Apocalyptic Passivity

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Season 1, Episode 38: Matthew 25.1-13. Lectionary A, Proper 27

Each week, we’ll be talking about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.

If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it.

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Season 1, Episode 38: Matthew 25.1-13. Lectionary A, Proper 27

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Apocalyptic Passivity

Herb Montgomery | November 10, 2023

To listen to this week’s eSight as a podcast episode click here.

“To be clear, in the gospels, both a here- and-now, the “kingdom has arrived and is among you” Jesus and an apocalyptic, the “kingdom is coming” Jesus are portrayed because both matched an era of the early Jesus community. But a Jesus who taught us that God’s kingdom is already here for our participation seems to me to offer more life-giving options right now. A Jesus who only taught that hope was coming in the near future and that we must patiently, personally prepare for it doesn’t offer much hope for those who are suffering today and simply cannot wait.”

Our reading this week is from the gospel of Matthew:

“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten maidens who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

“At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ Then all the maidens woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

“But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The maidens who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.” (Matthew 25:1-13)

Our reading this week offers me an opportunity to share something that has been on my heart for some time now.

The parable in our reading this week is unique compared to other parables in Matthew’s gospel in both subject and the language it uses. Absent from this parable is Jesus’ usual humor and hyperbole. The parable doesn’t critique those in power in the prophetic way most of his other parables do. There is no plot twist or surprise ending to leave listeners scratching their heads. The lesson is pretty straightforward and obvious: Be prepared. Those who are prepared go in. Those who aren’t prepared are left out. 

This lesson repeats common universal wisdom, and it’s also quite apocalyptic. It sounds a lot more like it’s addressing issues existing in the Jesus community when the gospel of Matthew was written down than when the events in the story were taking place. In Mark, for example, when Jesus is approaching his trial and death, he tells his followers he will leave them and calls them to participate with him in the speaking out that will eventually get him killed. In Matthew, these closing parables beginning in chapter 24 are about being ready when Jesus returns after his departure, and it closes with the same words found at the end of the parable in Matthew 24:42:

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.” (Matthew 24:42)

This apocalyptic theme  reflects more the concerns of the Jesus community after Jesus’ death than it does the teachings of Jesus before his unjust execution. In the rest of the gospels, the writers announce the good news or gospel that the time has come, the “kingdom” is here, and all are invited to join in Jesus’ vision for a just, inclusive, compassionate community. This invitation was deeply attractive to the marginalized and those pushed to the edges and undersides of Jesus’ society, but the calls to justice in Jesus’ typical “kingdom” teachings and parables were not as attractive to those benefiting from the unjust status quo. To these people, Jesus was seen as a threat that must be silenced. 

Here at the end of Matthew it’s as if we’ve witnessed a subject change. We are no longer talking about the good news of a concrete salvation that has arrived in the here and now. Now we are discussing being prepared for its arrival at some point in the future. The community is wrestling with how to follow Jesus after Jesus’ death. On top of that, the Jewish members of this community are also wrestling what life looks like after the fall of Jerusalem and the Temple: the temple is no more and Jerusalem has been leveled to the ground. Everything has changed, and in the shadow of such deep trauma and loss, it makes a lot less sense to say God’s just future has arrived than to look to the future and focus on being prepared for when God’s just future will arrive. 

This is the context of our parable in this week. It is a lot more apocalyptic or future-looking than the typical here-and-now focus that Matthew’s Jesus has used in preceding portions of this gospel. These two different versions of Jesus in certain parts of the gospels are at the foundation of the debate among Jesus scholars as to whether Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher of a soon-to-come new world or teaching that God’s kingdom was already here and inviting folks to be participate in it here and now. (For detail, see Robert Miller’s The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate.) 

I have my own leanings and opinions on this subject. First, I think you can be a genuine Jesus follower regardless of which camp you subscribe to. I also think it’s more difficult and requires more intention and care if you choose to view Jesus as an apocalyptic preacher. You have to be careful not to view his economic teachings (such as selling one’s possessions and wealth redistribution to the poor) as coming from Jesus’ thinking that the world was about to end and there was no need to prepare for the future. You must be careful to see that these teachings are rooted in economic justice and reflect a Jesus who thought the best way to prepare for the future was not in hoarding resources but in investing in community and a commitment to care for one another. We can face whatever the future brings, together, knowing we have each other’s back. 

An apocalyptic Jesus offers an excuse to ignore many of Jesus’ teaching on the basis that Jesus supposedly thought the world was about to end. His teaching are not sustainable, in this reasoning, on a long-term ongoing basis. I disagree with that idea. I believe Jesus’ teachings are sustainable and place before us all a path for a safer tomorrow. 

