"You do not know the day or the hour."  It's on that simple concept that this little parable is built. The bridesmaids don't know when the wedding is going to begin.  I'll tell you, I've had a few weddings like that, and it's not that much fun.  I had one wedding in Castro Valley where the Wedding Coordinator and I couldn't figure out why the groom and the groomsmen hadn't arrived yet - it being time for the wedding to start - and so she went out to the church parking lot to look for them, and there they all were, sitting in the limousine with the driver, having one last round of drinks before the appointed hour – or, I should say, after the appointed hour.  I guess they hadn't noticed, for some reason, that it was already past time for the wedding to begin.  Sort of makes you wonder if the groom's heart was really in it.  Or another one where the bride kept having to send members of the bridal party back to her house, each time delaying the wedding a little bit longer - three times in forty five minutes - because she had left important wedding-related items behind.  At one time I might have been naive enough to think that I had probably seen every possible reason for a wedding to be delayed; now I just look forward to the next one, to find out what new and creative ways might be invented or discovered to hold up the proceedings.

I don't know why the bridegroom in this morning's parable is running late.  Traffic?  Tuxedo malfunction?  (I've seen both of those situations, too!)  Whatever it is, nobody bothers to say; and of course, it's just a parable anyway.  But it is a parable about tardiness; and in that, it just might be something that we can all relate to.  It's a parable about tardiness - God's tardiness - and what in the world we're supposed to do about it.  Here's the story:

It was just about a generation or so after Jesus had walked the earth; fifty years, maybe, since he had taught lessons and healed the sick; five decades since he had come sharing love and raising hope; half a century since his life and death and resurrection and ascension; or, for most people, just about a lifetime since he had left with the promise understood that someday, in the not-so-distant future, he would return; return to finish that which he had apparently only started in bringing the will of God to life; return to complete the building of “the Kingdom,” as some liked to call it; return to bring those who followed him into a face-to-face relationship with God; return to once-and-for-all send the powers of death and evil packing.  Fifty long years - just about a lifetime - waiting for the promises of God to be fulfilled.  But, the church began to wonder, where was he?  This waiting around for the party to get going was starting to get old, fast.  And then someone - maybe it was Matthew - remembered a story that Jesus once had told; a story about a bridegroom who had been delayed in his arrival for his own wedding.  How did that story go again? Oh, yeah - the bridesmaids were waiting and waiting and waiting, until weariness finally set in.  Was the guest of honor ever going to get here?  Should we call it a night, and check back in the morning?  Should we give up on him?  Finally, they all just fell asleep; some without a thought for what might happen next; and others with their supplies, their lamps and their extra lamp oil, at just an arm's distance away.  Some, it seemed, had given up; while others, even as they slept, clung to their hope, like a baby with a security blanket.

Maybe these ones, to whom Matthew wrote his gospel story, these who had been waiting a lifetime for Jesus to return, would find in that parable just the word of hope and encouragement they needed to keep on waiting, however longer it might yet be; to keep on waiting for Jesus, the bridegroom, to arrive, and for the greatest wedding banquet in the history of the world to begin.  And so the church found hope, and so the church kept waiting.

And here we are - not half a century, but twenty centuries later - still waiting.  The reign of God is still not here in all its fullness; the powers of death and evil still seem pretty much in control; the sun has set, the darkness has come, the lamps are flickering, and the oil is running low - and where, for heaven's sake, is the guest of honor?  Where is the fulfillment of the promises Jesus made?  The answer the parable gives is this:  it's coming.  In its own time, and in its own way, all that God has promised, all that Jesus will finally bring, is coming.  Maybe today; maybe tomorrow; maybe not in your lifetime; maybe not in mine.  But the uncertainty of God’s timing has nothing at all to do with the certainty of God’s promise.  Christ will come.  Sin and death will be no more.  Love and laughter and life will be the future.  The Kingdom of God will be the only Kingdom there is.  The promise is sure.  Only the timing is beyond our sight.

