This week we have a nice simple parable: “Be prepared.” (Mt 25:1-13)
But there is a little more to it. What are we to be prepared for? We don’t really know, when or even how whatever will happen will happen. Waiting overnight for the bridegroom is one thing. Waiting millennia for the return of Jesus isn’t quite the same.
Paul when writing his first letter to his church community in Thessaloniki (probably the earliest of his letters that we have), still had the expectation that Jesus was going to return very soon (1 Thes 4:13-18). There was beginning to be a bit of a problem because, although it was not very long after Jesus had left them, there were some of his followers who had died during that period. Naturally people were starting to ask, so how does this Second Coming work out if some people are already dead? Isn’t Jesus supposed to be coming back to take us all to heaven with him?
By the time of his later writings it was already clear to Paul that this expectation was wrong. Jesus wasn’t returning next week, or next month, probably not even next year or the one after. 2000 years later we don’t have the same perspective. Maybe our expectation has disappeared completely. The idea that Jesus is coming back is not significant to us, it doesn’t have any relevance for our lives or actions.
So what does it mean to be prepared in this situation?
Maybe our emphasis should be less on being prepared, than on recognizing we don’t know what to expect – that is the point Jesus finishes with. We have a natural tendency to believe we know where we are going, what we are doing, how things will turn out. We realize we not always right, but in general we need that sense of being in control, of not living in a state of perpetual uncertainty.
But Jesus doesn’t want to leave us there. He’s telling us we don’t know what is going to happen and we shouldn’t fool ourselves. Our reality is a life of uncertainty. We are not in control.
If we can come to terms with that then we can appreciate that there is one certainty only – that God loves us. That certainty outweighs everything, we don’t need to know or understand anything else. The presence of God, the wisdom that is God, isn’t something we search out and find. It, or rather She, waits for us (Wis 6:12-16). We are not going to her, she is coming to us. She is there for us, if only we wait without expectations, without presuppositions, patiently and with hope.