God messes with our binaries: 23rd after pentecost a

The other reading I reference is 1 Corinthians 1:18-31.

El santo evangelio según San Mateo (25:1-13)

[Jesus said to the disciples:]

¹“Then the dominion of heaven will be likened to this:

      Ten bridesmaids took their lamps

      and went to meet the bridegroom.

            ²Five of them were foolish,

            and five were wise.

                  ³When the foolish took their lamps,

                        they took no oil with them;

                              ⁴but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.

            ⁵As the bridegroom was delayed,

                  all of them became drowsy and slept.

                        ⁶But at midnight there was a shout,

                              ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom!

                              Come out to meet him.’

                  ⁷Then all those bridesmaids got up

                  and trimmed their lamps.

                        ⁸The foolish said to the wise,

                              ‘Give us some of your oil,

                                    for our lamps are going out.’

                        ⁹But the wise replied,

                              ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us;

                                    you had better go to the dealers

                                    and buy some for yourselves.’

                  ¹⁰And while they went to buy it,

                        the bridegroom came,

                        and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet;

                        and the door was shut.

                              ¹¹Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying,

                                    ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’

                              ¹²But he replied,

                                    ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’

                                          ¹³Keep awake therefore,

                                                for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

El evangelio del Señor.

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As I was rereading the gospel throughout this week, 1 Corinthians 1 kept popping into my head.  What does it mean for us to call some bridesmaids wise and others foolish when God messes with our understandings of what is wise and what is foolish?

Is it wise to hoard the oil?  Is it foolish to not bring extra just in case?  Is it wise or foolish to leave to buy more?  To leave the lamps lit while they wait?  To show up late to your own wedding celebration?  To arrive so much earlier than the bridegroom?  To go inside and lock people out?  To pretend not to know someone?

Paul writes, “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”

God comes to mess with the good/bad binaries that we create.

We are so disposed to sorting the world into categories, especially binaries.  Good or bad, dark or light, women or men.  But the reality is that, as Sirius tells Harry Potter in the Order of the Phoenix, “The world is not split into good people and death eaters.”  It’s just not that simple.

Throughout the bible and throughout our lives of faith, God calls us deeper into the complexities of the world.  As our faith deepens and we come to understand that "when we recognize that noteverything is black and white, the next step is recognizing that it's not justshades of gray either, but instead that life is a rainbow of shades,highlights, colors, and tones."

The binaries we create do not serve God.  Instead they limit our understanding of God and the world around us.  If everyone has to be either wise or foolish, then what about those who are funny or sad or joyful?

Perhaps today’s parable is really about being prepared or receiving permission not to share, but as likely as not, it’s about wondering how else the story could play out.

What secret option c’s are out there that dance between and beyond the categories of wise and foolish?

Today is an easy day for us to find ourselves in the midst of binaries—good-byes and not hellos, endings, and yet beginnings.  Yesterday was Veteran’s Day and who better knows the value of peace, the danger and pain of war, and the ways it is not nearly that simple than veterans?  We’re even approaching the end of the church year and preparing for Advent, which itself breaks the binary as we live in the space of yearning for God’s reign on earth even as it has already begun in Jesus’ death and resurrection.

This Sunday is my last Sunday with you all and as we say good-bye, we are ending this pastoral relationship that we’ve had.  I won’t keep in touch, so that as you discern your leadership and pastoral needs, you can more fully embrace whoever comes to serve as pastoral leadership.  This is very much an ending.  

But it is also a beginning.  It’s a beginning for me as I move to Des Moines and it’s a beginning for you all as you begin to identify essentials for your community of faith—what is at the heart of your mission and ministry, the heart of your worship.

But even that is work we have already been doing together.  It is the ongoing work that we are always doing as people of faith in an ever-changing world.

You as a community embody a resistance to the binaries we humans like to create.  You are both ELCA and PCUSA in your worship together.  You have a building and yet next Sunday you will worship in a different building and for Thanksgiving you will worship in yet another building.  You care for each other and you also care for the community and the world.

The way you all engage in ministry is creative and visionary.  Investing your time and energy in relationships resists either being patronizing charity givers who keep others at an arms’ length or ignoring those who are different from you.

You are loved by God and you extend that love outward to care about this community and to care about this world instead of holding it in and keeping it just within yourselves.  You are witnesses to God’s transforming love and grace in your commitment to even what is not always popular or comfortable.  You are capable of wrestling with the hard questions of faith.

You wrestle with immigration policies that don’t honor the holiness of humans who immigrate to this country.  You can wrestle with what it means when thoughts and prayers aren’t stopping gun violence.  You can wrestle with what it means to live beyond and between the gender binary.  You wrestle with racism and white privilege and your place in it all.

You have enormous capacity as a community of faith to dwell in the in between.  You can question the text without losing your faith.  To ask if Jesus might not be the bridegroom, but instead a foolish bridesmaid, locked out of our religious celebrations.  You can ask what would have happened if the foolish bridesmaids didn’t leave or if the wise ones insisted on waiting just a little while longer until they returned before they went inside.

You, dear people of God, are vital to the body of Christ throughout the world.  The ministry God does through you in and with this community is vibrant and in whatever form it may take in the coming months and years, I trust that God will continue to work through you.

And even at this ending, I will continue to carry you in my heart.

Thanks be to God.