"Eyes Wide Open"

November 8, 2026; May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard. Amen.

Anything happen this week? Anything at all?

I don’t know about you, but Jesus telling us to “keep awake” isn’t easy for a lot of us who haven’t gotten much sleep since Tuesday night. The church is in Advent – the season of hopeful expectation, and one might reasonably argue, so is the nation. For the sea change we all witnessed this past week, which is still going on, has rocked our country and the world.

It was not simply a swap of majorities in Congress. This is not about any one party. This was a once in a lifetime Tsunami of repudiation of hate, corruption, war, and indecency wrought by the uniting of people from all parties, all walks of life, from all parts of this very large country. Let us all pray that this seismic change in leadership will bring about a bipartisan time of refocusing this country away from hate for those who are different and toward loving our neighbor – all of them.

So, perhaps being in Advent, hearing Jesus tell us to “keep awake,” well, it is very timely indeed. Because the people of this country did. They kept awake. They did the work. And there is work still to do. A very Advent message if ever there was one.

The thing about Advent, whether 4 or the original 7, is that it always begins with the end in mind. It begins with the end of the world and the second coming of Christ (as the earliest followers of Jesus thought would happen as part of it). A biblical tsunami, if you will.

And this eschatological bent of Advent, this focus on the ancient near east’s view of there being an “end times,” can be hard to appreciate unless you are living on the edge, as folks were at that time, and are even still. So, perhaps these difficult years we have seen of late have truly put us in a place where we can feel these stories of destruction and despair in a way that has a deeper meaning for us.

Because even if we had not before struggled financially, or faced regular and systematic oppression, or hungered for food, or feared for our lives, most of us experienced some measure of all of that in the last few years. If we have not personally experienced it, we know people who have, and we understand more readily end times type of talk – that place of foreboding, when we yearn for some message of hope. Did we get one today in the gospel? Let’s see.

In this parable, Jesus likens the kingdom of heaven to a wedding. There were 10 bridesmaids – talk about your crazy big wedding. Anyway, he tells us that 5 were wise, 5 were foolish, and they were all waiting for a really late groom.

Now, if you take this parable literally (which is never a good idea to do with biblical texts), then I have to say that none of these characters are to be admired. The foolish bridesmaids don’t humbly ask to borrow some oil when theirs run low, but rather demand it of the others. The wise ones apparently never heard Jesus talking about sharing what you have with those in need (a parable we hear in two weeks). And for the groom’s part – what gives? He was late and the cause of all the problems in the first place. And now, when those so called foolish ones have gone out to try to get what is needed, they are refused entry to the party? Really?

Here’s the thing – it doesn’t make sense – not outside of the context of the Jewish community of the Ancient Near East. In that setting, the teachings of Jesus here were a part of the larger Jewish apocalyptic world view. God was going to reign down destruction on earthly powers and establish a kingdom here on earth for the righteous, and that it would happen very soon. With that type of view, a focus on being one of those righteous makes sense.

It’s the Ancient Near East version of reminding kids that Christmas is coming soon, and if they aren’t good they will get a lump of coal instead of presents – though with far more devastating (and really frightening) consequences.

So, when the temple got destroyed, folks felt – this is it! God is really gonna let the earth have it for this one. But – it didn’t. At least not the way people thought this would all play out.

Now, it is usually not a good idea to ever mention a text that is not read in church on that day in your sermon, but I like to live dangerously (and hey, isn’t that fitting for apocalyptic stuff anyway?).

The thing is, waaaaay back in Genesis 6, God had already promised never to destroy the world again. After the big flood, God said “Oops, my bad. I was really pissed off at you’all. Next time, I’ll just count from one to the end of Pi before taking action.”

So, why would Jesus, being a good Jew and knowing Torah, talk about destruction of the world? Well, because God isn’t the one using a wrecking ball. Humanity is. In fact, we are so darn good at it, God wouldn’t need to lift a cosmic finger at all. And we do it over and over and over again too.

How many times do we stand amid the rubble of war, of violence, of chaos, of inhumanity to children of God, of abuse toward God’s creation? It may not be an enormous and beautiful temple that is physically destroyed, but we sure can feel like the world is coming to an end. And Jesus tells us to be ready – to stay awake.

Was he preparing them, and now us, for a a physical destruction – a physical end times? Remembering Genesis 6, and well – the goodness of God – let’s not take the approach of the cosmic theology of generations long ago, but instead evolve a bit to embrace the fullness of time and experience. God did, after all, give us a brain and expected us to use it. What if the destruction was instead a spiritual one?

