Matthew 25:1–13
When I was teaching in the Crimea in the early 1980s, there was something I used to see every Saturday night, in a garden in front of the university, that I have never forgotten. Old people would gather to dance together to the music of the 1940s — the generation of the Second World War. And week after week, among the hundred or so people dancing in that garden, all but four or five were women. The men were simply not there.
It was a silent reminder of the huge cost of war, and of the heavy price that generation had paid. Watching them, you could believe that the Great Patriotic War — as the Soviets called it — had ended only a matter of months before.
I sometimes wonder, by contrast, whether our Remembrance Day observances have become a kind of spiritual sleepwalking. We hold the familiar ceremonies; we hear the familiar words — “They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old” — and we perform the familiar acts of commemoration. But little changes in how we think or how we live.
Yes, we remember the sacrifices of previous generations; many of us carry family histories of grief and loss. But do we allow Remembrance Sunday — this recurring date in our liturgical and national calendar — actually to challenge our assumptions about war, peace, and national identity? We speak of peace; but do we notice how easily patriotism can become an unquestioned framework for Christian thinking?
Ever since the Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire — and, in time, of Europe — the Church’s association with political power has been able to distort its vision. We can become so accustomed to seeing the world through the assumptions of the state that we no longer notice when those assumptions conflict with the teaching of Jesus. So, for example, we draw a neat distinction between the personal Christian duty to love our enemies and the supposed necessity for governments to deal with enemies through violence. And in that distinction lies the danger: that political convenience quietly obscures the integrity of Christian discipleship.
Remembrance, then, must be more than looking backwards. And Christian waiting must be more than passive expectation. But what is the hope that keeps us going? Today’s readings supply some of the clues.
In Matthew’s parable, ten bridesmaids are waiting for the bridegroom. All ten expect him to arrive; all have their lamps; all begin the evening waiting eagerly for the good things to come — the arrival of the bridegroom, the feast, a time of love and peace and fellowship. But the bridegroom is delayed. The real test comes not at the beginning of the evening, but in the middle of the night, when enthusiasm has given way to weariness.
Notice, first, that the difference between the wise and the foolish bridesmaids is not that some had faith and others did not. At the outset, they all appear to be waiting for the same thing. The difference is that some had made provision for a long wait.
And we too are conscious of a long wait: the years since the wars we commemorate; the continuing consequences of conflict; the hope that humanity might eventually learn to live in peace. For those who have lost loved ones, the waiting can be especially painful — the end of a war is not the end of grief.
The Christian life, too, is lived in the tension between promise and fulfilment. It is a long wait between Christ’s resurrection and his promised return. A long wait between the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven and its establishment on earth. A long wait between our own conversion — our acceptance of Christ as Lord — and our promised transformation into perfection and holiness. It is a very long wait.
Notice, secondly, that the distinction between the wise and the foolish is not that some stayed awake while others fell asleep. No — they all fell asleep. The difference is simply that some had brought an extra supply of oil for their lamps, and others had not.
What does the oil mean? The parable does not say, and I am not going to force a rigid symbolic meaning upon it. But it does invite us to ask: what are the resources that sustain Christian faithfulness through a long, dark night? Prayer. Meeting for worship. Compassion, courage, truthfulness. The costly daily practice of discipleship. These are the things that keep a lamp burning when enthusiasm has burned away.
And if our hope is in Christ the bridegroom, then we must be prepared to see the world differently from the way political power sees it: to question the inevitability of violence; to resist the dehumanisation of our enemies; to work for reconciliation and peace.
So on this Remembrance Sunday we look back with gratitude and sorrow. We remember those who did not return, and those whose lives were changed for ever by war. But we also look forward. We wait for the bridegroom; we wait for the Lord who will gather the living and the dead into his presence. And while we wait, we are called to keep our lamps burning: to resist the temptation to put our ultimate trust in the powers of this world, and to live as citizens of the kingdom Christ has promised.
We do not know how long the night will last. But we know whom we are waiting for.