A, Post-Pentecost 24 Proper 27 - Matthew 25:1-13 "Expectation"

What do you expect from this day?  We all live with expectations everyday of our lives.  What are expectations and from where do they come?  To where do they lead?  Are your expectations healthy or unhealthy?

Expectations change from person to person, from place to place, and they vary in different times of life throughout the ages.

Our expectation for a meal, a bed in which to sleep tonight, an enjoyable day amongst likeminded folk, seems reasonable to us.  But, for those in war-ravaged places perhaps these expectations would lead to disappointment, resentment, and further hopelessness.  Our expectations might be quite trivial to those whose very existence hangs in the balance! 

The expectations we place on others can differ too.  What you expect of your parents or children changes over time.  Children learn to expect parents to care for them when young, but they expect to escape from their authority when they’re teenagers and young adults!  Likewise, parents expect to care for their children when young, and our mums and dads expect to be cared for, when they grow old!

Expectations are buried in our being from the time we’re born. 

Expectations remember the past, in the present, and furnish one’s future. 

Depending on the culture into which you’re born, will usually dictate the expectations you have of others, and yourself.   What you did and do, dictates what you will do.  Enjoying what you ate encourages what you will seek to eat.  Where you live, who you serve, who serves you, who and what you trust and don’t trust are learnt expectations.

Another word for expectations is wants!  Wants or expectations are fuelled by something deep within each of us.  Examining our inner wants and expectations can tell us a lot about ourselves.  Learning of another person’s wants, or a group’s expectations, can also help us discern much about the person or group.

For example, those who expect the world to continue to evolve into a better and better place, might have an expectation of society learning from its mistakes and not making them again.  There’s an expectation of humanity cycling round and round in an ever-rising series of events towards perfection.  On the other hand, those who expect the universe to one day spiral and explode into a chaotic oblivion will have very different expectations.  Both are expectations, both are not right, but they affect how humanity acts and reacts to events and other people.

So, what or who fuels your expectations?

Are your expectations, or wants, a false god?   Are your expectations premeditated resentments?  Setting yourself up, or others, for hurt and failure?

What do you expect of God?

What does God expect of you?  You might be surprised what God expects of you, written in his Word!

What fuel’s your expectations of God, and your understanding of his expectations of you?  It depends on whether your expectations submit to the Word of God, or you try to make God submit to your expectations and wants!

Ten virgins expect the coming of the bridegroom.  In this parable Jesus says five were wise and five were foolish.  The wise were those who have considered bringing extra fuel for their lamps.  The foolish have not thought things through and don’t have extra oil to fuel their lamps.

Jesus teaches the parable to prepare us for his coming and what we should expect.  So, what is the parable of the ten virgins teaching us to expect about Jesus’ return?

At the end of the parable Jesus says, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” (Matthew 25:13 ESV)  This sudden surprise is made explicit in the midst of the parable.  All ten virgins are asleep and startled when the cry comes for the bridegroom’s arrival.

Jesus previously says, “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.”  (Matthew 24:36 ESV)  Not even Jesus knows, only the Father in heaven.  Obviously when Jesus is sent by the Father, he will know, but not beforehand.

Notice that in the parable all the virgins fall asleep, and they cannot lend their oil.  This is so, because when we fall asleep in death, what we believe and trust, is the fuel of our faith, and it’s this light that will expose us as followers of Christ.  What you believe, or what you expect when you die, cannot be changed when Christ returns.

When we think of lamps, we might assume that lamps were used to see the way.  They may have been, if the lamps were rags soaked in oil on sticks, but the parable tends to suggest a lamp that’s not a temporary torch to see the way, but a lamp made of clay with a reservoir to hold the fuel and a wick to draw the fuel and burn a flame.  Much like a candle would burn and produce a small amount of light.

This type of lamp is not for seeing the way, but for being seen.  Virgins walking in the evening moved about with lamps to illuminate their faces, so they could be plainly seen.  Women who moved around hidden within the cloak of darkness, were usually anything but virgins.  The virgins needed the fuel for their lamps, to be seen by the bridegroom on his arrival, not to see the way to the bridegroom. 

One cannot work their way to Jesus.  Just as he came the first time, he will come the second time.  We didn’t find him the first time, and neither will we find him when he returns.  What will be seen of you when he returns?

This is a key part of the parable because if one does not have the good oil, so to speak, when the bridegroom arrives, we cannot expect to bargain our way through the door of eternal life to be with Jesus.

Like the virgins who went to find oil and returned to begged to enter, Jesus also says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matthew 7:21, 23 ESV)

If we have an expectation that we can change our story on judgement day, Jesus clearly tells us it doesn’t work like that!  The fuel of faith we need when we die, is the fuel of doing God’s will, or what God expects and wants. 

