I was in one of our local hospitals visiting this past week and I rode up and down the elevator with some elevator maintenance people. I believe it was Bill Cosby, who recommended that if you are ever on an elevator that “cuts loose” and is in free-fall, the solution is to wait until it’s about ten inches from the ground and jump up. I thought that was creative – don’t think it would work – but it was creative. Well, I think in life we tend to do that. We tend in our spiritual lives, in our relational lives, to wait until the last minute and try to rally. It’s fairly American. We like the long bomb from our own end zone, we like the last minute basket from half-court to win the game, we like the last minute goal in soccer to win the soccer match…and on and on. We like that and tend to be that way and it translates into our spiritual and relational lives as well, I think, in our culture.

 My friend, Steve, who was a college roommate, ended up living in Wheeling with a number of us after we finished college. We ran around together and Steve, literally, did run. He was a runner in school and we ran some road races a number of years and a number of pounds ago and Steve ran the half-marathon in Wheeling, the Wheeling Distance Run and the rest of us cheered him on in this particular year. He decided he was going to sign up, which he did, and we noticed that Steve did not start running to get in shape and in training for the running – he did nothing. We asked him about that and Steve said he was trying a different philosophy; he was functioning with a “total rest philosophy” of training for the race. He was going to do absolutely nothing until the day of the race. We thought it might be a little shaky but we went along with it and went with Steve to the starting line, cheered him on, and then went to about the ten or eleven mile marker at the race. When we saw Steve the next moment he looked like “he had been rode hard and put away wet.” He was really struggling in the race. He made it through, but barely, realizing that the total rest philosophy didn’t really work.

Well, I think we do that spiritually. We tend to practice as a culture the total rest philosophy. We completely rest and all but ignore our spiritual lives until the crisis comes and then when the crisis hits we find there is little or no spiritual capital, there are little or no inner-resources or inner-relational resources to draw on. That is really what this parable is about, at least in part. Jesus draws from scenes in Palestine in His day and time that would have been very familiar. Those people would have experienced this very thing, even would experience it to this day in Palestinian villages. A wedding was a huge event in the life of a village. It would involve, virtually, all of the people in the village, a lot of planning and a lot of excitement. The invitations would go out for a wedding celebration but there would be no specific time or day. “You are invited to a wedding. We’ll let you know when it begins,” is the kind of invitation that would be sent. So people would be on alert, the wedding might be that night, it might be the next night, and it might be two weeks later. The announcement would go out that the bride and groom have come, the wedding has started, come and join us, and everyone would gather. Well, Alexander Findley, about a generation ago, experienced just that. Traveling to a Galilean village, he came across about ten young women, dressed up, dancing in the streets, ahead of his car. He asked his guide what that was about and was told they were bridesmaids, heading to keep the bride company, waiting for the groom to arrive. He said, “Is there any chance of seeing that wedding?” His guide said, “No, the wedding invitation has gone out but the wedding could be tonight, it could be tomorrow, or it could be next week. There is no way you can go to the wedding.” He also explained that in that village, a village without any streetlights, it was illegal to be out on the streets without your own lamp, at night, which plays into this story. And so it is that the groom tries to catch the wedding party napping, to surprise them in an unexpected point in time. It’s kind of a game that’s played, and once he does surprise them and comes into the wedding banquet the door is shut. And to this day the custom is that no one is admitted once the party begins. The groom comes, the door is shut and latecomers are not admitted. And so Jesus tells this story that would have been very familiar - ten virgins, ten bridesmaids. Five have lamps with oil and oil reserves in a flask and the other five have no reserves and while they are waiting they fall asleep, waiting for the groom to arrive. It is no sin to sleep, it’s all right. They all sleep. But five of them who were prepared slept with the true security of having been prepared for the whole event, and five slept with a sense of false security. They are not prepared. This parable is one of preparedness. The crisis comes, which is a crisis that can bring good and bad. The crisis for those who were unprepared is that they were left out of the wedding celebration. But for those who were prepared, they have prepared really for the best. They have prepared for the great celebration. The word is “Don’t miss it!” Be ready to receive the joy and the peace and celebration of the Kingdom of God when it comes. Build into your lives this oil of faith and character and inner support of the presence of the Holy Spirit of Christ – His presence, His strength.

Well, the five with the oil in this story, when they are asked to share the oil,  tell the other five, “You better go to the merchants. We really don’t have enough for all of us.” It sounds pretty heartless. It sounds pretty un-Christlike for a parable in the New Testament, and yet, we press the story a little too far to make this observation. The point really is there are some things that cannot be borrowed; there are some things that cannot be loaned to others. Such as the case in life with our spiritual selves. We can’t loan character to someone else. We can’t loan them spiritual inner-resources. We can only gain them for ourselves. They have to be personally put in place. Each of us is called to prepare personally and this parable calls us to that. There are things that cannot be borrowed. You cannot borrow a relationship with God from someone else. You can’t borrow a relationship with Christ from someone else. You can’t borrow character.

