Matthew 20:1-16
David A. Davis
March 27, 2016
Easter Sunday

Talk about a surprise ending. When evening came, the owner of the vineyard told his manager to gather all the day laborers so they could get paid. “Begin with the last and then go to the first,” he said. It all would have been fine if he paid them in the right order. If the all-day workers were paid first, they never would have known how much the owner gave to the end of the day folks. But the line was messed up. So when the people who were hired at 5:00 stepped up and were given a full day’s pay, everyone else saw it. The workers at the end of the line, the 10-, 12-hour-day guys at the end of the line, they could see how much was being paid. At the end of the line, when it was they’re turn, of course they expected to be paid more. They figured something had changed that day. Maybe the market price spiked or the minimum wage went up or the job was finished and it was a harvest time bonus. Whatever happened, the all-day-long laborers still expected the owner to pay them what was right, which would, of course, be more than the last-minute workers who barely broke a sweat.

But no. When it was their turn, when those at the end of the line who just had to watch everyone else get paid finally stood before the manager, they received the same amount. A day’s wage, no more, no less. And in an understatement of biblical proportion, Jesus the parable teller said they “grumbled against the landowner.” Grumbled. Grumbled? Really. Can you imagine? “We have been out here all day long busting our butts for you in the heat of the day and these johnnys-come-lately, entitled, coddled, like to sleep in, don’t want to get their hands dirty, millennial workers show up when the sun is going down and you pay them the same thing you pay us?” Grumbling wouldn’t begin to describe it.

The owner of the vineyard turned to one of them, one of the grumblers, and said, “You know this isn’t about you. It doesn’t always have to be about you. It isn’t just about you!” Well, in the parable what he said was, “I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?… Are you envious because I am generous?” Envious of generosity? It wasn’t about them. It’s not supposed to be about them. It’s about the owner’s generosity. It’s about generosity. It’s about the vineyard owner’s disruptive generosity. It was his generosity that messed everything up.

Right at the end, with the parable now finished, Jesus said, “So the last will be first and the first will be last.” It’s what Jesus said right before the parable too. “Many who are first will be last and the last will be first.” He frames the parable, right before, right after, “The last will be first, the first will be last.” That’s messed up. That’s how the line was messed up. First last, last first. It’s such a familiar phrase, “the first last, the last first”. It has that familiar, Bible sound to it, as if Jesus said it all the time. At least in Matthew’s Gospel, it is only here. Before and after the parable. Matthew’s Jesus only said it twice. Both right here.

“So the last will be first and the first will be last.” It’s so much more than a description of the parable’s payroll line. It’s more than a verse to quote in your head when a new line opens at the grocery store and you push your cart from last to first. “The last will be first and the first will be last.” Here in Matthew it’s not even a takeaway from Jesus’s teaching on leadership and servanthood. “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” That’s Mark. The first and the last in Matthew is all wrapped around this parable with the messed up line.

“The Laborers in the Vineyard.” Don’t call it that if the whole point is that it is not all about them. It’s about the owner and his generosity. His disruptive generosity. It’s “The Parable of Disruptive Generosity.” Jesus finishes the parable and turns to the disciples, to the church, to you, and to me, and says, “So the last will be first and the first will be last.” It’s Jesus’ exclamation point on God’s disruptive generosity. A lasting reminder about how that outrageous, disruptive generosity messes things up. Messes things up when it comes to our inflated sense of self and humankind’s innate expectation about how the line is supposed to work. God’s generosity so completely baffles the world’s way of doing things, thinking things, understanding things. “The last shall be first and the first shall be last.” It’s Jesus shaking his head at the world, sticking his finger in the world’s chest, standing toe to toe with the world, and saying, “You have no idea.”

When it comes to the world’s way of lining up, the world’s way of doing things, the world’s order to things, there is not much more certain and sure than death. The reminders of that come all too often. Death has this way of defining the end of the line. So when God set about raising Jesus from the dead, God was messing things up in a big way. It’s why one preacher called the resurrection “God’s great disruption.” In Matthew that disruption comes with an earthquake and a stone-moving angel. The angel transforms the rock that guards death’s door into a throne. And from that throne the angel proclaims to the women, “He is not here, for he has been raised, as he said.” From the throne there at the empty tomb, the angel says, “the line now starts here.” It is the very voice of God announcing to the women and to the world, “You have no idea”. God’s life-giving power, shattering death’s stranglehold. God’s steadfast love, giving birth to an earthshaking hope. God’s generosity unleashing a resurrection promise that forever transforms. Light out of darkness. Love out of hate. Life out of death. The Risen Jesus shaking his head at the world, sticking his finger in the world’s chest, standing toe to toe with the world and saying, “You have no idea.”

