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.

A, Commemoration of All Saints - 1 John 3:1-3 "It is Finished"

1 John 3:1–3 (ESV) See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.  And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

“It is finish!” That is the cry of Jesus on the cross!  It is the joyful confession of those who have gone before us and are now worshipping around the throne of God outside of time!  It is finished!  What is finished?

When something is finished, it implies that at one time it began, it endured, and ended.  When something is finished it also implies something new has begun.

Not so much today, but in past times, there was an institution known as a “finishing school”.  It was a place where well to do families sent their daughters to become ladies.  Grooming and deportment of young girls prepared them to hold themselves appropriately within the social circles they were expected to mix.

One can imagine there would be an opportunity for comedy to occur in seeking to finish a rough diamond of a girl into a prim and proper lady.  Plays and movies like “My Fair Lady, Nanny McPhee, Bridget Jones’s Diary, The Sound of Music, and Pretty Woman, all are stories about such “rough diamonds” being polished with all the drama and comedy one would expect with the transition of a person from one lifestyle to another.

With much drama and comedy, God seeks to finish us as his children.  In fact, the creation in which we live, the bodies in which we breathe, and the society in which we seek to survive, is God’s finishing school.

Like the movies our lives don’t always follow a simple, rags to riches script!  There are many setbacks and deviations in our stories.  Some are God directed, some are from our own misdirection, and then some come about from the deception of others.

The movie, My Fair Lady, is one such movie!  Actress, Audrey Hepburn, plays a poor Cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, who becomes the centre of a wager by Professor Henry Higgins, that he could make her “well to do” and pass her off as a duchess at an embassy ball.

Most known for the phrase made popular by the movie, “the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain!” Eliza practises these words to polish her speech!  And there is comedy when she relapses back to her Cockney ways amongst the dignitary at Ascott racecourse, as she inappropriately calls out, “Come-on Dover, move your bloomin’ a_ _ _ (hind quarters)!”   Eliza proves not to be completely finished, as Higgins had hoped her to be!

This movie comes from a play called Pygmalion.  One can understand, looking at the name, why they changed the name to My Fair Lady.  Similar to the story of Pinocchio, Pygmalion in Greek mythology is where a sculptor falls in love with the female ivory sculpture he has finished, in rejection of the young female prostitutes around him.

We are in God’s finishing school!  He seeks to put to death the deeds of our old sinful nature.  This is an all of “this life” project!  In fact, this life is not really life, rather it is the prelude to the life that God originally intended for us and gives us after the resurrection.

In reality this life is not life, but death!  Where the world puts their trust in this life with the hopeless reality of death to come, those who believe and trust Jesus Christ, exist in this finishing school, having the old self killed off, and finished, waiting patiently in hope of the life to come.  This is life with Jesus Christ, the Almighty Father, the Holy Spirit, the angels, archangels, and the whole company of heaven.

St John sees the whole company of heaven in his revelation as one of the elders tells John just who the company is, clothed in white robes…

 “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.  Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.  They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.  For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Revelation 7:14–17 ESV)

Those who have gone before us, who are in Christ, spur us on!  They urge you on, in the knowledge that they are with Jesus by no effort of their own, but by the great love of our Father in heaven!  They have finished and have been finished in Jesus Christ alone!

When were they finished?  They were finished in baptism, they were finished when Jesus cried out from the cross, “It is finished!”, bowed his head and died.  Their finishing became an unhidden reality in Jesus’ resurrection, in their resurrection, in the resurrection when this life bound by time is finished!

Yet, here we are, still in this existence we call “life”!  But it is a penultimate or second last life!  It is the night before the sun rises on the new eternal day!

It might appear that we are not quite finished!  Like Eliza we fall back into the old ways of our old Adam!  We become sculptors of ourselves, taking the tools out of God’s hands, only to fall in love with the self, or despair of what we cannot create!  What becomes apparent is we cannot finish ourselves!  Or we exist knowing our finish is a sham, trying to fool others, but only fooling the foolish self within!

But despite not being finished in this world, we, like those who have finished their earthly time, are finished too!  How can that be when it seems God has not finished finishing us for eternity?

God has given us the finishing requirement for eternity, and life with him, in our baptism!  When Jesus cried out, “It is finished!”, on the cross, “and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30), he gave up his spirit for you, and me!

Jesus was the perfect sculpture of humanity, incarnate, created, in Mary.  Sent in love by God the Father, who loves you so much, he sent his only beloved Son, so that “right now” we are God’s children, God’s beloved children, even though we only see it through faith in God’s word of promise.

Hear again the promise, “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.  Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.  And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.”  (1 John 3:1–3 ESV)

God is no Pygmalion!  He did not keep his Son for himself but sent his beloved Son to conquer death and finish death, for you, his beloved.  Today we remember those who have conquered death in their baptismal death and have now victoriously been raised from the second death.  Let your remembrance of these perfected saints in Christ, spur you on in this earthly finishing school, and heavenly hope in eternal life after resurrection!

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.  In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”  (Hebrews 12:1–4 ESV)

But if you are required to shed you blood, praise God!  He who has been finishing you through the blessedness of repentance and forgiveness of sin is about to welcome you into his eternal presence!

Blessed are the finished, blessed are those being finished, and blessed are those who will be finished, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, they are the children of God.  Amen. 

