one true God. But then he catches himself – no, they will not be compelled to serve the one true God, it is not true that they MUST. They have a choice. He lets them know the choice he has made, and when they articulate the same choice, he asks again, is this really what you want. Is this something you are all agreeing to? And they affirm it.
Certainly this is something we can relate to here – maybe not conquering nations on God’s command, and with God’s help, but being challenged by the choice before us. We can choose to serve God (capital G), or we can choose to serve other false gods. For me that raises a few questions. First of all, what are some of the false gods of our times… (money? power? fame? family? particular people? )? What makes something a “god? It has power that impacts your life. You direct your focus on it, make it really important, give time and attention to it. And what does it mean to serve God or a god? Doing what you think they want you to do, right? Would money want you to do something different than what God would have you do? Power, particular people? And whenever we notice that disparity – what God would have us do versus what these idols of this day call us to, we can hear Joshua saying, “Maybe you don’t want to serve God. You must choose for yourself.” And the Hebrew words translated as “don’t want to” have a harder edge – more like “it may be evil in your eye to serve the Lord.”
I think Joshua understands how tempting it will be for the Israelites to get caught up with the false gods of their neighbors in this new land. It is easy to get carried away with something like get-rich-quick schemes. Just make an offering to this idol, and your crops will thrive, or to that one, and you’ll have a son. So he reminds them of the power and goodness of their Lord God, and the people proclaim their choice to serve that God, and Joshua says, “Are you sure that’s what you want? You are all in agreement?” I think that would make me a little nervous – you know, am I being trapped into something here. Is it a trick? But they agree.
And then we have this strange little passage from Matthew, about the girls and their lamps waiting for the bridegroom. In some translations they are called the foolish and the wise virgins, in others they are bridesmaids. One reason it is strange is because the wedding customs in that time and place are very different from ours today. In those days the groom and his family would travel from their house to the home of the bride’s family, and be met on the way by the bridesmaids. The bridesmaids would escort the groom to his waiting bride, where the final acts that make them truly wed would be completed, and the party would start.
In the parable Jesus tells, the groom is running late, very, very late. All ten bridesmaids fall asleep. They hear a shout, probably someone from the groom’s posse, waking them up to do their part. But half of them have run out of oil and can’t use their lamps to help light the way for the groom. They ask for some from the others, but they refuse, asserting that if they shared then no one would have light enough to make it to the bride. The five with oil would continue, the others would have to rush and get some more and hope they make it. They didn’t ask the groom to wait a little longer, just acted like those other 5 were never there at all. They seem a little mean to me. And then there is the strange detail that once the party starts, the doors are closed and locked. Right? And then these bridesmaids who went and got oil show up, and are told they can’t come in! Mean! Not what I imagine the kingdom of God to be like at all!
In another adult spiritual formation group, we have been watching a video lecture series on the New Testament. The professor starts with the gospels, using historical and critical methods to come up with a hypothesis about the message of Jesus – what he believed and was trying to teach the people. The conclusion this professor reaches is that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet. In other words, Jesus thought the end times were right around the corner – that God’s reign would come before that generation had passed. His message to repent for the kingdom was at hand was not a spiritual metaphor. Jesus wanted people to get their acts together and quickly, because the judgment day was almost upon them. And then Gospel writer Matthew, all of them, were writing some 40-60 years after the death of Jesus, so they must have thought it was going to happen any day. So these messages had some urgency. They were designed to get people’s attention because there was real fear that time was running out. If it sounded mean – well, there is not time for niceties – for making sure people’s feelings don’t get hurt. You don’t want to miss the party – be ready, be ready, be ready.
There are probably some people here who are really good at being ready. I have a sister who is the best that way. I used to love to join her for outings when our children were little because she always had whatever was needed – snacks, napkins, wipes, bandaids – all the things that I never thought to bring. And my husband is also incredibly prepared – like, all the time. But these two, they don’t mind sharing with someone like me who is not so great at planning. And I hate to think of Jesus giving a message that refusing to share is just fine, wise even. I think if he had realized, pre-resurrection, how long it would take for God’s reign to take over this world, he would not have said such things.
Now packing a bag with what you need for little children, having your car equipped with things you’ll need if it breaks down, and bringing some extra oil for the lamp seem like prudent things to do, and maybe we non-planners ought to step up our game and stop leaching off the planners. But I also think the things Jesus is really asking us to be prepared for are things that are not so concrete. I was struck this week by how many people are facing things they never could have prepared for – a tiny child rushed in for emergency surgery; a spouse who dies suddenly, and too young; a young adult child who turns on you and discards all the values you tried to teach her. What can you find in your full backpack to ease such pain, such loss, such anxiety and fear and loneliness? What would it mean to prepare for such things? I had a friend who was divorced and lived about 2 hours away from his daughter. He’d pick her up every 2 weeks to spend the weekend. He spoke constantly about how she will not want to come to his house in a few years. I don’t know if he was trying to prepare himself for that possibility in some way, but it seemed to me he was just missing out on whatever time he DID have with her by obsessing about what might come. Does it make sense to prepare for loss by closing your heart, making sure it doesn’t hurt so much?
I wonder if preparation for hardship rather than for boredom connects to the first reading. The way we prepare for all those unpleasant surprises life throw at us is to commit ourselves to serving God. When we make God and God’s will for us, which is always good, our focus, we will still have painful times in our lives, times when we feel lost and afraid. I mean before Joshua led those Israelites across the Jordan, they’d been 40 years in the desert. But I believe that God does have the power to strengthen us, to help us find peace, to bring healing to those who suffer. I believe our faith, our religion, our church has something true and meaningful and powerful. It doesn’t keep us from suffering, but it gets us through it, it helps us find the blessing of our suffering. We don’t need to detach from others, we can love fully, open ourselves up to heartbreak and sorrow, because we CAN find a way back from that. But we have to choose. And it is so much harder if we wait for a crisis before we choose. The preparation comes from keeping clear about who God is and what God wants for us, for all of God’s children, and working to live into that call.
Now it may be that there are many, many ways to serve God. For me it has been regular worship, reading scripture, praying, standing with and for the oppressed and people on the margins, and sharing what I have with others who need what I have. What do you need to do to prepare? Who will you serve, and what does that mean to you?