Matthew’s Easter morning earthquake. No other gospel tells of the earthquake. Just Matthew. Yes, a sign of God’s great disruption. A shaking of cosmic proportion. A reminder that this resurrection power is bigger than one thinks. You never really wrap your head or your heart around it. The earthquake. It’s Matthew’s way of reminding you that this Easter stuff isn’t just about you. It’s about God and God’s generosity, love, and power. It is the promise of an abundant life beyond what can be seen or heard or touched. The promise of life eternal where death rules no more and Christ himself is first and last and the inevitable march of time is drawn into the very heart of God. Resurrection life unchained. It is the affirmation that God is at work here and now to bring about a kingdom where goodness is stronger than hate, and peace can overwhelm the force of violence, and righteousness can rise even as chaos and destruction seem to rule. It’s not just about you, this resurrection life and power. It is about the Living God’s salvation movement — for creation, for humanity, for the world. The Easter morning earthquake. You get the divine irony, right? It is so not about you and it is so for you. God for you.

This morning marks the twenty-ninth Easter morning I have stood before a congregation and proclaimed, “Christ is risen!” But I long ago lost track of how many times I have stood in a cemetery and announced, “Behold I tell you a mystery, we shall not all die but we all shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.” I can’t tell you how many times I have stood in funeral homes, sanctuaries, and hospital rooms, and affirmed, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Today it might sound loud and victorious around here all morning, but the strongest Easter shout I know comes when you are turning away from the grave with a broken heart and mud on your shoes. The view from up here on Easter morning is awesome for a pastor, but when it comes to being a part of God’s movement of resurrection life, nothing compares with standing back in the line, back amid all that sorrow and grief, and watching people lean on the generous grace of God as love and strength and comfort and hope and life rise up again and again and again refusing to let death win.

Christ is risen! To proclaim it is to affirm so much more than one dead man rising. It is to testify to God’s intent and desire for the kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. It is to confess with amusement that God is not done messing with the world. Christ is risen! To shout it is to announce to all that war and terror and hatred and bigotry and religious violence and hostile exclusion will never conquer the light of God. It is to stand toe-to-toe with the world and say, “You have no idea.” Christ is risen! To sing it strong is to place yourself squarely in God’s resurrection choir, working to make this world a new one, serving a kingdom that is surely coming where the hungry will be fed, and the thirsty will have something to drink, strangers will be welcomed, and the naked clothed, and the sick cared for, and the prisoners visited. Christ is risen! To tell it to our children is to shape godly imaginations so they can dream of, work toward, live in classrooms and workplaces and homes where bullying is no more and social media only serves the common good and people who are different aren’t demonized because that death-rattling cosmic Easter morning shake is at work, one heart, one life, one child at a time.

Christ is risen! To boldly whisper it is to exhort yourself to know and believe that the sin that holds you back, the demons that try to pull you down every day, the voices that clamor at your joy, your assurance, your peacefulness, that they cannot and will not ever separate you from God’s life-giving love. Christ is risen! To join your voice with the great cloud of witnesses, this communion of saints, is to set aside your own intellectual arrogance that you think you have to understand “all this.” It is to lay down that stubbornness that tries to convince you that God’s presence, God’s power, and God’s future somehow depends on whether you believe “all this.” It is to join with all those who have gone before and those who come after, forever acknowledging that the chief and highest end of humanity is to glorify God and enjoy God forever, because of “all this.” Christ is risen! To live it is to find yourself fully immersed in a great cosmic symphony of praise that is offered in response to the outrageous, disruptive, generosity of God. The One who raised Jesus from the dead.

© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

Matthew 21:33-46
David A. Davis
March 20, 2016
Palm Sunday

When you watch the end of one these NCAA tournament basketball games, sometimes the camera shots of the crowd are sort of gut wrenching, especially if you are watching the final seconds of a stunning upset. One team nobody expected to win (like the team from New Haven on Thursday). The other team expected to be playing for another couple of weeks. So the camera shows the winning fans in all of their celebration. Then, of course, they cut to the faces of those who can’t believe what they are seeing. You sort of figure some are parents of the players knowing they’re going to have to have something to say to their heartbroken child. The game’s not over yet so the players themselves have yet to react. I saw one young fan, maybe 10 or 12. Maybe he was a little brother, or a coach’s kid, or just with a family who had good seats. But the look on his face as they zoomed in. He was too shocked to cry. His face said it all: It wasn’t supposed to be this way!

When our children entered the “go to the party at someone’s house the parents don’t know” stage of being teenagers, we tried to do all the things parents are supposed to do. Set the rules. Confirm adults will be at the party. Who’s driving, who’s picking up. One of the parts of the plan was a code word we gave to them. If they called and said the word, one of us would come immediately and pick them up, no questions asked. This was before cell phones so if the party was going bad and you needed to leave, you would have to ask to borrow a phone and you wouldn’t want to risk embarrassment in front of your friends. Thus a code word. Our code word was “pickle.” If Hannah or Ben ever called and said, “Hey, if you’re coming to the party, could you bring some pickles,” I would have been there in a heartbeat. Today your teenager would just text and say, “This is out of control, please come get me.”

In the Gospel of Matthew, the Palm Sunday account comes in the same chapter as the parable of the wicked tenants that I just read to you. Jesus and that ride on the donkey down from the Mount of Olives and then back up the steep hill to the city walls of Jerusalem. The parade comes with all those “hosanna shouts” and palm branches and garments strewn on the path. “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!” Here in Matthew 21 when Jesus gets to the temple, he overturns tables and tells the money changers to get out. Then Jesus heals the blind and the lame as the tension among the chief priests and scribes continues to rise. The very next day he comes back to the temple again and has a heated exchange with the elders and the chief priests. They confront Jesus and pretty much say, “Who the heck do you think you are?” So he tells them this parable. The one about a landowner who planted a vineyard. The landowner who tried to collect the harvest. The landowner who ultimately sent his son to collect. Jesus told them the one about the tenants in a vineyard who seized the landowner’s son, took him out of the vineyard, and killed him because they wanted to get his inheritance.

It’s the day after the Triumphal Entry, that great “hosanna” party and there in the temple Jesus is going toe-to-toe with those who are determined to put an end to all this, put an end to him. There had to be some followers of Jesus with a stunned look on their face. As Jesus was telling this parable of violence and death, there must have been those who just about then were starting to get it, put two and two together, figure it all out. You and I, we’re sort of expected to think that the crowd surrounding Jesus was full of fickle deniers and betrayers who shout “hosanna” one week and “crucify him” the next. But there had to be some, a few, someone, some follower of Jesus there on the edge of the crowd, just within earshot of the Teacher’s voice, someone who hears the one about the death of the son, someone who right then realizes this is going to end badly. There had to be someone in the temple the morning after Palm Sunday who texted a family member, “Can you come get me? This is out of control.”

It’s the Palm Sunday predicament of faith. The followers of Jesus, you and I, we know where this is headed. The Son is being treated like a king today. But he is going to be sweating drops of blood soon. The Son is going to betrayed, and tried, and beaten, and tortured, and killed. This parade is going bad. It’s far too easy to shout “Hosanna” today and “He is Risen” next week. Sometime, some moment in between there comes this awful realization that it shouldn’t be this way, it shouldn’t go this way. And there’s not a darn thing you can do about it. And yet today we still shout, Hosanna in the highest! Save us! We know where this parade is heading and we still have to shout to the Son of God!

Last summer a group of travelers from Nassau Church stood on the Mount of Olives and looked across the Kidron Valley at the Old City of Jerusalem. It is an incredibly beautiful view. The Garden of Gethsemane is just down the hill. The view of the valley sort of allows you to ignore the highway that runs through it, so full of cars and tour buses. You look over at that old wall and the iconic skyline. After you get your bearings and someone points out the various domes and steeples and rooftops, after you take the pictures, you just linger there in silence. Time and history sort of collapse. And this unsettling feeling comes. This gnawing at the spirit. A sort of soulful nausea. Because the view, there from the Mount of Olives, it’s a Palm Sunday view. You can see it. Where the parade starts. You can trace it down the hill and up the other side. You can see the gate in the wall where the parade passed through. And you just know, you know what’s going to happen. How the parade goes bad. How he so willingly empties himself, gives himself, sheds his blood. How God so loved the world that God sent his only Son. Hosanna! Hosanna! The Palm Sunday view it is so… so… so beautiful.

