Christ Church Covington
November 10, 2002
The Rev’d Pamela P. Snare

“Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

As the church year draws to a close (yes, there are only two more Sundays before the beginning of Advent), our prayers and scripture readings become more and more apocalyptic and eschatological. That is to say, they present us with images and metaphors of the consummation of all things in Christ, the end of history and the world as we know it. The common Old Testament name for this phenomenon is “the day of the Lord,” which we encountered in our first reading from the prophet Amos. Paul also uses Jewish apocalyptic language to talk about this extraordinary event which he calls “the coming of the Lord,” in our second reading from Thessalonians:

“For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. “Then we who are alive…will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”

From the perspective of the 21st century, it may strike us as strange that this language of angels, trumpets, loud cries, and meeting the Lord in the air is understood by Paul to be an encouragement to the Thessalonians. It sounds to us foreign, exotic, and perhaps even frightening. Certainly it strikes us an otherworldly and cosmic.

But let us put ourselves in the place of the Thessalonians. Let us remember that for first century Christians, “the coming of the Lord” with great power and glory to consummate history and the redemption of the world was something to which they looked forward; and it was a burning issue. They (including Paul) had understood the apocalyptic teachings and sayings of Jesus that had been passed along to them to mean that this final coming of God in Christ was imminent.

But some of those early Christians had died and the Lord had not returned as he said he would. Did this mean that God had forgotten them? Did this mean that these departed brothers and sisters in Christ would not be included in God’s great act of final redemption and salvation? Why the delay? Was God not going to act, after all? For the Thessalonians, Paul’s words were an encouragement that God could be trusted; that he had not and would not forget the living or the dead; that however long the delay, God would make good on his promises. All of God’s children, living and dead, would, through Christ, be resurrected, and be with the Lord forever.

This same concern over the delay of God’s acting, his final coming in Christ, is the context and the back ground for the parable of the wise and foolish virgins. Matthew borrows from the Hebrew scriptures the image of bridegroom and bride as representing the final union, or marriage, between God and his people.

The parable itself reflects the marriage customs of the Ancient Near East. The bride would wait at her parents’ house with her attendants for the bridegroom to come and fetch her. The job of the attendants was to watch and wait for the arrival of the groom. When he came, the attendants would lead a joyous procession to the bridegroom’s house where the marriage would take place, followed by a celebratory feast.

If we use this Old Testament analogy in Matthew’s situation, Christ is the bridegroom and the bride and attendants are the Church, the early Christian disciples who are waiting for Jesus’ return. He has been delayed. Has he forgotten the bride? Has he changed his mind? Was this promised intimate union all a hoax? Who needs oil for the lamps anyway? It doesn’t look like there well be any procession. Maybe this marriage isn’t going to take place after all. We’re tired of waiting for the groom. Let’s all take a nap.

But then, after hopes are dashed, the excitement has grown cold, and the expectations are little or nil, the groom comes. In God’s time and according to God’s purposes, he comes. The groom is faithful. He has not forgotten his bride. He has come to take her to his house and make a home together. But has the bride forgotten him? Has her love grown cold? Has her loyalty, commitment, and devotion to him been kept constant? Or has she allowed it to die? Is she still ready for him, or has she given up?

Matthew, like Paul, wants the people to whom he is writing to know that just because God’s timetable is not their timetable, just because they may have mistaken God’s timetable, it does not mean that God is unfaithful; that he has forgotten them, that he is not acting, that he is not alive and well and working out his plan to bring creation and humanity into intimate union with himself.

Paul and Matthew trust God, and his son, Jesus, in spite of all delays and all appearance of procrastination on God’s part. They are simply not willing to throw in the towel on God. But they are concerned that they see others willing to throw in the towel; they see others tempted to lose faith in the trustworthiness of God. They are concerned that others’ devotion and commitment and loyalty to Christ are growing cold; that some are more focused on the absence of Christ than on his presence and active working in their lives. They are concerned that some no longer expect God to act.

What has tempted or is tempting us to lose faith in the trustworthiness of God? What has caused or is causing us to grow cold in devotion and commitment and loyalty to Christ? What have been or are the occasions that lead us to doubt God’s presence and acting in our live and in the world? Is it a tragedy, a sickness, a difficult situation, adversity? Is it September 11th, the slow down in the economy, the Washington sniper, a delay in what we asked for in prayer? Or is it simply the strain and the stress of our everyday lives which seems never ending – too much to do, too little time to do it?

What is the status of oil in our lamps? Have we kept faith and hope and love and obedience to Christ alive? Is it well with our souls? Or have we allowed anxiety about the present or future, fatigue and stress, or simple discouragement to deplete our inner resources, blind us to God’s presence and working, erode our confidence that our lives and the world are in God’s hands, and his is the final word? Have we forgotten, in the words of Julian of Norwich, that “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well”?

This past weekend, Christ Church, in conjunction with other parishes in the diocese, sponsored a diocesan-wide Christian Formation Conference. On Thursday evening, Canon Rex Perry spoke with us about how Christian Formation—from the cradle to the grave, for children and adults—meshes with our diocesan mission. His point of departure was the diocesan mission statement:

“The Diocese of Louisiana is one church, faithful to Jesus Christ, united in mission, reaching out to the unchurched. We live in joyful expectation of the power of grace and divine compassion in our lives.”

Our gospel for today caused the second part of this statement to strike me with renewed vigor: “We live in joyful expectation of the power of grace and divine compassion in our lives.” I began to imagine what it would mean for all of the Christians in the diocese of Louisiana to live in this joyful expectation. It would mean that we would not allow September 11 or the economy to cause us anxiety or fear in the present or future. It would mean that we would be more attuned to the presence of God in the life of the world than to his absence. It would mean that we would be aware daily that Christ is acting in and through the people we encounter and the events in which we find ourselves. It would mean that we begin and live each day in confidence that whatever might come, God is with us and will sustain us. We would face adversity and walk through it with calm reliance on God, and confidence in his grace and compassion to guide us through safely—in this world, or in the next.

And that, my friends, would be a powerful witness that God is alive and well and working out his plan of redemption in the midst of what may look to be divine delays and procrastination.

Today we are blessing and celebrating our acquisition of the St. Tammany Art Association Building. The process has been perhaps too slow for some, too fast for others. But we have not been in control of this acquisition. It has unfolded in fits and starts, which might be reason to consider that God has had a hand in its timing.

We have purchased the building in order to expand and make more space for our existing ministries and to create new ones.

Our purchase of this building and our plans for it are a powerful witness. It says that we are not afraid of the future because it is God’s future. It says that we believe God is alive and well and acting in St. Tammany Parish. It says we are willing to live in joyful expectation of the power of grace and divine compassion in our lives and the life of the world. It says that we believe the gospel of Jesus Christ needs to be spread and lived in this community, and we have been called to do that.

Our purchase and plans for this building are a public witness that we are a community of faith who have not lost confidence in the trustworthiness of God. We believe that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

In a very Methodist fashion, (as some of you know that I am a former Methodist), I want to close this morning with a benediction borrowed by John Claypool. It was given to me in seminary and has sustained and encouraged me often in the past 23 years, especially when the oil in my lamp was low. It reminds me that the past, the present, and the future belong to God:

“In the goodness of God, you were born into this world; and by the grace of God, you have been kept—all the day long, even unto this hour; and by the love of God, fully revealed in the face of Jesus, you are being redeemed.” Amen.

The Rev’d Pamela P. Snare is Senior Curate of Christ Church, Covington

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