A sermon delivered by Patrick H Wrisley on November 19, 2023.

We preachers all have at least one really good wedding story we have had taken place. Mine was when I was an associate pastor for evangelism at Peachtree Presbyterian in Atlanta many years ago. It was a sweet couple in their late thirties, and both were high-ranking executives in their jobs. He was handsome and she was just beautiful – they appeared to be the perfect couple.

She had confided in our counseling together she was nervous about standing in front of a lot of people and was concerned she might faint in the middle of the service. I tried to assure her that it would all be fine and unbeknownst to her I made sure I had a pack of smelling salts in my pocket just in case.  The big day came, and the couple looked spectacular and there were several hundred in attendance that afternoon. I checked in with the bride and she was fine – cool as a cucumber! We got the service going right on time and everything was going as planned.

Now there is one ability that preachers develop over the years and that is to have conscious out-of-body experiences. In other words, we can be leading worship or preaching while at the same time standing outside ourselves watching what’s going on in the congregation. We spy the squirmy kid in the pew, or the sleeping parishioner seated towards the back. We see it all. So, at this wedding, we finished with the processional, climbed the steps of the chancel, and took our places. We were about to do the vows and so I told them to, “Turn and face one another, holding each other’s hands, and repeat after me.”

Now, standing In front of me are the best man, the groom, the bride, and the maid of honor. I am looking at the bride and tell her, “Please repeat after me…I Christine, take you Robert…” and it was at this precise moment I had my out-of-body experience. As I was telling her the lines to say, the maid of honor and I locked eyes and stared at each other. Unbeknownst to anyone else we saw this large, black spider slowly making its way up the back of the bride’s veil. We’re not talking about a little spider; this thing was the size of a small Volkswagen Beetle! Huge. Watching the spider while feeding the bride the next line to repeat, I noted how anxious the maid of honor was getting. She kept shifting her feet from side to side like she needed to use the restroom or something. As the spider was inching its way to the top of her head, the maid of honor snapped. Holding her bouquet as well as the bride’s flowers, she raised them over her head and brought them smack down across the bride’s head to knock the spider off of her! Again, again, and again she whacked the back of the bride’s head until we finally saw the spider fly off in front of the couple. The bride screamed and quickly lifted her foot and stomped on it. She had deadly precision with that stiletto heel and when she finally stopped stomping, I bent over and pronounced, “You got him!”

Our Story in Matthew is a wedding story. It’s about the bridal party waiting for the groom to arrive so they can accompany him to the bride’s house, pick up his fiancé, and then head to his parent’s house for the wedding and celebration. It’s a Story Jesus is using to describe what the kingdom of heaven is like. Listen to the Word of the Lord!

Matthew 25:1-13

25 “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. ² Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. ³ When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; ⁴ but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. ⁵ As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. ⁶ But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ ⁷ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. ⁸ The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ ⁹ 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.’ ¹⁰ 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. ¹¹ Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ ¹² But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ ¹³ Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

We are picking up in Matthew’s Story with Jesus and the twelve disciples sitting somewhere on the Mount of Olives adjacent to Jerusalem sometime during what we call Holy Week. Looking west, they could see the gleaming Temple, and this is the backdrop of his telling them about things to come in the future. He’s telling them several stories about how the in-breaking of the Kingdom of Heaven may seem to be delayed but its arrival will surely come one day at a time when people least expect it. As readers of Matthew’s biblical account, we realize we are in a second long section of Jesus preaching and teaching his companions. Do you remember the first? It’s all the way back in Matthew chapters five all the way through seven. We call that section of teaching, The Sermon on the Mount, and it describes the ethics of how people in the Christian community, the church, are to live with each other. Matthew spends chapters 24 and 25 describing stories that tell the church, i.e., members like you and me, not to lag in our zeal as we wait for Jesus’ return. Remember, whenever a writer stretches out scenes in their story, they are wanting us to sit up and pay attention. So, what are we supposed to see?

Well, we have a large bridal party of ten young, single women waiting for the groom to show up. They had one job: Escort the groom as he went to meet his finance’ at her house and parade them to the wedding and feast. We know nothing about this group except half of them were wise and the other half not so much. They’re called foolish which is a polite way to say, they’re not the brightest bulbs in the box; the original language uses the word that means they’re stupid, heedless of any consequences.

The punchline of our scripture today is verse 25: Keep awake, therefore, for no one knows the day or the hour. A more precise reading is Jesus telling them, “Stay prepared.” The problem in our Story is not that the bridal party falls asleep waiting for the groom to show up; the problem was half of them weren’t prepared for his delay as they didn’t bring extra oil to burn.

Matthew shares this Story with his church that believed in Jesus but was wondering when Jesus was coming back again as conquering Messiah. He was writing to a church that had grown a bit slack in its waiting for Christ’s return. The bridal party represents the people of the church. The groom in our Story is Jesus and his coming back. The point is whether each of us is prepared or not. Pretty simple.

So how do we know if we are prepared or not? The key is linking this long sermon in Matthew to his earlier one, the Sermon on the Mount. One’s preparation is revealed in the quality of our being able to express all those wonderful Beatitudes in Matthew five. I love what Dale Bruner from Whitworth University says. He describes lamp oil as experiential and expressed Christianity. “Without the reserve oil of discipled Christianity – that is to say, an experience of Jesus without obedience to his teachings — betrays unbelief and will not find entrance into the end-time kingdom.”^[1]

Funny thing about this bridal party. They all are the same except some were prepared and some were not. Just by looking at them when they first gathered would not have revealed who the wise or foolish ones were. It’s just a bridal party of excited girls waiting. It’s only when a crisis occurs that their wisdom or foolishness is revealed. The crisis of the tardy groom revealed who was prepared and who was not. The ones who were not prepared immediately wanted to leech off the ones who were. Their lack of preparedness is their personal problem and dilemma; they can’t blame anyone but themselves. When they finally do get their act together and arrive late, Matthew has the groom quote the words of Jesus back in Matthew 7, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.”^[2] Go away. Though you call me “Lord, Lord,” I can’t recognize who you are because you’re not prepared. Ouch.

Jesuit scholar Thomas Stegman, writes, “They have not taken to heart Jesus’ warning that it is not enough to call out “Lord, Lord” in order to enter the kingdom. The wedding banquet is reserved for those who do God’s will, for those who have the oil of works of love and mercy. The negative example of the foolish maidens makes poignantly clear that being a Christian in name only is insufficient. The parable proper ends on a chilling note of rejection.”^[3]

So, I suppose what each of us has to do when we leave this morning is reflect on whether or not we are truly prepared. What will Jesus say if we knock on the door to the banquet?

In the Name of the One who is, who was, and who is yet to come. Amen.

© 2023 Patrick H. Wrisley, Pastor, First Presbyterian Church of Glens Falls, 8 West Notre Dame Street, Glens Falls, NY 12801.  Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church, Glens Falls, NY and may not be altered, re-purposed, published or preached without permission. All rights reserved.

[1] Bruner, Matthew. A Commentary. Volume 2: The Churchbook. Matthew 13-28, revised and expanded (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1990), 546.

[2] See Matthew 7:21.

[3] Feasting on the Word: Year A, Volume 4: Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ) (Feasting on the Word: Year A volume) by David L. Bartlett, Barbara Brown Taylor. See https://a.co/cc6zLWj