I can remember as a little boy in early grade school, seeing the image of Premier Khrushchev of the Soviet Union, pounding his shoe on the podium, declaring, “We will bury you,” to the United States. As a little boy, that was very, very frightening for me. Some of you may remember that. If you don’t, it was in the midst of the Cold War when everyone was afraid that the Soviet Union was going to drop a big bomb on us, or many bombs. There was a great deal of fear in the air and, as a boy, I remember being worried about that for a while, but I borrowed some sense of peace of mind and heart from my parents. My father, I knew, had fought alongside his compatriots in a big war and won it. We were the toughest and strongest military on the planet. We knew that as we played army out in the neighborhood – we always wanted to be the United States. So we knew all those things as young boys, and I borrowed my father’s and his generation’s peace of mind about that. I leaned on the fact that our military was strong and that my Dad could take anybody that came along. Well, that worked for a while but, as you know, we can’t borrow other person’s strength and character; we have to stand for ourselves at some point. You really can’t just muster up those inner-resources by borrowing them from someone else and you can’t muster up those inner-resources instantly, on the spot. The total rest philosophy, in terms of spiritual strength and character, just doesn’t work. Certain things can’t be had at the last minute.

I can remember when our older daughter, Lindsay, when we lived in New Wilmington, was coming up to the Field Day that, in fact, our daughter Ellie mentioned in her sermon last week. It was a big event in the grade school and the middle school; a field day with various running events and track events, softball throw and various things. One day I came home from work and Lindsay was just lining up to run a couple of laps around the house, in the yard. I said, “Lindsay, what are you doing?” She said, “I’m getting ready for field day, I’m getting in shape.” I said, “Are you? When is field day?” She said, “Tomorrow!” It was the right idea. Maybe the timing was off a little bit. One day was probably not going to do it. But we tend to be like that. We can’t really build that inner strength in an instant – it has to be done over time - building inner resources, inner receptors for the strength that only Christ can impart.

A couple that I have know over the years, Alex and Sharon, were moving through their lives and seemed to be doing just fine. They had a very nice income, they had horses and a home with barns where they could have their horses and ride. They had vehicles and vacations and recreation that most anyone would envy, but, as a result, they felt no particular need for God or sense of a need for God or faith. They had no hostility toward God but God was simply not on the radar screen for them. And then there was a sudden tragedy and this is when I actually met them, in the midst of, and reaction to a tragedy, the death of a son…out of the blue, completely unexpected. Suddenly they were grasping for resources that it became apparent they did not have. And as people of faith gathered around them to pray for them, to love them and support them, and hope for the best in their lives, we observed this struggle to try to get a hold of some kind of inner strength or inner resources. And the tragedy of it was that their marriage fell apart, their family fell apart for lack of inner strength and lack of the resources that only Christ can give. It was apparent to me that the resources were available but they didn’t have the receptors to receive them. Alex went to a very strict fundamentalist faith that did have the affect of bolstering him up, but it didn’t do much for the relationships in his life. His wife Sharon moved to something of an agnostic or atheist stance, which didn’t give her the resources she needed either. It was a tragic scene and a tragic event, seeing them struggle to try to find a handle that they simply could not get. They couldn’t perceive the resources that were there with them; they couldn’t get a hold of them. They did not have the receptors in place for them.

In contrast, another couple in that same timeframe, Kelly and Jim, active in the church for years, faithful and involved regularly overtime in the ministry of the church, also faced a great tragedy in their lives, the death of a daughter. Suddenly, out of the blue. And in their case, they had inner resources that had been built in, one drop at a time, one step at a time into their lives, and the community of faith surrounded them and they did have the receptors to receive that. And while the tragedy was unspeakable, and the pain unimaginable, they made it through and they found the strength they needed and the perspective they needed in that community of faith. They had the receptors to receive it – which Alex and Sharon just didn’t have. It is vital and I believe Jesus is telling us in this story that it is vital in our lives, to be involved in His family, in the community of faith, to build in the only resources that can get us through the tragedies, the crises in life that we will certainly face as we journey through our lives. To build them in, one step at a time, through involvement in the community of faith.

