Over Prepare, Then Go with the Flow

(thank you to Sue Kravits for the meme)

This blog post is based on my sermon from March 31, 2019. The title comes from Regina Brett, the author of 45 Lessons Life Taught Me. Number #22 is "Over prepare, then go with the flow." The five "wise" bridesmaids in the parable were certainly over prepared, whereas the five "foolish" bridesmaids were merely adequately prepared. If I were to assign a new title to this sermon, it would be "Don't Grow Weary."

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, 'Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.' Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' But the wise replied, 'No, there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.' And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, 'Lord, lord, open to us.' But he replied, 'Truly, I tell you, I do not know you.' Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

--Matthew 25:1-13, New Revised Standard Version

I'd like to begin with an informal survey. Raise your hand if you've ever been to a wedding. Looks like a full house.

Now, raise your hand if you've ever been to an evening wedding. Again, almost everyone here.

Of those of you who went to an evening wedding, how many of you brought a flashlight?

Now, for those of you who did not bring a flashlight--and I do not intend in any way to sound harsh or judgmental--do you think that was wise? Suppose that the wedding had been long delayed and then suddenly there was a massive power outage, and then you would be a wedding guest without a flashlight.

Now, for those of you who did have the foresight to bring along a flashlight, let me ask you another question. Did you bring extra batteries? If not--and again I do not in any way wish to sound harsh or judgmental--do you think that was wise? After all, you have no way of knowing how long the wedding will be delayed or how long it will take before electric power is restored. It would have been prudent to bring along extra batteries.

Some of you may be thinking that you really had no need to bring a flashlight because your smartphone has a flashlight app. Very well, did you remember to bring a charger? And if you did remember to bring a charger, did you check the flashlight app on your phone to make sure it was functioning properly? Sure, those little LED bulbs are meant to last much longer than the life of your phone, but you never know.

We laugh or roll our eyes at such outrageous wedding scenarios, but underlying this parable is a very serious question.

How long are we prepared to wait?

How long are we prepared to wait for healing from a debilitating illness?

How long are we prepared to wait for reconciliation with estranged members of our family?

How long until the school shootings cease?

How long until hatred and discrimination end?

How long until all divisions end?

How long, in the words of the Prophet Isaiah, until we learn to study war no more?

And how long, in the words of the Prophet Amos, until justice rolls down like waters?

Wedding guests in Jesus' day would have been prepared for a slight delay. The bridegroom would often deliberately be a little late in order to build suspense and to heighten the sense of joy when he finally arrived. But the delay would only usually be for an hour or two. Under normal circumstances most members of the wedding party would have had more than enough oil in their lamps for a slight delay (insights from Thomas G. Long, Matthew, Westminster Bible Companion).

This parable has traditionally been called the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, but I've sometimes wondered how fair it was to call half of them foolish when they did in fact have enough oil in their lamps for the usual slight delay. Are we really talking about a contrast between the foolish and the wise, or is it more of a contrast between the adequately prepared and obsessively, over prepared?

If someone shows up to a wedding with a flashlight and extra batteries, your immediate reaction is not likely to be, "Wow, that person is really prepared!" You're more apt to think, "Wow, that person is really odd!"

But in the narrative world of this parable the ones who are obsessively, over prepared are called wise, and the ones who are merely adequately prepared are called foolish.

Why was it necessary to bring along that extra gallon jug of oil from Costco?

Because we have to be prepared for a very long wait.

Matthew is the only gospel writer who included this particular parable of Jesus. The Christians in Matthew's day had been expecting Christ to come again, but it had already been more than 50 or 60 years since the time of Jesus' ministry. Most of the first generation of Christians had already died.

How long must the church be prepared to wait? How long can the church stand on its tiptoes in anticipation? How do you maintain a sense of urgency after all that time?

Alyce McKenzie is a Methodist minister and a preaching professor at Perkins School of Theology in Dallas, Texas. She tells her own parable about how to live with a sense of urgency in a seemingly endless future. One semester Alyce McKenzie asked her students to read through a book in the Bible prayerfully at the same time each evening as a spiritual discipline.

