The latest Sermon

“Running on Empty” 

There are two types of people in this world. 

People who fill their gas tank when it gets down to a quarter of a tank. 

And people who take the little gas pump symbol on their car's dashboard as a personal challenge. 

Now, the first group of people are responsible adults. They see that their gas tank is getting low, they stop at a gas station, fill up their tank, and go about their lives without giving their gas level another thought. 

The second group of people take a slightly different approach. They see that little yellow light come on, and they think, I've still got plenty of time. After all, they know their cars. They know that when the light first comes on, there's still enough gas left in the tank to make it home. 

So they keep driving. And then the negotiations begin. 

I can make it another ten miles. 

I'll just fill up tomorrow on my way to work. 

And before you know it, they're driving down the road, watching the needle get closer and closer to empty, placing an extraordinary amount of trust in the engineers who designed their fuel gauge. 

And here's the thing. Most of the time, they get away with it. They make it to the gas station. They fill up the tank. They go on with their lives. And because they got away with it once, they convince themselves they can probably get away with it again. 

Until the day they can't. Until the day there's an unexpected detour. Or the gas station they were counting on is closed. Or they discover that their car doesn't have quite as much gas left as they thought. 

And suddenly, what could have been a minor inconvenience becomes a much bigger problem. Because they are now running on empty. 

I wonder sometimes if we approach our faith in much the same way. 

We assume that because we've been Christians for a long time, because we've come to church and learned the stories of Scripture, that our faith will simply be there whenever we need it. And perhaps it will. 

But what happens when life takes an unexpected turn? 

What happens when the faith that seemed perfectly sufficient yesterday is suddenly being asked to carry us through something we never expected? 

Those are the kinds of questions Jesus raises in our Scripture reading this morning. 

Jesus tells a story about ten bridesmaids who have been invited to participate in a wedding celebration. All ten arrive with their lamps. All ten are expecting the bridegroom. And all ten appear ready for what comes next. 

But there's a problem. 

The bridegroom is delayed. 

And as the night stretches on, it becomes clear that while all ten bridesmaids were prepared for the celebration, only five were prepared for the waiting. And that distinction, I think, is where this parable begins to speak to us. 

Because the faith that sustains us in extraordinary moments is cultivated in ordinary ones. The trouble is, we don't discover just how important that cultivation is until the road becomes longer than we expected. 

Now, to understand what Jesus is doing with this parable, we need to remember where we are in Matthew's Gospel. Jesus is nearing the end of his earthly ministry. He's been teaching his disciples about the kingdom of heaven, about the future, and about what it means to remain faithful while they wait for God's promises to be fulfilled. 

And that question of waiting was especially important for the early Christian community. 

The first generations of Christians anticipated Christ's return, but as the years passed, they found themselves wrestling with a difficult question: What does it mean to remain faithful when Christ's return takes longer than expected? 

Matthew's Gospel speaks directly to that concern. 

And Jesus does so by telling a story about a wedding. 

Now, weddings in the ancient world looked a little different from the weddings we're accustomed to today. There wasn't  a carefully printed schedule telling everyone that the ceremony would begin at 4:30, the cocktail hour at 5:15, and dinner would be served promptly at 6:30. 

The arrival of the bridegroom was part of the celebration, and the bridesmaids had an important role to play in welcoming him and accompanying the wedding procession. 

Their lamps would provide light as the celebration continued into the evening. 

Jesus tells us that five of the bridesmaids were wise and five were foolish. But here's what I find interesting. At the beginning of the story, you wouldn't necessarily have been able to tell the difference. All ten bridesmaids showed up. All ten brought their lamps. And when the bridegroom was delayed, all ten became drowsy and fell asleep. Even the wise ones. Jesus doesn't tell us that five of them stayed awake all night, faithfully watching the horizon while the other five wandered off to do something irresponsible. 

No. 

Everybody got tired. Everybody fell asleep. The difference was that five of them had brought extra oil, and five had not. And that difference didn't seem particularly important when the evening began. It only became important when the bridegroom took longer to arrive than anyone expected. 

