Several weeks ago I had a particularly proud moment of parenthood. I don’t preach about our son Silas too much, because I was once a clergy kid and fodder for sermons, but this was a moment when I knew I was raising a good Episcopalian. It was, as I said, a few weeks ago, before Halloween, mid-October and our five year old and I walked into a hardware store, and there were plastic trees, and twinkling lights, and even an animatronic Santa Claus, and Silas looked out at all the plastic, and then up and me and said, “but dadda, it’s not Christmas.”
Being a parent is humbling. I often doubt my ability. I wonder whether I am getting anything right, but for just a few moments the other week at the hardware store, I knew I had managed to instill some virtue in our son. It is not Christmas yet, though all the commercial outfitters want us to believe otherwise, not yet. It’s not even Advent.
Jesus’ odd declaration to “Keep Awake”
Today we hear from Jesus, for the penultimate time in Matthew’s Gospel, stay awake. “Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Those of you who are close observers will note, it is a bit odd that Jesus tells his listeners “stay awake.” The story he just told begins by talking about wise and foolish bridesmaids.
This story seems at the outset to be a simple story of insiders and outsiders, those who count and those who are counted out. This story, like many stories in religion, has been used to say “some of us are saved and some are left out in the cold.” But the oddness of this story is that all of the bridesmaids fall asleep. All of them.
The bridegroom’s arrival catches them all sleeping, so it is a bit odd that Jesus finishes the story by saying “Keep awake.” It makes you wonder if the editor of Matthew’s Gospel made a quick decision about how to bring this story of the Kingdom together with others. Yet there is something about awareness in this story.
But if you dig a little bit more there’s something going on here. The 25th chapter of Matthew can be read as a crescendo. This is the final chapter of Jesus’ teaching. Chapter 26 sees Jesus arrested. This odd little story about bridesmaids echoes in the story of Jesus’ last days. In chapter 26, Jesus will plead with his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, “keep awake.” At the end of chapter 26, under the cover of darkness in the high priest’s courtyard, it will be Peter who swears of Jesus, “I do not know the man.” This story about the sleepy bridesmaids seems to be about preparation. Jesus prepares his followers, telling a story about the Reign of God, and about awareness.
For three Sundays we will read from this 25th of Matthew’s Gospel. On the Sunday following Thanksgiving, the last Sunday in our annual cycle of readings, we will read the great final teaching of Jesus to his disciples, the end of the crescendo. Jesus says that his followers will feed him when he’s hungry, clothe him when he’s naked, visit him in prison. “When do we do this?” they ask. “When you do it unto the least of these, my siblings.” At the end of the chapter, Jesus will encourage them to develop an outward awareness. The work of Christians remains to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to visit those detained. But here at the beginning of the chapter, Jesus invites his followers to another kind of awareness, a spiritual awareness. In order to follow Jesus into the work of Justice, first you have to be spiritually awake.
What makes one a rescuer rather than a bystander?
The Political Scientist and Philosopher Kristen Renwick Moore conducted interviews with Germans who lived during the Nazi regime. She started by speaking with the group we might most like to interview, the rescuers, those who protected their Jewish neighbors from the holocaust, who hid people in cupboards and attics. Renwick soon realized just interviewing the heroes left an incomplete picture. So her research then lead her to interview folks who were bystanders, who didn’t intervene. Finally she spoke with Nazi supporters. What set the groups apart?
Renwick Moore writes that she found:
-Rescuers have a self-images that is inclusive and broadly based, with a strong sense of agency;
-Bystanders see themselves as people who are weak on agency, with little control over their lives and little they can do to affect outside events. They think in terms of group identity more than do rescuers, seeing themselves as members of exclusive groups while rescuers see themselves as members of a common humanity.
-Finally and ironically, Nazis have a victim mentality, seeing themselves as members of a group that had been treated badly and threatened by Jews, Social Democrats, [LGBTQ+ people], etc…Nazis were the strongest communitarians, feeling close ties for members of their own self-defined group but having little (if any regard) for those who fell outside their group.
The difference between those who stood with the Nazis, and those who stood with their Jewish neighbors was two-fold. The rescuers were those who refused to believe that religion, that ethnicity, invalidated common humanity. And rescuers were those who had a sense of agency, a sense that they could do something, they had to do something. Rescuers stayed awake. Rescuers stayed aware that they had the power to act.
Renwick Moore studied the inner work of awareness that precedes the outer work of defiant justice. She found that our sense of connection matters and our readiness to act matters.
The Sound of the Genuine
Dr. Howard Thurman was a mentor to Dr. King, and he was known as the mystic of the Civil Rights movement. He told activists young and old to “find the sound of the genuine” in themselves. The struggle for civil rights was long, frustrating, and at times dehumanizing. You couldn’t blame folks for getting tired, for wanting to pack up. “Find the sound of the genuine,” Thurman would say. Cultivate that inner awareness. Pastor Otis Moss of Chicago interprets Thurman’s phrase this way: “discover what makes you come alive.” What makes you come alive is as sure a sign as any that God is present, the Spirit is with you. Find the sound of the genuine and listen deep.
Spirituality is not about accumulating hours of prayer for the sake of appearing holy. Spirituality isn’t just about what you do with your Sunday day morning, though I’d encourage you to consider spending more Sundays here than not. The act of surrender, to coming to church matters not because we try and look our best. Church doesn’t matter because it is where we are supposed to be.
Sunday matters, but not for the sake of appearances. We come here to church break open the central symbols of our faith. We come to be fed by story, by liturgy, and by community. And with due respect to those who listen or watch online, being here in person matters. If it has been awhile, let me invite you to come. If you’ve been watching online and aren’t yet sure, let me invite you. You are welcome. If you’re worried about mobility, or a ride, reach out to one of the clergy. We’ll do our best to help, but come. Getting to church is about refilling our figurative oil jars.
Spirituality is about deepening. Spirituality is about deepening your listening to the world, to your neighbor, deepening your examination of structures of power. Spirituality is about deepening your listening for the voice of God, for the voice of the Spirit, for the “sound of the genuine” in your life. That’s where you find oil for your lamp.
Hope in Time
And the deepening of listening, to the world, to the Spirit, produces another deepening. It deepens our commitments. Keep those lamps trimmed. Keep the oil filled to the brim, because the world needs you. The world needs you to be alive, awake, prepared. Your neighbor needs you to be grounded, ready to love, and ready to put love into action by working for justice.
A few years ago the Islamic Scholar Omid Safi wrote about the power of hope. He reminded his readers that Dr. King once called time “morally neutral.” Safi elaborated:
Time is morally neutral…Things do not get better by themselves. They also do not get worse by themselves. That’s true whether we are talking about a society bending the arc of the moral universe towards the good and the just, or sliding towards an abyss of authoritarianism.
Time marches on, says Safi, and we have to choose whether we are along for the ride or working to change direction. Time does not heal all wounds, not on its own. Time does not always mean progress, just as age does not always equal wisdom. Awake-ness matters if we seek to make change in our time.
Jesus was looking for followers who were willing to love God through loving their neighbors. Jesus was looking for prepared seekers who are willing to stand sentinel for the coming of the reign of love.
So don’t settle for plastic trees and light up reindeer in October and November. God hopes for so much more than tinsel. Some people may think we live in a Christian nation, but I’d say our best hope is that the jury is still out. Listen for that inner voice when it say, “no, not yet. We aren’t there yet.” This isn’t the reign, not yet. Keep awake. When all seems hopeless, keep listening. Stay ready to act in the name of God’s genuine Love.
Mike Angell 