Wisdom

 Eastern Parkway United Methodist Church

 A warm welcome to each worshiper today. We celebrate you and offer you our friendship and love. We are a congregation of people who seek to grow spiritually, to become more like Christ in His compassion and acceptance of everyone while growing more aware of what it really means to be Christians today.

As a Reconciling Congregation, EPUMC affirms the sacred worth of persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities and welcomes them into full participation in the fellowship, membership, ministries, and leadership of the congregation.

 

 

 

943 Palmer Avenue, Schenectady, NY 12309 / 518-374-4306 epumc943@gmail.com / www.easternparkway.org

Order of Worship

November 12, 2023

10:00 a.m.

*You are invited to rise in body or spirit.

 

Prelude

Greeting and Announcements

Mission Statement:

We are a faith community striving to be, to nurture, and to send forth disciples of Jesus Christ.

Call to Worship:

Today God’s word will be spoken to your hearts.
Open our ears and our hearts to receive God’s word.
Today God’s love will be poured into your life.
Prepare us, Lord, to receive your love.
Hallelujah!
Hallelujah!

*Hymn                I Want to Walk as a Child of the Light                  #206

Prayer of Confession:

O Lord, there never seems to be enough time to do all the things that are demanded of us. Schedules become crowded. We live by the clock. We think we are ready for all events that will come our way. But we are rarely ready for you. We would like you to come to us at a planned time so that we can fit you into our busy lives. Forgive us, Lord, for trying to make you a scheduled event. We have moved you to a time on our weekly calendars. Yet you are the eternal God who has always loved us and been ready to receive us. Help us to learn that, with you as our foundation, we can handle anything that comes our way. With you as our focus, all things pale in comparison. Let us look at the priorities in our lives and see where we have placed service to you. AMEN.

Assurance:

In the deepest darkness, in the times when all seems lost, we are not lost to God. God calls us to be ready for God’s new kingdom. In all this God is with us. AMEN.

Scripture Reading Matthew 25: 1-13

The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids

25 “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten young women[a] took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.[b] 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, 4 but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5 As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ 7 Then all those young women[c] got up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ 9 But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ 10 And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet, and the door was shut. 11 Later the other young women[d] came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ 12 But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ 13 Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.[e]

Sermon                                 Wisdom

I’ve never been to a wedding where everything went according to plan.

At mine and Sean’s, our organist forgot to bring his music. Seems like kind of an important item for a musician, right? We didn’t discover this until halfway into the ceremony, when we were about to sing a hymn, and our organist suddenly got up and started frantically looking around the organ for a hymnal so he’d have the music for “Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise.” Since this was at the Interfaith Chapel at the University of Rochester, those supplies aren’t just sitting there in the sanctuary, they’re under lock and key in the offices of the chaplains. So our officiant, Laurie, sent one of our guests, Kristi, who was an alum and had the good fortune of knowing where things were in the building, so run and get a hymnal for our organist while Laurie told awkward, nervous jokes.

At my friend Emily’s wedding, we were outside, and she wanted to walk down the aisle, which was all grass, over an aisle runner. But her high heeled shoes started poking holes in the aisle runner and tearing it up, and half way to the altar she tripped.

Sounds like Emily really lucked out, though, because a friend of mine named Melissa attended a wedding where the father of the bride was walking his daughter down the aisle, but accidentally stepped on the train of her dress. As she attempted to walk on to the altar, the whole skirt ripped off of her dress.

Another clergy friend of mine officiated a wedding for a couple that wanted to use super traditional vows, but didn’t seem to understand all the words. She fed the vows, line by line, to the groom, who glared at her. When she asked him later what was bothering him, he said “I can’t believe you said I was taking Linda to be my ‘awfully’ wedded wife.”

So, it’s almost a rule that something has to go wrong, and with any luck it will give you a funny story to tell your grandkids.

Jesus tells us a parable in this morning’s scripture reading involving another wedding-gone-wrong story, but unfortunately no funny memories come from this one. To understand this parable, you need to understand some of the customs of weddings in Jesus’ time. A wedding was a huge, multiple day event, with somewhat unpredictable start and end times. In advance of the wedding, the groom’s family has paid two large sums of money to the bride’s family that are meant to be a “bride price” to support the bride’s parents, because they are losing the help of their daughter at home, and also this money will support the bride if, heaven forbid, anything happened to her husband. Once those sums were paid, the bride and groom would sign a marriage contract, and then they were, both legally and socially, married, pending a ceremony. The bride would continue living with her parents, and wait for her husband to come get her. Supportive friends and family would keep watch with her when the time was coming. When it was finally time, the groom would come to the bride’s house and pick her up for the ceremony, and they would walk through the streets to the party location with their bridesmaids keeping them company, lighting the way with torches in case it gets dark. Along the way, they’d knock on doors and collect their friends and family for the celebration. It’s outdated and super patriarchal, but you have to admit, it also sounds super romantic, and like a really boss party.

