November 09, 2008

Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Ready

 

Matthew 25:1-13

Pastor Richard Allen

 

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Last Monday, the day before the election, I received the unsettling news that Reverend Eben Taylor, a retired pastor in South Carolina, had died about two weeks ago.  It was too bad, I later thought, that Eben didn’t live to see the nation we love choose a person of color as our forty-fourth president.  Over four decades of ministry, Eben showed the prophet’s strong determination, but he was always a loving, gentle pastor. God called him to play a part in helping South Carolina Methodists, not known for their progressive attitudes or gentle words, through some very turbulent times.

 

Change is never easy, and change was at the core of Eben’s life.  In fact, world events shaped Eben’s ministry, calling him to patriotism before ministry.  He served in the Army in World War II, returning from Europe committed to finding an alternative to the violence that threatened to undo civilization. He went to seminary, and took a church.  Changing circumstances shaped his ministry, too. In the late 60’s the United Methodists in South Carolina realized that the time had come to unite what was until then two distinct, separate, but hardly equal structures – a black annual conference and a white annual conference.  In 1972, the year I began my journey into the Methodist ministry, that effort culminated in the merger of the two previously segregated structures.  Eben’s spirit helped assure the success of the merger, which was a wrenching experience for pastors, churches, and members.  He was one of several white leaders who worked with black leaders and colleagues to make it so. As you may imagine, it was an effort that earned him praise from some, and the abiding scorn of others.  “Change is good,” someone once said, “until it happens.”

 

In times of transition, mature faith is foundational, even – and especially – when it calls us to make difficult decisions. Learning of his death this week, I couldn’t help but remember the time Eben modeled the clear social conscience that is a hallmark of Christian faith. It happened this way.  On one of our goodwill and fundraising tours, my friends and I in our college glee club found ourselves singing in the fellowship hall of a church in Charleston.  Eben Taylor, the church’s pastor, had invited us to sing.  I don’t recall the year – probably 1968 or 1969.  Remember, Dr. King and Bobby Kennedy were murdered in early 1968; Richard Nixon rode the turbulence to his first presidential victory that year.  Back onstage in that fellowship hall in the church in Charleston – not a place known for racial harmony – we became aware of a disturbance outside a door leading to the church’s parking lot. 

 

We kept singing, as I recall, but tensions rose in us on stage as well as in those sitting in the audience listening to us.  The neighborhood around the church was racially mixed, and it was obvious that some local youth – African-Americans – were trying to come into our little concert.  We were less frightened, I think, than anxious.  None of us knew where this was going to lead.

 

Quietly but decisively, Eben got up, went to the door, and opened it to the group loudly seeking entry.  He beckoned them in, and invited them to some empty chairs.  He showed them, and us, the meaning of Christian hospitality.  His was a sermon, without words, on the unity of the body of Christ, a living example of the truth that God’s love transcends race and that we are all, truly, one in the Lord.

 

I hadn’t thought about that moment for these 40 years or so, but it has haunted me all week.  I can’t help but think that many of us were able to at least consider voting for an African-American candidate for president, as over 55 or 60 million folks ultimately decided to do, because of the ministry and the witness of people like Eben Taylor.

 

Whether Barak Obama becomes a good president, or not, is yet to be seen.  And, as both he and John McCain reminded us in their remarks at the Alfred E. Smith Dinner before the election, neither of them is the messiah.  Those self-deprecation remarks were, for me, the highlight of the long campaign. Still, this is a transitional election in our nation’s history, and even many Republicans have celebrated the outcome of this recent election as the breaking of a barrier that seemed indestructible just 40 years ago.

 

The gospel we are called to proclaim, with lives as well as with words, is a gospel meant for the context in which we live.  Frankly, like many of us, I’ve been mulling over the election since Tuesday night, wondering what to say, but aware that divisions remain among us.  Yet I’m also aware that failing to notice the shifting of our culture in this election’s outcome also seemed inappropriate.  So I’ve chosen to say this very personal word, in my own personal context.  This election of someone who has quite different racial, cultural, and national background from his 43 predecessors is, to my mind, an opening of a door.  It reminds me of Eben Taylor going to the door of that church fellowship hall all those years ago.  You might even say it’s the logical outcome of such hospitality by scores and hundreds of local leaders over these past years.

 

What does any of this have to do with why we are here this morning, and followers of Christ committed to loving God and our neighbors?  And what, if anything, is the connection between what Eben Taylor did in that church fellowship hall 40 years ago and this strange lesson about ten bridesmaids waiting for the start of the wedding party?

 

Just this.  Commentators say that our lesson and its two companion parables, stories that form chapter 25 of Matthew’s gospel, are about the church’s continuing faithfulness in waiting for Christ’s return.  “Keep awake,” the teacher we call Matthew tells his church, “for you know neither the day nor the hour.”  And the parable is about keeping awake, or being ready, as the wise bridesmaids are.  Yes, of course.  We wait in expectant hope for Christ’s return.  We’re called to be ready, as Christians, in that sense.  Certainly.

 

But these three parables also invite us to another truth:  Christ comes in ways we don’t expect, and not merely at the end of time.  Christ comes in moments we face, every day.

 

For me, this parable is about being ready, now, to open the doors of our church, of our hearts, of our minds, and of our souls.  At least, that’s what Eben Taylor showed me, and so many others, by his actions.  He was ready.  He was always ready to love, as Christ loved.  And, in his example, he called others to be ready, too.

 

This parable is about being ready in that sense, too.  It’s about being ready, now, to do what needs to be done.  It’s about saying what needs to be said, even when that is difficult or painful. It’s about being who God hopes we will be.  Ultimately this parable is not about stockpiling resources – that is, having enough oil on hand for our own use (“drill, baby, drill”) – but about drilling down into our souls to tap the resources of God’s deep, abiding love.  Therefore, it’s about loving those who need to be loved, even though they are different from us, in whatever ways we think makes us different.

 

The parable is also about being ready to give what needs to be given, to our church and to the needs of the world, even when we find ourselves in fearful economic times.

 

Finally, this parable is about being ready, even committed, to living as one people united.  It’s about being ready to live as one nation, united.  It’s even about being ready to stand as one church, united, for the common good of each other and for the healing of our community.

 

In a more divided time than ours, the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, called a divided house back to unity in his vision for a second term.  He articulated this vision in his Second Inaugural address just weeks before his assassination.  After quoting the scriptures he read religiously, as did his listeners, he called the nation to common purpose of completing the task of liberating all citizens, and of taking its place among the nations of the world, together.  Or, as he framed it, “With malice toward none, with charity for all.…”  Clearly, Lincoln was ready to do what needed to be done, to say what needed to be said, to give what needed to be given, to be what he was called to be, and to love as generously as God loves us all.

 

The parable invites us also:  to do, to say, to give, to be, and to love.  Only then will our lamps be full, and our lives, too.  And we will be ready, whenever Jesus knocks on our doors.

 

Amen.