I don’t know how many of you hear the Gospel passage that I just read and feel a sense of vague anxiety or maybe even stronger – a sense of indignation or anger about who is in and who is out. Maybe someone hears this Gospel passage and feels secretly smug because you are someone who is always prepared – you know, who never lets your gas tank in your car go below half full. (I will confess to you that I am someone who is often driving on fumes.)

Even a chorale tune as powerfully beautiful as “Wachet Auf” cannot keep many from hearing a message of judgmental divisiveness and exclusion that has so often characterized the Christian Church. That threatening message is, “you’d better watch out – be good or you will be left behind or locked out.” Even in a church as progressive as the Episcopal Church can be, there is a considerable lack of confidence or assurance in the goodness, the grace, and generosity of God, and a considerable lack of compassion for the limitations of scripture texts – a considerable lack of imagination about where the good news might be, that is, what the liberating possibilities might be. And so, if you felt some of that anxiety, or some of that anger, or even some of that smugness, I want to invite you into a reading that is more hospitable – more welcoming, and even more compassionate, even as it shines light on our own behavior, even as it holds a mirror up to our own readiness for the invitation to the banquet.

First, I want to remind you that in any selection of scripture, we’re hearing a snippet of a much larger conversation. For example, between last week’s Gospel lesson from Matthew about genuine humility, and this week’s passage about wise and foolish virgins (really not bridesmaids at all), are two full chapters of Jesus’ teaching. After the teaching about genuine humility, Jesus goes on a tear with a scorching critique of religious scholars and teachers who lock people out of the kingdom of heaven, who do not go in themselves and when others are going in, stop them. [quote] “Woe to you religious hypocrites,” he says, “who cross sea and land to make a single convert and make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves….you have neglected…justice and mercy and faith.”[end quote] It is a lengthy blistering testimony detailing the charges against religious authorities who wear fancy clothes and sit in seats of honor and place heavy burdens on people who are disenfranchised and disheartened.

Then Jesus warns his disciples that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better, so “hang in there,” he says, “hold on to what is eternal” His disciples want to know when it will get better and his answer is that no one knows, so be ready. Keep awake can also be translated, be alert, and be alive. Choose life so that you will be ready when God’s grace invites you in. So surely this parable is not here to encourage a different set of religious leaders to threaten exclusion to people who are not smart or who did not remember to bring everything they needed.

The kingdom of heaven will be like this, Jesus begins. Jesus was not talking about some never-never land after death place called heaven. Jesus’ ministry was all about inviting people to experience the realm of God. It is close, Jesus would say again and again. It’s very near you. It’s all around you. It’s in you. You’re in it. As Paul Tillich taught, “God is so immanent as to appear transcendent.”

Maybe you (you who are over 50) remember an old Palmolive dish soap television commercial which ran for many years, starting in 1966. I didn’t watch much TV as a young child, but this commercial captured my attention. It’s funny because it wasn’t for a toy or something else related to children. It was for dish soap. The scene was a beauty parlor at a manicure table. The client was talking to the beauty operator (as they were sometimes called) about “dish-pan hands.” That term frightened me. I didn’t know what dish-pan hands were – but I knew I didn’t want to be anywhere near them! I certainly didn’t want to have them! The beauty-operator named Madge was describing the dish soap that was very gentle and mild and she said to the client “you’re soaking in it!” And in response to the startle of her client, Madge says, “relax!” “You’re soaking in it…relax” is what I often think of when I imagine what Jesus was saying to his followers who were fearful, weary, and possibly even annoyed and angry, when he taught them about the realm of God.

I’m drawn to stories about how we are soaking in the realm of God. There’s one about the student who travels to speak with a great teacher. When the student arrives, the teacher asks what she can do for the student. The student says, “I want you to show me how to find God.” The teacher replied, “I cannot show you where God is any more than I can show a fish where the water is.” Or I think of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poetry about how “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God; but only he who sees takes off his shoes – the rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.”