In this hypothetical wedding story that Jesus makes up on the spot, the bridesmaids are waiting and waiting for the groom, but he’s gotten held up, so they’ve fallen asleep. Him running late was no cause for alarm, it could be something major, like him getting sick, or something minor, like the groom and the father of the bride quibbling at the last minute about the bride price. Jesus makes it clear, it’s no biggie that the ladies in waiting nodded off. Take notes, guys: Jesus says it’s ok to take naps. It’s ok to rest, and care for the self. But what really matters, if we are to see ourselves as the bridesmaids waiting for Jesus, our groom, is what we have with us.

According to Jesus, the wiser of the bridesmaids packed enough oil to keep their lamps running. But the foolish ones ran out, and asked to bum some oil off of the wise ones, and the wise ones refuse. I have to admit, the first, second, third, and fiftieth times I read this text, those wise bridesmaids sounded awfully selfish. This is Jesus teaching, surely he believes in generosity, selflessness, and sharing of scarce resources. But the wise bridesmaids tell the foolish ones to go out and buy that oil. They do, so apparently they always could have. But they miss the wedding processional while they’re out buying oil, and when they run down the street to join the party already in progress, the groom claims he doesn’t know them. Well that’s way harsh, bro. Would you really turn away wedding guests just because they were a few minutes late? But Jesus insists this was the right thing to do. So what gives? Is Jesus advocating for refusing to share your oil and locking people out of the party?

Not quite. We need to go a few levels deeper with Jesus today, because this oil doesn’t represent something you can share or trade. It’s something you either have within you, or you don’t. Jesus leads us to believe the oil represents wisdom, and what we need to be doing to be ready to serve his mission at any time. And it’s an important question to ask ourselves. Are we actually ready? If we were confronted with a problem today that required us to act like disciples of Christ, would we be ready to do that? That might sound like an abstract reality, but in our world of wars and shootings and racism and prejudice and walls and poverty, this is very real. Our neighbors need to see love and justice through us. Do they? Because being prepared with love and mercy in any situation is what it means to be wise, at least according to Jesus.

But I’m going to invite you to consider one more thing. The oil doesn’t just represent wisdom. It represents integrity. It’s not just about knowing enough to be prepared to face any situation like a person who understands the love of Christ. It’s about being able to stick with that faith once it’s tested. All ten bridesmaids, on paper, look like they’re doing their job well enough, and claim that they want to support the bride and groom, and lead the way to the wedding. But five of them are actually walking around with empty lamps. They’re faithful, but it’s a hollow faith. They have the kind of faith that instantly falls apart at the first sign of some kind of challenge to it. As soon as it’s dark out, their faith can’t get them through the night. We’ve known people struggling with that kind of faith. We’ve been the people struggling with that kind of faith, the faith that feels like a front with nothing behind it. But Jesus isn’t condemning people who are trying, but feel like they’re coming up short. What Jesus is pointing out is the ten people who were supposed to be lighting the way with their torches. Five people took that job, knowing what they were responsible for, but hoped on the day of that no one would check their lamps, because they never had any oil. Those bridesmaids would have gotten everyone lost. When they showed up late to the wedding because they were covering up their lack of oil, the groom shut the door on them. In the moments when you’re struggling to keep faith, follow someone you trust, someone who isn’t just fronting good intentions, but someone with depth and integrity who can safely lead you. We’ll get tempted in this life by teachers, preachers, friends, partners, and politicians who talk a good talk, but won’t lead you anywhere good. Trust your gut, those people don’t represent Jesus well.

In moments when we’re doing well in our faith, we should be wise enough to know what it takes to show the love of Jesus at a moment's notice, to a world that needs it. We have more than we think we do in the way of supplies. At last week’s charge conference meeting, we did an exercise in asset mapping. We wrote out on post it notes our gifts, community groups we’re part of, things we’re passionate about, influential people we know, and the gifts of our friends in our churches. Then we looked at each other’s post its, and grouped them together on the walls to show what new ministries we might be able to do together with our combined strength. We have a lot of oil in this community, and it burns so bright. Let’s follow that light.

Amen.

*Hymn                            A Charge to Keep I Have                            #413

Offering

Offertory

*Doxology #94

*Prayer of dedication           

Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s Prayer

You do not want us

to be ignorant of your

dreams and hopes for us,

God of holiness,

so you speak to us in parables,

so we might pay careful attention

to your words;

you tell us stories about

our grandparents in the faith,

so we might become mentors

to our grandchildren, and theirs.

Filling us with the holy oil

of generosity and grace,

you make us ready to welcome

Jesus Christ into our lives,

and to open our hearts

to those who are in need.

On this day, we choose to serve you,

God in Community, Holy in One,

even as we pray as Jesus teaches us,

Our Father. . .

— written by Thom Shuman, and posted on his excellent Lectionary Liturgies website.  Visit that site for other great lectionary-based worship resources.

Our Father, Mother, Creator God, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. Lead us, not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory forever. Amen.

*Hymn                 O Morning Star, How Fair and Bright                  #247

Benediction

Postlude

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Staff

Natalie Bowerman Pastor

Betsy Lehmann Music Director

Joe White Custodian

Cassandra Brown Nursery Attendant