A man had a vision of eternal life. He was met by an angel and the angel was talking to him about what was to come and he said, “I have a question, do you mind answering a question?” And he said, “No, it would be fine.” He said, “What about heaven and hell? What’s heaven like? What’s hell like?” And so the angel took him to a doorway and she opened the doors and he looked and there was a huge banquet hall with a table laden with incredible food and drink, as far as the eye could see…people at every seat. The only problem was, the people were starving, they were emaciated, skin and bones, their hair falling out, drawn, hollow cheeks. She then closed the doors and took this man to the next door, opened the door and there was the exact same scene – a feast table laden with food as far as you could see, drink, people sitting at every seat. But these people were well fed, ruddy of complexion, joyful, laughing, getting along wonderfully. She closed the door and the man said, “What’s the difference?” She said, “Well, if you noticed on the tables, the forks are three feet long. You can’t feed yourself…In heaven we feed each other.” In heaven we feed each other. The resources that we so desperately need can only be found in the community of Christ, in His church where we feed each other. You can’t find them by yourself. You can’t find them in an instant, at the moment of crisis. You can’t borrow them from someone else that you observed has a living faith. It doesn’t work that way. Those resources must be built in over time, little by little. Just as you train for a race, building stamina and strength, one day at a time. So Christ calls us to be ready, not ready just to avoid the crisis of missing the great celebration and the great joy, the festival, but to be prepared and ready for the best in life and the best in life eternal. It’s necessary to receive and to build in the inner resources of Christ. First, we must be able to perceive them and then we must be able to receive them and access His perspective, His power in life. That takes involvement in the community of faith.

A friend of mine, who was one of my Fellowship of Christian Athletes kids in New Wilmington, went on to play footfall at Mt. Union College. He went there on a scholarship. I found out something I didn’t know when he was back visiting and I talked with him.  Mt. Union College invites you to be on the football team if you are in school there and anyone who wants to be on the team is on! You sign up and you are on the team! There is no cutting of players; there is no elimination of players. They have a huge football team. You sign up, you get a uniform, and you are on the sidelines. Now, you may look like a football player and have the status of a football player, but there is a certain number of those people who have no clue what football is about. They are working on that. It’s being put in place as they gather and talk about football and breath in football things and work out and get in shape. They are building in the resources as they go. Others arrive having had the resources in place, like my friend Todd. He had played for a long time; he had the strength, the body; he had the moves and this feel for football. Well, life is like that. We are invited by Christ, as a free gift, to come onboard and have the status of a Child of God but then we are encouraged by parables like this one, to get involved and become Children of God. To build in those inner resources into our lives that only Christ can build in us. To establish the right patterns and inner resources. The receptors! The ways in which we can connect, the pathways in our inner lives so that we can receive the resources that are necessary to live life fully and completely and well.

My great uncle George, who lived on our McCoy farm up in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, had some unusual habits. My father used to go there in the summers and work on the farm and he talked about Uncle George whose lifetime fell somewhere between the horse and buggy era and the automobile era. My Dad talked about the fact that when they would go into town, Uncle George would drive the Model T-Ford and when he would drive he would say, “Gee and Haw, and Whoa.”  He would call to the car like a team of horses. He could never break himself of that; the pathways in his mind and heart were there. Just as we develop pathways and tendencies and proclivities in our lives, as we go through life, Christ calls us to be deliberate about that. To come and be a part of the community of faith, to deliberately develop those receptors and those pathways in our inner lives that allow us to receive the strength that only Christ can give, the strength and the resources that we must have as we face the rigors of this life as we follow Christ.  E. Stanley Jones said, “An atheist is a person with no invisible means of support.” We have the opportunity, as we follow Jesus Christ, to build in vast, invisible means of support in our lives.

When I was in seminary I often felt like I needed to pinch myself, realizing that I was actually able to spend three years, pretty much full-time, studying theology and Bible. We would go to classes and listen to lectures and sermons and read theology and Bible studies. Frequently, we would have friends into my dorm room to listen to various famous preachers on tape and we would talk about the sermons and de-compress and talk about all the things we had gone through in the day. In the dormitory we would go

out into the hallway and we would argue and debate theology issues into the wee, small hours of morning – passionately defending one position to the other – the next week not being able to remember which position we took. But in that process, we absorbed theology, we absorbed Biblical understanding, we absorbed resources that would come in handy later. So it is in the church. If we will come and become a part of this church, in the process we will absorb resources that only Christ can give us, that are absolutely vital to living life well and living life fully. I can remember somewhere along the line, when I was a young man, someone impressed upon me a principle and that was to promise myself that throughout my life I would get myself seated in a pew every Sunday that I possibly could. Even if I didn’t feel like being in church, if I didn’t feel like doing anything that had to do with worship, I promised myself I would physically get myself to the community of faith, if nothing else to allow the great themes of scripture and the great stories of faith to wash over me regularly. Because it is in that way that we build in those resources that become so vital when we come to the point of crisis.