A Lectionary Reflection for the people of Thankful Memorial Episcopal Church for worship from home, November 8, 2020, Year A, 22 Pentecost, Proper 27

Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25
Psalm 78:1-7
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Matthew 25:1-13

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Maybe it’s just me, but these past months have felt almost apocalyptic.  When, at this past Wednesday’s Eucharist in our garden at Thankful, a sleek black rat made a bold appearance as an enthusiastic participant in our worship, I just about started scanning the horizon for Jesus’ return.  How much weirder, how much more shocking, how much more frightening can things get?  The pandemic, the election, the protests, the natural disasters, and now a rat at Eucharist??  Maybe these are all signs of something supernatural being up.  Maybe these are the omens of the kind of second coming that Paul described to the Thessalonians.

And perhaps the Christians in Thessalonica felt as uncertain and anxious about the times in which they lived as we do now.  Certainly things were not going the way they had imagined.  Surviving as some of the earliest converts to a new religion, in the middle of the oppression and skepticism of the Roman empire, enduring hardships, and questioning the turn of events at every moment, they must have felt that the world around them was often a bizarre, shocking and frightening place, too.  And they wondered what would happen next.

In his letter to them, St. Paul tries to assuage their fears, including a pressing one about what would become of all those Christians who had already died.  You see, the Christian community in Thessalonica had been expecting Jesus’ return and the establishment of God’s reign on earth almost immediately, but when that triumphant day was delayed and some of the members of the community died before its arrival, the Thessalonians began to worry and doubt.  Had they got it wrong?  Did Paul, who had converted them, get it all wrong, too? 

So, Paul writes to them about how Christ’s coming might look and how it might include even those believers who have died.  Paul imagines a triumphant parade in the heavens: there will be angel calls and trumpets as Jesus descends.  The whole host of those who have died in the faith and those still living will be “caught up in the clouds together … to meet the Lord in the air.” 

And, though the main “character” in this parade is, of course, Christ, it’s important to note the role we humans play in the divine action of the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth.  Because this is about God’s kingdom on earth, not up in the sky somewhere or out in “heaven.” Though we might “meet the Lord in the air,” and though the whole point is that eternal communion in which we will all “be with the Lord forever,” there’s no sense that eternal life happens “out there.”  Rather, this meeting between the Lord and his disciples is just the beginning of God’s reign on earth –in the reality of this present goodness of God’s creation. 

For what Paul describes to the Thessalonians is a human procession with which they would have been familiar, put into divine context.  In Paul’s day, when an emperor or dignitary planned his arrival into a city, the people would know of his coming in advance and would send a large delegation of its citizenship out to meet the VIP beyond the walls and escort him into the city in a formal reception and procession.[i]  In first Thessalonians then, Paul imagines that Christ’s second coming takes place in much the same way, only the “city” is the whole world and the delegation of citizens is the host of faithful disciples – living and dead – who meet the Lord “outside” of the earth in order to then be part of the procession – and the process – to bring him back into it.

So what does any of that have to do with us, in our time, with all its stressors and tension?  Well, everything.  Because if 1 Thessalonians gets it at all right about the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth, then we – you and I and all our siblings in Christ, living and dead – have a part to play.  We are the delegates expected to meet Jesus and bring him into our lived reality.  We are responsible right now for taking the steps necessary to bring Christ’s reign to fruition on earth. 

That’s a message of Jesus’ parable of the ten bridesmaids in the Gospel of Matthew.  The same sort of procession as 1 Thessalonians describes happens in the context of this story, too.  The bridesmaids are meant to meet the groom outside of the household and bring him to his bride for the wedding banquet that takes place within.  Only, half of the bridesmaids can’t do what they’re supposed to do because they haven’t brought enough oil to light the groom’s way into the house.  Their lack of foresight has made them foolish; their lack of light has rendered them useless.  

And that is the true failing that keeps half the bridesmaids out of the joyful feast – their uselessness.  After all, it’s earlier in this same Gospel that Jesus tells his disciples that we are to be like lighted lamps ourselves, which give “light to all in the house.”  Our lights are to “shine before others, so that they may see [our] good works and give glory to [the] Father in heaven” (Mt. 5:15-16).  The whole purpose of our lives of faith is to bethese lights that point the way to the Father, to enact the “good works” that are the fruits of faith right now in order that we might be part of the process and procession which eventually bring the Lord’s reign into our reality on earth.

That process may take a long time yet to complete.  Christ’s reign fully established on earth may or may not be an imminent event, but we know it is an urgent one.  If we are to be like the wise bridesmaids, we must recognize that our actions right now make a difference in the ongoing work of redemption and reconciliation that God is doing in our midst.  And if we want to take up the invitation to be a member of the delegation that meets the Lord and brings him into our lived reality, then we must do the good works that will make that reign possible: keeping our lights lit to point the way to the Father and to bring the Son into His kingdom on earth.  And we must continue to do that work, to keep the lights of faith burning, even and especially when the rest of the world seems dark, bizarre and frightening.  Indeed, that’s the moment, right now is the moment when we have the best and greatest opportunity to show most brightly the light of God’s compassion and love in the world. 

This is both the good news and the high calling we have as disciples of Christ Jesus: our one true God chooses to reign in all of God’s goodness in and through us, in our incarnational reality and through our participation in the divine process and procession that bring God’s kingdom to life on earth.  The question for us is, how will we respond?  Let us “choose this day whom [we] will serve.”   Let us choose the Lord our God.  Through our words and our deeds, right now in this present time of fear and uncertainty, let us choose to be part of that delegation, that wildly joyful procession, that great and wonderful host of saints who come marching in, lighting the way and bringing the Lord to God’s rightful reign in God’s kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven.  Amen.   

[i] Cosby, Michael R.  “Hellenistic Formal Receptions and Paul’s Use of APANTÊSIS in 1 Thessalonians 4:17.”  Bulletin for Biblical Research 4 (1994) 15-34.