Treasures in the Dark

 

In this reading, Jesus has entered Jerusalem to the cries of Hosannna, cleansed the temple of corrupt money changers, answered challenges to his authority with Jewish religious leaders who were trying to trap him finally calling down woe upon them. Now, we are in the midst of what some call the Fifth Discourse – here Jesus talks about apocalypse – end times, or as worded here, he uses a series of parables to tell us what the Kingdom of Heaven is like? 

 

Read God’s word from

Matthew 25:1-13

25 “At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. ² Five of them were foolish and five were wise. ³ The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. ⁴ The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. ⁵ The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

⁶ “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’

⁷ “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. ⁸ The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’

⁹ “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

¹⁰ “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

¹¹ “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’

¹² “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’

¹³ “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

 

 

Treasures in the Dark

 

If you have ever been to a youth or young adult conference at Mo Ranch in the summer or at a time when weather is nice, you are probably familiar with the concept of vespers. At the end of the day when things wind down, exhaustion begins to set in, but there is a tinge of anticipation in the air. Usually one last activity is winding down when participants gather flashlights, jackets if the evening promises to become cool, and gather at the auditorium. 

 

Then, in a long snake-like line of people, not necessarily one by one , but in mismatched clumps, everyone proceeds in silence to head down to the river. Crickets, an occasional owl or cooing dove break the silence, and the walk winds down the road, past the chapel across the bridge and stops just short of the river. What’s this, darkness and silence greet you as you are asked to remove yoru shoes before entering the tennis courts – this holy space set aside for evening vespers.

 

The pavement is warm to the toes and even seeps through socks as you carefully step around those who have arrived before you. Perhaps you are greeted by soft music as one by one everyone lowers their tired bodies to the ground, relaxing into the warmth, sinking into a reclining position laying stretched out upon your back. As flashlights wink out, eyes adjust to the dark. The vast skies seem to shrink us to tiny dots of existence. As your gaze carries upward and takes in the magnificence, millions of stars twinkle down. This is God, God in the darkness. Lie there, filled with thoughts of the day, pleased, disappointed, hungry for more or completely sated with what has come or anticipating challenges to come – that will nudge us forward in faith. Hope travels on each breath, faith and love hover in the air. Awe at the random shooting star sits side by side with the wonder of the vastness of the dark, inky black beautiful night – God’s night.

 

Darkness gets a bad wrap in the bible and if we are honest in many other areas of our lives too. 

 

Darkness and night are seen as bad news, evil and even death. When Jesus dies on the cross, darkness descends for three hours. Conversely, we are taught to walk in the light and let Christ’s light shine. As with most things I preach, it isn’t that simple or cut and dried. Look at our Bible again. When Abraham doubted the Lord’s promise of many offspring, God directed him outside at night – like our Mo Ranch sky, I imagine the stars twinkled in abundance. So too shall be your descendants promised God – asking for Abraham’s trust – from the darkness of feeling desolate with no children and the literal darkness of a night under the vast skies. Stars only visible in the dark. Do you remember the parting of the red sea? Many of our depictions have it wrong. There was a cloud between the Israelites and the Egpytians so the pursuers couldn’t see. But – it was night. Not only was there a cloud, but God provided cover of dark and parted the waters for them to cross in the dark of night.

 

Remember the 10 commandments? Moses went alone up the mountain because it was dark by a storm cloud. Out of this very darkness God spoke to the people – the voice all could hear commanded “Have no other gods before me”. The word used for darkness here is unique – not the usual kind of darkness. Why don’t we ever talk of this awesome, power filled darkness? Not engendering fear like of snakes or danger but of awe for the amazing power of the divine nature. We equate that with the brilliance of light that can’t be extinguished – God can’t be limited just to the light but permeates the darkness as well.

 

So how do we understand this parable from Matthew if we begin with the assumption that God is in the darkness too? Look at the first words and look at the Amos text it is partnered with by lectionary for the day. Jesus begins with “At that time, the kingdom will be like….” Last week we talked about weddings going for several days. This time we are looking at a wedding from the start – it is thought that perhaps the groom has gone to retrieve his bride and the virgins, or bridesmaids, are the women of his or his father’s household who are waiting to welcome her into the wedding celebration. They would have been busy, busy, busy – no wonder they are tired. The wise and the foolish fall asleep. Being weary and falling asleep is not what separates the two groups – they have that in common.

