23rd Sunday After Pentecost – Pastor Will Bevins
Today’s Sermon is available below in two formats. The audio file contains the lessons or the sermon that is also available as the text below.
First Reading: Amos 5:18-24
18 Alas for you who desire the day of the Lord! Why do you want the day of
the Lord? It is darkness, not light; 19 as if someone fled from a lion, and was
met by a bear; or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall, and was bitten by a snake. 20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light, and gloom with no brightness in it?
21 I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn
assemblies. 22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain
offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. 23 Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. 24 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Psalm: Psalm 70
1 Be pleased, O God, to deliver me. O Lord, make haste to help me! 2 Let those be put to shame and confusion who seek my life. Let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who desire to hurt me. 3 Let those who say, “Aha, Aha!” turn back because of their shame. 4 Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let those who love your salvation say evermore, “God is great!” 5 But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help and my deliverer; O Lord, do not delay!
Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about
those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no
hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. 5 For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. 16 For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
Gospel Reading: Matthew 25:1-13
1 “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their
lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; 4 but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.
5 As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a shout, “Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ 7 Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish said to the wise, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ 9 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.’ 10 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. 11 Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, “Lord, lord, open to us.’ 12 But he replied, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ 13 Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
Sermon
As you may know, there was an election last week. This sermon isn’t really
about that, but before I begin, I wanted to acknowledge that some of us this
morning may be feeling… well, any range of emotions. Some may be excited, others may be angry, and even if I stood here listing all the possible responses, it still might not describe how you feel. Reflecting on the past year, nobody was fully prepared for how it has gone; I dare say that the events of 2020 were unprecedented, in our lifetimes.
How do we prepare for the unprecedented, and how do we respond when it
happens? This sermon is about being prepared in life as a Christian, and not
ceasing to be prepared, so we may respond to life’s events in the spirit of the hope that lives within us. We could call this “waiting faithfully,” and I ask, what better set of scripture readings for the day of an annual meeting, as we reflect on the year past and with prayer and conversation, plan for the year ahead. [ If you are listening to the sermon online, know that we appreciate your prayers and solidarity-of-spirit. You are in our hearts today . / For those of us gathered here this morning, let’s remember to keep in prayer the members who cannot be with us in person this morning, and who support us through their mutual
prayers and gifts.]
There’s an old joke that goes something like this:
A man lives on a flood plain. One morning an enormous storm blows in and, sure enough, the water starts to gather in the lowest places of his
neighborhood. Soon the flood sirens sound, and his neighbors begin to
evacuate their homes. A friend stops by on the way to higher ground, and says, “Are you ready to evacuate? Didn’t you hear the sirens?”
The man replies, “I’m not worried. God’s going to save me.” The neighbor
leaves, and the man closes his door to the rising waters.
A few hours later, there’s a shout from outside his window. The man walks over, through a few inches of water covering his floor, and opens the window. Outside is a person in a boat, who stretches out a hand to the man. The person in the boat says, “Sir, come with me. Your house is about to flood.”
The man replies, “I’m not worried. God’s going to save me.” After trying and
failing to convince the man to evacuate, the person in the boat leaves to look for other people to help, and the man closes his window to the rising waters.
Pretty soon, the water has risen to the man’s waist, and then his chest, and
then his shoulders. He swims over to the window, opens it, and wades out. He is able to climb onto his roof, and there he waits.
By the evening, a couple of other boats have come by, but he won’t let anyone rescue him. Every time someone tries, he simply says, “I’m not worried. God’s going to save me.”
Finally, a helicopter comes. An emergency ladder unrolls down from it, and
someone in the helicopter shouts through a bullhorn, “Sir, take the ladder!
We’ll take you to safety!” The man shouts back, “I’m not worried! God’s going to save me!” The helicopter, its fuel supply beginning to run low, eventually flies away, and the man waits on his roof.
When he drowns, he finds himself in Heaven, face-to-face with his Lord and
savior. But… the man is furious. Shaking a finger in Jesus’ face, the man shouts, “I waited faithfully! I can’t believe you didn’t save me!”
Jesus answers, “My Child, when the siren sounded, I sent your neighbor, I sent a half-dozen boats. I even sent a helicopter!”
One could say that he waited foolishly. Maybe you’ve heard that joke before. I first heard it about 25 years ago in a sermon, and it has stuck with me,
because it’s almost a parable itself. Jesus saves. Be ready – wait faithfully.
One of the most sobering Biblical passages, for a community that seeks to
follow God’s will, is our first reading, from Amos chapter 5. The first half of the passage gives me chills, but the second half really drives the point home. God says to the worshipping community:
“I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn
assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.”
We might feel some historical distance, because our worship practices don’t
include burnt offerings, but let’s take the message at face-value and feel its full sting. The passage ends: “[L]et justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
This is God’s justice. It is untouchable, and inescapable, and it is what we
deserve to receive. On the day of the Lord, Amos says, we are judged, and
found wanting. No type or amount of worship could save us from God’s
judgement, if we lose sight of what God really cares about.