Sound familiar? 

I think most of us begin the important journeys of our lives with certain expectations. 

We imagine how our careers will unfold, what our families will look like, or how retirement will go. And we make plans based on those expectations. 

But then life happens. 

A job disappears. A relationship changes. A medical diagnosis interrupts our plans. And suddenly the future we imagined looks very different from the one we're actually living. Faith doesn't exempt us from life's difficulties. Faith helps shape how we live through them. 

Because there is a difference between a faith that depends upon everything going according to plan and a faith that has been nurtured deeply enough to endure when those plans change. 

Which brings us to the question at the heart of this parable: 

What are we doing today to cultivate the faith we're going to need tomorrow? 

It's at this point in the story that our parable shifts again. At midnight, someone announces that the bridegroom is finally coming. And suddenly, all ten bridesmaids wake up and begin preparing their lamps. But five of them discover that their lamps are going out. So they turn to the other five bridesmaids and ask them to share. And the wise bridesmaids say no. 

Now, I have to admit, that seems like a strange response from people Jesus has just described as wise. 

After all, isn't sharing one of the things we're supposed to do? 

Haven't we spent our entire lives in the church learning that when someone needs something and we have enough, we're supposed to help? And yet, here are five bridesmaids who have extra oil, refusing to share it with five bridesmaids who desperately need some. 

But notice what the wise bridesmaids say. 

They aren't refusing simply because they don't want to help. They're concerned that if they divide the oil, there won't be enough for anyone's lamps to remain lit. And I don't think Jesus is telling us that being prepared means looking out for ourselves and letting everyone else figure things out on their own. I think the oil invites us to consider something about faith that cannot simply be borrowed from someone else at the last minute. 

Because there are some things in life that take time to develop. 

You cannot sit down at a piano for the first time and expect to play a complicated piece of music simply because you've watched someone else do it. And you cannot expect a lifetime of spiritual maturity to develop overnight. 

Faith takes cultivation. It takes attention. It takes practice. And perhaps most importantly, it takes time. 

Now, the oil in Jesus' parable isn't explicitly identified with any particular spiritual practice. But I think it gives us a helpful way to consider the things that nurture and sustain our faith. 

Things like prayer, worship, studying Scripture, practicing forgiveness, and serving others. These practices matter because, over time, they shape us. Now none of these practices guarantees that life will be easy. But over time, they help form the kind of faith that can sustain us when life becomes difficult. 

And the same is true of the faith that teaches us to sustain one another. 

Because sooner or later, all of us will encounter moments when the road is longer than we expected. When our patience wears thin. When the world around us changes, and we're not quite sure what comes next. And when those moments arrive, the question isn't simply whether we have enough faith to get ourselves through them. It's whether we've cultivated a faith that helps us respond with wisdom, compassion, and love. 

And this is where I think we need to remember how Jesus ends the parable. The five who went looking for oil return to discover that the door has been shut. And when they ask to be admitted, the bridegroom tells them that he does not know them. 

Those are difficult words to hear. I don't think we should pretend otherwise. But I also don't think Jesus tells this story so that his disciples will spend their lives terrified of being locked out of heaven. He's speaking to people who will have to learn what it means to remain faithful over time. People who cannot know exactly when their waiting will end. 

And his message is that the way we live while we wait matters. 

Perhaps that's the invitation Jesus places before us this morning. 

To live with the hope and intention of people who believe God's promises are worth waiting for. To nurture the faith we've been given. To practice the love we've been shown. To become, little by little, the people Christ calls us to be. 

Because we don't know how long the waiting will last. We don't know everything the road ahead will bring. But we do know that the faith that sustains us in extraordinary moments is cultivated in ordinary ones. 

So we don't wait until the warning light comes on to think about whether there's enough gas in the tank. We cultivate our faith today. We practice compassion today. We love our neighbor today. Because that's how we prepare for whatever tomorrow may bring. 

And that's how we keep our lamps burning. 

Amen.