Another area of care one has to be intentional about is when someone feels the world is about to end or their hope is rooted in the world ending. These folks are not the best ones to come up with sustainable solutions that prevent the end of our world. In other words, people whose hope rests in the world burning make the worst environmentalists! Their worldview doesn’t enable and prepare them to see long-term solutions to the problems threatening humanity’s survival today. 

Simply put, Jesus followers today who believe Jesus’ taught the kingdom has arrived have fewer theological hurdles in their way to making our world a safer, just, more compassionate home for everyone here and now. I wish I had a nickel for every time a Christian has accused me of only arranging deck chairs on the Titanic whenever I speak on social justice or environmental justice issues. Just this past week, a friend of mine was lamenting online how everything in our world seems to be crumbling and coming apart. A Christian friend of theirs who was first to respond, commented, “As in the days of Noah.”

How does that help? Rather than a call to roll up one’s sleeves and go to work relieving the harm and suffering that the most vulnerable in our communities are going through (which would look a lot like the Jesus we encounter in the majority of the gospel stories), there is a sad resignation that world will just keep getting worse and worse and there’s nothing we can really do about it until Jesus shows up.

Really? There’s really nothing we can do? It sounds more like we want the world to get worse and worse when some among us believe Jesus can’t come back until it gets a lot worse. Are we listening to ourselves when we say things like this? 

Suffering should move Jesus’ followers to action, like it moved our Jesus. It shouldn’t lead us to a passive, powerless resignation that this has all been foretold and there’s nothing we can do but wait and be prepared ourselves. In the stories, Jesus’ desire for his followers is that they join him in his work of making our world a better place here and now. He said it’s here. “The kingdom of God is in your midst.” (Luke 17:11)

Again, I understand how the Jesus movement became apocalyptic after Jesus’ death. I can see how Paul was apocalyptic. I can even see that John the Baptist was apocalyptic: he was looking for one “to come,” while Paul was looking for Jesus “to return.” But Jesus was announcing God’s just future had arrived! And if we lean into that version of Jesus in the Jesus story, it changes everything. It has for me. It has changed my focus from the future to the here and now. After all, didn’t Jesus say not to worry and be preoccupied about tomorrow, that “tomorrow will worry about itself” (Matthew 6:34)? He called his listeners to focus on today and the good they could do now. He called his followers to do whatever we can, big or small, to make our world a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone, here and now.

When I go back and look at our parable in this light, I understand we must be prepared for the future, whatever it may hold. And the best way Jesus taught us to be prepared is to be about investing in each other, caring about each other, and doing what we can to promote the common good, today, here, now. People matter. The world is on fire. Will we pick up a pail of water to help put it out or will we stand back and simply view it all as unavoidable apocalypse? 

To be clear, in the gospels, both a here- and-now, the “kingdom has arrived and is among you” Jesus and an apocalyptic, the “kingdom is coming” Jesus are portrayed because both matched an era of the early Jesus community. But a Jesus who taught us that God’s kingdom is already here for our participation seems to me to offer more life-giving options right now. A Jesus who only taught that hope was coming in the near future and that we must patiently, personally prepare for it doesn’t offer much hope for those who are suffering today and simply cannot wait. And for those who can choose a both/and approach, we must still be careful that our both/and approach doesn’t produce the fruit of apocalyptic passivity that ensures we have our own oil but doesn’t do much to make sure everyone else has the oil they need too.

HeartGroup Application

1. Share something that spoke to you from this week’s eSight/Podcast episode with your HeartGroup.

2. How does seeing Jesus’ teachings applying to the here and now affect your own Jesus following. Share and discuss with your group.

3. What can you do this week, big or small, to continue setting in motion the work of shaping our world into a safe, compassionate, just home for everyone?

Thanks for checking in with us, today.

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You can watch our new YouTube show called “Just Talking” each week. Todd Leonard and I take a moment to talk about the gospel lectionary reading for the upcoming weekend. We’ll be talking about each reading in the context of love, inclusion, and societal justice. Our hope is that our talking will be just talking (as in justice) and that during our brief conversations each week you’ll be inspired to also do more than just talking.

If you teach from the lectionary each week, or if you’re just looking for some thoughts on the Jesus story from a more progressive perspective within the context of social justice, check it out, you might like it. You can find JustTalking each week on YouTube at youtube.com/@herbandtoddjusttalking. Please Like, Subscribe, hit the Notification button, and leave us a comment.

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As 2023 is coming to a close, we are deeply thankful for each of our supporters.

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