Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we say Thy kingdom come; and at Mass we conclude the Lord’s Prayer with the words as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ).
Yet I think it is safe to suggest that, despite what
we say in our prayers and despite the obvious importance of the topic, most of
us, most of the time, don’t expend a lot of energy thinking about Christ’s
coming again. The exception, of course, is those who do think about it, and
maybe think much too much about it, as happens with those who think that the
Lord’s coming can be predicted precisely, especially in relation to events
occurring in the world American religious history has been full of such
expectations and the movements they gave rise to, a chronic misuse of scripture
to fit what happens in the world - both natural and humanly caused catastrophes
and both welcome and unwelcome political events - into convenient categories
that serve our immediate interests.
Now, of course, there is really not a lot that is
new about all this. It is obvious from Saint Paul’s 1st letter to
the Thessalonians, from which we just heard [4:13-18], that Paul’s
1st-century audience also apparently expected Christ’s coming to
occur soon – and so were worried whether those who died in the interim would
miss out on something. And Paul himself, while telling the Thessalonians not to
worry about that, sounded as if he also probably expected it to happen soon -
and may even have expected to be there himself, as he says, to meet the Lord in the air.
Meanwhile
in today’s Gospel [Matthew
25:1-13], Jesus seems to be
addressing this subject simultaneously to two different groups, covering all
the bases, so to speak. To those who think that the Lord’s coming can be
predicted, he says you know neither the
day nor the hour. Jesus says this at the end of a parable about a wedding feast – a standard symbol in
both the Old and the New Testaments for the coming of God’s kingdom – but a
wedding for which the bridegroom was long
delayed.
On
the other hand, to those among us who might not be sufficiently concerned about
the Lord’s coming, perhaps precisely because his coming has been so long
delayed, Jesus cites the case of the five
foolish virgins, who brought no oil
with them, when taking their lamps; and so, when the bridegroom finally did
arrive, they found the door to the wedding feast locked shut, leaving them
outside.
At
an ordinary wedding in Jesus’ time, the bridesmaids would have waited with the
bride at her house for the bridegroom to come and lead her to his home. But the
coming of the kingdom doesn’t follow the ready-made script of an ordinary
wedding. Hence, the delay.
As
Christians over the centuries have eventually come to understand, the delay has
turned out to be a lot longer than was originally expected. Like the
bridesmaids in the parable, it is only natural for us to settle down for the
long haul, to make ourselves comfortable in the here and now. And the here and
now has become very comfortable indeed for far too many of us, dangerously
comfortable for far too many of us, especially in this country. But sooner or
later the call will come: “Behold the
bridegroom! Come out to meet him!” And when the call comes, then, like the
five wise virgins, we must be ready. Each one of us individually must be ready.
In an age when taking responsibility for one’s life and one’s actions seems increasingly out of fashion and blaming others is the order of the day, the obvious question comes up: why not get some oil from the wise virgins? Why couldn’t the wise virgins share some of their oil? The most jarring thing about this parable may be the fact that, when the kingdom comes, there will be no one else to pin the blame on, if my own inattention and irresponsibly have let the lamp of goodness go out. When the time comes, each one of us must be ready to meet the Lord, my way lit with the lamp of what good I have made of my life.
Homily for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Immaculate Conception Church, Knoxville, TN, November 8, 2020. The entire Mas may be watched at:
https://www.facebook.com/128972640480016/videos/834980563929650
No comments:
Post a Comment