Think about how it feels when the world is very dark. Heck, you don’t have to go back far in time, right? I mean, we have lived in very dark times right here in the US over the course of our country’s existence. The past few years itself has been hard on so many.

When folks are in these dark moments, these times of standing on the edge – filled with foreboding of what more may be coming amid the rubble of their lives or their situation (much like those original listeners to Jesus) – they can begin to think they do not have enough – enough money, enough courage, enough strength, enough of whatever it is that will get them through to the next day. Others who do have plenty, may hoard what they have at their own peril.

We certainly have witnessed this these past few years, have we not? While people were being killed by federal agents in the street, while Iranian schoolgirls were murdered by our military, while people in boats were executed, while brown and black people were rounded up and imprisoned without due process… what did people do?

Some leaders were silent. Some corporations bent a knee to power for the sake of profit. But others ran for office. Others marched in the street. Others prayed. And all of them voted.

Isn’t it odd that the ones with means – power, money, status – they were the foolish?

The foolish who stayed silent.

The foolish who bent a knee – not to God – but to a human.

But the wise marched.

The wise voted.

The wise prayed.

They knew now was not the time to sleep, but to be awake and ready for action.

We are not called to sleep, but to be awake, to take our light into the world knowing that the oil of the Holy Spirit will enflame the light of Christ that each of us bear into the world.

We don’t have to do it all by ourselves.

We aren’t meant to hoard, or to shut out, or to worry about how we will do the work, but to trust that we are good enough, to let go and allow the Spirit to guide us, to stay awake and see the Jesus that is with us here, now, and always.

And so, given our lack of knowledge about wedding protocols, and Jesus’ penchant for flipping expectations about how things should be – think “good Samaritan” or the absurdity of the mustard seed growing into a large and desirable tree – the questions we need to always ask about this original story is this: Was the kingdom of heaven inside of those exclusionary doors, the ones with the late groom and selfish bridesmaids who wouldn’t share their oil? Were the ones left outside foolish for not feeling they had enough, and for wanting to get in to that exclusive club, rather than taking their light out into the darkness to share with the world in the model of Christ? In other words – why were they foolish and why were they wise? It may not be as simple as we think. But, it also doesn’t really matter.

Here’s what does: Jesus is here – now – no apocalypse needed (thank God). Because here’s the thing about this second coming…it’s already here. It happened yesterday. It is happening today. It will happen tomorrow. We say it every Sunday – Christ died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.

Christ was, IS, and is to come all at the same time.

So when things are bleak and dark and despairing, we are not meant to shutter ourselves away, hoard what we have, or fall asleep at the wheel. We are meant to go out and join Jesus in the work he is doing.

And maybe that is what those proverbial bridesmaids needed to do in the story too – go out to where the bridegroom was, rather than waste their oil while they napped.

We are meant to leave these doors to meet him in the world. And we will find him right where he told us he would be – in the immigrants, the imprisoned, the poor, the sick, the outcast and the oppressed. He is in our neighbor down the street, and the one in the soup kitchen line. He will be in the stranger asking for help and the one in an ICE prison, he will be in those who grieve and those who rejoice, he will be in the Republican and the Democrat. And there we will meet him. There we will share his light.

And, we will never need to worry about our proverbial oil running out, because when we feel depleted, when we feel a need to take some rest, when we feel we aren’t enough – we come here to be recharged by him.

So today, as part of our Stewardship Season, you will be given a gift blessed at the altar. Today it is a small lantern. Now…the thing about this lantern is – nothing happens when you flip the switch! Well, nothing happens, unless you pull out this tab and allow the battery to charge the lamp!

Take this home with you as a reminder that you are that light, a part of the body of Christ who is our light and our salvation, whose coming we await, and experience even now. Remember that you also need to ensure you are connected to him so that your light may shine. And, that it is here, in the fellowship of the saints, and in the Eucharist, that connection is recharged for the work you are called to do. What would it mean for you if the doors to this place, your spiritual home, were closed when you needed it most? That is the question we need to ask ourselves in this time when we consider how we might share our oil with this place – our time, our talent, and our treasure.

In Advent, we wait in hope, but as we wait, we are not to sleep. We are to prepare ourselves, to seek Christ, and to bring the light of Christ to others. Don’t be caught off-guard by thinking this Advent stuff happens after Thanksgiving. The truth is, whether it is four weeks or seven weeks liturgically, we are always in Advent. We are a people who walk with hope in our hearts, with eyes wide open, and our lamps of Christ’s love ready to share with the world.

Amen.

For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible):

Sermon Podcast