We know a thing or two about waiting.
This hasn’t been the longest wait for election results, but Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday made for a pretty long Tuesday. We know a thing or two about waiting.
Our lives have been on hold in so many ways for months; workers have been without pay or without jobs for months; numbers of people infected with COVID hit new records daily; vaccine development and testing have been accelerated in astonishing ways, but we’re not there yet. We know a thing or two about waiting.
Jesus teaches in his Sermon on the Mount, “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”[1] He has taught us to pray and to persevere in prayer. For generations we have prayed, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
We know that it is God’s will and God’s gift that we live as one humanity on this earth, and for generations we have searched for ways to live into that unity, that wholeness as members of the one household God has made life to be. “For everyone who knocks, the door will be opened,” Jesus has taught us, and we have been asking, searching, and knocking. We know a thing or two about waiting.
When I was little, my brother and I shared a bedroom for many years—two beds, two desks, a dresser with two sets of drawers, and a wardrobe with two doors. We shared a room, but it often felt more like the Berlin Wall ran right through the middle of it. There was a seam in the carpet, just between our beds, and at times that line was as heavily monitored as the Korean border. And at times we both acted like little tyrants, jealously guarding our territory and threatening heavy sanctions for border violations.
One day, I don’t remember what exactly had led to the confrontation, my brother was in our room and I was not, and he had locked the door. I asked him to let me in, but he didn’t. I knocked, gently first, then harder, but his response didn’t change. I pleaded with him, and he laughed — he thought the situation was hilarious, or perhaps he simply enjoyed his moment of complete control, and found my pitiful pleas laughable.
I remember well how I went down the hall to the kitchen and came back carrying a sturdy stool, solid beech wood. “Let me in; this is my room, too.” He just laughed. I was furious.
I grabbed that stool by the seat with both hands, swung it over my right shoulder, and – wham! – hit that door as hard as I could. Made me feel pretty good for a moment, but then my brother and I looked at the hole I had put in that door, and suddenly we agreed, “Man, that was stupid.” His ugly pleasure in shutting me out was gone, and so was my angry frustration. We finally found common purpose in mending the damage we had caused, and we learned to live together in a shared room.
The story of the ten bridesmaids doesn’t end with a vision of togetherness. Five of them have been introduced as foolish, the other five as wise, and that separation sticks. At the end of the story, the foolish five stand outside the banquet hall. They knock and they plead, “Lord, lord, open to us.” And the voice from behind the closed door declares, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.”
Is Jesus pretending? Is he playing some cruel game? Is he suggesting that parts of his sermon on the mount need to be rewritten?
“Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you”—unless of course you ran out of oil and show up late for the banquet, in which case you might as well forget about the party.
Do we need to rewrite his earlier teachings?
“Do not worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’”[2] But do worry about your oil and how big a bottle you will have to fill to let your light shine when the bridegroom arrives. Do worry about your oil and let others worry about theirs, so you don’t end up standing outside in the darkness. We’re used to oil determining the economic and foreign policy of nations, and now we’re supposed to think about the kingdom in terms of oil and who has it and who doesn’t?
“Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” the story ends—well, nothing keeps you awake like worries do; so is sleeplessness suddenly a Christian virtue? Are we to stay awake, worried about our personal oil supply while anxiously scanning the horizon for the Son of Man coming with power and great glory?[3] I don’t think so.
When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.[4]
It is the Lord who neither slumbers nor sleeps so that God’s people can lie down and sleep in peace.[5] The reign of God is like a baby, sound asleep in her crib, safe and secure from all alarms, and not like a bunch of frantic bridesmaids running through the night in search of fuel for their lamps.
To live in anticipation of God’s reign to be fulfilled in all things is like waiting for the wedding celebration to begin. The bride and her attendants are at her parents’ home waiting for the arrival of the groom and his party. The bridesmaids are ready, their dresses are beautiful, their eyes and cheeks are aglow with expectation, their lamps are trimmed. As soon as the children outside announce with happy shouts the bridegroom’s arrival, the bridesmaids will meet him at the end of the street and escort him with song and dance to the house of his beloved. Then they will all parade to the groom’s home, and, once there, the wedding banquet will begin – with music and dance, and food and wine in abundance!
But in Jesus’ story, the groom is delayed. The ten become drowsy and go to sleep, taking a little nap before the big party, lamps in their laps, and no one can tell which ones are wise or foolish. Then they wake up, and suddenly there’s a line running right down the middle, wise ones on the right, foolish ones on the left, separated like sheep from goats. All of them waited with their lamps burning, but only the wise ones considered that the wait in the darkness might be longer than anticipated. The foolish ones didn’t plan for the long time of waiting.
What does it mean for us to live wisely? In the sermon on the mount, Jesus teaches us about the life of discipleship, and he says,
You are the light of the world. … No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.[6]
Let your light shine. Give light to all in the house. Let the world see your good works. The oil in our lamps is not some scarce commodity for which we must compete; it is the faith, the love, the hope that keeps us humming, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine…” Waiting for the fullness of God’s reign to be revealed, on earth as it is in heaven, is about living with anticipation, and to feed that little flame with the word of God, with the witness of God’s people, and with the assurance of things hoped for. This lamp oil cannot be bottled or hoarded, bought or borrowed. It comes to us like breath comes to the living. I can look at Rosa Parks and the courage of her witness, but I can’t ask her, “Would you give me some of that?” I can look at John Lewis and his prophetic passion for justice, but I can’t ask him, “Will you let me borrow some of that?”
What you and I and anyone who hears the words of Jesus can do, though, is act on them — on faith, with a little courage and hope. What we can do is stop asking, “When will he come?” and more fully lean into the promise that he will come, and that his coming will bring the great banquet of joy without end, of justice and peace, of all things reflecting the glory of God. What we can do is serve the one who has taught us to recognize his face in the faces of the hungry and the thirsty, the stranger and the homeless and those locked behind prison doors.[7] What we can do is open doors we have the power to open, and step through doors that have been opened for us.
I don’t like the story of the story of the bridesmaids, and I’ve told the Lord, and I heard him say that I don’t have to like it; that it’s enough if it makes me think and question, and question my discomfort with it. I’m not free to rewrite it, but I neither want to nor do I have to live as though its outcome, the fifty-fifty split, is inevitable.
We know how it feels to stand in the dark outside the house of laughter and light. And we have all known moments, fractions of moments at least, I hope, when we were floating in its joy. So for as long as I have the power to open doors, I will, in the name of the bridegroom, and I encourage all of you to do the same. Our division must not be the last word.
[1] Matthew 7:7-8
[2] Matthew 6:31
[3] Matthew 24:30
[4] Proverbs 3:24 KJV, a translation that renders the words as both promise and command.
[5] Psalms 4:8; 121:4-5
[6] Matthew 5:14-16
[7] Matthew 25:31-46