SERMON
REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY
“BASIC TRAINING”
MATTHEW 25:1-13 / NOVEMBER 12, 2017
Let us pray: may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, o God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.
Some of you, of older vintage, will remember the days when prime time television featured only three choices: variety shows, situation comedies and westerns. I seem to recall they were mostly westerns: The Rifleman, Bonanza, Have Gun Will Travel, Gun Smoke, Wagon Train, The Lone Ranger – to name just a few. With some embarrassment and some nostalgia, I admit I loved them as a kid – although I suppose the sexist, racist and violent nature of some of the episodes would deter me from watching them now. There was one scene often repeated in these westerns where the old cowboy’s mother, or friend, or dog, or horse was gravely ill or in great danger of being hanged, shot, or something.
The old, grizzled cowpoke would stand on the hill overlooking the ranch, take off his cowboy hat, stand first on one foot, then on another, and say something like, “O God, this is Joe. I’ll admit that we haven’t been very close over the years, but this is different.
Now I need you.
God, I know you don’t owe me no favours, but I’m asking for one. Please help..... No need to finish the sentence. You get the picture.
That was not only a rather corny theatrical device,
But not much of a testimonial to prayer, either. However, there was something true about those hackneyed scenes. “God, I’ll admit that we haven’t been close over the years.”
Isn’t that how many of us live much of our relationship with God? We don’t spend much time thinking about God, particularly when life is smooth sailing. But let us get knocked off our feet, struck down by some difficulty beyond our powers of coping, and then it’s “God, this is Joe...”
Maybe Joe would have had a better time of it if he, like you, attended church. He would have been better prepared for whatever crisis he was facing. As you hear the words of scripture, listen to the sermon,
Sing the hymns, share prayers with one another;
You are being prepared. You might think of your time at church as basic training,preparationfor times in life that are less bright than other times. It might be a scripture reading that helps in time of trouble or crisis.
“The lord is my shepherd, I shall not want....”
“I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live...”
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you....let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble..”
“Come to me, all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”
For you, it might be one of these verses or other verses from scripture. Or it might be a message in a sermon,
Or a hymn with a tune or words that soothe the soul;
Or just knowing that you are surrounded by a faith community comprised of well meaning, kind, and compassionate people. The church is a place to help us prepare for life in all of its ups and downs.
Much of church is preparation. For whom is a church wedding? For the couple getting married of course, and their families. But it is also for all the rest of us because all of us, in one way or another, have a stake in weddings and marriage. When we attend a church wedding we remember our own vows, our commitments; we may even find a rekindling of our love for our partner in being part of a church wedding ceremony.
For whom is a funeral? Those going through the acute crisis of grief – yes. But funerals are also for the rest of us, those of us preparing for future crises of grief.
Today’s gospel lesson features a parable of Jesus all about preparation. Jesus tells about a group of young women who were on their way to a wedding festival. Festivals were the centre of community life in Jesus’ day. The wedding of anyone was a special festival – an all-day, all-evening affair in which the whole village was involved. The high point of the wedding was when the groom came to the bride’s home and escorted her to his own home. It was the custom for the young, single women to carry lamps on this journey between the two houses. Accordingly, ten young ladies met at the house of the bride, each with her lamp. Five of them brought extra oil for the lamps....five did not. Those that didn’t have enough oil, who didn’t prepare for the eventuality that the groom would arrive late, ended up missing the party. Jesus describes them as foolish.
Foolish is something with which I’m familiar. I’ve seen a lot of it, and I admit I have engaged in my full share of foolishness. So have you. We don’t need a special reason for it. The writer of proverbs notes simply that “the way of a fool is right in his or her own eyes.” There’s a silly song that emphasizes foolishness.
It is entitled “mama get your hammer, there’s a fly on baby’s head.” The action may indeed kill the fly, but not very good consequences await the baby. There’s enough fool in me that I feel sorry for the unwise bridesmaids. Maybe if I take pains to remember my past foolishness,
I will not be as foolish quite so often. That is certainly one of the important reasons to remember – and, at times, to ritualize remembering. That’s what we do regularly in church. We remember. We remember, every Sunday, the hopeful promises of God and the saving acts of God. And we ritualize some of our remembering --- in the sacraments of Holy Communion and baptism, for instance; alsoin the annual celebration of Christmas and Easter; and the seasons leading up to each of those holy days.
And every three years we complete the cycle of scripture readings to be read in church – and then we start all over again. We remember again an again the promises of God and the acts of God’s grace and love and the life and work of God’s child, Jesus. It’sall a matter of preparing us for faithful living now and in the future. Church is like a place of training and such training includes preparation for the challenges and crises of life. November 11th is a day in which we ritualize remembrance. We call it Remembrance Day.
And on remembrance Sunday we remember in the context of our Christian faith.
I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like for a young person to be sent into battle; to be a participant in an armed conflict or in a war. I’m sure many have uttered words something like Joe, the cowboy, “o God, this is Joe...I need you.” I don’t think one can ever fully prepare themselves for such an experience.