One of her graduate students, Greg, decided to do this. His wife was out-of-town for a while. And so, every night at ten o'clock, he'd get off the couch where he usually watched ESPN and would sit on the love seat and begin to read a book of the Bible and pray his way through it. Their two-year-old beagle named Sadie decided that this was an opportunity for spiritual growth for herself as well. And so, when Greg was sitting on the love seat, reading the Bible, Sadie would cuddle next to him and put her head in his lap.

One night Greg got real interested in a football game, and he was still on the couch well after ten o'clock, and he found Sadie tugging on his pant leg, trying to get him to come over to the love seat to do his prayerful Bible reading.

Another night, Greg was dead tired and went to bed at 9:45 PM, and he heard whimpering in the bedroom and Sadie was pulling the blankets off the bed, calling him to prayer. Greg decided that some dogs are bird dogs, some dogs are sheep dogs, and that Sadie must be a prayer dog! Alyce McKenzie writes that Sadie, the prayer dog, does indeed teach us how to live with a sense of urgency in a seemingly endless future.

We pray day after day. We study the Bible for the sake of our own spiritual growth. We love God with our whole hearts, and we love our neighbors as ourselves. We strive to serve others. We cultivate oil.

And this oil--this oil of resilience--must be cultivated. It cannot be shared. I suspect that many of us are taken aback by the refusal of the "wise" bridesmaids to share their oil with the others. But perhaps the reason that the oil is not so easily shared is because the oil represents the kind of resilience that we have to learn on our own.

Your daughter is in her first year of college. That first semester away has been exciting and exhilarating, but it's also been academically stressful. She calls you up the night before her first college midterm exam, and she's almost in a panic. You can listen to her, you can talk her through her anxiety, you can pray for her, but you cannot give to her that oil of resilience that she must cultivate on her own.

We cannot give that oil of resilience to our children, but our children can watch us as our own lamps burn from a reservoir of cultivated oil.

I remember a scene from To Kill a Mockingbird. Scout is talking to her father about the upcoming trial. He father, Atticus, is about to defend an African-American man named Tom Robinson. It's the 1930s in rural Alabama. The jury is going to be all white. Scout asks her father, "Daddy, are we going to win?" And Atticus turns to his daughter and says, "No, Scout, we are not going to win. But I couldn't go to church on Sunday if I didn't defend this man."

Perhaps the oil in this parable represents resiliency in the face of injustice, a determination to do the right thing no matter what. One doesn't become an Atticus over night. We become more like Atticus through a lifetime of cultivating oil, of building up reservoirs of hidden strength that go much deeper than our personal strength alone.

On the day when Atticus does indeed lose the trial and Tom Robinson is declared guilty, all the white guests exit their seats from the main floor of the courtroom, while all the African-American guests in the balcony remain. When Atticus himself finally stands and leaves to exit the courtroom, all the African American guests stand up in a gesture of respect. Scout (Jean Louise) had been watching the trial from the balcony. As Atticus walks by below, Rev. Sykes, the pastor of the African American congregation, says to Scout, "Jean Louise, stand up, your father's passing."

That's probably my favorite scene in both the novel and the 1962 movie. If Atticus had a reservoir of resilience, then imagine how much deeper a reservoir Rev. Sykes must have had. I've always wished that Harper Lee had given us more of Rev. Sykes's back story. I can't even begin to imagine all the things that Rev. Sykes must have endured in his lifetime--all those years of Jim Crow, discrimination, and terror.

But I picture him preaching to his congregation, encouraging them to cultivate the oil of resilience. I can hear the congregation singing the spiritual that we sang this morning, "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning." I can hear them singing . . .

Keep your lamps trimmed and burning / Keep your lamps trimmed and burning / Keep your lamps trimmed and burning / for the time is drawing nigh.

Sisters, don't grow weary / brothers, don't grow weary / children, don't grow weary / for the time is drawing nigh.

You, living with cancer, don't grow weary.
You, newly divorced or a long time alone, don't grow weary.
You, care takers in your family, don't grow weary.
You who are grieving, whether that grief is fresh or ancient, don't grow weary.
You, longing for reconciliation, don't grow weary.
You, who are waiting for justice, don't grow weary.
You, who are waiting for the Lord, don't grow weary, for the time is drawing nigh.

All glory and praise be to our God. Amen.