Sermon for November 8, 2020 Pentecost 23A House of Prayer Lutheran Church
Matthew 25:1-13; Amos 5:18-24 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
Keeping Our Focus
Our dog is three years old--Hudson, we named him. He’s a tri-color coonhound--black, brown, and white, floppy ears, long legs. He basically looks like a beagle on stilts. And he’s a good dog most of the time, but he’s also a bit weird. One of the weird things about Hudson happens when I take him to the dog park. He loves going to the dog park and meeting all the doggy friends he can. They chase each other and wrestle and run after tennis balls and bark up trees. But the funny thing is, he’s obsessed with huskies. I don’t know why, but he sees that fuzzy white and gray fur, the pointy ears, the kingly manner--that unmistakable look of a husky--and off he goes! He might be having a great time with a pack of other dogs, but as soon as he sees a husky across the park, he says “forget you guys!” and he runs as fast as he can to the husky. And what do the huskies do? They ignore Hudson. They are not interested in playing coonhound games. They will assert themselves and walk away.
Meanwhile, Hudson could have been having a great time playing with all the other dogs who actually like playing with him, if he had just stayed focused on them. Instead he loses his focus on the dogs who cared about him, and he pays attention to the husky. This basic point--Where do you focus your attention?--is the common thread running through today’s challenging scripture readings.
We hear first from the prophet Amos, who speaks to God’s people as they are eagerly waiting for “the day of the Lord”--which they believed would be the day when God would rise up and defeat their enemies. But Amos tells them: wait up; slow down a minute--what makes you so sure you’re the ones who will be delivered? What makes you so sure that you are qualified to sit in judgement of your enemies?
The people had become so good at celebrating festivals, and offering choice selections of grain and fatted animals, and playing beautiful music--that they forgot to pay attention to doing the things of God’s Kingdom. They forgot to pay attention to people who are suffering. They forgot to focus on repairing the brokenness of the world around them. They wanted all of the fun and none of the challenges of faith, and lost their focus. So Amos calls the people to remember that God has blessed them to be a blessing to others,to “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
What is the justice Amos is talking about? Things like fairness; attention to the poor and hungry and hurting; protecting the vulnerable. What is the righteousness Amos is talking about? Things like building healthy relationships; building a sense of community; building up the bonds between people. Justice and righteousness comes down to caring for one another, and being invested in one another. Yes, it includes caring for those we already know and like--and it’s also about challenging ourselves to reach out beyond that, to a wider community.
Then in the gospel we hear Jesus tell the parable of the Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids, and again we see examples of focusing on what’s important, versus focusing on distractions. There were 10 bridesmaids ready to celebrate the wedding festival. We’re told that 5 were wise and 5 were foolish--but mostly we see how similar they all are. They were all part of the same group. They stayed up late together, and they all fell asleep waiting for the bridegroom to arrive. They all woke up at midnight when they heard a shout: “The bridegroom is here! Come out to meet him!” The only difference was 5 of them brought extra oil for their lamps, just in case they’d need it. They were the wise ones. The other 5 foolish ones just had the oil that was already in their lamps. They all light their lamps in celebration. And then what happened? The foolish ones start thinking about how “we’re going to run out of oil!” They start losing their focus on the bridegroom and start focusing on the oil. Then they start asking the wise ones to share some of their extra oil--but they won’t share it. They tell them, “there’s not enough for all of us. If you want more oil, you’d better go buy some.”
Why didn’t the wise ones share? Aren’t we supposed to share? But if they had done so in that moment, they would have lost their focus on the whole reason they were there to begin with--to be with the bridegroom and celebrate with him. They are wise because they know how to pay attention to what is important in the moment, and not get distracted by other things--and soon enough we see that they’re in the wedding banquet. Meanwhile, the foolish leave to buy oil at just the moment they had been waiting for all night--they lost their focus, and paid attention to distractions. That’s why the bridegroom tells them, “I don’t know you”.
In this parable, the bridegroom is Christ. The wedding banquet is God’s Kingdom. The wise and foolish bridesmaids are Christians. And before you try figuring out which kind you are--wise or foolish?--I think most of us could fit in either category, depending on the day. Some days we’re wise, some days we’re foolish. Either way, Jesus calls us to focus on the things of his Kingdom--and he encourages us to turn to him in faith when we lose our focus.
The best way to keep our focus on the things of Jesus is to follow the last commandment he gave us, on the night he was betrayed: “Love one another as I have loved you.” How do we do that? Well, we can always turn to that beautiful description in 1 Corinthians 13 for inspiration in what Christian love looks like: Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
We need to cultivate this kind of Christian love in our lives now more than ever, as we’ve just come through an election season that has left many of us exhausted. I don’t need to go into the particulars, because we all know them. We know the political divisions of the people within our country, our state, our cities, neighborhoods, churches, and families. There are lots of issues that lots of people don’t see eye to eye on, and lots of things where people can’t even agree about how to define the problem, let alone find solutions.
But we can still love one another as Christ loves us. That’s the best way for us to “Keep awake” and keep our focus on Christ. So keep awake. Love one another. Be prepared to meet Christ in those you think are wise and in those you think are foolish. Be prepared to meet Christ in those who share your opinions, and in those who see things differently. Be prepared to meet Christ in your friend, and in someone you’re meeting for the first time. Be prepared to meet Christ in someone you might consider your opponent, or even your enemy. I’m not saying all this is easy in this world we live in--but it is essential if we want to build caring communities with room for justice and righteousness. We don’t all have to agree with one another, but we do all have to love one another, and the way St. Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13 is a great place to start. Let us love one another, and let God be the judge, because he’s the only one who can both love and judge perfectly at the same time anyway.
And when you keep focused on Jesus and his presence within you; when you keep focused on his presence within each person whom God has created in his own image--then it’s even possible to love one another. Because it’s this world Jesus came to save. It’s the people we see all around us--who, like those bridesmaids at the wedding banquet, probably have more similarities than differences in what they want out of life, even if they look at things differently--who Jesus went to the cross and rose again for, with forgiveness, new life, and salvation. Amen.