TL;DR: Waiting is hard, especially when we don't know how long it will last. In Matthew 25's parable of the ten bridesmaids, Jesus calls us to remain prepared and faithful, even when his promised return seems delayed. But our endurance doesn't ultimately depend on our own determination. It rests on trusting the one who made the promise. Christ is coming, and that good news gives us hope and strength to continue loving our neighbors and practicing justice, mercy, and compassion, even when we grow weary.
This is the transcript—formatted for Substack—of my sermon delivered Sunday, Nov 8 at Wheat Ridge Congregational Church (audio is below)
It’s a season of parent teacher conferences. And even if you don’t have children in school these days, perhaps you can remember with me years ago walking through the children’s school halls, or perhaps just try to imagine with me. You’ve only been to the school once or twice before, and you find yourself finding an eight following an eight year old. Through a maze of hallways, trying to remember, does any of this look familiar? Are we going the right way? And in what other circumstances would be would I be asking my child for directions?
Meanwhile, your child has other directions. There’s the artwork on the wall that you need to see. There’s a friend in the hallway she wants to talk to. And yeah, over there, there’s a funny story that happened there once. You’re trying to get to an appointment on time, meanwhile, she’s trying to show you around world.
A few weeks ago this was my wife and I at my son’s school.
When we finally reached the classroom, we walked past the corner where the reading nook was, along the wall filled with bins of school supplies, through the cluster of desks. We made our way to the teacher’s desk, pulled up a chair, sat down, ready to have a thoughtful conversation about our son’s school.
My son, however, wanted nothing to do with the chair. As we talked, he wandered around the classroom, occasionally adding his own thoughts to the conversation before moving on again. We were sitting there, my wife and I, having a thoughtful conversation with the teacher, and he seemed quite happy to participate, so long as participating didn’t require sitting still. He wasn’t wild or over the top. Perhaps a little anxious himself, or or maybe feeding off our own parent anxiety. I wanted him to settle down, perhaps be a little bit more respectful.
The teacher, however, seemed entirely unbothered and offered this bit of wisdom that I think is uh worth sharing. She said, kids spend the entire day holding it all together, sitting still, paying attention. Following directions by this point, they just can’t hold it together any longer.
And while we might think, ah, that’s just kids, we all know, even as adults, we too can reach that same point.
When Waiting Wears Us Down
Do you remember the phrase some years ago flatten the curve?
Back in March of 2020, as we are still trying to figure out what this new fangled virus called COVID-19 was, that phrase seemed to be everywhere. The concern was that too many people would get sick at once and overwhelm the hospital systems. So we were asked to stay home, practice social distancing, good hand hygiene, all of these things. Help flatten the curve, they said.
And in those early days I remember posts and news stories suggesting that our combined efforts were making a difference. We watched those charts and those graphs, hoping to see those rising lines begin to level off.
And to some extent they did.
And while so much happened during those early days and weeks, what I remember is the ways that people pulled together. Perhaps you remember the videos and stories of people uh banging pots and pans in support of hospital workers and nurses, or of people going shopping. Perhaps you some of you yourselves experienced this, people going shopping for their elderly neighbors, grocery shopping. Remember that sense of optimism and togetherness that we can get through this together.
But as the days stretched into weeks and the weeks into months. And the months into what felt like years, the camaraderie began to unravel. There were arguments about what to do, whom to trust, and whether the guidance even made sense. And beneath those arguments, I wonder if perhaps was this feeling that perhaps many of us shared. We were tired.
And how much longer can we keep this up?
It’s one thing to accept restrictions when we know they’ll only last a few weeks. It’s quite another when we don’t know how much longer we’ll have to do it and what will be asked of us next. Certainly, certainly, some voices fed the distrust. And I imagine if leaders could do things differently, some might change. Some things too.
But many of us simply grew weary of the strain. I remember cooking a turkey at home by myself, my wife and a ER nurse quite literally working on the front lines of the COVID virus, and here I was, even though we lived only minutes from family, eating Thanksgiving dinner at home alone with my kids.
What we’d all hoped would have been a short interruption had stretched into Thanksgiving and obviously well beyond. We watched the infection numbers rise, then fall, then rise again. Each improvement brought hope. Each setback raised the question yet again.
How long can we keep this up?
Following health and safety protocol and guidance became increasingly difficult. Even when we understood what we were being asked to do, sustaining that commitment was yet another thing.
Waiting without an endpoint wears on us. And that struggle didn’t just begin during COVID.
Prepared for the Wait
In our Bible reading today, there’s a lot to say about waiting. It falls in a section of Matthew where Jesus is telling his disciples about the future, the so-called end of the age, or the return of the Son of Man. In other words, Jesus is describing what the future and his return will be like. He does so telling stories and parables that sound uh a good bit odd, right, to our modern ears.
Including today’s story about a wedding party. According to one commentator, the parable describes a common wedding ritual of the time. A procession would take place from the bride’s house to the groom’s house where the banquet would take place. And while there certainly was differences between their modern culture and our wedding practices today, this is something we can all understand, right?
There have been a big party to celebrate the new union.
And in this particular story, there’s ten bridesmaids or ten young women who are waiting for the bridegroom to arrive and the celebration to begin. Five are described as wise because they are said to have brought extra oil for their lamps, and five are described as unwise because they did not bring extra oil. As the night wore on and the groom was delayed, they all got tired and they fell asleep.
Then at midnight a shout awakes them, Hey, the the groom is here. The wedding party can begin.
