Proper27A, November 9, 2014,
Sullivan Park Care Center by Sr Annette Fricke, OP
If you were
to read both the Amos text and that of the gospel without taking into
consideration that they were written in a very different cultural context with
a way different literary device, these passages should shock you. Not only should they shock you, but they also
should cause you to continually ask, just what do these bits of literature
actually mean and what do they mean for me?
It is no secret that the church has been guilty in times past of
shocking their parishioners into believing in God or else--- and you can fill
in the blank. I just know that in the
Middle Ages and in some churches still today the threat is that if you do not
believe in God, plainly and simply, you will go to hell. I remember a couple of years ago a congregant
came up to our Visitation Pastor and asked him quite bluntly, “Why does no one
ever preach about hell anymore?” The
pastor avoided any such theological discussion at the time---time for coffee
hour, and said nothing. The problem with
the concept of hell is that 1) it seems to have developed sometime after Jesus’
walk on earth, 2) its definition changed over the years, 3) preachers finally
figured out that scaring people into believing in God was not a good thing, and
4) seminaries for over a hundred years now have decided that it isn’t a real
place to which we go after death, period.
If you grew up thinking that to any extent as I also did, this question
might still be in the back of your mind.
What is hell? Dante said it was
cold---I always thought it was hot. Most
people I know today would say that hell is at least partially what we create
for ourselves on this earth when we choose to pay no attention to caring for
the earth and its creatures. Hell is the
struggles we go through day to day and moment to moment. It is what we go through when someone we love
very much is suffering, because when we love someone, we also suffer with that
person. Isn’t that what we feel when we contemplate Jesus’ dying on the
cross? Isn’t that a form of hell when he
suffers there, yet it is a complete unconditional sacrifice, the living out of
the forgiveness of sins?
On the other
hand, Christians, not just preachers are called to preach the gospel. The gospel is what our lives should be about
each and every moment. We are charged
with learning to live with the knowledge of that gospel no matter what problems
we may go through in this world. The
focus needs to rightly be on today, right now, in the present moment. We should be asking ourselves frequently,
“How can I live the gospel in this moment?”
And what is the gospel you may ask?
According to Martin Luther, the pure gospel is this: the forgiveness of
sins. This is how we are to live into
the kingdom of God. We are the
recipients of the forgiveness of sins.
We are recipients from God and from other people, however imperfect it
may come from other people. But that
also implies that we are also the givers of forgiveness because that is how we live
best with each other in God’s love. We
can choose to get mad or choose to forgive.
If we constantly choose to focus on the imperfections of others, we will
be angry most of the time, because we are all humans who make mistakes. Case in point, we have made our own hell; we
have made ourselves miserable. Keep in
mind that the principle always remains that we may not be able to change
others, but we can change ourselves. Sometimes,
things happen in others when we change ourselves by what we say and what we do.
The gospel
text is about saying and doing, but if we look at it from a literal point of
view, it will seem quite confusing. Even
Lutherans no longer agree with Luther who said he thought the oil of the
virgins was faith. The oil, it is believed,
now represents good deeds, those small things and big things that we do for
each other. We may offend others,
rightly or wrongly with our actions and our words, but this is still our
calling. If we take the gospel text
literally, we will accuse the wise virgins of being stingy with their oil. They have extra, but are unwilling to share
it with the foolish virgins. That is why
we need to see this from a different perspective. None of us really fits the character of
either foolish or wise virgins. All of
us carry with us a little of both. And some of those small things we do for
others, in their minds are big things and mean a lot more than we imagine.
The
bridegroom is Jesus. He will come and
gather his children home to him, the pure virgins in this case. But lest we get caught up in literalness
again, the purity of the virgins is a symbol that really should extend to all
of God’s people and we need reminders that God is the one who makes it possible
for all of us to share in God’s wedding banquet. This text is not just about
virgins nor is it just about women. We should not be interpreting from this
text that only the wise virgins will be with God in eternal bliss and the
foolish virgins will go to the fiery depths of hell. It is never our prerogative to make judgments
for God. God is not about punishment,
but mercy. God’s justice is not our
justice. The gospel of God is the forgiveness of sins. When Jesus arrives, it will be a joyous
occasion, not a cause for sorrow or weeping.
It will also not be a surprise, because we know that Jesus is coming to
us and for us. We are wise because we
know that Jesus is coming to take us home to be with him forever, but we are
foolish in that we remain students of our Lord in need of help to be more like
God and less like our selfish selves, concerned with self-preservation.
Just as our
lives and our behaviors are on a continuum of joy to sorrow, happiness to
struggle, perhaps we should also think of life with God as a continuum from
hell to heaven. We see a little of both
in this life. In this life, we await God’s
transformation of us into God’s image, where we began. We wait for a return to Eden because we
believe that heaven in our future is much like the Eden of our past. Amos points in that direction as well, but
from a different angle. Amos points out,
that despite all the worship of God and the keeping of all the proper
sacrifices in their seasons, only one thing is of real importance. That one thing is justice and
righteousness. God expects more than
keeping all the church feasts and commemorations. God expects more than praying the hours. God wants more than ritual; God wants action.
During this
past week, my phone rang at 8:00 in the morning, about a half hour before I
usually get out of bed. It was the dean
of the cathedral. He asked me to contact
a particular person who requested that someone bring her Eucharist. As I spoke with her over the phone, I
realized that what she really wanted was someone she knew already to come to be
with her. However, I could not fill
those shoes because she only knew me from a distance. She knew I was in the choir, but said she couldn't put a name to a face. She said
that Communion meant more to her if it was given by someone she knew. I felt sorry for her in her emotional pain,
yet also knew that her request was not possible. The people she most wanted by her side, you
see, were unavailable momentarily because they were all involved in preparation
for the annual holiday bazaar. Her
choice was either me or needing to wait till the bazaar was over. Only one person on the committee I oversee
fit the bill. She would have to wait,
but by waiting, just as in the gospel text, she would see Jesus in the
Eucharist and she would have communion with someone who means the most to her. Blessed be God who also waits patiently for
us.
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