The Palm Sunday predicament. You see what I mean, right? Shouting “hosanna” and knowing how it’s all going to end. That Palm Sunday view. I’ve discovered a Palm Sunday song too. A song that gets at this wondrous combination of praise and heartbreak. I didn’t just discover the song. It actually is at the top of the most played on my device. I checked my stats this week. The top three in order? “Born to Run.” “Birdland.” And “Oh Happy Day.” That’s the Palm Sunday song. Not just the song “O Happy Day,” but a recording of Aretha Franklin and Mavis Staples singing “Oh Happy Day.” Two giants of gospel music with a full choir behind them. Everybody knows “Oh Happy Day, when Jesus washed my sins away… he taught me how to watch, fight and pray, living, rejoicing every day.” But the lyrics themselves don’t do justice to how Aretha and Mavis sing it. Theirs is a Palm Sunday arrangement.

They don’t sing, “Oh, happy day.” It’s more like, “Awh, happy day.” At one point in the song, if you listen carefully, you can hear them telling the story, it starts with well, well, and then going back to the Garden of Gethsemane, and not my will but thy will be done, and riding into Jerusalem, and the crying crowds and waving palms, and crying hosanna. As they tell about Jesus and his suffering, how he goes about washing sins away, the choir just keeps singing “Oh Happy Day” louder and louder, an incongruent shout of praise. The women, they’re not just singing about Jesus and his suffering, it comes with this kind of guttural shout, this groan, this pain from somewhere deep within. Because they know how it’s all going an end. It’s a Palm Sunday song because the praise, the gratitude, the shout, is in response to all that Jesus gave, all that Jesus gave. By the time they sing about the stone rolled away, the song has calmed down. The resurrection is a peaceful denouement. Easter is the postlude. The guts of the song, the climax of their interpretation, what makes it a happy day is his dying love.

Listen… [music plays]

It’s how you ought to shout “hosanna.” From the deepest part of your soul. A shout to the one who gave his life. One of those shouts that comes through tears. A shout to the Son that God sent. An informed shout because you know how this is all ends. One of those shouts that’s even louder, more striking, more powerful in your head. Not just your head, but your heart.

A shout to Jesus and his dying love.

Hosanna! Hosanna!

© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

Matthew 25:31-46
David A. Davis
March 13, 2016
Lent V

I wonder if anyone clapped? When Jesus finished the parable of the sheep and the goats, the parable of the last judgment, his teaching about the least of these, do you think anyone clapped? When I was an undergraduate, students would often clap at the conclusion of the last class in the course at the end of the term. It wasn’t for every class. Not languages or seminars, certainly not the class in which you were stuck with a grad student. But the courses that were larger and lecture-based, the courses held in the bigger halls, the amphitheater classrooms. At the end of that last class, students clapped.

Matthew 25:31-46 is the last part of the last class for the disciples and the followers of Jesus. What comes next after the parable is this: “When Jesus had finished saying all these things, he said to his disciples, ‘You know that after two days the Passover is coming and the Son of Man will be handed over to be crucified.’” Jesus isn’t just predicting it. He is announcing it. It’s now. It’s here. It’s over. The Jesus of Matthew’s gospel is the Great Teacher in the tradition of Moses. This is the “you have heard it said… but I say unto you” Jesus. Matthew’s Jesus is the teacher and the teaching is now done.

The teaching started with “blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” and “you have heard that is was said, ‘you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I say to you, love you enemies and pray for those who persecute you” and “pray then like this…” and “ask, and it will be given, seek and you will find.” The teaching started with the Sermon on the Mount. More came when Jesus gave his sending lecture to the disciples: “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” Then came some parables like the parable of the sower and the parable of the mustard seed. There was a memorable sermon moment: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” And there was teaching in response to a question: ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life… Go sell you possessions and give the money to the poor.” That bit of teaching included the part about the rich and the eye of the needle and with God all things are possible.

