Christ the King Mission
25th Sunday after Pentecost Year A
10 November in the Year of our Lord 2002
Amos 5:18-24
I Thess. 4:13-18
Matthew 25: 1-13
Psalm 70
Justice, Vigilance and the Resurrection
Life is elevated by hope. Without hope we loose the ability to envision a better life or the energy to strive for it. We love in hope, because the evidence of human love in our relationships is sometimes less than what we hunger for-and we have finite ability to reciprocate when others love us more than we understand or expect. Faith is described by the apostle as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. As a Christian much of what guides my waking hours and days is an idealization of what life ought to be-set against what I actually do and think. I know that life is spiritual. I know that I am most at peace when I allow myself today to be led by God into the life He wants me to live. Jesus example in His life gives me clarity as to how to live and His spirit in me provides the inward spiritual power needed to live as I should. Yet I face conflicts, we all do. We do not always, as President Lincoln once said, follow the better angels of our nature. Yet even when I fail to have faith, fail to hope and fail to love others more than myself I can with the Psalmist speak honestly in my heart or with my lips to my God:
Be pleased O God to deliver me; O LORD, make haste to help me. [70:1]
The readings today touch on our responsibilities in this life and the hope that gives the greatest definition to all our striving. In Amos we are warned against trusting in our religious image, or our religious rituals and traditions to make ourselves look good. In Matthew the story of the 10 virgins reminds us that we are all responsible for our own spiritual condition. Finally saint Paul reminds us in his letter to the Thessalonians that although we observe death all around us, physical death is not the end for us.
When Christ returns the living and the dead shall be reunited, never to suffer or die again. The Resurrection of Jesus occurred in an historical setting and the Risen Lords affect on his previously weak and disheartened followers transformed and has transformed human lives and the world ever since. The same Christ that lived and died and was resurrected to new life has promised that we too shall live again. We experience both good and ill in this life, our Creator and Savior gave us this life and he has another one in mind for us. This promise has under girded with hope the efforts of Christian heroes and saints since the early church. I shall examine this hope first, then the models of life and conduct in Amos and the Gospel the this hope drives.
Now Paul says in affect that he does not want us to be ignorant about death and to grieve like those who are ignorant of the resurrection and consequently have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. He says that he has this information by the word of the Lord, that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have already fallen asleep."
His point is that the hope of the believer in any epoch, in any age, whether alive or dead, is that our liberation is through and with the Lord and that our beloved dead will not be left out. Paul then goes on to portray the 2nd Coming of Christ in operatic or almost military terms:
For the Lord will descend with a cry, with the
archangel's call, with the sound of the trumpet of God
The dead in Christ will rise first, and we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air
Reformation theology introduced the word rapture to describe this future event, because it was seen as so inspiring and transcendent. Christ will do this, when and however it happens we know little. It will be the event like no other that preceded it in the annals of our human civilizations. As biblical imagery often is it is cast in cryptic terms, yet its message to us is that we are so loved that this life is not his only gift to us-there will be another and better one, forever. I like the sound of it. This is good. Yet it is also a bit sobering because it could happen at any time. We ought to live as though we know that Christ is present. One part of this is vigilance.
When Jesus told the story of the wise and foolish virgins, it may be that he was thinking of his 2nd Advent and the last judgment.
But here in Matthew 25 we have no trumpets, shouts, or rapture as we meet the Lord in the air. We have the imagery of a wedding ceremony that takes place at the brides house and then the bride and groom return with a great procession to the bridegrooms' house where feasting and dancing and partying go on for sometimes a week. Ten virgins are invited to come to the feast and await the wedding procession with oil lamps. Finding ten virgins at a wedding might nowadays be as problematical as finding ten oil lamps. But let's not miss the point of this metaphor, either. This is a story Jesus told to make a point. Jesus' point is a simple one, the one which is the Boy Scout motto: "Be Prepared." To be prepared in this story means to have foresight. We must live as though Christ may change our world at any time. The Kingdom of God, can break in upon us at any time without warning or anappointment.
We could possibly cast this story as about the end of the created world of galaxies and universes, of stars and suns, of planets and satellites, of comets and meteorites, black holes and dwarf stars as many have done. We might also say that it is about the end of the way we have organized society, our politics and government and class, our racial domination and our religious denomination, our money and power, our military and our wars. But the point of the story is the obliviousness of the human community to warnings and signs. The ten virgins were waiting to join the procession. They hoped to take part in the wedding festivities and perhaps even meet future bridegrooms. But five were vigilant and prepared for the return of the wedding party and the bridegroom and five were not and thus did not share in what the bridegroom had prepared. Our spiritual preparation for Christ's coming should be life long and not borrowed from the faith of others and patched together at the last minute. Yet so great is God's mercy that some like the thief on the cross will be redeemed in a dying request. But the Lord's message always called for justice as well as vigilance.
Amos paints a picture of a time in Israel when justice could only be bought because the courts were corrupted by false accusations, bribery and greed. He reminds us that the Lord always requires what we today call due process and the equal justice of the laws so that the poor, who are the most vulnerable because of their poverty, get justice. Good news means the end of judicial systems which oppress. The prophet Amos also made it clear the God sees through our religious pretensions. Dr. King and other civil rights leaders loved Amos for his constant warning against those who think that religious ceremonies will cover personal sins of injustice and hardheartedness. What good is singing praises to God while you hold back the wages of those who labor in your fields? What- ever responsibilities we have in life perhaps none are as important as being fair and equitable to those less fortunate than we are. Religion on its own, apart from justice will hear from the Lord: I hate I despise your feasts and take no delight in your solemn assemblies... away with the noise of your songs or... the music of your harps ...
To us the Lord the prophets and the apostles will always say let justice roll down like waters and rightousness like a never-failing stream! And so it we must always have hope, always be vigilant and live justly knowing that the Lord cares for the weak as well as the strong.
Glory, glory, glory to the Lord God Almighty
Who was and is and is to come!