Waiting and Waiting and Waiting
This is the sermon I preached last Sunday, Nov. 12 at St. Timothy and St. Mark Lutheran churches. The gospel text was Mathew 25:1-13 . This wedding doesn’t sound like any we’ve ever been to in this country, does it? While we wait together in the sanctuary for the bride to come down the aisle, we have an idea of how long we will have to wait. We don’t sit there for hours. While living in the Holy Land, I was with a group of women who had the opportunity to wait together, not knowing exactly when the bridegroom and his men would arrive. We’d hear a sound. Excitement would fill the room. Maybe it’s him. Is it him? Someone would look to see. No, it’s not him. We’d wait longer and longer and longer. It seemed the groom would never arrive. Then there was a shout. There he was! Finally! Much like the bridesmaids in today’s gospel, we did not know exactly when the groom would arrive, only that he would. In biblical times, a wedding was about the communal celebration of the...