Sermon 11/8/2020 “Where is God?”

Sermon 11/8/2020 “Where is God?”

Preacher: Jo J. Belser
Location: Church of the Resurrection at VTS in Alexandria, VA
Text: Matthew 25:1-13
Day: 23Pentecost, Proper 27, Year A, during a pandemic

Let’s start with a trick question today: “Where is God, right this moment?” Any ideas?

Because I know you well, I can hear you thinking or saying:

• “Everywhere, God is everywhere.” OR
• “In everything; God is part of (in, beneath, above, beyond) all.” OR
• “God is within us, to the extent we love.” OR
• “God is the spirit that animates our being and points us to God.”

These are actually very good answers. Well done, Church of the Resurrection!

And, because you know me well, you will already have anticipated MY response: “Yes to all your answers! ‘Where is God, right this moment?’ God is everywhere AND God is in everything AND God is both in us and God works through us; and yes, God also animates our being.”

But the reason this is a trick question is because God is not confined to “at this moment.” God is beyond time. We and all matter and all energy and all space are in a giant space-time bubble. [Ut oh, not a physics lesson!] All this—all creation—is a mere speck within God. We are literally, as is said, “within God, in whom we live and move and have our being.” This is not just a metaphor; this is a description of our reality.

In today’s gospel lesson, this God who encompasses all that is, has invited us to a great party. Everything is ready. Everyone—literally—has been invited. We all have an invitation, but the time of the party isn’t listed anywhere. This is strange, by our standards. After all, EACH OF US are part of the wedding party—we are the bridesmaids, not just the guests.

All we need to begin is for the bridegroom to appear. We can’t have a wedding feast without the bridegroom. Still, this is a party we won’t want to miss, a party with cosmic significance.

You know the story, as Christ Jesus told it: He said this time of waiting is like the Kingdom of God, which is near. The Kingdom of God is just waiting to be seen through the veil of our time and space. The Kingdom of God is when God is seen and felt and followed and shared. The Kingdom of God is when God’s values become our values and God’s love our love.

But we can’t always feel or see God’s love here on Earth, here in our space-time bubble. And, when we lose a sense and lose sight of God’s Kingdom, we get less connected to God’s energy, less connected to Gods love. Then the Kingdom of God feels less near. We despair; we lose hope.

The metaphor Jesus used for this spiritually depleted condition is when our lamps are low on or out of oil, and when we lamp-holders lose our attention to God’s Kingdom and fall asleep.

Oh, we run around in Man’s Kingdom as if we were awake and attentive to God. But we can get distracted from God and God’s Kingdom. This condition is a terminal illness, spiritually speaking. When we are low on spiritual lamp-oil:

• We think one form of government or another and one political party or another is of supreme importance, forgetting that God’s Kingdom is not a democracy.
• We begin to think the principle of the “thing,” whatever the “thing,” is more important than the people involved.
• We think we succeed by our own abilities and fail because of someone else’s lack thereof. In fact, we think outcomes are up to us, when being faithful is more important than outcomes. Outcomes are up to God.

The point of Jesus’ story about wise and foolish bridesmaids is to remind us to stay alert, to prepare ahead, for times when we are able to see the God who is here with and in us at all times.

• Is God’s party when we die? Yes!
• Is God’s party here and now? Yes!

Our first lesson sheds some lamplight on our gospel lesson. Wise people seek God in the here and now. Wise people do not seek God already thinking they know all about God, but with a heart open to being taught by divine love itself. And wise people come equipped to endure until they get 20/20 God-vision to see the bridegroom is here and with us always.

Where will you see and participate in God’s Kingdom, this Sunday after a very contentious national election, in the middle of a viral pandemic and a pandemic of racism? Whatever the situation: look for the good. Be the good. Look in the rubble, where God is a work. Help sift through the rubble. Look within those we disagree, not for how they might be wrong, but for how we could both be right… together.

Whatever you do this week, take more “oil” of the spiritual kind, which is to say, take more love. Take enough love to share with those who are not as equipped as you are. As Christ Jesus himself warned us by this story he told about wise and foolish bridesmaids, this wedding party is not something anyone should miss.