November 6, 2005

"The Readiness is All"

Matthew 25:1-13

I have this dream that plays periodically, and has for 30 years or more. It gets back to my college days, and in the dream I show up for the final exam on the last day of class. Unfortunately, I haven’t been coming to class all semester long, haven’t read the assignments, haven’t written the papers, and when I read the questions on the final exam they are so much gibberish to me. Why I would bother showing up on the final day I have no clue, because I have done none of the work, none of the preparation needed to pass the course.

Of course, that dream, like all dreams, is rooted in my reality. When I was in college, I was lazy and unfocused, and routinely let things slide until I was up against the deadline. Then I would cram for the exam, or turn in some raggedy sorry-looking paper. In short, I was unwilling to do the preparation needed to succeed in the task in front of me. And my grades reflected it.

Anybody know who Bobby Knight is? I don’t usually quote from people who have proven themselves to be total jerks, but Knight is a unique case. He has never learned to control his temper—he loves to throw chairs and verbally abuse people, including the president of his own college--but he is extremely successful as a college basketball coach. He won a national championship at Indiana in 1976, and later was asked whether that team had a greater will to win than the opposition.

Knight said, “They had a greater will to prepare than the other teams. They had more desire to practice and perfect their skills so that they were ready when game time arrived.”

Sometimes in life people think they can relax until the deadline, and don’t take advantage of the present time.

How many of you have had teachers who told you this assignment is due in three weeks so start working on it now? You spent the first week saying, ’I still have two weeks to get it done’. You spent the second week saying, "next week, I’m really going to get started." You then spent the day before the assignment due working at lightning speed to get it done, complaining the teacher gave you too much work to do.
  There is a danger in living for the deadline. The danger is, we don’t know what is going to happen in our lives between now and the deadline.

We deceive ourselves into thinking we are smarter than we truly are. We want to think we can control the future, but we can’t.

One day a fish is swimming along in the ocean just minding his own business, when out of nowhere a net comes up and before long he’s being served at Red Lobster. The Bible teaches us the same thing can happen in our lives.

Today’s Gospel lesson about the five foolish and five wise bridesmaids is familiar to us, but in a way very foreign. It’s one of the lessons from Jesus that leaves us puzzling, “What in the world does that mean?”

On the one hand, it’s a parable about what will happen when Christ keeps his promise to return to the church. On the other hand, it’s a cautionary story about how we’re supposed to be living today, staying alert while we wait. In my mind, preparation, or the lack of it, jumps off the page. Let’s try to put those three ideas together and make some sense of the whole.

First of all, the story says that everyone needs to set priorities in life. Get your house in order first, and then sleep.

If the five foolish bridesmaids had purchased their oil earlier, not only would they have beaten the price hikes, they could have grabbed 40 winks and still been ready when the bridegroom arrived.

There's a true story that comes from the sinking of the Titanic. A frightened woman found her place in a lifeboat that was about to be lowered into the raging North Atlantic.

 She suddenly thought of something she needed, so she asked permission to return to her stateroom before they cast off. She was granted three minutes or they would leave without her.

She ran across the deck that was already slanted at a dangerous angle. She raced through the gambling room with all the money that had rolled to one side, ankle deep. She came to her stateroom and quickly pushed aside her diamond rings and expensive bracelets and necklaces as she reached to the shelf above her bed and grabbed three small oranges. She quickly found her way back to the lifeboat and got in.

Now that seems incredible because thirty minutes earlier she would not have chosen a crate of oranges over the smallest diamond. But death had boarded the Titanic. One blast of its awful breath had transformed all values. Instantaneously, priceless things had become worthless. Worthless things had become priceless. And in that moment she preferred three small oranges to a crate of diamonds. In seconds her priorities had been turned on their head.

This lady survived, but some people who let their priorities slide wait until it’s too late to fix them.

Some things in life cannot be borrowed. You can’t live on somebody else’s oil, any more than I could have walked into the final exam and copied someone else’s paper. You have to be prepared yourself.

And when it comes to faith, certainly every man and woman must walk his own pilgrimage. Even a husband cannot walk the path for his wife, nor a wife for her husband. To walk the path, we all need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Faith is the most intensely personal experience we will ever have in our lives, and nobody can embrace it for us.

The five foolish virgins thought they could get by on some other person’s oil. What they discovered was that some things can’t be borrowed.

Some decisions can’t be put off until the last minute. Everybody knows this, right? Any businessman knows that you have to plan ahead, control your costs, be ready for a sales opportunity.

Every mom and dad knows that you have to meet the college’s application deadline and a world of other planning that it takes to raise a kid today.

Yet, it is amazing to me how so many of us fail to grasp this concept when it comes to life’s decisions.

Many couples come to a pastor to be married, and then once married, never again darken the doorstep of a church. Then the marital problems come and they are panicked, and they rush to the church because they see religion as the last ditch attempt to patch things up before the divorce.