All this teaching from Jesus in Matthew: the parable of the unforgiving servant, the parable of the wedding guests and the one not dressed right, and the owner of the vineyard and the workers in the field. And just right here in Matthew 25: the wise and foolish maidens and the parable of talents and then this, “Truly I tell you, as much as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me… as much as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” Jesus is the great teacher and the course is now over. “These will go away in eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Clap. Clap. Clap. That’s James somewhere in the crowd. James, who wrote, “I by my works will show you my faith… be doers of the word… faith without works is dead.”

The Teacher’s last class, the final point, the last word. “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Some editors refer to the parable as the parable of the Great Judgment. All the nations gathered. The Son of Man on the throne. A great judgment scene that ends with eternal punishment and eternal life. But the judgment isn’t the most unsettling part of the parable. By the time you get to this point in Matthew, there’s been plenty of weeping and gnashing of teeth and outer darkness and eternal fire. There is something about the parable more troubling than even the judgment.

What’s more disconcerting in this parable is the hiddenness of Christ. The invisibility of the Son of Man. The “un-detectedness” of Jesus. Neither the righteous nor the unrighteous were able to see the face of Jesus in the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned. “Lord, when was it?” That’s what they both said, the sheep and the goats, the ones on the right and the ones on the left, eternal life and eternal punishment. None of them knew where Jesus was. None of them knew it was Jesus. The righteous didn’t have a leg up on piety, patting themselves on the proverbial spiritual back, believing they were caring for the Son of Man. They had no idea! They were just feeding the hungry and caring for the sick and welcoming the stranger and clothing the naked and visiting the prisoners. The accursed weren’t sent away for disrespecting the king or denying the Son of Man or for lack of faith or for failing to subscribe to every part of the creed. Judgment comes because they turned their backs, they didn’t do a blessed thing. They couldn’t have cared less. Of course that means they couldn’t have cared less about Jesus. If there is something that ought to make you squirm in your Christian life, uncomfortable in your walk of faith, it’s the hiddenness of Christ. Our inability to see the face of Jesus in the least of these.

The Teacher’s last class, the final point, the last word. “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” For all the challenge that the parables bring to the followers of Jesus, for all the wrestling with scripture we’ve done this Lenten season — trying to comprehend allegory, trying to embrace hyperbole, trying to understand a first-century context, trying to take in all the judgment, trying to let the really difficult ones just stay difficult, for all the wonder and the mystery that come with the parables of Jesus — this last one is rather shockingly straightforward and it lands with an unadulterated punch with no need to put a finer point on it. Feed the hungry. Give the thirsty something to drink. Welcome the stranger. Clothe the naked. Care for the sick. Visit the prisoner.

In his column this week, Ross Douthat of The New York Times writes about how the current presidential election process is exposing what he calls “many hard truths about American Christianity.” The core of the essay addresses how Donald Trump is appealing to conservative Christian voters despite what the columnist calls Trump’s “transparent irreligiosity.” Setting aside the political commentary and the main gist of the column, I was struck by the his mention of “a distinctively American heresy” (his term). What he means is an unfortunate turn in American Christianity over the last 50 years. A turn toward a theology that is, as he describes it, “nationalistic, prosperity-worshiping, apocalyptic, and success-obsessed.” I read enough of Ross Douthat to know that as a conservative Roman Catholic he and I don’t agree on much when it comes to theology. But his brief description of the unique heresy of American Christianity, nationalistic, prosperity-worshiping, apocalyptic, and success-obsessed left me wanting to think more and read more. To think more about how contemporary Christianity so easily becomes exclusive and tribal, self-absorbed, fear-based, and the means to justify one’s own desires and one’s own opinions. Douthat left me wondering about how different a Christian walk can be if you skip the last class.

I met this week with a sophomore from Princeton University who is writing a paper for a journalism class on the current coverage and conversation and process of refugee resettlement in the United States. She is from North Jersey. She’s Jewish. Her family is from Syria. During our discussion she asked me what motivates a congregation like Nassau to engage in the kind of program that would bring an international family to the Princeton community every 4-5 years over the last 50 years. At that point I said something boring and vague and uninspiring about the Christian faith. I’m sure in the paper it will sound something like an adult in a Charlie Brown cartoon (wha, wha, wha, wha). I should have told her about the “un-detectedness” of Jesus in Matthew 25. Because some want us to look at a Syrian refugees and see possible terrorists. The gospel calls us to look at Syrian refugees and see the face of Jesus.