 

I don’t even think access to the feast is a matter of waiting patiently – although we have certainly had a lesson in patience this election week! Patience while a virtue does not differentiate who is let into the wedding banquet – thank goodness! I would also hope that it isn’t about stockpiling and waiting for end days – being prepared and having something physically on hand or else you won’t be allowed into the kingdom.

 

If we start to take the lack of extra oil too literally in Jesus’ words, we can get into trouble with ideas like those who had more were let in the doors. Why not wait a little longer so everyone can come? Aren’t we taught to share what we have with those less fortunate? They didn’t share. If they were all together, couldn’t they walk together as a group sharing the same light. Something else is going on here. Is oil just a commodity to be bought?

 

Puzzling through another parable brings us to what the oil might mean. Oil in our biblical stories is used to anoint, it is essential in healing, it was often used in consecrating priests or in offerings. Oil sets things aside as holy. It would usually have been olive oil because of the abundance of olive trees in the area. But we also have instances of the woman spilling the precious perfumed oils on Jesus’s feet and washing them with her hair. Oil is mentioned more that 200 times in the bible, and John McKinley of Talbot School of Theology makes a case that oil is a metaphor for the Holy Spirit. 

 

The oil the foolish virgins didn’t have was faith, hope and love brought by the Holy Spirit – treasures in the dark. They had closed themselves off and only were open to just so much in their lives. Foolishly, we think we can separate off a portion, just the amount for this lamp and that is ‘enough’. They didn’t let the Holy Spirit soak them through permeating all aspects of their very lives.

 

Maybe that is the message in Amos too – the worship that we think is so appropriate is missing something – they are going through the motions. All the right hymns and rituals but the holy Spirit is not allowed in. Worship is about living our faith showing hope and love – It is why we grab onto that last line of Amos famously quoted by Matin Luther King Jr, “But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”

 

This imagery has the power to move us and build momentum if we lived into faith in hope. The other parts of the Amos text make us uncomfortable, but they should make us pause. We are a people that like to be about doing. Thinking I can prepare, gather up oil if you will, gives me an easy path to prepare for the kingdom. It is not something we ‘do’.

 

I’ll happily share my oil with you, but it is harder when there is nothing I can give but hope. When we can’t share a tangible thing with each other to work through the anxiety of our current world, when we can’t bake a casserole to make the hurt stop, when action isn’t the right solution. It confounds us to have our opposites sit side by side and both be needful. But there it is. When I must sit and listen, truly hear, appreciate the gurgling stream to begin the roll of the waters of righteousness. Sometimes holding out hope requires moments of inaction and often sharing our faith requires the dark. 

 

Think about the word from Genesis:  It starts with “Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” And then after each and every step, it is worded with night first: “And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.” The second day and so forth.

 

Our Jewish brothers and sisters can teach us much with their sabbath observance. The service welcomes in the Shabbat greeting with song - Shalom Aleichem -Peace Be Upon You, and then a festive meal is served. Together they pause, set aside work to focus on praising God, with song and fellowship at meal together. They are taught that the sabbath is a foretaste of the world to come. Some traditions saw Sabbath as a bride, yes the wedding imagery continues. Where do you think they would greet the bride? You got it – they would go out into the fields to welcome in the dark, the bride, the sabbath.

 

Our imagery of days to come, or as we would say Kingdom of Heaven differ from the Jewish beliefs. The kingdom of heaven is here and now, the kingdom of heaven is coming, we look for the day when the kingdom will be fully realized. Anywhere God is, wherever we carry that hope, there – there is the Kingdom of Heaven. Pause, listen, let the Holy Spirit fill you, open you to the dreams – amazing dreams of what the world can be when all live in the faith of Jesus Christ. It is most often in the dark we dream. Turn off the wheels of thoughts spinning in your head to give the Holy Spirit entry. See God all around us, lean into hope, see God in the dark

 

I have often heard the stars at night are God’s light breaking through. Maybe, the darkness is another palette for God, so we can see God’s glory and wonder in sparkling stars. In the quiet, in the stillness, the Holy Spirit hovers. A God in the background – a darkness holding all the stars, behind it all, holding everything of wonder together. Amen.