And then they wonder why religion failed them when it doesn’t work. But you cannot make withdrawals until you have first made some deposits. Some things cannot be put off until the last moment
     A family wanted their pastor to counsel their daughter in a decision she was making. The pastor visited with the daughter for a half hour, and did his best to point out some of the issues. Yet, she still chose to go contrary to her parents. Afterward, the mother said to the pastor that she was quite disappointed that he had had no success. She said, “I thought that you of all people would be able to turn her in the right direction.” He thought to himself: “How can you expect me to accomplish in thirty minutes what you are not able to accomplish after thirty years.”

Why is it that we so often put life’s important decisions off until the last moment? Jesus said that it is because we are foolish. It is the foolish person who cannot see down the long road. It is not that the foolish maidens lacked any desire. They genuinely wanted to go and participate in the celebration. It is just that they gave it insufficient forethought. All too often we believe that heaven can wait. Yet, it is the wise person who does not put off the matter of eternity to the end.

We must prepare completely. There is an interesting story about a man who went on a solo expedition to the far north of Alaska to photograph the wildlife.

He took along his cameras, 500 rolls of film, several guns and 1,400 pounds of provisions. In the spring of 1981 he was flown into the bush country and set to work. The entries in his diary at first were full of the wonder of the wildlife, but as the months passed they started to reveal an “uh-oh” nature. He realized that he had not arranged for anyone to fly him out. In August he wrote, “I think I should have used more foresight. I’ll soon find out.”

He waited and waited, but nobody came to rescue him. In November he died in a nameless valley by a nameless lake, 225 miles north of Fairbanks. He had carefully mapped out his trip, except for one little detail. Getting out.

Can you relate to that story? People plan every little detail of their life, making careful preparation for retirement, but they neglect the one, the only one, who is going to be there when it’s time to depart this life.

We need to prepare ourselves so that when it comes our time to cross the River Jordan, our attitude will be like the man who was asked if he were afraid to die. He replied, “My father owns both sides of the river. Why should I be afraid?”

Finally, this story assures us that there will be judgment for all men and women. One of the frequently heard putdowns of Christians today is “you’re judgmental” or “who are you to judge.” And actually, that’s often a valid criticism, because Jesus told us that judging, like vengeance, is strictly God’s business, not ours. But to deny that there will be a final judging is to deny that there will be a kingdom of God at all, and that’s a reality that we are either prepared for or we’re not, that we understand or we don’t, that we are either members by God’s grace and mercy or we’re not.

But when we talk about judgment, it’s not so much the fear of punishment that should concern us, but the fear of missed opportunities.

The issue here is one of readiness. When Christ returns, will we be ready? Or, when we go to meet Christ, will we be ready? When the Great Feast is held, will we find the door closed?  That’s what happened to the five foolish bridesmaids. When they finally showed up with oil, the door to the wedding banquet was closed. And what God closes, no human can open again.

But we’re not only talking about readiness for the next life here. We’re also talking about missing opportunities in the here and now. For example, I’m thinking about Bill Clinton. I think the real tragedy of Bill Clinton isn’t so much his famous affair. That was the equivalent of a symptom that points out the disease. The real tragedy was a lack of character that prevented him from being the exceptional president he could have been. When his opportunity came, he was ill prepared, and now I think history will record that he lacks a true legacy.

So much about life, including the attitude with which we meet death, comes down to preparation.

If you knew that tomorrow would be your last day on earth, how would you prepare today? Would you finally truly accept God’s forgiveness for any mistakes you have made in your life? And would you pass that forgiveness on to someone who has been nagging at your heart for a long time? Would you talk to God more in prayer? Would you uplift someone else to God in that prayer? Would you finally be brave enough to share your faith with someone in your life?

Today’s gospel story is all about Jesus saying, “Do it now, this very minute, for there may be no tomorrow.”

But of course, there is a tomorrow. We may have to cross into the next world to see it, but it’s there. How many of you believe that if you died tonight, you would go to heaven? Are you properly prepared for that moment? In life and in death, we are the Lord’s beloved people. He promised it. We can believe it.

Martin Luther King, Jr., said on the night before he died, speaking to a crowded room of followers, "Longevity is a thing much to be desired. I’d like to live a long, long time, but if I don’t, I’m ready to meet God ... because mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord ..."

So what are we supposed to do while we wait? We’re supposed to stay busy. We are to love justice, do kindness and walk humbly with our God. We are to keep watch by giving the world something to watch, too—a people full of hope and grace and love. We don’t know the hour when Jesus will return, but at least we know there will be an hour. Many people don’t even know that much. There’s a whole world out there that’s desperate to know what we know.

We have God’s promise that a better day is coming, and that’s enough to keep us faithful to the end.