According to the local Princeton group Send Hunger Packing, statistics on the free and reduced lunch program in the Princeton Public Schools indicate that there are about two students in every classroom from K through 12 who may not be getting enough food to eat on a weekly basis. Someone might want to let the teachers know that Jesus might be sitting in their classrooms. The national association for hospice care reports that the number of people on hospice care in the United States is increasing by hundreds of thousands every year. The opportunity for you and I to care for Jesus is ever on the rise. The United States represents one twentieth of the world’s population. The prison population in the United States is one fourth all people incarcerated around the world. Long before the term “mass incarceration” was used, long before advocates for prison reform began to question the prison industrial complex or the abuse of solitary confinement, long before, the gospel called the church to look for and to visit Christ in the millions of people in prison.

The Teacher’s last class, the final point, the last word. “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” The title of that last lecture? The Great Judgment. The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats. Unto the least of these. How about “The Haunting Hiddenness of Christ.”

© 2016 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

Matthew 25:1-13
Lauren J. McFeaters
February 21, 2016
Lent II

They’re known as bridesmaids, maidens, virgins, attendants, women religious. Wise and foolish. Foolish and wise.

Christian art historically paints the “foolish ones” as wanton, card-playing, and smarmy women who revel in every kind of debauchery. I’m not kidding. Google the passage and go to the images. Be prepared to be amazed.

The “wise ones” are illuminated as glorious waifs drifting in and out of prayer meetings; angelic Tinkerbelles who flit through forest glen lamps ablaze with honor and blessing; or tall solemnly pious warriors marching in the Light of God. I’m not kidding. Google the passage and go to the images. Be prepared to be amazed.

Neither portrayal is helpful. The Wise being saints and the Foolish being whores. The Wise being blessed and the Foolish being sinners. Not helpful at all. It’s like saying Mary Magdalene was a prostitute. Really? Truly? Do you think of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute? Many do. That’s the church’s story, its tradition, but nowhere is it found in scripture.

We’ve all of us – each of us – been each of them: the foolish and the wise; the wise and the foolish. Each of us has been the extravagantly wise and the exceedingly foolish. Each of us takes our wise or foolish place on this parable stage; in this earthly story with heavenly meaning. Most scholars agree:

• The Wise Bridesmaids are Christians prepared to keep their faith and good works alive and burning.
• The Long Awaited Bridegroom is the Lord.
• The Bridegroom’s late night arrival is the Messiah coming at an unexpected time, like a thief in the night.
• The Flaming Lanterns are the believers who do not hide their light under a bushel, but shine for the world to see.
• The Wedding Banquet is the Kingdom of Heaven.

So much action. So many signs. So many puzzles to piece together.(2)

Many years ago when I was traveling in Ireland (3), and I visited an ancient church called Saint Fin Barre’s. It’s an Anglican Cathedral in the middle of Cork City and it sits on a site where Christian worship has been celebrated since the early-7th century.

If you stand at the western portico and gaze above, your eye gets lost in the multitude of carvings, reliefs, interlacing designs, and sculpture. But if you step back, certain images come into focus and it all starts to look familiar. In all its glory the parable of the Wise and Foolish comes into focus.

On one side are the wise. Their heads are covered as a display of purity. High aloft they hold their flaming lanterns. They stand on the right hand side of the bridegroom who faces them with joy. The wise are strong, virtuous, favored and standing on pedestals depicting the open doors to a heavenly wedding party.

And as you can imagine, in stark contrast, the foolish are bare-headed and cold. They are despondent, dejected, and ashamed. Their lamps hang withered and useless. Beneath their feet the closed doors of the feast are shut tightly. Our Lord looks away. And above them all is a massive depiction of the realm of angels lifting the wise into heaven and pushing the foolish into hell.(4)

One preacher puts it like this: This is one of those moments when we should be proclaiming, “Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, sweet Jesus, this is not the only parable about the Kingdom of Heaven.” Because if this is what happens when we’re unrehearsed and unprepared; when we forget our oil and are turned away by supposed friends, have sweet mercy upon us!

Thank goodness there’s a basket-full of others parables at hand. There’s hidden treasure, mustard seeds, pearls of great price, yeast, and coins. If we could scoop out just one other parable that does not hinge on asking for help or sharing what we have, we’d be all snug and warm.

