Running on Full

Matthew 25:1-13

November 9, 2008

Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.

One of the silver linings of the current economic meltdown is that gas prices are cheap relatively speaking. When a barrel of crude was over $140, a gallon of gas was $4.00! Gas prices are down because we have reduced our driving, stop buying products that use plastics, eating out less and maybe even eating less altogether which means that farmers produced less. As the global economy slows down, we mothball our big SUVs and drive our hybrids. With less demand for oil, gas prices are lower.

Now that gas prices are more reasonable, I don’t mind driving into a gas station and say, “Fill her up!” Before I would check how much I had in my wallet and only buy as much as I needed so that I might have a little cash to live on. Now I am running most of the time on full.

Ten Bridesmaids

Jesus tells a parable about a wedding that had ten bridesmaids. The common practice is that the groom goes to the house of the bride, who comes forth with her bridesmaids. The company then parades to the house of the groom where the rest of the ceremony takes place.

The ten bridesmaids were standing by to do their part. They had all joyfully accepted the invitation, they all had their wedding finery on, and they had their oil-lamps prepared to light the groom’s way in case he arrived after dark. Remember, there were no streetlights then, and without light bearers, it would have been very difficult to find even a familiar house.

Well, it got later and later, and there was no sign of the groom. Since the bridesmaids had probably been up since dawn, getting their hair done and makeup on, helping each other with the wedding preparations, roasting the goat, pressing the olives, and arranging dishes of figs for the guests, they were tired! So, one by one, they sat down on the side of the road where they were waiting, and one by one, they drifted off to sleep.

Until around midnight—when they heard the echo bouncing off the walls of the houses along the street: “the bridegroom is coming, the bridegroom is coming” from the messenger who was hired to run ahead and shout and let everyone know it was finally the time to get ready for the service!

The bridesmaids all startled awake, probably rearranged their tousled dresses, grabbed their lamps, and excitedly started to “trim” them. Now for those of you who haven’t trimmed a lamp lately, it means that you check to see that the cotton wick was pulled up to the right length and cut to just the right angle to give good light, and that the lamp was fully filled with the oil that burned to make the light. That’s when one group of the bridesmaids received a nasty shock. They had an oil crisis.

While they were sleeping, their lamps had completely burned up the oil inside, and now they didn’t have any. So, as unprepared people will often do, they turned to their friends, who had brought extra oil with them “just in case,” and asked them to share. Here’s where they got a second rude shock, the other women turned them down. “Sorry,” they said, “but if we give you some, we’ll run out. You’ll just have to go find a Seven-Eleven convenience store and get more for yourselves.”

The unprepared bridesmaids whom Jesus called, “foolish,” went off to find more oil while the “wise” bridesmaids who with their full lamps lit the street and the processional entry for the groom, followed him inside the house, and everyone partied! When the foolish bridesmaids returned, with or without oil (we don’t really know), they found themselves locked out. The groom has already found the house and entered in. The story ends with an admonition, not to them, but to us, the hearers: “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour when the bridegroom will come.”

Being Prepared

This familiar but also difficult parable has been understood in a variety of ways. Some have said this is a symbolic story in which the marriage feast is the gathering of the Messiah and his people, the bridegroom most likely represents Christ and the bridesmaids represent the church. The bridegroom’s delay and subsequent arrival is the second coming of Christ and the oil is that which matters which is our faithfulness of deeds of love and mercy when it’s time to account for our lives.

Others have emphasized the reading of this story as a warning, or even, as a threat. You’d better shape up because you never know when the end is coming, and when that judgment day does come, if you aren’t ready, you’re going to be locked out of the Heavenly rejoice for sure. But I think there’s another reading of the parable that is just as legitimate. This story is an invitation to us to have our spiritual oil running on full.

Joy always yells at me when I wait to fill up my car when the gasoline light goes on. She would say, “What if you were stuck in traffic on the bridge and run out of gas?” Now that we are in California, another warning she says, “When the next earthquake comes, they say that all the gas stations will be closed so you better fill up.”

Back to the story, what it means is that those bridesmaids with the extra oil were prepared to welcome the groom and accompany the wedding couple when the time comes. They were fully prepared to face the darkness—to stand in its midst, its dangers, its fearfulness—and equally prepared to then go into the lighted, warm joyful house and join the party in all of its fullness too. In the same way, Joy is telling me to be fully prepared in case I was stuck on the bridge or when the big one comes that I would still be able to drive and come home where it’s warm and be reunited with each other.

All of us like the party part of this story—it’s the feel good part of our faith. But none of us like the part that we are left waiting, times spent outside, standing in the darkness.

If we live long enough, we know full well that the darkness is just as much a part of life as the light and the parties are. We know that it’s in the darkness that we most need the spiritual oil Jesus is talking about in the parable. This spiritual oil, whether it’s intellectual understanding, or emotional reassurance, or spiritual endurance, somehow sustains us through the darkness of disappointments and personal failures, divorces, job losses, broken health, loss of abilities, bereavements, and more.

Spiritual Oil

We know where to fill up when we need gas. The invitation in this parable for us is how might we be more like the wise bridesmaids with the extra oil. How can we increase the spiritual oil in our lives? Where can we fill up with spiritual oil?

