This is a typed Pentecost sermon from November of 1996. It mentions that he has spent a lot of time waiting recently in waiting rooms and for phone calls. Since it was preached at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Seymour, the congregation would have been aware of his cancer diagnosis at the time.
This sermon mentions that as a child, on Sunday afternoons, he often either sat on the porch or played the card game Rook. The gospel text is listed as Matthew 25: 1-13, which does correlate to the 24th Sunday After Pentecost in the Revised Common Lectionary. Google Docs OCR was used to get a transcription of the scanned sermon.
What We Know - 24 Pent A - 11/10/1996
WHAT WE KNOW 24 PENTA (rcl) (11/10/96) Mt.25:13 “Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Dear friends in Christ, grace & peace…..
All of us have people in our lives who pretend to know too much. They brag about their education. They strut their knowledge and show off. If you get stuck on the same couch with them at a party, they monopolize the conversation on every topic with each bit of trivia they know.
We have other friends who pretend to know too little. They are too modest about themselves. They have many interesting things to say, but for one reason or another, they choose to be silent about almost everything. Wouldn’t life be more fun if more of us could be somewhere in the middle?
Christian churches are no different than people. Some churches pretend to know too much, some pretend to know too little. Those who pretend to know too much try to show off their knowledge of God’s will for the world. They do seminars and publish huge charts telling when the rapture will come, and then calculate how many years will go by before God brings about the next stage of judgment, and so on…..all this based on one verse from our second lesson. These Christians are either pre-millenial or post-millenial rapturists or tribulationists, or believe in predestination or double predestination. There will soon be many books and magazine articles predicting with certainty that Christ will return as the calendar turns from 1999 to 2000. Actually, the bi-millenium of Jesus’ birth is going to be this Christmas, because the monk who set our calendar according to Jesus’ birth was off by four years. But don’t try to tell that to the predictors of judgment day. They have it all figured out. They pretend to know too much.
Then, there are others (like us Lutherans) who pretend to know too little about God and God’s will. We sometimes simply say, “God is a mystery”, and leave people wondering if there is anything we can know about God. We seem afraid to say anything about God’s will and the future, for fear of offending someone who has a different view. We pretend to know too little. The truth is somewhere in between. If we take scripture seriously, there are many things we can know for sure about God. There are some other areas where, search as hard as we might, there still are some mysteries. Let’s be careful not to pretend to know too much or too little, especially about the end of this world. How many times have Christians figured out the day and the hour of Christ’s return, gathered together, even by the stadium full, and awaited the end, only to go home in shame and disappointment? And God laughs (or cries) at the fools who pretended to know too much.
Today’s gospel, the parable of the ten maidens with their oil lamps, is a good reminder to those who pretend to know too much about the end times. It is not a favorite story of mine at all. I love the many stories Jesus told of a door that is open, workers welcome in the vineyard even at the end of the day, of a Father waiting for us to come home, a banquet prepared for us, ready and waiting. I don’t like hearing of a door that will be closed and fools who will be left out in the dark. It doesn’t seem like a story Jesus would want to tell. Some scholars have even insisted that Jesus never really told this story. As much as I might like to believe them, I think they are wrong. I think Jesus told the story not to scare us about being shut out of the kingdom, but for a different reason. Jesus warns us of the danger of pretending to know too much. In this world, we demand answers so many times when God chooses to remain silent….in our frustration, we make up our own answers, we pretend to know too much. Why should a baby, the pride and hope of her parents and grandparents, die in her crib? What is God’s answer? Why does a young woman fall from her bike under the wheels of a truck? Why couldn’t she have fallen the other way to safety of a nice soft bush? Why does God seem to take so long to answer our prayers? Why does God so often seem absent, keeping us waiting to sense his presence?
Lutherans teach the real presence of Christ in Holy Communion. As we hear those familiar words, ‘given for you’, we know that Christ is in us and with us. But for many of us, that is not enough. We want Christ present all the time. We are not content to wait in the darkness. We pretend to know too much. Those five wise bridesmaids in the story didn’t pretend to know too much or too little. They did know that the bridegroom was coming, and that it was important to be prepared. They did not know when he was coming, and how long they may have to wait, even in the dark. So they waited, ready for the bridegroom when he came.
We have a hard time waiting. We have instant pudding, microwave meals, fast food restaurants. When we have to wait, it drives us crazy. I’ve spent a lot of time waiting in the last two weeks, whether it be in a waiting room or by the phone. I’ve learned to bring along a book to read when I’m waiting, or to have some thank you cards by the phone to write while I’m put on hold. It helps to be prepared.
We not only have trouble waiting; we also have trouble making choices in life. Like the foolish maids, we have a hard time making wise decisions. This world has supplied us with so many choices that the important decisions become clouded. I am old enough to remember a time that our choices on a Sunday afternoon were between sitting on the porch, or playing Rook. Our choices on Sunday morning were between staying home and going to church. My how things have changed! There are hundreds of choices to be made today on a Sunday about what to do….dozens of channels to surf, lots of business to visit, videos to view and games to play….and it is easy to lose the important choices among the hundreds that aren’t significant at all. I talk with couples who are church shopping, and hear some of them saying that they have been at it for five years. Others come to be married who have lived together for at least that long….they just had trouble deciding what to do. There are so many choices that they have chosen to do nothing at all….and that is a choice also. We pretend to know too little, and we are unprepared to make a choice, and try to make no choice at all.
Jesus warns us not to make the mistake of thinking this world is all there is. He tells us not to settle in and get too comfortable. The truth is that the Lord will call each of us, and God’s kingdom will come in all its fullness, and these things will pass away. Jesus invites us to be prepared, to keep on our toes, and to stay awake. Keep some oil in your lamp, because there is more to life than what you can see. There will come a time when we will know the answers to life’s mysteries. We will finally come to Christ’s constant presence… where there is no sense of God’s absence at all. Until then we must wait, not pretending to know too much or too little…. but being prepared for our Lord when he comes.
Until then, the peace of God which passes all earthly understanding keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.