We're Still Waiting

 

For Americans, this has been a long week of waiting. Now, we have a President-elect … but this season of uncertainty is far from over. For me, it’s the waiting caused by Covid that is most distressing. We wait for a vaccine; we wait for loved ones to recover; we wait for test results; we wait to travel; we wait to be with family again; we wait for the economy to improve; we wait for a job; we wait to go back to school … The waiting goes on and on. Here in Colorado, we are still waiting for enough rain and snow to put out the fires. Will the air clear soon, or will the fires blaze again? We wait. Members of St. Ambrose, you have been doing extra waiting this year. You were waiting for a new rector, waiting and waiting. Now, you have a new rector, but the uncertainty in our parish life is far from over. We are still waiting to get back to the Eucharist, back into our buildings; back to our beloved fellowship. We are waiting to see how to move forward as a parish, how to grow, how best to follow Jesus as Episcopalians in these crazy times. There is so much uncertainty still, so much tiring, tenuous waiting.

          We feel helpless with our lives suspended, our plans upended.  How are we supposed to wait for resolution? How does God want us to wait?

          Jesus was involved in a frightening waiting game of his own when he told the story of the Bridegroom in Matthew’s Gospel. He was on his way with his followers to Jerusalem, and tensions were high. He knew that he was going to be put to death. When and how would it happen, he must have wondered. From Jesus’ words, Matthew put together a version of the story for his Christian community in their own difficult time of waiting. They had long expected Jesus, their beloved Bridegroom, to have returned for them. He was supposed to have come right back to inaugurate the great feast of God’s Reign on earth. Instead, they found themselves to be a struggling and persecuted little community. A community still waiting for Jesus’ return. Both Jesus and Matthew understood what it means to wait in the darkness.

Their story of the Foolish and Wise Maidens can inform our waiting today. First, I need to make sure that we notice that all of the maidens fall asleep while they wait. The clueless ones and the wise ones all doze off. Sure, they are supposed to stay awake and watch, but they don’t. The bridegroom is too late, and they’re too tired. These women fall asleep at the job. They are no better than the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, who can’t stay awake long enough to pray with Jesus in his time of need. This part of the story tells me that there is grace for all of my own imperfect waiting. This waiting business is hard! We’re going to struggle. When I get tired, when I lose hope, when I need a break, when I turn inward, when I fail—God understands. It is not my human weakness that keeps me from God’s love. In these difficult days of waiting, may we have the same grace with one another.

          Next, let’s take a look at the wise maidens and the clueless maidens. I don’t like this part of the story.  I don’t like how the wise ones don’t get in trouble for refusing to share their oil with the ones who run out. That’s just not fair. And I don’t like how the clueless ones get the door shut in their faces. That doesn’t fit with my understanding of God. I do, however, know how the foolish maidens feel. And not just in the abstract. One of my worst experiences in seminary had to do with keeping candles lit. I was helping with a big funeral and was asked to light the candles behind the altar during the prelude. In front of a church full of mourners, I trotted out with my brass candle-lighting stick held high. Those 12 big, tall candles on the reredos were brand new and had never been lit. And the little piece of wick in my brass stick was already half burned down. If you’ve ever served as an acolyte or altar guild member, you might guess what happened. But I was clueless. Standing on tiptoe, I held the flame to the first fresh candle, and nothing happened. I tried the second one, and it wouldn’t light, either. I tried one candle after another, but only one or two caught fire at all. My hands started to shake. I frantically kept pushing the lit wick out of my brass stick as it burned shorter and shorter. Then the wick was … gone. As the prelude ended, I flew back into the sacristy and put in a new wick.  Everyone waited in silence. I slinked back out with a newly lit wick, and darned if I didn’t walk so fast that the flame went out before I even got over to the candles. I felt the mourners’ tear-filled frowns boring into my back as I retreated to the sacristy in defeat. The service began, and there was nothing that I could do to fix my mistake.

          It’s true that I didn’t know to check the candles or the wick ahead of time … but here’s the thing. Would I have done it differently if I had known? I can’t be sure. In churches, we have to save money, right? We don’t want to be wasteful. If I had let those expensive tall wax candles burn before the service, they would have been easier to light—but we would also have wasted part of them. Isn’t it more prudent to wait and light them just at the right time? In the same way, if I had changed the wick in the brass lighting stick before the service, I would have thrown out half of a perfectly good wick. Would that be wise? Doesn’t wisdom favor prudence and economy? Aren’t such calculations important? They might be a good guideline in the world of business, but careful measure is not wisdom for Jesus.

          Here’s where we need to remember what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians: "If you think that you are wise in this age, you should become fools … for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. In Jesus’ story, the wise maidens aren’t the ones who measure. They are the ones who bring more oil than needed. During their waiting, they pour out more of themselves than is the rule. They wait extravagantly. In Jesus’ story, it’s the foolish maidens who are the ones who limit their oil and then try to get others to bail them out. Jesus’ Feast—God’s Dream for the World—is a celebration filled with plenty and abundance. Think of the Prodigal Father, who lavishes all that he has on his wayward son. He celebrates his son’s shame-filled return by inviting everyone to a lavish feast. Think of the elder son, who cannot comprehend his father’s indulgent extravagance toward his brother. He elder son’s calculations prevent him from joining in the celebration.

          Now before Beth, Jill, and the Vestry start getting nervous, I’m not preaching that we need to throw money around to follow Jesus. But we do follow a Lord who messes with our math. The last shall be first and the first shall be last, he tells us again and again.  Oil in the Bible is a symbol for good works. In Episcopal language, oil represents what we do to follow the Way of Love. To be wise as Jesus defines it, is to go beyond all zero-sum games. We stop calculating how much grace is enough, how much self-giving is sufficient to get us by. How shall we wait out the trials of 2020 as a community? In Christ, we share all of our gifts, and everyone has enough. We serve wherever we see a need; we give wherever we see a lack; we pray and support one another through the dark night. When we can’t keep going any longer, others will watch over us with grace while God restores us. How shall we wait as a community? In the words of our Lord, we let our light shine before others, so that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father in heaven.