So the realm of God – the kingdom of heaven – is going to be like this (and it’s been like this and it is like this): unmarried people (both male and female) are waiting for a big celebration and yet some are prepared and some are unprepared. In Matthew’s Gospel, the good and the bad are always all mixed up together in the realm of God – and indeed, one cannot tell which is which except in hindsight.  That’s one of Matthew’s themes. They’ve all fallen asleep – that is, they are all unaware – unawake – unalive. The wake up call comes and it’s apparent that some are ready for the party and some aren’t. The ones who are ready seem very wise and the ones who are not seem quite foolish. This is how it is, how it has been, and how it will be in the realm of God.

So then what? The ones who have enough don’t share and the ones who don’t have enough leave. Here is where the trouble is as I read it. This is where the dramatic tension enters the story. And I want to ask what makes the people who have resources not share? What makes the people who don’t have resources leave? They go off searching in the pitch-black darkness of midnight for oil dealers. Of course this is futile – it’s completely ridiculous. And by the time they come back they are unable to get into the banquet because they are simply unrecognizable.

I’ll tell you what I think makes human beings who have resources not share. Fear. Fear of scarcity. (Perhaps the experience of scarcity.) Fear of running out. Fear of not having enough for themselves. And I’ll tell you what makes the human beings who don’t have resources leave. Shame. Shame is what keeps people from asking for help. (I don’t actually think it’s pride – I think it’s shame.) Shame is what keeps people from insisting (and from believing) that the community can give them what they need.  Jesus was telling this privately to his disciples. He was not speaking to the crowds, not to religious authorities or other teachers. He was trying to communicate something to his disciples.

Here’s what I think is going on. It’s foreshadowing. Do you remember anything about Jesus’ followers falling asleep? It’s at the end in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was praying just before he was arrested in the middle of the night. He told them to stay awake and when he needed them the most, they didn’t. They couldn’t do it.

And even though they completely failed at keeping Jesus company in his last free hours, somehow they managed to carry on or we wouldn’t even have this Gospel. I think it’s because they learned how to keep watch. They learned something about staying awake – and being prepared. The thing is, one person cannot stay awake all the time. One person cannot keep watch indefinitely. But in a community, we can take turns staying awake. In a community, we can share the responsibility of being prepared. In a community we can learn to share the resources that we have. In a community no one person may have enough – but all of us together can have plenty. In a community everyone can participate in the banquet if those who have resources share and those without resources don’t walk away into the darkness.

Of course I’m talking about resources in the broadest sense – financial, spiritual, physical resources of time and energy. Everyone can participate in the banquet if those who have resources share and those without resources stay.  It’s a stretch of course – stretching beyond the fear of scarcity; and stretching beyond the shame of unpreparedness or lack. The best way to stretch of course is to relax and remember that we are soaking in the realm of God.

It’s pledge stewardship season at Emmanuel Church. It’s time to join in pooling our resources for the coming year so that more (and more) people can experience the love of God through this community, in the City of Boston and well beyond. I’m asking you to stretch beyond the fear of scarcity and beyond the shame of unpreparedness or lack. It’s a stretch that I am asking each of you – all of you – to make for the sake of building up this community for people we don’t even know yet. Some will come with oil in their lamps and others will come with nothing. As a faith community, I want us to follow the community of saints who have gone before us, who have entrusted this parish to our care – to our stewardship. Pray that God reveals to us that grace so that we can become an even bolder witness to God’s love for all people.

So let’s not be the ones who label some people wise and some foolish, who decide who is in and who is out. Let’s be the ones who know our own capacity to be wise as well as our capacity to be foolish. Let’s be the ones who are sometimes well-prepared and sometimes ill-prepared for the banquet. Let’s be the ones who bravely share our resources even when it looks like there’s not enough to go around. And let’s be the ones who trust that even if or when we stumble away into the darkness, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God.