Stay with me here. What does it mean to live in a world where we are captive to sin, and cannot free ourselves? When our best efforts, whether they succeed or not, cannot save the world. When we can’t even save ourselves.
Jesus saves. This is not a punch-line or catch-phrase. It’s not a motto. It is a
solid platform for evangelism, and when we say it, it cannot only be the good news that we are trying to share with someone else; it is our Good News. It might be the only unequivocally good news we ever hear or share.
Said Martin Luther of Jesus’ saving power:
So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you
deserve death and hell, tell him this: “I admit that I deserve death and
hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on
my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I
shall be also.”
That is our hope. Jesus saves. Do you feel it? Do you feel it right now? Do you feel it all the time? Can you and I share it with other people, all the time, through what we say and do?
The parable in today’s Gospel reading is deceptively simple. For a moment, set aside the trappings of a wedding. There’s some historical distance that is easy to get hung up on, but look past the differences between then and now.
Envision 10 people who are told to do an important job, one that will take
patience and attention to detail. Five of them succeed; five fail.
Which group of bridesmaids in our Gospel reading best describes your ability to wait faithfully? Well, that’s not a question we can answer without knowing what it means to wait faithfully.
Because let’s face it: the bridesmaids had it easy. They were only waiting one night. I’d like to think that even I would remember to bring some extra oil, or have a spare battery, if I’m only preparing for one night. When you and I talk about waiting faithfully, we’re talking about our entire lives! And that’s the point of the parable. Like the early Christians to whom Matthew was writing, we wait for the Messiah.
We wait, and we look toward the Day of the Lord with hope, because even we sinners are not beyond Jesus’ power to save. Did you notice in the parable that all of the bridesmaids fall asleep on the job? Life is complicated, life can be exhausting. Jesus doesn’t hold that against us. Jesus doesn’t expect you and I to save the world – he’s the savior – but the Bible tells us over and over, from the beginning to the end, how we are supposed to wait faithfully.
Today’s reading from Amos seems to take for granted that the listener will
receive God’s wrath, and as Christians, we don’t deny that God’s wrath is what we deserve. We must pay special special attention to the passage’s crux, which reads, “[L]et justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
What if we align ourselves to God’s purpose? Not as would-be saviors, but as workers in God’s fields. This can be intimidating, in part because it costs us! This involves sacrifice of ourselves: our time, the use of our talents or gifts, our material resources and finances.
Thinking back to the man in the flood, he didn’t wait faithfully. As I tell the
joke, contrasting his actions with those of the other characters brings a whole new dimension to it. His neighbor, the rescuers in the boats, and the pilot and flight crew in the helicopter. They all put themselves at risk to answer the call that Christ gave them to go and help this man. They waited faithfully.
The joke also brings up the question of effectiveness. If we can look at the
characters who tried to rescue the man in the flood, we see that they didn’t
succeed. Our efforts when we wait faithfully won’t always be the successes we hope for, either.
Parker Palmer, a Quaker and an educator, wrote in 2011:
If we are to stand and act with hope […] and do it for the long haul, we
cannot settle for mere “effectiveness” as the ultimate measure of our
failure or success. Yes, we want to be effective in pursuit of important
goals […]. [But] we must judge ourselves by a higher standard than
effectiveness, the standard called faithfulness. Are we faithful to the
community on which we depend, to doing what we can in response to
its pressing needs? Are we faithful to the better angels of our nature and
to what they call forth from us? […] Are we faithful to the call of courage
that summons us to witness to the common good, even against great
odds? When faithfulness is our standard, we are more likely to sustain
our engagement with tasks that will never end: doing justice, loving
mercy, and calling the beloved community into being.
Jesus saves. Wait faithfully.
What does faithful waiting look like here, at St Stephen’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Plainfield, Indiana? Though I’m new to this community, I hope you already know how encouraged I am by what you’ve shown me so far. Instead of cataloging all of the encouraging, faithful things I’ve seen, I’m going to let this church’s ministers speak for themselves, during our annual meeting.
Now, I opened this sermon with an acknowledgement that this past year has been unprecedented. Waiting faithfully this year has moved us toward growth in unexpected directions, and it has also meant sacrifices we did not want to make.
You’ll notice that neither I nor your council members brought a crystal ball
with us this morning. We can and should plan with faith and even hopefulness, but we can’t see the future. What we did bring are our lamps. Jesus Christ, the light of the world. Let’s celebrate how Jesus shined through us and this community in the past year, and let’s prayerfully discern God’s guidance for the year ahead as we gather.
Let’s move forward with the conviction we must feel as we read Amos and
Matthew, knowing that God’s mission of justice and righteousness must be our vision, and with the hope the apostle Paul and the Reformer Martin Luther taught us: hope in the faith of Jesus Christ our savior.
In Christ’s name I pray.