OT Lesson: Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25 (CEB)
Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders of Israel, its leaders, judges, and officers. They presented themselves before God. Then Joshua said to the entire people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Long ago your ancestors lived on the other side of the Euphrates. They served other gods. Among them was Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor. I took Abraham your ancestor from the other side of the Euphrates. I led him around through the whole land of Canaan. I added to his descendants and gave him Isaac.
So now, revere the Lord. Serve Him honestly and faithfully. Put aside the gods that your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates and in Egypt and serve the Lord. But if it seems wrong in your opinion to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Choose the gods whom your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But my family and I will serve the Lord.”
Then the people answered, “God forbid that we ever leave the Lord to serve other gods! The Lord is our God. He is the one who brought us and our ancestors up from the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. He has done these mighty signs in our sight. He has protected us the whole way we’ve gone and in all the nations through which we’ve passed. The Lord has driven out all the nations before us, including the Amorites who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.”
Then Joshua said to the people, “You can’t serve the Lord, because He is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He won’t forgive your rebellion and your sins. If you leave the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn around and do you harm and finish you off, in spite of having done you good in the past.”
Then the people said to Joshua, “No! The Lord is the one we will serve.”
So Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.”
They said, “We are witnesses!”
“So now put aside the foreign gods that are among you. Focus your hearts on the Lord, the God of Israel.”
The people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and will obey Him.”
On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people and established just rule for them at Shechem.
NT Lesson: Matthew 25:1-13 (NRSV)
Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, “Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.” Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.” But the wise replied, “No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.” And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, “Lord, lord, open to us.” But he replied, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
Sermon
Introduction
Good morning. We are having unusually nice weather in this November. I hope you all enjoy this weather while it lasts. Speaking about the nice winter weather, it happened once when I was in Winnipeg Canada. The weather was 60s until mid December which was extremely weird to me because the regular Winnipeg weather in December is between -20 to -40. According to the church members there who were over 90 years old then, it happened once before about sixty years ago. So from this year, it was about 75 years ago. Then I realised two things. One. Winter nights in Winnipeg without snow covering the whole world is really dark. It was amazing how much the snow brightens the winter nights. Two. The church attendance got extremely low. Not like Americans, Canadians are crazy about camping. They usually go their last camping at the end of September, but the weather was really nice in that year through mid December, which nobody predicted, every weekend everybody thought ‘Oh, this might be the last chance for camping.’ Most people went camping and the city was almost empty every weekend, and people barely came to church, except me who did not like camping unlike other Canadians. Considering this, maybe I was predestined to be an American, instead of a Canadian. Or maybe I was not qualified to be a Canadian because I was not crazy about camping. Anyway, the moral is that we need to enjoy this nice weather as long as we have it. And today, I especially thank all our veterans for their service and sacrifice. To express my gratitude, we will have the Veterans Lunch coming Wednesday at Pizza Hut. The lunch is on me. All the veterans and their spouses are more than welcome to join the lunch.
Biblical Wedding
In the Bible we see lots of weddings, especially in the parables of Jesus. I will deal with the wedding more in detail at another chance, but today, let me talk briefly about it. In the biblical days, the wedding preparation begins from the engagement at which time the future groom pays the girl’s father the money, so practically it was more like a purchase rather than wooing. From this point, the guy has a choice either to bring her home right away and live together, or wait until the actual wedding ceremony which will customarily happen in a year or two. The wedding ceremony generally lasts five to seven days and during the ceremony the family has to provide all the guests unlimited food and drink. That is why Jesus turned the water into wine unless the host family must be put to shame and become the mockery in the town throughout their lifetime. The actual wedding ceremony begins either late afternoon or early evening when the groom and his friends march to the bride’s house to fetch her. During the procession, there could be some performance or they may do some fun games along the way. And thus the duration of the procession of the groom’s party varied. Because there was no cell phone back then, there was no way for the bride’s party to know the departure time of the groom and also what was happening on the way. There was nothing they can do except simply waiting. With the arrival of the groom, the feast begins. But at the first night, the bride and groom do not sleep together. The bride and her friends withdraw to another room to spend the night together by themselves. The next day, during the daytime, the couple goes into a canopy in the garden surrounded by curtains, and do the first consummation in the presence of all the wedding guests. And right after that, they have to show the wedding guests the proof of virginity which is a blood stained blanket. The bride’s father is supposed to keep the blanket for the rest of his life just in case the groom later accuse her for not being a virgin, which can lead to divorce. Anyway, after the consummation, they all eat and drink for five more day. So this is the basic structure of the Biblical Wedding.
Getting Ready
In the parable of Jesus today, one thing is true and another thing is not quite right. It is true that nobody knows when the groom’s procession will arrive to the wedding venue. But it is not actually true that they lock the wedding venue, because the wedding is open to public and the guests can come and go any time. But this is quite OK because this story is a parable, not a documentary. But in our spiritual wedding with Jesus on the last day, the wedding venue will be locked just like the parable of Jesus today, because there will be no guests. We are not guests. We are all brides of Jesus Christ, who is our eternal groom. Back to the parable, there are ten bridesmaids waiting for the groom to come. Since it was late night, they all had oil lamps. Five of them were wise enough to prepare extra oil, while the other five were not wise that they did not prepare any oil. The problem was that the groom came much later than they expected, and they all ran out of olive oil in their lamps. So the foolish women went to buy oil when the wise ones simply refilled their lamps from the flasks. And meanwhile the groom arrived just like the Murphy’s law, and the wedding venue was shut from inside, and the foolish women were left out. This parable is connected to the teachings of Jesus Christ and apostle Paul urging us to stay awake spiritually, and the traditional interpretation of this parable is that the oil is the Holy Spirit. And I totally agree with that. But the Bible can be interpreted in many different ways and we do not have to be locked in for just one interpretation. So I think this parable could mean the general preparation and readiness, which of course includes but not limited only to the Holy Spirit.