Sometimes you hear people ask the question, "What would you do if you knew the world was going to end tomorrow?"  You know what I think?  I think it's the wrong question to ask, at least in regard to this parable.  The real question of the parable is this:  "What would you do if you knew you had the rest of your lifetime in front of you?  How would you spend that gift?  How would we live differently if we thought this world - God's world - was meant to last?"  The wise ones in the parable were the ones who suspected that they might be there, waiting, for a while – and came prepared.  The parable suggests that we could be here for a good, long time before the bridegroom comes; and maybe it's not such a good idea to use up all our oil, so to speak, all at once – both figuratively and literally.

But beyond that, I think the parable speaks to another situation, as well - and maybe even more meaningfully.  Most Lutherans I know really don't spend much time worrying about when the second coming of Christ might occur – we confess it in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, but other than that we don’t talk or think about it so much.  That seems to be a sport that's better left to the fundamentalists.  However, we do have in our lives those times when we look for Jesus, expecting to find him, but there seems to be some... delay.  You know what I mean?  Times when we're really struggling with something, and we need some guidance; times when life is really bearing down on us, and we need some kind of support; times when the evil in the world is almost more than we can take, and we need some sense of hope.  There are times in our lives sometimes, when we look for God, expecting to find God at our side, but instead the room seems empty.  Like the bridesmaids who looked for the groom, but he wasn't there - sometimes we look for Jesus, and it feels like he isn't there.  And we wonder, What’s the deal?  What's the delay?  What are we supposed to do now?

Well, the parable gives me two words of hope, both based on the fact that the bridegroom does indeed, in the end, come through the door.  First, it says this:  even at those times that God seems distant or even absent from our lives, or from the world, we can be sure that we are not forgotten.  Jesus' movement is always toward us, not away from us.  The bridegroom is coming, not going.  We come into worship, not hoping to catch a glimpse of Jesus before he goes out the door, but knowing that this is a place where Jesus has promised to meet us.  In the words of Scripture we read, in the songs we sing, in the communion meal we share, Jesus' movement is always toward us.  He comes here into our presence; he comes here into our lives.  And that fact is probably the most hopeful thing we have to hang on to in this world, to know that in each and every moment of time, Jesus, the bridegroom, is on the way; he is coming to us.

Helmut Thielicke, the German author and theologian, points out a little interesting detail in the story that we might otherwise overlook.  He notes that the bridesmaids are clearly divided into two categories, right from the start - the "wise" and the "foolish" - or what I have termed the bright lights and the dim bulbs.  However, one thing that does not set them apart from each other, is that both groups, when the bridegroom is delayed, curl up and go to sleep.  Not just the foolish ones, mind you, but the wise ones too, doze off.  This is not where the problem lies in the story.  Dozing off is not what sets the two groups apart.  In fact, Thielicke suggests, this is a nice image for the peace and confidence we can have, even in the darkest times, because we know that Christ will come to us.  The wise bridesmaids could sleep in peace; they didn't have to be fretting or worrying over what was going to happen next.  They knew the bridegroom, and they knew he could be trusted, and so they could sleep in peace.

An Englishwoman was asked by a neighbor once during the bombing of London in World War II how she could sleep through all the noise and confusion and fear of the missiles exploding around town.  "Oh," she said, "I figure God is awake, and there's no sense in both of us losing sleep over it."  The bridesmaids trust the groom is coming, sooner or later, and so they can sleep in peace.

But it's not just sleeping we're called to do, of course.  To have our oil on hand, and our lamps lit, is Matthew's way of saying that, as we wait for the coming of the bridegroom, we should wait patiently but not passively.  Two more parables follow this one in the twenty-fifth chapter of the gospel, both of which point to the way we're called to live our lives as we wait for Jesus.  The parable of the talents, which immediately follows this one, says we are to put our gifts to use in God's service in this world; and the parable that follows that one reminds us that as we help and serve even the least and lowest of people, it is as though we were serving Jesus himself.  This is how we keep our lamps trimmed and our oil ready while we're waiting for Jesus.  We watch and wait, and serve and share.  As he had said earlier in the gospel, "You are the light of the world...  so let your light shine."

In what ways is your light shining in this dark world?  May each of us be this week not a dim bulb, but a bright light, as we wait with patience and with confidence for God's banquet to begin.

Amen.