They all get up and tend to their lamps, but the five foolish women realized their lamps were going out. Or to happen put it in more familiar terms, their phone batteries were dying.
The wise had brought a charger, meanwhile, the five foolish ones had to run down the street, hoping to find a convenience store open at this hour where they could find a charger. The five eventually returned, but by then the celebration has already begun and the doors are shut. They call out to the groom, hey, we’re here, let us in. But the groom says, Truly I tell you, I do not know you.
Jesus concludes, keep awake, for ye do not know the day nor the hour.
Throughout Christian history, this story has been often treated as an allegory, meaning that the features like the oil, the lamp, other elements, other details of the story are all seen as carrying a particular meaning. And while I understand the desire to try to find things out like that, for me at least, it’s helpful to take a step back and consider the bigger picture.
Certainly there are some elements of the story that leave us with more questions than answers, such as the shutting of the door. But what seems apparent to me is that Jesus is asking his listeners to be prepared, to be ready, to be obedient.
And our obedience is to shape how we live, loving our neighbors, showing mercy, practicing kindness, working for justice.
While the story ends with the instructions to keep awake, every commentary I consulted suggests that this is not meant to be taken literally. Uh again, all ten young women fell asleep, so grogginess was not the issue. Preparedness was
Being prepared then means continuing to live as Jesus has taught us, even when his coming takes longer than expected. The wise young woman had prepared for a wait that might last longer than expected. The foolish ones were ready for the celebration to begin, but not for the delay.
And that’s where the story begins to sound a little familiar.
We may be ready to ask to t to do what is asked of us for a little while, but when the waiting stretches far beyond what we expected, the question returns.
How much longer can I keep this up?
So what do we do with such a lesson today as we are still waiting?
Throughout the years and especially in recent decades, Christians have understood the return of Christ in very different ways. But I think we can all agree on this: that the fullness of Christ’s promised return and his promised new realm is not here yet. There is still too much war, too much violence, too much suffering, too much injustice. And oppression in our world.
So what do we do? For centuries, followers of Jesus have imagined that Jesus’ return might be just around the corner. And for us today I think the question is less when will it happen, but instead will it even happen at all?
Like the weariness many of us experienced trincovid. We’re not sure who or whether we can trust. We’re tired of waiting, tired of waiting for an end to injustice and oppression and violence. And while we know God asks us to take part in acts of justice, mercy, and compassion, at some point we grow weary.
We keep doing what we’ve been asked to do, but the change we’re waiting for seems no closer and we wonder.
How long can I keep this up?
The Promise That Sustains Us
Friends, good news, the good news of the scripture, the promise of the scripture, the promise of Jesus that I want to share with you with you this morning is that Christ is coming. And throughout the centuries, Christians have understood and interpreted that coming differently, but the hope and the assurance has endured that Christ is indeed coming.
We can trust that promise.
And trusting that promise, we can continue to do the good work that God has called us to do in the meantime. Acts of justice, mercy, and compassion. As my favorite theologian Andrew Root says it our simple acts of justice, mercy, and compassion become a tangible witness to the sign of the coming of God. They testify to our hope and trust in that coming new reality. They become reminders to ourselves of the promise.
And our worship offers those reminders to us as well. We read scripture and hear the stories of God’s faithfulness. We sing words of hope and promise, the voices of others uplifting and encouraging us. We share joys and concerns, giving thanks for where we’ve experienced. God’s care and entrusting to God the places where we are still waiting. And friends, clearly there’s some among us who are still waiting.
And in so doing we remind ourselves and one another that God is present in this very room, like was sung this morning, that God has been faithful and that we can trust the God that is still to come.
And in these words spoken to his disciples long ago, yet still speaking to us today, Jesus calls us to be obedient and faithful, loving our neighbors through acts of justice, mercy, and compassion, trusting that Jesus is coming and is bringing with him a new reality. And it’s this good news the trust of that promise coming that gives us the strength and endurance. to keep going when we feel weary, when our efforts feel pointless, and when the future seems uncertain.
Waiting Depends on Trust
Do remember hearing the story of a classic study involving children and marshmallows?
So in the original study, children are seated in front of a single marshmallow and promised a second if they can wait to eat the first. The assumption was that how long they’re willing to wait speaks to their measure of self control.
But a later study actually found something quite interesting.
Whether they trusted the person making the promise. After all, waiting only makes sense if you believe that the second marshmallow will actually appear.
But if experience has taught you that promises always get broken, eating what’s in front of you seems like the most reasonable conclusion.
So researchers tested what would happen when an adult first demonstrated that she would or would not follow through on her promises. The children who experienced reliability waited longer to eat the marshmallow already in front of them.
Their willingness to wait in part depended on whether the person asking them to wait could be trusted.
It’s a really intriguing lesson for us all to consider.
For no matter our age, we carry lessons like those within us. Lessons about who to trust, what to expect. Whether it’s safe to even hope.
And to that frightened, uncertain, distrustful child within us, Jesus offers this promise.
Trust me, what I promised I will do, he says.
And that assurance gives us the strength to keep loving, to keep practicing kindness, keep working for justice, mercy, and compassion. Not because we ourselves can keep waiting, but because we have a savior we can trust.
To be sure. The promise doesn’t make the waiting any easier or assuage our exhaustion. Remember, all ten young women slept.
But when we ask how long, how much longer can I keep this up? We have more to rely on than our own self-determination.
We have the promise of the one we’re waiting for.
Christ is coming, friends, and that is good news we can trust. Thanks be to God.