Since today is Veterans Sunday, let me bring an example of military. I served the Korean army in two different locations. The first one was just underneath of DMZ. About Z, the last Alphabet, I say it zed (because I used to live in Canada) and Samuel says zee. One day last week Samuel was annoyed about my pronunciation and told me, “It is not Canada. You are in America. Say it zee!” When it comes to English, Samuel thinks he has more authority than I do. Anyway, It was an artillery unit and there was this rule of Five-Minute-Readiness. 24-7, whenever the siren goes off, we have to fire the cannons within five minutes at the targets in North Korea whose GPS coordinates we already have. This readiness includes, for example at night, waking up from the sleep, wearing all the necessary armours, running to the 155MM guns, putting the shell and gunpowder, aiming and bang! All these within five minutes. And the thing is, nobody knows when will the siren go off. We do the drills a lot, but there was no notice in advance. To do all these within just five minutes, you have to be fully ready 24-7. And this is what Jesus is talking about. Get fully ready 24-7 spiritually.
Serving the Lord
Then the question is, for what we need to be ready as Christians. For the soldiers at the artillery units underneath DMZ, that is for firing cannon shells. But for us Christians, what do we get ready for? Joshua gave us the answer and said, “my family and I will serve the Lord.” And he asks the Israelites and us to choose today whom we will serve. The people of Israel answered Joshua, “God forbid that we ever leave the Lord to serve other gods!” And as Christians we answer the same that we will serve God only, that we will follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ our Saviour only. Serving the Lord can be done in many different ways, and it is not that one way is better than the other. The most basic and simple way of serving God is coming to church and worship Him on Sunday mornings. But the thing is if your weekly worshipping God is nothing but going through the motion, it can be meaningless and pointless. God speaks to us through the mouth of prophet Amos, “I hate, I despise your festivals and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt-offerings and grain-offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps.” Only when we worship God wholeheartedly with the genuine love, then it will be pleasing to God. There must be reason why God accepted the offerings from Abel, but not from Cain.
Serving the Community
The other way of serving God is serving and helping our fellow Christians. While washing the smelly feet of the disciples, Jesus commanded us to love one another as He loved us, and to serve each other as He served us. So we need to help our Christians brothers and sisters far and near. While helping our Christians sisters and brothers, we also need to help those people in need again far and near. How can we do that? Maybe you can establish another Caring Centre in Lebanon. Maybe you can establish another Malawi project, or how about Congo project? Uganda project sounds great too. If establishing your own ministry is too much or beyond your willingness and ability, it is always a good idea to support the existing ones. The other day, I went to the Caring Centre to deliver the donations which you brought to church. There I saw Donna Bevington, volunteering and working at the centre. That is, I think, a great example of serving God in this community. And you guys donate many things to the Caring Centre, and also to the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance whenever there are great and urgent needs either globally or domestically. That is also a great example of serving God. And your offerings at this church helps not only maintaining this building but also helps to do good things far and near. And this church wants to serve the Lord through serving you by properly worshipping God together and maintaining the faith and the fellowship of the saints in this congregation. And as a part of the much bigger church of the Presbyterian Church of USA, we can do more and bigger things together. And year-end is always a good time to contribute in terms of tax credit for next April.
Charity Can Be Toxic
Actually this point was supposed to be the beginning of the second half of the sermon, but I am already at the bottom of page six, and page seven is the limit, so I am going to talk about the second half at another Sunday. But let me say only the conclusion of the second half. When we help other people, we’d better be wise because unless there are always possibilities that we may ruin and destroy those people through our help and generosity. And even though our intentions are all good, if the result is bad, that is not what God wants. God urges us through Amos to let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Ruining people with good intentions is not righteousness. I believe that justice and righteousness are the good results with good will. Jesus told His disciples to be innocent as doves, but at the same time to be wise as serpents. Of course we should help people in need, but we’d better do it wisely. And to do it wisely like the five wise women in the parable today, we need to be ready to discern. And discerning the need of the people is one of the most difficult things in helping people. And to confess, I am not good at it. I am quite gullible so when some people fake it, I most likely fall for it. If we consumes all our resources to those fakers, then we cannot help those people who are in actual need. What I found is that the Caring Centre and Live for Life do much better job at discerning the needs of the people than I do. That is one of the big reasons why we work together with those organisations, and help people through them. Next Sunday, Michelle Standeford, the founder of Live for Life Indiana will come and speak for her ministry. That means, I will not preach next Sunday, which is like a Thanksgiving gift for you all. This will a great opportunity for us to learn more about the ministry of Live for Life Indiana.
Conclusion
I mentioned a few ways of serving God, but these are not the only ways of serving God. There must be million more ways to serve our great God. And you can think of your own creative ways of serving our awesome God who is so creative that He actually created the whole universe. In that way, I think God is all for the creativity, never against it. So, think of your own creative ways of serving God in your own circumstances and environments, at home, at work, and in the neighbourhood. And if you come up with any brilliant ideas, please share them with us. Friends, let us dedicate ourselves in serving God like Joshua said, “my family and I will serve the Lord.” And let us be creative in the ways of serving our Saviour who came not to be served but to serve. Amen.
Comments
Post a Comment