Ready or not

 

Matthew 25: 1-13
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
November 8, 2020

This past Tuesday, on Election Day, I stood out in front of the Newark High School as people were lining up to vote. I had on my clergy collar and I had a case of water, a bunch of snack bags, and an assortment of handmade cloth masks if anyone had need. I wanted to be there as a ministry of presence but also to keep eyes on folks, just in case someone got it into their head to cause some trouble.



Thankfully it was quiet all day. Everyone wore their masks or had one ready. I gave out a few masks to folks who wanted a spare. A few snacks went to children who came with an adult. I saw only one person with a Trump t-shirt and another with a red Make America Great Again hat, but overall the energy was subdued.



After about an hour in the cold and wind I realized that I hadn’t really secured a commitment from any of my colleagues, only vague promises from two of them that I might see them during the day. But then not much later, one of the poll workers came outside to see how long the line was and if everyone was okay. She came over to introduce herself and I noticed she was wearing, of all things, a UCC mask with the word “Love” on it. I asked her about it and told her that I was the pastor of the UCC church on Main St. She replied, “You couldn’t be Cynthia Robinson.” I smiled and said, “Yes, as a matter of fact I am. Why couldn’t I be?” She said, “Because your hair isn’t purple!” I told her I gave it up for COVID, like it was a season on the church calendar. She laughed and said, “Oh, you’re the other Cynthia Robinson!” referring to her dear friend and ours. It turns out her name is Cindy and she said I could come in to warm up and use the facilities when I needed to.



Later, it seemed at the right time, I struck up a conversation with a man who was wearing sweatpants I recognized from Cuffy’s on Cape Cod. After he voted he left and returned with a cup of hot coffee to keep me warm. A greeter for a senate candidate arrived just in time for me to take a break and get some lunch.



In the afternoon one of my colleagues, Tracy, arrived with her dog Chloe, and also Risa stopped on her way home, wanting to know if I needed anything. The three of us were chatting when we noticed a car had pulled up to the curb and an elderly woman was trying to help her husband out of the car. He was bent and frail, and it was obvious he was going to fall if he did not have more help.



As the three of us started toward the car, Ryan, a young man who had been greeting voters on behalf of his union quickly ran across the lawn and met us at the curb. Tracy is also a nursing home director and a registered nurse so she handed me the leash for her dog and took charge of the situation. Between the four of us and the woman and her husband, we made slow procession to the front door as Ryan pushed the wheelchair while Tracy made a sling for his feet with her scarf.



When they had finished voting, the same procession was made back to the car. It took some pains to safely hoist and nudge this determined voter into the passenger seat but soon he was secured with his seat belt and his wife gratefully got behind the wheel. But before we could stop her, she drove off leaving the walker and the wheelchair on the sidewalk. Once again Ryan quickly ran down the block and caught the couple at the stoplight, directing them to drive around the block so we could put the items in the car.



After they had pulled away, Tracy let out a gust of air and said, “So did we make all that effort just so he could vote for Trump?” and we laughed. Then Tracy got serious and said, “But you know what? The kingdom of God is bigger than that.”

Ready or not, life comes at us anyway. Sometimes we have what we need and sometimes we have to rely on the mercy of others and sometimes mercy is unjustly late to the party. The parable of the ten bridesmaids is intended to disturb us because we believe not only in fairness but justice and grace and mercy. Those who had enough oil seem more selfish than wise. How can one be ready, prepared for God’s kindom if one is unwilling to share? Trappist monk Thomas Merton wrote in a letter to Dorothy Day, “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbors worthy, if anything can.”



Those who appeared foolish, who knows what their circumstances were? And yet we don’t know any backstory, including the incredibly late and insensitive groom and an apparently absent bride. Aren’t we all responsible for our own light, ready to do our part? It’s like people who treat other people like they’re Google; like White people who ask Black people to teach us about racism; like the 90 million people who didn’t even vote; like being expected to reach across the aisle after four, really twelve years and longer of acrimony, obstruction, and division. And now the loss of over 240,000 lives and lights. No one wants to give fuel to that flame.



And now, here again, we have those who are preaching unity and good people on both sides, and others who have castigated everyone who voted for Democrats as a cabal of godless Socialists and only Republicans as White supremacists and fascists. And yet there are no “both sides” in this country if you’re:



· Disabled

· LGBTQ+

· Black, Indigenous, or a person of color

· Poor

· A non-Christian

· Addicted

· A trauma survivor



We’re either on THEIR side or we’re on our own side. We’re either pouring our oil into their lamps, sharing out of our abundance, responding out of our power and privilege or we’re on our side. But really I think it’s us who are broke when it comes to spirit and it is their light we need to follow to show us the way to the kindom of heaven. Either way it is the marginalized who systematically get left behind and worse.

If we’re going to talk about healing and division, let’s begin by healing the division within each of us, the spiritual void in us that we fill with convenience and materialism; let’s heal our spiritual problems of self-interest, greed, and apathy. 

Let’s heal the hundreds of children taken from their parents at the border by doing the hard work of reuniting them.

Let’s heal the moral courage of this nation by holding people accountable for the wrongs they have committed, for enabling evil to flourish and fascism to gain a foothold in our democracy.

Let’s heal the voting process so that EVERYONE can vote regardless of ability. 

Let’s heal the educational system so that EVERYONE has the same opportunities to achieve their goals.

Let’s heal American families by paying EVERYONE a living wage.

Let’s heal the healthcare system so that EVERYONE has access to quality medical care.

Let’s heal the deep wounds of racism and the slavery upon which this nation was built by paying reparations to Black Americans and returning all public lands back into Indigenous hands. Let’s heal the earth by putting the needs of the earth first.



Ready or not this future is coming, because the alternative is untenable. Ready or not we need to take care of each other so that we can move forward as one human race. Ready or not we will be asked to not only to share but to also shine our own light, light our own lamp, for love must act, as light must shine and fire must burn.

In truth, there is only one side: God’s side, Love’s side, the love your neighbor side, and we are all selfish and foolish and wise and woefully late and just in time. In the bold and beautiful words of Seamus Heaney:



“Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.

...

History says, don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.

Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there's fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky

That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
It means once in a lifetime
That justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.”




Benediction

Jesus said, “You ought always to pray and not to faint.”
Do not pray for easy lives;
Pray to be stronger people, a stronger person.
Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers,
But for power equal to your tasks.
Then, the doing of your work will be no miracle—
You will be the miracle.
Every day you will wonder at yourself and the richness of life
Which has come to you by the grace of God.