We have finished the vineyard parables, have considered the great commandment of loving God with all our heart, mind and soul, and also loving our neighbors as ourselves. Last week Jesus told us to "get real", and showed us how to practice what we preach.
This week we learn more about how to "get real," by giving up "false idols" in the Joshua scripture, and being attentive, "be awake" so we don't miss the kingdom, when the bridegroom comes. We must keep our lamps filled with oil and keep our wicks trimmed. We don't want to miss out on the real deal.
What must we do to "get real," and not miss out on the kingdom, and working in the vineyard? In "Be Prepared," D. Brent Laytham and Michelle Clifton-Soderstrom tell us "It's easy to read the parable of the ten virgins as a tribute to two core American values: Individualism and meritocracy. Individualism and meritocracy. Individualism imagines the kingdom of heaven like this: "I got mine," the five wise virgins say to the foolish ones, "so you get your own." That sounds like our culture, which encourages us to "look out for number one." Hearing the parable this way affirms a selfish individualism, rather than the mind of Christ—who came to seek the lost, to serve the neighbor, to lay down his life for his friends. Meritocracy imagines the kingdom of heaven like this: "Everybody finally gets what they deserve. The wise virgins looked out for number one and earned their delight by being prepared. The foolish virgins, who played when they should have been working, deserved their despair." That sounds like our culture's approbation of ingenuity and effort, but it doesn't sound like the kingdom of God. The password for entrance into the kingdom has never been "try harder," and the kingdom's economy has never been one of scarcity ("If I share with you, I won't have enough"). Instead, the kingdom of heaven is about an abundance, given to all.
So how might we read the parable as Christians called to serve, love and give?
So how might we read the parable as Christians called to serve, love and give?
Walter Brueggemann ties the gospel passage into the Joshua passage in his homily "The Liturgy of Abundance, The Myth of Scarcity" Consider this description of the kingdom of our Lord :" The forgiveness of debts is the hardest thing to do--harder even than raising the dead to life. Jesus left ordinary people dazzled, amazed, and grateful; he left powerful people angry and upset, because very time he performed a wonder, they lost a little of their clout. The wonders of the new age of the coming of God's kingdom may scandalize and upset us. They dazzle us, but they also make us nervous. The people of God need pastoral help in processing this ambivalent sense of both deeply yearning for God's new creation and deeply fearing it.The feeding of the multitudes, recorded in Mark's Gospel, is an example of the new world coming into being through God. When the disciples, charged with feeding the hungry crowd, found a child with five loaves and two fishes, Jesus took, blessed ,broke and gave the bread. These are the four decisive verbs of our sacramental existence. Jesus conducted a Eucharist, a gratitude. He demonstrated that the world is filled with abundance and freighted with generosity. If bread is broken and shared, there is enough for all. Jesus is engaged in the sacramental, subversive reordering of public reality."
The lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear, the sick are healed, debts are forgiven and prisoners are set free. And death is not the end of the story. Thanks be to God.
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