Waiting

 

Waiting

A Sermon for the Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost

November 8, 2026

The Rev. Robin Teasley

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who 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 died. For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. 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. Therefore encourage one another with these words.  1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

Jesus said, “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Matthew 25:1-13

The leaves are showing us how beautiful it is to let go….

Keep awake, pay attention. All you have to do is look out the window! The leaves are brilliant in the slanted light from the sun, as it lowers on the horizon. As the season changes, the leaves shimmer and fall in the cooler breezes; we can almost hear them aging. They sound differently in the wind and crunch under our feet. The light is waning and the darkness comes early and stays long. There is a reminder here for us of God’s power and great glory, of creation’s eternal cycle.

In the Church, we are nearing the end of the lectionary for Year A, and the Gospel according to Matthew reminds us of the return of Christ in striking and sometimes unsettling parables. We are warned to be ready, hearing themes of darkness and light, keeping awake, and being prepared for the coming of Christ.

In our readings from Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, and in the Gospel text, we hear about two communities in the Early Church who are anxious about the return of Christ. They expected Jesus to return in their lifetime and when he had not returned and members of their community were dying, they were greatly concerned for their loved ones, wondering if they would be raised from the dead as Jesus had promised.

We all know this promise from Jesus. It’s in the Nicene Creed – “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.” This promise is repeated in our Eucharistic Prayer, as we say “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” We don’t always say this with great enthusiasm, it’s as if we only halfway believe it.

It’s been a long time since Jesus made this promise to us and for the most part we don’t think about it very much and we aren’t as anxious about it as the first Christians were. I mean, when is the last time you thought about the return of Christ? Maybe it was when you heard today’s readings. But maybe it’s only when world events seem really ominous, as they do from time to time. Maybe it’s when we find ourselves in personal desperation, caught up short by unexpected and unwanted circumstances, like the five bridesmaids who ran out of lamp oil.

We would like to see ourselves as the five bridesmaids who came prepared to meet the bridegroom. Or maybe we recognize ourselves as the five who forgot again to fill our lamps. Jesus, in telling this parable, refers to them as wise and foolish. I would like to suggest that, depending on the day, depending on life’s challenges, we are all both wise and foolish, the perfectionists and the laid back people, the planners and the fly by the seat of our pants people. The I hate to say I told you so people and the why didn’t anyone tell me people. The people who make detailed shopping lists and the ones who prefer to just wander up and down every aisle.

The good news is that Jesus knows us in all of our glorious humanity! Perhaps this parable is a way of reminding us of this truth, helping us see one another as followers who need to help one another stay steadfast in the hope and promise of the Resurrection.

We think we know what the return of Christ will look like. Mostly this is based on what we read in scripture. The end time parables are full of the imagery of good and evil, and yet, they are like cut gemstones with many facets. We can turn them and let the light shine through from many angles and see things differently depending on where we are in life, what we have experienced in the past, and what we hope for in the future.

There’s a psychological premise that the thing we don’t like in someone else is somehow connected to the thing we hate most about ourselves. I don’t like the version of Jesus we see in this parable. The Jesus I love and follow wouldn’t shut out people, but would welcome them and give them what they needed. I wonder if Jesus told this story to help people see themselves honestly. To help me see myself honestly. Perhaps he wanted his audience to question him about this, and maybe if they had he would have answered them saying, “you open the door,” like he said to his disciples in chapter 14 when they fed the 5,000 people saying, “you give them something to eat.”

The parable of the ten bridesmaids at first seems focused on being prepared, which can be a good thing, but it also highlights the delayed return of the bridegroom. This parable doesn’t simply call for right action in the groom’s absence; it calls for the recognition that he may be delayed. We can make all the preparations in the world and something will not go as planned. As the old Yiddish saying goes, we make plans and God laughs!

It’s nice to imagine God laughing rather than locking us out of heaven if we run out of oil, because it’s hard to always be prepared for everything and we can’t stay awake twenty-four seven. Even so, we may have some anxiety about our lives and the unexpected surprises in them.

So what does this parable mean for us? Is Jesus teaching a parable of exclusion, when those who will be knocking at the door, trying to get in will hear God say, “No, you are too late!”? I wonder if this is not more of an instruction on waiting. A reminder that we have so many opportunities to do things right, and to undo things we’ve done wrong. I wonder if Jesus is hoping his listeners then and now will ask questions, will let go of selfishness, greed, hoarding, and judgment. Most of all, I wonder if Jesus is hoping we have been paying attention the whole time as he went about teaching, preaching, feeding, healing and loving the least of these.

What if we hear this parable as encouragement to look everywhere for what God is trying to show us? What if we wait together as a community of faith, helping one another when things don’t go as we had hoped? What would it be like to care more about the emptiness of our neighbor’s flask than about the fulness of our own?

Jesus has promised to come again with power and great glory. In the waiting we are not called to be anxious or fearful but to be paying attention, to notice signs of the presence of Jesus. Maybe this is not a question of when but what. What will we be doing in the meantime?

Jesus gives his disciples the answer later in the same chapter of Matthew saying, “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 leaves are beautiful – and they will fall, reminding us of the cycle of creation and the new life promised to us. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.