Are we ready?
Rev Indrea Alexander
St Stephen’s Ashburton
Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Matthew 25:1-13
We don’t know when we are going to meet the Lord face to face, but that gospel reading tells us to be ready.
So how do we prepare? Perhaps attending church two or three times a month will get us ready to meet the Lord? Or maybe a quick prayer every night or two before we fall asleep? Is that preparation enough? I think not.
Everything we do reflects our state of readiness. We are to respond to God with our whole lives. The Association of Anglican Women prayer says, “Use us now in the mission of your Church: Help us to realise that everything we do and say reflects our love for you.” Everything. Every action from driving considerately to reconciling differences with family or friends demonstrates our state of readiness. There is an urgency to this, we do not know how long we have got. The Bible talks of the return of Christ, but that could be in five minutes, five days, or five millennia. Or it could be that we meet him at own death in five minutes, five days or five... maybe not millennia, five months, or years or decades perhaps.
There’s a saying, “Live each day as if it were your last, because one day you’ll be right.”
I knew a woman in her 60s who became a Christian. She was secretary for a club and the president asked her to backdate a letter. She declined. She believed her new Christian faith required her to be honest and have a clear conscience. She was concerned that if she compromised her integrity this time, she may be more likely to do so again. The club president was not particularly pleased, but members of the club saw the change and began to realise what the secretary’s new faith meant to her, and they respected that. For her it was more than a matter of a date on a letter, she was taking a stand and declaring her faith.
Sometimes we may be challenged to take a stand and declare our faith.
In the Old Testament reading today, Joshua challenged the people of Israel to take a stand and declare their faith. They were about to enter the promised land, and Joshua challenged them to declare who their god would be in this new land, because they have been a bit faithless. They choose to love and serve the Lord their God. But before they declare their decision, Joshua says – You choose what you will, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”. Joshua was prepared to put his stake in the ground, whatever the response of others.
Even in fairly easy-going NZ it’s sometimes not easy to make that stand today. You get the message you shouldn’t get too serious about this region thing. Christianity is ok if it means being a nice person, but don’t let it change you. But Christian faith will change you. As you grow in it, it will change you. God will change you.
It is powerful to share personal faith stories with each other, allowing each other to see where God has been at work in our lives, where God has changed us.
The writer of the Psalms says to keep the inherited stories of faith alive, because the meaning of the things of the past will be revealed in the future. There is value in remembering - remembering the wonders God has performed, the faith story of our forebears. Remembering, too, stories about when people went their own way, and the stories of God’s forgiveness and reconciliation. Tell the children of every generation, the Psalmist says, that they should put their trust in God and follow God’s way. That is why we share stories of faith. Not to give glory or shame to any of those involved, but to give glory to God and to bring people closer in this generation to the God of all generations.
Sharing our faith stories can give hope and encouragement, and keep the flame of our faith alive. Hope can fade if our focus drifts. Paul wrote to Christians in Thessalonica who were losing faith.
These first Christians had expected Jesus to return in their own lifetime. They were concerned that Christians were dying, and there was still no sign of Christ’s return. Paul’s response was a passage sometimes used at funerals today. It encourages Christians not to grieve as those without hope, but to believe that through Jesus, the living and the dead can have eternal life.
Christians are to be God’s hopeful, hope-filled people. Paul encourages us to live, ready and active in the world. Our acts of justice and compassion are hallmarks of our lives. They proclaim our preparedness for Christ’s eventual return.
That day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. But the children of light will be ready and waiting.
Jesus told today’s gospel story about some people who weren’t ready for an important event. In first century Palestine a groom would go to his wife’s home, sign a contract with her father, and then take her back to his own home. It was common for bridesmaids to light the way for the wedding party to come to the bridegroom’s home, where the party would continue. But in this story, the bridesmaids got tired of waiting, and fell asleep. When they awakened to the cry that the bride and groom were on their way, half the bridesmaids had run out of lamp oil, and they got locked out of the party.
They knew they needed to be ready to light the way, they knew they needed lamp oil, but sometimes we need to be ready without knowing what for. As Christians, we need to be ready for whatever God wants of us next. And God is quite good at springing surprises, asking us to step into new things we may never have contemplated. So what can we do to get ready while we wait?
British author Samuel Wells suggests we have many, many opportunities to learn and grow in our faith, in our understanding and relationship with God. We can talk, listen, read, share with each other, and grapple with the hard stuff. As well as being valuable at the time, this is preparation for what still lies ahead. The author suggests that when we get to a moment of crisis or pressure, we may find we are like the bridesmaids in the gospel, either ready and waiting or floundering unprepared because we’ve “run out of oil” exactly when it’s needed most.
The point isn’t whether we know more or less than the next person. The measure of our preparedness is simply whether we are making the most of the opportunities God gives us today and tomorrow. And if we didn’t yesterday, it doesn’t mean we can’t today. And if we don’t today, it doesn’t mean we can’t tomorrow. There is always a fresh opportunity, until the end, whenever that may be.
I heard a hospital chaplain talk about the challenging situations that she encountered in her role. There were always new and tricky situations… and she wanted to be ready to provide pastoral support. So she regularly read books of prayers. She immersed herself in all sorts of prayers, and she found that when she met a very specific set of circumstances, beautiful, meaningful, deeply appropriate words and phrases from her reading would suddenly appear in her mind. For her, reading books of prayers was tending the wick of her lamp, topping up the oil, making her ready to shine Christ’s light when the moment came.
Are we tending our wick, topping up our oil? Are we inviting Jesus to shape our lives, and living Christ-shaped lives? And finally, if we believe life with Jesus is better than life without Jesus, are we prepared to declare, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” - and to calmly and clearly explain why to others.