Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
Psalm 78:1-7
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13
He’s Always on His Way
You will often hear it preached that resurrection and the final judgment are out there somewhere in the future, probably long after we’ve all died. After all, we’ve been waiting two thousand years for Jesus to come again, and he still hasn’t arrived, or so they say.
But we hear an interesting note in this very early letter of Paul to the Thessalonians. Apparently, Paul and those he taught believed at first that they would not see physical death before Jesus came back and transformed them into new, eternal beings. We who are studying Acts of the Apostles on Wednesdays are discovering that some of the first Christians were indeed transformed into cosmic beings, capable of miraculous healings, exorcisms, and even traveling long distances in the the blink of an eye. People were resurrected without physically dying!
Jesus was very insistent that we would never know the time or the hour. So many preachers and scholars have ignored his words and tried to figure it out anyway. They’ve always been wrong.
All of this has made me wonder if the resurrection and the day of judgment are always unfolding. I wonder if Jesus was actually telling us that the kingdom will burst upon each one of us at any time of the day or night, throughout our lives. And that if we practice his way, we will be prepared with his power to do as he commands, and so enter into the joy of the wedding between humankind and God. But if we don’t practice his way, we will not have the power required, and we will be locked out in the darkness.
People in Twelve-Step Fellowships sometimes say there will come a time when nothing stands between them and a slip but their spiritual condition. There will come a time, they say, when the temptation to drink or use will come on like gangbusters, and if their spiritual condition is in any way unsound, it will overwhelm them and they will fall back into their addiction.
They are talking about the danger of complacency. Sometimes the most dangerous thing that can happen to our souls is nothing, because enough time goes by when everything more-or-less goes well that we let the practices of spiritual life go by the wayside. Like an athlete who feels good and so skips his daily workout, we lose our spiritual muscles, the power God gives us to believe in him and do his will. Like the foolish bridesmaids, our lamps will go out for lack of oil.
This is true of all sorts of sin. There will come a time when a temptation will come to be angry or lustful or judgmental or greedy, and nothing will stand in the way of my sinning but my spiritual condition, the strength of my day-to-day relationship with God.
What if the coming of Christ and the day of judgment are outside of time, and it can come upon us while we walk the earth, sometimes many times over, in the midst of our deepest thoughts and dreams and fears, and in the mundane spaces of our everyday life, in a million tiny moments when, without even thinking, we act and react?
But most people sleep right through these moments, or realize them only after the fact, when it’s too late to have acted righteously or to have refrained from acting unrighteously. Once the judgment is passed, it is immutable. That’s time for you. You did the bad thing. You didn’t do the good thing. It’s in the past and you can’t go back and change it.
God came in ordinary flesh, in a particular human being, in a particular time, and so it may not be a strange thing to say that this is how God comes now. In ordinary day-to-day life, the bridegroom is always on the way, and there will be many moments when he is suddenly there, and it’s time to rise to the occasion, or fail it for lack of readiness.
The moment will come when some button is pushed, and the temptation is to lash out and hurt, and the only thing that could stop you is your relationship to Christ. The moment will come when those around you are becoming ugly and judgmental and the temptation is there to join in, to be included, and the only thing that will stop you is your relationship to Christ. The moment will come when those around you are assassinating someone’s character in their absence, and the temptation is to join in, but for your relationship to Christ.
That day-to-day, intimate relationship with Christ is our salvation in such moments. Of course, if we fail, we always have the option to make amends, to try to do better in the future, and God lovingly stays with us as we do. But the goal is not to have to make amends. The goal is to avoid hurting people in the first place.
For Christians then, perhaps the ultimate goal is to have such a relationship with Christ that when those temptations come to behave hurtfully toward ourselves or anyone else, we have all the oil we need to keep our lamps burning.
Of course, it works the other way too. Moments of temptation come, and we need the power to resist, but far more important than these are the opportunities for miracle-working that suddenly present themselves, that require the kind of courage and humility only Christ can give us.
Maybe there’s someone I need to forgive, and moments come that give me the opportunity, but again and again, I turn a cold shoulder. And every time I do, that door to the wedding feast slams shut, and I am persona non grata, locked out in the dark. But if I had been ready, that person might have drawn nearer to God because of me, and I will have done a miracle.
Maybe there’s something I need to give away to deal with my greediness, and there are multiple opportunities for me to let go of my possessions for the sake of God’s mission, but I let them go by, and every time I do, that banquet door is closed to me. But if I make that offering, it might just be that it enables more people to come closer to God and each other, and I will have changed the world for the better.
Maybe I have an addiction, and deep inside, I know I am enslaved to alcohol or drugs or gambling or food or sex, and moments come when I could turn to God and my fellow human being and tell the truth and ask for help, and every time I let them go by, that door shuts in my face. But if I risk the shame and embarrassment, and trust God, a whole new world of peace and serenity will open, and countless more people trapped in addiction might find their way to recovery because of me.
Maybe I identify myself as an enemy of this or that group of people, it doesn’t matter who, and I relish in despising them. Moments come when I could open my heart to all of humankind, as Christ commands me to, but I let those moments go by, and every time I do, the door shuts in my face. But if I become that person who in every gathering exudes warmth and love for all people. I may bring a peacefulness into the world that wouldn’t have been there without me.
If those moments come and go without my rising to them, it will be because I do not have the fuel I need, the Spirit of Christ himself, his power to do what I can’t, to have the hope and trust that if I forgive my enemy, I will ultimately be safe from him, that if I give generously to God’s mission, I will not go hungry, that if I admit I need help, I will not be shunned and despised, and that if I choose to love all of humankind, I will not be sacrificing my identity; I will instead be discovering who God intends me to be.
Faith is not just believing things are going to turn out okay; it’s about believing that if I do what God calls me to do, even if it costs me, God will still be with me. It’s about having the oil to keep the lamp of faith burning, particularly when the unexpected comes bursting upon me.
The revolution unfolding in history is God’s taking back his rule over humankind, deposing all human powers and principalities and lifting up those who have been crushed under them. But this is not happening in a political or military or even an economic level. It is happening at the level of each individual human soul, and the coming of the Son of Man in glory happens in every generation, in every life on earth, whenever and wherever, in tiny moments and in great acts, the Word of God, the risen Christ, is heard and obeyed.
Amen.
