Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Today’s text

Matthew 21:6-13

But at midnight there was a cry, "Look! The bridegroom! Go out and meet him." Then all those wedding attendants woke up and trimmed their lamps, and the foolish ones said to the sensible ones, "Give us some of your oil: our lamps are going out." But they replied, "There may not be enough for us and for you; you had better go to those who sell it and buy some for yourselves." They had gone off to buy it when the bridegroom arrived. Those who were ready went in with him to the wedding hall and the door was closed. The other attendants arrived later. "Lord, Lord," they said, "open the door for us." But he replied, "In truth I tell you, I do not know you. So stay awake, because you do not know either the day or the hour."

Reflection

My Lord, are you really so ungracious that you would close the door to those who seek you? I am sobered by the finality of your refusal, and the chilling words: ‘I do not know you.’

But you do. You know me, and you have known me even when I have chosen not to know you. You know me when my heart wanders in far countries of forgetfulness, lost in anxieties over my life, unable to find my way back to the center of my soul where you abide, waiting for my return.

You know me even when I have fallen asleep in mad pursuits of eager ego, as I to make myself what I am not, as if I could convince others of my significance when I knew the truth that I am a nothing, a sham, except when I abide in your love.

You know me then, too, and so I come, knocking again on the door, begging you to open. And you do. Even now I enter that place where I know you in honest prayer.

So what am I to do with the harsh finality of your parable? Perhaps I might take it as warning that there is a falling asleep from which one may not wake, a terrible loss of your presence.

I have felt that loss, Jesus. We all have. Such loss can be permanent, you seem to say. So stay awake.

A warning, yet an invitation. You always invite, don’t you? And this one is to the holy nearness of that love who cannot be contained, to your unending celebration.

If your warning sounds harsh, even your harshness is born of love, your love for those who might be lost, breaking your own divine heart. Your words are born in love for me and for all you cherish that we may feast with you.

For you do, indeed, come, and will do so to bring to completion all you have started.

Pr. David L. Miller