But, once again, faith – especially faith nurtured in the training ground of church – can be significant preparation. I read of Matthew B. Ridgway, a world war two general of some renown. His biographer, George Mitchell, claims that “Ridgway’s fearlessness in the front lines was founded on his solid religious base...
His deep religious faith sustained him.” Ridgway admitted that “in the darkness, after you have gone to bed, when you are not the commander, with stars on your shoulders, but just one person, alone with God in the dark, your thoughts inevitably turn inward, and out of whatever resources of the spirit you possess, you prepare yourself as best you may for whatever tests may lie ahead.” Ridgway said that he always found
“great comfort in the story of the anguish of Jesus in the garden of gethsemane. If he could face with calmness of soul the great suffering he knew was to be his fate, then I surely could endure any lesser ordeal of the flesh or spirit that might be awaiting me.”
In the parable of the ten bridesmaids, Jesus, encourages us all to watch, to stay awake, to be prepared not only for the inevitable crises of life - but to be prepared for those times, often arriving in surprising ways, when God’s realm breaks into our lives, when God comes to us with saving grace. The early Christians had to adjust to the reality that Jesus did not return as they had expected, and that their mission was to wait expectantly and in the meantime live faithfully, courageously, hopefully. It is our mission still. At the heart of our faith is the certainty that human history has a purpose and a goal and that it is moving toward eventual fulfillment and completion. Christian hope rests on trust that God who created the world will continue to love the world with gentle providence, will continue the process of creation until the project is complete, and will continue to save the world by coming into it with love and grace. We are, in the meantime, to keep our light shining before others, continuing in worship and doing deeds of mercy, offering forgiveness, and spreading justice and peace.
There is no denying that we are, at times, genuinely and rightfully frightened about where human history seems to be headed. Freedom, justice, and compassion seem fragile in the face of forces of oppression, injustice, and violence.
Living in hope does not mean immunity to the harsh realities of history. On the contrary, it means living confidently and expectantly, trusting that the lord of history continues to come into life with compassion and redemption and hope. The challenge here is to keep enough oil on hand for the lamps when the bridegroom appears, to roll up our sleeves and work for the realm that is always coming and breaking into history.
Not only are there times when we are frightened about the future of our world, but also in our personal lives.
When we face serious illness, surgery, or loss of employment. At times like those we need to hear the good news that the bridegroom will come, that the love of God will continue to appear in our lives in surprising ways. In order to hear that good news, to really hear it and believe it, it helps to be prepared, to receive ‘basic training’ which, at its best, i believe the church provides. It has been my observation that it makes a great deal of difference, when people experience crisis, what they have done before the crisis. Have they prepared themselves to live not only in the bright, happy times of life but also in the sad times?
Have they developed a pattern, a habit, of prayer, for instance? So, we repeat the prayer of Jesus – every Sunday; we repeat the new creed – every Sunday.
It helps us remember the promises and the grace of God in our lives. And for sure one of these days we will need more than anything to pray and by practicing we will know what to say, how to begin to talk with God.
The poet RainerMariaRilke once wrote to a young military officer who lamented that he had lost his belief in God. Rainer wrote this: “why don’t you think of God as the one who is coming, who has been approaching from all eternity?.....what keeps you from projecting God’s birth into the ages that are coming into existence, and living your life as a painful and lovely day in the history of a great pregnancy?”
Again the church in providing remembrances of God’s saving acts and God’s promises yet to be fulfilled – can help prepare us in the waiting time– preparing us to be ready, expectant, for the arrival of the bridegroom - of God, of Christ in our midst.
One final story that illustrates this: a woman was telling a friend of an incident that happened to her.
she had been up all night caring for her sick child.
Finally, close to dawn, the child went to sleep and the exhausted mother walked down the hall toward her bedroom. As she tiptoed to her room, suddenly there was a solid ray of morning sun breaking in through her bedroom window, flooding the room with soft light.
She said it was as if there was a voice saying to her, “peace, be still, all is well.” Her friend exclaimed, “wow! That’s amazing. What did you think? Were you afraid or shocked, or what?”
She responded saying, “I remember thinking, well, I guess this is it.” “This is what,” her friend asked.
“I thought, this is the day that Christ has come very close to me. I expected it”. May all of us likewise have this glorious expectation. Amen.
Major sources:
“Proclaiming the text” by WilliamH. Willimon in pulpit resource, vol. 27, no. 4 – year a & b, pp.24-25.
Editor: WilliamH. Willimon. Wood lake books. Kelowna BC. Oct. – Dec. 1999.
“Pastoral perspective” by john m. Buchanan in feasting on the word, year a, volume 4, pp. 286-288,
Editors: David l. Bartlett and BarbaraBrown Taylor. Westminster John Knox press.
Louisville, Kentucky. 2011.
“the wise and the foolish” by EdwardW. Thorn in pulpit digest, September/October 1999, pp. 69-70.
Editor: DavidAlbert Farmer. Logos productions inc. Inver Grove Heights. Mn.
The journal of military experience, p. 159-160.
Militaryexperience.org/the-journal-of-military-experience/
Editor: BrianMockenhaupt
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