Every time you come to church is like driving into the gas station to fill up. The traditional church disciplines are not a bad place to start. Practices like prayer, and not just conventional prayers, but engaging in daily conversations with God like he was your good friend. Reading the Bible, and not just trying to get through a chapter like it was a chore to do, but joining a Bible study group like what we’ll be offering this Advent season will help make the Scriptures come alive for you. Attending worship on a regular basis, and not just staying for the one hour, but stopping to talk with others and begin deepening your relationship with others will eventually lead you to become a member of the worshipful family.

Finding or making spiritual friends, who you can sit down and talk with about the important questions of your lives, who you can reflect with together on where and how God’s spirit is moving in your lives is a way to fill up with spiritual oil. Finding ways to help other people can give us perspective on our own lives, and also renew our joy in being part of the human community is another way to fill up with spiritual oil. After all, men and women have been doing these things for thousands of years, and have found growth, and challenge, and nurture, and strength, and spiritual oil in each of them.

While gas at the pumps is cheaper now, it still costs. Spiritual oil doesn’t come free either; it costs. It doesn’t come without effort and commitment—it doesn’t come without a lot of work—and no one else can put in the effort or commitment or work for us—we have to do it ourselves. I can’t fill up your spiritual oil—you have to do it yourself.

Remember when the foolish bridesmaids discovered they didn’t have any oil and turned to their friends to ask for some. They got turned down flat. Now that sounds pretty harsh, stingy and unloving. But it’s also accurate, because the truth is—no one can give someone else the spiritual oil that they need.

Storing Up Oil

In my over 30 years as a minister, there have been countless times when I’ve sat with a person who was struggling, someone who was terrified about losing a loved one, someone devastated by a medical diagnosis, someone whose world had been rocked by the betrayal of a spouse—or of a child—or of a parent, someone who’s been tired, hungry, homeless, and frustrated about our heartless society with no one to turn to. As I sat with them, and listened to their pain, and hurt with them and for them—I would have loved to be able to give them part of my own small store of faith—to give them some of my small tank of spiritual oil.

But it can’t really be done. You know that from your own experiences in attempting to comfort or sustain people you care about. While we can encourage others, while we can share stories about how and where we’ve found the strength or the courage or the sheer gumption to keep going when we don’t even want to keep going, the actual spiritual oil that makes the journey possible isn’t something we can give to another person. It isn’t something that one of today’s spiritual gurus or televangelists can sell us…it isn’t something that even God can give us…it’s something that we have to do the work to gather, deepen, and accrue, mostly by ourselves.

Filling your lamp with spiritual oil is only possible by yourself. You have to do it. You can borrow your friend’s homework, but not the hours she put in studying for the test. You can borrow your neighbor’s lawnmower, but not the hours and effort your neighbor put in for a nice lawn. There are some kinds of preparation we can only do for ourselves, reserves that no one else can build up for us. We have to figure out what fills us up, spiritually, and then make sure we have some to carry with us, every minute of the day, because that’s how often you’ll need it.

Raising Children

We marvel at how quickly it seems that the babies are growing up at our church. In the church nursery, we see the children at their best. But we all know that after the initial oo-ing and ah-ing and “how cute” they are, these parents are raising these children 24 hours a day 7 days a week. There is darkness times every day when you’re raising up children. Keeping enough spiritual oil every day as parents to teach your children about your forgiving love, and about sharing and caring for each other, and God’s constant presence is something you begin to do now. It’s a long and slow process to raise up good and decent children so we practice doing this day after day, year after year.

One of the reasons why we have baby dedications is to remind the new parents to fill up with spiritual oil so that when darkness comes, you’ll have oil to light up the darkness. You will be raising your children for the rest of your lives so start now to fill up your spiritual oil because you never know when you’re going to be in an oil crisis, and really need it.

Trimming Your Lamps

After the service, I’ll need to trim my lamp. I’ll need to check to see that the cotton wick is pulled up to the right length and cut to just the right angle to give good light, and that my lamp is fully filled with the oil that burned to make the light.

A man once reflected, “I feel like I’ve been preparing for this all my life.” His beloved father had just died of a massive coronary. What did he mean that he had been preparing for this all his life?

“All that sitting in church, listening to sermons, reading the Bible,” he said. “All of that was getting me ready for the worst day of my life. That was like disaster training. Now, the disaster has come. And I’m reaching down, and I am praying that I paid attention, that I will be fully prepared.”

That’s not a bad way of thinking about the church. Perhaps some people are blown away by the disasters of life in a great part because they are unprepared. They have neglected their training. They have not brought enough spiritual oil to fill their lamps of life to run on full. We come today to get a fill up of Jesus Christ so that we can keep running on a full tank!

Let us pray

Forgive us, O God when we are foolishly unprepared to face life’s challenges only because we have not taken the time to be strong Christian followers. Redirect our lives so that we may set new priorities to fill up with spiritual oil when we come to worship, attend Bible studies, pray everyday, show hospitality, and give generously. We pray that we may continue to run the good race so filled with the Holy Spirit that our words and deeds proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord. Amen.