TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2014 MATT 25:1-12

 

When I was a boy there were seven words I dreaded hearing.  They were small words, each one but a single syllable.  But when strung together they formed a question that overwhelmed me with a flood of strong emotions.  I didn’t like those emotions.  Anger was probably the strongest, followed by resentment that someone bigger and more powerful than me was about to put me in my place.  The seven words were only ever spoken by my father.  You may have jumped to the conclusion that these seven words were a prequel to punishment.  The equivalent of ‘wait till your father gets home’.  But they weren’t.  On the contrary, they were words of grace.  They offered a second chance.  A mulligan of compassion.  The scene was battle.  Royalty, knights on warhorses, senior clerics, and fortifications.  Chess.  And my dad was good.  I never beat him ever, not even once.  He would often tease me in a generous, loving, gentle kind of way.  He’d fake losing, make some stupid and intentional mistakes just to encourage me, but I saw through his pretense.  I still knew that the bull elephant had the beating of the young male pretender.  And then after trying to encourage me, like a cat playing with a mouse, he looked at his watch, remembered he had something to do and produced the coup de grace, seemingly snatching unlikely victory out of the jaws of defeat.  He never let me win.  And I wouldn’t want him to either.  There’s only thing worse than losing and that is being gifted victory by an opponent who pities you. 

Now, those seven words.  They were these.  “Do you want to take that back?”  He’d say it a friendly kind of way; he clearly thought he was doing me a favor.  And it made my blood boil.  I know he was being nice.  I know he was giving me another chance, but all it did was make me furious.  I would make a game-changing move, I thought, a move so cunning and so devious that there was no way that even Bobby Fischer could see what I was up to.  And I’d be doing my internal touchdown dance, and soaking up the glory of the crowd cheering and calling out my name.  I’d be making a mental lap of honor, waving at my fans, and stooping to pick up the flowers they were throwing at my feet; I’d even take a Union Jack from someone and drape it around my shoulders.  And then he’d say it.  “Do you want to take that back?”  But he wouldn’t tell me why it was a terrible move.  I had to work that out for myself.  So I would sit there grinding my teeth, fuming, resenting his generosity, and longing for Fritz, our miniature dachshund, to trot happily past with his tail wagging, and accidentally knock all the pieces off the board.  But he never did.  I couldn’t stand it.  Do you want to take that back?  No, I don’t.  Where’s that dog when you need him?  (By the way, why do all dachshunds have German names?) 

 

Do you want to take that back?  Of course there are some things you can’t take back.  You can’t take back hurtful words.  Once you’ve said them they’re out there, try to catch them in a net before they reach the person’s ears and you just can’t do it.  You can’t take back your promise once you’ve signed a contract.  You can’t take back the answer on the exam paper once you’ve handed it in.  And you can’t take back your decision not to buy a wedding gift when the shops are shut.  There’s nothing you can do, except go the wedding without a gift.  And it’s a wedding that is the setting for our Gospel reading.  It’s one of Jesus’ parables.  Little stories that he makes up to illustrate a deep truth about God and his kingdom.  Now this parable isn’t one that rings many bells for today’s readers.  It is the story of ten bridesmaids, who are waiting for a bridegroom.  Five have oil for their lamps and five do not.  Now the groom takes longer than expected with the result that the five bridesmaids without enough oil experience the shame of their lamps going out.  And Jesus calls them foolish.  But the other five, who were farsighted enough to prepare for the groom being late had enough oil; and Jesus calls them wise.  It Is a strange story to our ears, so let’s try to get back into Jesus’ culture and try to get the meaning. 

 

Read the full Sermon here: http://s3.amazonaws.com/dfc_attachments/public/documents/3200572/Matt_25v1.htm