C, Pentecost - Romans 8:14-17, John 14:12-18 "The Holy Adoption of Orphans"

Romans 8:14–17 (ESV) For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”  The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,  and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

John 14:12–18 (ESV) “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.  Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.  If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,  even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.  I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” 

What is the function of the Holy Spirit? 

Or put another way, why do we need the Holy Spirit to be Christian; one who is a confessor of sins, a believer of our Heavenly Father’s forgiveness, a confessor of our Father’s forgiveness, and a forgiver of those who sin against us?

In the Nicene Creed we say we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. 

The Holy Spirit gives us life as God’s children.  What is that?  Jesus says without the Holy Spirit we would be orphans, we would not receive him when he comes to us in his Word, nor would we receive him at his second coming. 

Without the Holy Spirit we would have no faith in God, without the Holy Spirit we would only have faith in ourselves, our fallen human spirit.  You and I wouldn’t know God the Father or God the Son, nor would you want honest truthful fellowship with them or anyone else.

The Holy Spirit gives us faith and with faith filled hearts, he walks with us as the Spirit of truth.  On receiving the Holy Spirit, he enlightens us to the reality of our human self.  You and I know that without the Holy Spirit we have no understanding, like the disciples did until Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit on them and opened their minds to the Word of God.

It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to continually gather you and me, feed us with faith when we receive God’s gifts, and makes us holy in Jesus Christ so we don’t gravitate back to the untruths of the narrowness of ourselves.

In Romans eight Paul tells us we have received the Spirit of adoption as sons.  You and I are orphans until the Holy Spirit gives us the hearts of faith, so we call on God with holy fear rather than a fear that leads us back into slavery.

A fear that leads back into slavery is a fear that hinders us from freely confessing our sins.  A fear of slavery hinders us from believing Jesus’ word when he tells us we will do greater works than the works he did, now that he is with his Father in heaven.  Where does this fear come from?

Before we were Sons of God, we were sons and daughters of men.  This meant at our very best we may have lived morally decent lives.  But this very best, this knowledge of good, made us self-righteous, and it hinders us from trusting in God. 

Why would we need to trust in God if our good is good enough?  But it’s not good enough for God because it treats him with contempt as we desire to climb up to God through our effort of greater good, just as the builders of Babel were attempting to do.

Desire is also at the heart of our very worst as we live as sons and daughters of men.  Burning desire for pleasure can usually be found at the root of criminal activity, tribulations, and the fracturing of communities.  In fact, desire never seems all that bad until the deed is done and the guilt kicks in.  It’s been the same ever since Adam and Eve desired the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

However, the Holy Spirit was sent from the Father and Jesus Christ, the Son of God, just ten days after he, ascended into heaven.  This fulfilled what God’s Son promised.   This is the promise of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit works to place faith in us, which welcomes all that God does for us in our day to day lives, and also allows the deposit of eternal life to be placed in us.

This is the seal of God’s adoption that makes us, God’s own, and God, our Father.  The Holy Spirit continually testifies to our human spirit that you and I are Sons of God.  Our Sonship is a gift to us from the Son of God.  Jesus Christ, came as one of us, he came as the Son of Man, giving up his privilege as the Son of God, doing what all other sons and daughters of man could not do.

The Holy Spirit continues to reveal this to you and me in God’s Word.  The Son of Man lived the life you and I could not live.  He died in your place.  He literally gave his life for your life.  Now we, who were sons and daughters of men, are Sons of God.  This is God’s holy adoption of orphans. 

Sons and daughters of men are orphaned through sin, through birth and deed.  Sons of God are adopted because of the Son of Man, through his birth to Mary, his deeds, and his death on the cross.  We now do greater works than Jesus by confessing our sin to God the Father.

We now have more to fear if we do not confess our sins to God and forgive others their sins. 

When we reject confessing our sins and forgiving others, we resist the Holy Spirit. 

When we refuse to confess and forgive, we hinder the greater works Jesus said we would do, now that he is with the Father.  We impede his crucifixion and resurrection for us. 

When we put a stop to confessing our sin and forgiving others, we orphan ourselves, and return once again to not trust God as our Heavenly Father. 

When we don’t confess and forgive, our inability to love becomes real. 

We move dangerously close to sinning against the Holy Spirit.

But, as sons of God the Father, we can love others as God has loved us, as we live and move and have our being in Jesus Christ, the love of God. 

The work of God’s love is done in us by the Holy Spirit.  Yes!  It does cause us pain and suffering. 

Confessing sin and forgiving others causes death of the old Adam in us.  The human spirit is exposed in all its weakness.  This is not an easy thing to do.

This is why we need the Holy Spirit to work these things within us, and as he does, he bears witness in us, and through us, that we are heir of salvation with Jesus Christ.

One last thing the Holy Spirit does in each of us.  He allows us to cry out “Abba Father” to our Heavenly Father. 

Practically speaking doing this testifies to our children a number of things. 

We teach our kids about our weakness.  We teach then to grow up trusting is him and not us as mothers and fathers. 

So, they do not become despondent because they cannot live up to our expectations.  Or so, they don’t become conceited and reject God because of our fallen hypocrisy.

As Sons of God, we teach our children to allow the Holy Spirit to make them Sons of God.  Sons and daughters of men can never be grandchildren of God. 

Rather, as the Holy Spirit leads us as Sons of God, confessing and forgiving, he makes an example of us to our sons and daughters, so they too allow the Holy Spirit to seal them in their adoption as Sons of God, and as our brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.