Trinity 27

Matthew 15:1-13

November 24, 2019

Over the last four Sundays I’ve quoted jazz musician Louis Armstrong along with pop musicians Howard Jones, Foster the People, Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, and Kanye. This has made certain leaders of our church nervous, so this sermon won’t mention any jazz, pop, or hip hop musicians.

The legendary Canadian rock band Rush got their first big break when the song Working Man got significant airplay in Cleveland. The lyrics struck a chord with those mired in life’s drudgery: I got no time for livin’. Yes, I’m workin’ all the time. This idea that work is different from life is not new. It’s the topic of Genesis 3. Once sin enters the world, work staves off death yet is the result of death. You work until you die.

But the dream persists that we can work our way out of work, even if that comes in retirement. Yet how many people do you know worked hard for retirement only to die shortly after – or shortly before? 

If not work, then perhaps a windfall can get us to living the life we want. Money for Nothing, the song that launched the MTV age, expressed this fantasy. The Dire Straits sang of the rock ’n roll star, That ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it. We want Money for Nothing. But I got no time for livin’ … I’m workin’ all the time.

What are you working for? What are you living for? The Parable of the Ten Virgins depicts Christians, some of whom are preparing and living for the Bridegroom, and others who are not preparing. The foolish were living for now, while the wise lived in anticipation of the Bridegroom.

What’s important to you? And are you willing to give up the things that keep you from focusing on what’s truly important?

The late philosopher Ivan Illich said:

Christians who imitate [Christ] soon discover that little practices of renunciation, of what I won’t do, even through it’s legitimate, are a necessary habit I have to form in order to practice freedom.... [There are] things which, in the modern world, we can give up — not because we want a more beautiful life, but because we want to become aware of how much we are attached to the world as it is and how much we can get along without it.

What are you attached to? Are you truly free? What would happen if you gave up, or were forced to give up, Social media? Netflix? Beer? Your cell phone? As another church year draws to a close, the Parable of the Ten Virgins cries out to us again to assess our lives in light of Christ’s return. Are you ready for it, or have you been living as though it were not really the important thing, that the truly important things are what can be found in your Twitter stream, cable news, or whatever it is that you happen to be hooked on? What was it that kept the five foolish virgins from being prepared for the arrival of the Bridegroom? What is it that is hindering your preparation for the return of Christ? What things keep you from living now as a disciple of Jesus?

Today’s parable, you see, is a story about the end of the world. What comes to an end on the Last Day is divine patience with sin. On that day, the Lord’s longsuffering with a rebellious world will cease. The door to Christ’s kingdom will be opened for the wise and closed to the foolish. Christ says of Himself in Revelation that He is the One “who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens” [3.7].

We confess in the Creed that this Christ will come to judge the living and the dead. It’s easy to regard that as some far-distant event that we still have plenty of time to get ready for.  

Add to this our current climate that is becoming aggressively anti-theist, and militantly anti-Christian. God creating the heavens and the earth? A virgin giving birth to a Messiah? Only uneducated hicks believe in such fables now. In such a world, belief in a final judgment is preposterous.  Today’s words from Jesus remind us that there is a judgment.  The books will be opened; your secrets revealed.

Do you believe this?  Hermann Sasse observed our world is in revolt

against God Himself. Like the people in the time of Noah, and at Sodom and Gomorrah, we no longer believe in God as the righteous judge. God no longer judges us; we judge God. That is why the cross and the forgiveness of sin is such a rarity today. In our day, forgiveness does not mean judgment for sin. Forgiveness means permissiveness. It means that [men] no longer care about right and wrong. And so by our actions and inactions we judge God and believe that He is harsh and cruel to hold [our] sins up and act as if they mean anything. God no longer forgives us. We forgive ourselves.

Consequently, this parable cannot be true.  The modern god made in our image would never call anybody foolish, and certainly would not close the door on them. The modern god would instead reprimand the five so-called “wise” virgins for not sharing the oil with their downtrodden neighbors.

Denying judgment is a way of denying death itself. The cold reality, however, is that this earth is “a monstrous mass grave, in which all the living must go” [Sasse]. All, wise and foolish alike, must meet their end in the judgment of temporal death unless Christ returns beforehand, and after that the judgment before the throne of God on the Last Day.

Is our church like the foolish virgins in this parable? With our mouths we profess faith in Christ – but is that taken seriously? Are the worldly things you are attached to trumping all else? A profound lethargy has come upon our spiritual life—and I include myself foremost in that critique. The cry of the watchmen in the parable is for us: “Wake, Awake!”  When we finally wake up, will it be only to hear the words, “I do not know you”?

What would it mean to be awake?  What would it mean to watch?  Those with oil in their lamps are those who steadfastly persevered.  They were not overwhelmed by attachments. They did not succumb to their own despair, lamenting the crosses in life. Nor did they give in to pride and boasting when things went well. They heeded not the voice that said forgiveness is a license to sin; they hearkened not to the call to accommodate Scriptural doctrine and soften moral standards in a vain hope of winning the world’s favor. They were not interested in getting the most votes on their side. They only wanted to be at the Bridegroom’s side when He appeared.

That is why the five wise virgins could not share their oil. It did not come from them. The peace, knowledge, and forgiveness Christ looks for is not an inner peace, or anything we produce within ourselves. The peace, knowledge, and forgiveness necessary for admittance into the wedding hall of the kingdom of God is that peace, knowledge, and forgiveness which Christ Himself gives. The five foolish virgins looked for it in their neighbors and at the marketplace. Yet there it was not, and is not, to be found. The “oil” that the five wise virgins had is the gospel given to them in Baptism and sustained in Confession, Absolution, and Eucharist. In other words, their faith was in the gospel-gifts given outside themselves. They could not share this with the foolish, for it was not theirs to give. It comes only from Christ.

The foolish, by contrast, rely on their own strength and resources. Note, they have lamps, they are called “virgins,” they are among the faithful.  All of this means they give every outward appearance of being Christians. But they are hypocrites. These are they who at first heard the Word with joy, but when faced with carrying the cross, when faced with pleasing men rather than God, when faced with temptations of the flesh, they fell away. Their lamps ceased burning, but they relied on past actions, past piety, and the false security of a dead faith. The final call revealed them as unwatchful, unprepared, unready.  Are you in their company?  Wake up!  “Wake, awake, for night is flying!”

Among which company will you be found?  How will you sleep, i.e., die securely, and actually be secure when Christ the Bridegroom comes?  Jesus the Crucified One is the One who opens and no one can close, and who closes and no one can open.  He is the door, He is the way, He is the light, and He is the bread of life.  All these things intersect in the parable, and they all intersect at the font and communion rail.  He gives Himself, and it is all we need.  That is our confidence in sleeping the sleep of death.  We despair of everything we are and have, and cling to everything He is and gives.

So: Wake up! Repent!

Live for the Bridegroom.

He is your living. He is your dying. He is your resurrection. His shall you be forever.