Be Ready!

[Our lessons today were Amos 5:18-24, Wisdom 6:17-20, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and Matthew 25:1-13.]

As we approach the end of our church year and the season of Advent, our readings take on a new emphasis. We are beginning to focus on the parousia, the time when God’s purpose will be fulfilled.

Our reading this time from Matthew is about a wedding in which five bridesmaids are ready and five are not. Since the unready bridesmaids are away when the delayed bridegroom arrives, the party starts without them.

I’ve noticed that, usually, when we talk about this party, we seem to make it something to be feared. We have had a series of books (and movies and games) of the Left Behind genre. They have a fairly brutal Jesus (one writer calls this version the “Christ-inator” after the robot Terminator) who seems to glory in bloody battles and lack any trace of human compassion.

That isn’t the Jesus of the Gospels. The Jesus we know is compassionate, a teacher and a healer. Why should we think it will be any different when he returns?

And, by the way, when will that be? Over the nearly two thousand years of the Christian church, one of the greatest wastes of time and energy has been the trying to decode Biblical clues and fix the date. People then go into caves and onto mountain tops and wait… and then sheepishly come out and come down and go back to their calculations to try again. People try to line up events in the Middle East against words in Revelation which were actually meant to refer to events of that time. They all forget Jesus’ words from Matthew, just a little ahead of today’s reading: “But about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” If Jesus doesn’t know, how presumptuous is it for us to try to figure it out?

Also, in our reading from the letter to the church in Thessalonica are some words that have led some people to imagine that a Rapture will occur with people disappearing.

For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.

I suggest that what this describes is the “reception committee” when Jesus arrives for the equivalent of the Roman triumph. Jesus’ believers will meet him and escort him in triumph, not leave earth behind.

How do we make ourselves ready as the five bridesmaids clearly failed to do? Our reading from the prophet Amos gives us a clue: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” Amos saw wealthy merchants trampling over the poor and defenseless. He saw public leaders living in luxury, unconcerned over the plight of their people. Their religious ceremonies were meaningless, trying to appease God rather than please Him. In their new-found prosperity they had forgotten their past. But, Amos reminded them, called to be God’s chosen people, they were also called to greater responsibility, not special privilege. Amos’ main purpose was to call these people back to God, to urge their repentance and restoration as a people of God, so that on the day when Israel was to be crowned with glory and honor, it would truly be a day of light and not a day of darkness and gloom, as Amos predicted would happen if they persisted in their current ways. God was not interested in their empty rituals and offerings; the only offering he sought was the offering of themselves. Then, truly, justice and righteousness would rain down upon them. With a real sense of urgency, he called his people to change because tomorrow might be too late.

Even as Amos was trying to warn the people of Israel to do what was needed to return them to the Lord’s favor, we can prepare for the parousia by working to bring God’s kingdom into being. How do we do that? We can see one way when we consider the Millennium Development Goals:

• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Achieve universal primary education
• Promote gender equality and empower women
• Reduce child mortality
• Improve maternal health
• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
• Care for God’s Creation
• Bring people together around the world to do justice

When we do these things we are getting ready and making sure that our lamps have oil for when the bridegroom comes.

[The picture with the words that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., took from Amos is the Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama.]