He wants to see us waiting for him, illuminated by his presence, and not the back of us working, or changing, to get the good oil.  He wants to see the radiance and joy of our hopeful expectation in which we will enter the grave and will be woken at his coming.

So, what is this fuel?  The good oil of expectation!  It’s not an idol of our works, or a belief in a false image of God we’ve concocted in our hearts.

What is this fuel of faith that God expects to see in you?   It’s the fuelling trust in God’s Word, looking not to ourselves or finding our way to eternity.  It’s allowing the fire of the Holy Spirit to illuminate Christ’s death for our daily death of self.  This fuel of faith lets him shine his holiness in us.  So, when the Father sees us, our lamp of faith shows Jesus the bridegroom, shining for us, in his resurrection glory.

God expects you to be a sinner!  If he did not expect this, he would not have sent Jesus to be the only sacrifice for sin!  But God also expects you to be an enlightened repentant sinner, who despite knowing your sinfulness, willingly stands in his presence to confess, be forgiven, and forgive as Jesus has forgiven us in his death and resurrection.

Like the wise virgins whose faces are lit up with hope and joy at his coming, our wisdom is not so much about you or me, but about the wisdom of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, working and waking us with the Word of God.

God expects us humans to have doubts and troubles with faith.  Every day you can expect the old human self will seek its resurrection.  That, you can count on without a skerrick of doubt!   This is not a time to forget the oil reserve that is being deposited in you through God’s Word. 

When you have doubts, let the eternal resurrected bridegroom pour his Word into you with the Holy Spirit.  When you doubt, bash on God’s door in prayer for the Holy Spirit to open Godly expectations of his Word in you!  When you pray, trust the Holy Spirit to give you a desire and joy in God’s Word.  When you receive God’s Word as the good oil, expect this oil to be the oil to keep your lamps burning.

God wants your greatest expectation, to be of him. 

He wants your expectation of him alone.  

He expects you, to expect him, to be your God.  Amen.

C, Post-Pentecost 12 Proper 17 - Psalm 112 "Blessed"

Psalm 112:1–10 (ESV) Praise the LORD!  Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments!  His offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.  Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.  Light dawns in the darkness for the upright; he is gracious, merciful, and righteous.  It is well with the man who deals generously and lends; who conducts his affairs with justice.  For the righteous will never be moved; he will be remembered forever.  He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD.  His heart is steady; he will not be afraid, until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.  He has distributed freely; he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever; his horn is exalted in honour.  The wicked man sees it and is angry; he gnashes his teeth and melts away; the desire of the wicked will perish!

The readings for this Sunday all dwell on the biblical theme of blessedness; that is, to be blessed as a state of being, to be blessed by someone, or to bless.  What does it mean to bless someone, to be blessed by someone, and the state of blessedness?

To be blessed in its simplest form is to be happy or fortunate.  But if a person seeks to bless themselves or deem themselves as blessed, it’s actually one of the quickest ways to become angry with everyone around them as well as themselves.  So, to be blessed and to bless is much more than being happy, being fortunate, being pleased or pleasing someone else.

At the end of the gospel reading today, when dining in the house of a Pharisee ruler, Jesus says, “when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,  and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. ” (Luke 14:13-14a)

Straight away in this text, we see being blessed when one gives a feast to those who cannot repay, is not about being happy.  One may be happy to do this but more is going on.

The biblical definition of “blessedness” has a much deeper function than just happiness and being fortunate.  In Psalm 112 we hear, “Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments!” (Psalm 112:1 ESV)

The person who is blessed here can be happy or pleased.  But the question one must ask, “Is why can they be pleased or happy?” 

The Hebrew word for blessed has at its root the meaning to be straight or level.  When one is on the straight and narrow, they move forward with confidence, with honesty, in the right way, on a level path.  Or, if one is “on the level” they are honest and are being truthful. 

When a person is level or blessed, they are balanced.   A good way of understanding blessed as balanced is like that of a level set of scales.  Neither leaning to the left nor the right, but evenly balanced.

The straightness of being blessed also means, straight up and down too.  That is to be upright.  It is no accident therefore, in Psalm 112 that after it says, “Blessed the man who fears the Lord”, it continues in verse two, “His offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.  Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.  Light dawns in the darkness for the upright; he is gracious, merciful, and righteous.”  (Psalm 112:2–4 ESV)

Twice the Psalmist says “upright” in these verses.  So, one who is blessed, balanced, level or upright, can endure forever in righteousness.  This person can move forward on a level plain in the face of the ups and downs of trials and tribulations.

In these verses it says, “the generation of the upright will be blessed.”  The Hebrew literally says, “the blessed will be blessed”, when it says “the upright will be blessed.”  But these two Hebrew words have different meanings.

Whereas the first “blessed” we’ve looked at, means “upright or balanced”.  Here the second “blessed” means, “to kneel or bend oneself in adoration or to curse”.  This adoration or cursing is what one does in worship when they’re in awe of someone, or if they hate and curse them because they’re believed to be awful. 