Anna Carter Florence says it best that this text makes church people look bad. Is this really how we define a wise person, as someone who only takes care of herself without sharing? Didn’t they think about sharing their oil? They could have walked in pairs. Is this the kind of story we want people to identify with us? “Well, you know the church, they’re the ones who hoard all their oil. They preach the wisdom of stockpiling, because they believe that if people are in need, it’s their own darn fault.”

Anna continues, “Sometimes, when I’m working on a sermon, I try to imagine what it would be like to read other passages of scripture through the lens of the particular text I’m working on. For example, what would happen if we placed this text next to other portions of Matthew’s gospel, and read them together?” Well, I tried that, she says, starting with the Sermon on the Mount back in Matthew 6 and 7, but I didn’t get very far, because the wise and foolish bridesmaids were making mincemeat out of the Beatitudes. She came up with this:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, although to get there, you will need large oil reserves, so forget the first part of what I said; store up for yourselves oil on earth, so that you will have treasure in heaven. (6:19ff)

Or: Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body what you will wear. Worry about your oil. Worry about whether you have enough for you, and forget about everyone else. (6:25ff)

Or: 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’re late and the bridegroom answers, in which case, you might as well forget it. (7:7ff) What is Jesus thinking? In telling this parable he turns the Gospel on its head, and not in a good way. If being prepared with extra oil is the ticket into heaven then most of his teaching is debatable.(5)

Instead of rescuing his disciples from the boat in the storm, we would have the story of “The Men Who Died at Sea Having Failed Sailing 101.” Instead of “The Raising of Jairus’ Daughter,” we’d have “The Ethical Dilemma of Futile Hospice & Palliative Care.”

And what is it about the oil? The Wise and the Foolish had oil. They all had lamps. They all traveled to meet the bridegroom. They were all ready for a wedding. They all slept. They all awoke.(6) What they weren’t all ready for was the delay.

Maybe, just maybe, this is not only a parable about the oil in our lamps. Maybe this is a parable about the oil we leave at home, that we keep hoarded and sheltered. Oil we don’t take out into the world. All the slippery stuff that weighs us down — the grief and sadness and anxiety, the endless tears, the voices in our heads. And, oh, that oil of fear, and pride, and shame, and stinginess. We leave that oil at home thinking we need to hide it from the world and, most especially, where else? Here.

But what if, every time we made our way to church we paused at the doorway and looked up and saw the Foolish Ones on one side and the Wise Ones on the other. The wise hold their flaming lanterns aloft. They are strong and resilient. And also the foolish, bare headed, cold, looking despondent and ashamed. Their lamps hanging withered and useless. But all of them are welcoming us, lighting our way, and saying, “This way.”

Sometimes wise. Sometimes foolish. Sometimes right in the middle. “Come because the Bridegroom is waiting,” they’re saying. “Don’t leave your baggage(7) at home, don’t leave it outside, bring it all in and shake it out. Because the Kingdom of God is here. Ready or not. Delayed or not. There’s a big, wide welcome waiting for the foolish and the wise. It’s an anointing from the God who fuels our spirits, from the One who keeps our lamps burning.

And perhaps it really is all about the oil — that viscous stuff that lubricates our souls and reminds of the promises our Lord offers over and over and over again:

• I was a refugee, and you welcomed me.
• I was hungry and you fed me.
• I was thirsty, and you gave me a bottle of water.
• I was stark naked and you gave me the coat off your back.
• I was in prison, and not only did you visit me, you’re also working to free me from my solitary confinement. (8)

Our Lord Jesus Christ, he doesn’t want us to leave it at home. He wants us to come and bring all of our dirt and find all of our joy – together.

1. Matthew 25:1-13 NRSV.
2. Thomas G. Long. Matthew. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Know, 1997, 280.
3. Thanks to Melissa Martin Sells for jogging my memory.
4. Louise Nugent. Blog: Pilgrimage in Medieval Ireland, pilgrimagemedievalireland.com, August 5, 2008.
5. Anna Carter Florence. Sermon: Filling Stations, Matthew 25:1-13. Day1, a ministry of the Alliance for Christian Media Inc. Atlanta, GA. November 04, 2007.
6. Long, 280-281.
7. Thanks to Noel Werner for leading me to the “Baggage” conversation.
8. Long, 280-281.

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