Blessing here is about praise and its opposite; what one says about someone else.  So when it says, “The blessed will be blessed” it means, “the upright or the balanced will be bowed down to, praised and spoken well of”!

Notice these two forms of blessedness are pictures of body language.  One is straight up and down, or balanced and level, while the other is bent bowing, honouring, and saying good to others about them.  This is not surprising as the Hebrew language was originally a spoken language of oral tradition, an unwritten picture language, whereas the Greek of the New Testament is an academic written language.

In the New Testament, the most well-known verses on blessings are the Beatitudes where Jesus teaches the crowd and the disciples at the Sermon on the Mount.

The other word for bless in the New Testament is a Greek word familiar to us in English, eulogy, which means to speak good words about someone.

The readings today all deal with the theme of “blessedness”.  If one seeks to be blessed in one’s own sight and takes the seat of honour, the writer of Proverbs tells us, this can lead to being humiliated.

“Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence or stand in the place of the great,  for it is better to be told, “Come up here,” than to be put lower in the presence of a noble.”   (Proverbs 25:6–7 ESV)

Jesus heals a man at the house of a Pharisee ruler.  His fellow diners could not answer Jesus’ logic for healing this fellow on the Sabbath.  Jesus then tells a parable about those who took the honoured positions at a wedding feast. 

Put yourselves in the place of the guest?  What happens when you take the positions of honour?  Will you bless the host, or expect to be blessed?  How level-headed or balanced are you if you take the honoured position, especially when someone of greater honour arrives?  Not only is blessedness about body language.   It’s also about one’s prominence, status, or social standing in society. 

Blessedness not only deals with body language but also reputation.  What is your reputation like with God?  Are you blessed by God?  What does that actually mean?  It means, when Jesus returns in his glory to separate the sheep from the goats, will you be one of the goats who have blessed oneself or one of the sheep blessed by God?  What type of reputation do you have with God?

Jesus says, “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”  (Luke 14:11 ESV)

I cannot imagine a worse thought than the humiliation of being labelled by God “a goat” or a person of ill-repute on judgement day.   Do you want to be treated by the Eternal Host of heaven the same way you have hosted those God puts before you here on earth? 

What makes us good blokes, good sheilas, good people in God’s eyes?

Let Psalm 112 be the text that judges you.  It starts out with the command to “Praise the Lord!”  Do you praise God as Lord all the time or do you Lord it over others, or do you busy yourself, so others praise you?

Do you fear the Lord, do you delight in his commandments.  What makes your offspring mighty?  When others bless you does it turn people to God or away from God?  Does your wealth and riches fuel righteousness that endures… forever!  Are you gracious, merciful, and righteous?  By whose justice do you conduct your affairs?  Will you be remembered forever?  Is your heart firm in the face of death, or even as you hear these questions?  Are you considering the poor when you leave here today?  Or perhaps, this line of questioning irks you and makes you get angry?

We realise very quickly that our blessedness, when built on ourselves, makes us no better than a ruling Pharisee or his guests, angry because we’re not getting the honour, we believe we deserve.

Yet we praise the Lord!  How can that be, since God clearly shows us through Jesus’ parable, we present ourselves as honoured guests but are quickly humiliated by the Word of God? 

It’s here we’re called to see that God is the one who is inviting us to his banquet.   He invites us, his church, as the bride of the Bridegroom.  You and I are the poor, crippled, the lame, and the blind.  Now married to Jesus Christ the Head of the heavenly house, we can be compassionate to those who like us are poor, crippled, lame, and blind.  Like us who have been made friends in the wedding feast of the Lamb, we can befriend our enemies, just as Jesus has done with us.

So, praise the LORD, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Why? 

Because Jesus is the man who fears the LORD, and delights in his commandments.  We are his offspring, mighty in the land, we are the generation of the balanced, blessedly helpless forgiven sinners to whom God bows and blesses, because we confess our sin and forgive those who sin against us!  The light of God has dawned in the darkness of our hearts, showing us sin to confess. 

Why do we do this?  Because God deals generously with you.  He lends you his Son and the Holy Spirit.  He is justifying you with the justice of Jesus’ death and resurrection.  You won’t be moved while you allow the Holy Spirit to remain.  You are not afraid of bad news; you are firm, trusting in the Good News.  God has won the victory over your sinful self!  You can now distribute freely; Christ has exalted you and in him your righteousness endures forever.

Your old Adam will be angry!  But that is a good sign of your salvation too.  He is angry because he is dying, he might gnash his teeth, but he is melting away, he and all his desires are dying, leaving Jesus the Bridegroom of heaven to take you as his bride, the church.  He forgives and feeds you and me, in his eternal wedding feast! 

Praise the LORD!  Jesus has balanced your scales!  God blesses you; you are blessed!  Amen.