“Ready, Set, Go”
November 8, 2026
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
As many of us in this country are breathing a deep sigh of relief (maybe the first deep breaths we have been able to take for two if not ten years!), the church is moving into the last three weeks of year A. We are wrapping up our deep dive into the gospel according to Matthew. But before we get to our lectionary text for this morning, sometimes the Bible has a word to say that is so on point.
Listen to the words of Matthew 24 (which just precede our text). “Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives. Truly I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all his possessions. But if that wicked slave says to himself, ‘My master is delayed,’ and begins to beat his fellow slaves and eats and drinks with drunkards, the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know. He will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
And that leads us to the question of the day. How are we supposed to act? How are we supposed to deal with the difference of time scales—our own, and God’s? How are we supposed to live in the in between time—between what we have been told is coming, is breaking into our world, is asking for our participation in this new kin-dom of heaven—AND what we are having to live in the midst of, especially if there are few glimmers of that kin-dom on the horizon?
Yes, today is a good day for many of us. But do you remember back to the beginning of this week? We can’t forget the people who still crouch in their houses, afraid to go out to get food, or get their prescriptions, for fear of ICE. I was astounded and ashamed and angry when I saw a post on Facebook that said 178 people have been plucked from their lives here in West Orange! 178 of our neighbors. We can’t forget the mess of a world that we live in. We can’t forget how many people have to make choices between food and gas, between rent and medical care. We, the American people, have chosen to put a brake on that wicked servant in the White House, but that doesn’t mean our work is done. If anything, it means that we have so much more to do!
One way to frame what we are talking about is a flipping upside down of a common idea. Remember the “left behind” phase—the books, the movies, the concept that the righteous get raptured and then there were those smucks who got left behind to deal with the horrors as this world ground to its end. O Wesley Allen, Jr. of Working Preacher.com suggested an interesting twist to this thinking. (This is commentary based on the lead up to our text—you know the image: “Two will be in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken, and one will be left.” (Matt. 24:40-41) Allen asks, “What if the ones taken are “disappeared” because they haven’t been all they can be? What if the ones we want to be are the ones who are left (notice that scripture doesn’t say, left behind, but just “left”)? What if what is important is to continue working for the kin-dom? Is that what Jesus is telling us in our first of three parables from Matthew 25?
It is a familiar parable, often called the wise and foolish bridesmaids. 10 women chosen as bridesmaids. 10 of the same oil lamps. 10 who fall asleep waiting for the bridegroom. 10 choices about how to deal with having to wait a really long time for this wedding procession. It’s like those pictures on placemats at diners—what is different in these pictures? And we scour the picture? The dresses are all the same. The lamps, same. The young women look the same—they are all asleep. What is it? Oh, look. Some of them, half of them, have extra flasks of oil with them.
Now how did they get those flasks of oil? They didn’t just appear from the sky. They had to be purchased. Maybe when they got the oil lamps in the first place. Or maybe they were bought just recently, in the midst of preparations for this wedding. Whenever and however they were procured, they looked ahead. They, maybe, had heard stories or even had seen before, that wedding parties don’t always arrive on time. That sometimes things get delayed. And if you had the important job of lighting the way for the bridegroom, you would want to make sure you had oil for your lamp.
And those other five? Did they not know of the possibility of having to wait? Did they think that if they ran out, they could run to the store then? Did they just not think, or not care? Did they imagine that being invited was enough? Were they too preoccupied with getting to the party that they didn’t prepare for the wait? We don’t know, we are not told. And which one of these two types are we supposed to imagine Jesus thinks we are?
Now, let’s remember that in Jesus’s time there was no Christian church. So this isn’t a wise bridesmaids are Christian and foolish bridesmaids are Jewish thing. This is a bridesmaids are all Jewish, or in our case, all Christian, all in the church! We’ve all been invited to the wedding. The writer of Matthew wants to make sure that we consider that we might be the foolish ones. Have we prepared enough? Have we kept ourselves as ready as possible, even though we have to sleep as well? Have we kept hope alive? Faith alive? Love alive? Have we taken the gifts we have been given and used them, not just for ourselves, but for others as well?
The image I had in my mind when I titled this sermon was a race. You have seen it. People are stretching around the oval. They are jumping, or running a sprint, or trying to shake the nerves away. And then they are called to the line. READY. You have to find your lane. You have to have your race dress on (your numbers attached). Your shoes have to be tied. You bend over and place your hands on the track. You wait for the next instructions. SET. And your position shifts just a little. You are poised for the sound that means start. You strain, muscles at the peak. This is the moment you have trained for. This is the moment that you have envisioned all those years. This is it!
Think of all the things that have to happen to get to that moment. All the long hours of practice. All the sweat. All the energy expended. All the extra flasks of oil. And for what? To make sure that you have the best chance to light your lamp when needed. To make sure that you are as prepared as you can be. And that’s where the twist in this parable probably comes—imagine you, we, are the foolish ones. Have we gotten our extra flasks? Have we been a Parousia prepper? Are we ready for the return of the Christ? What have we been doing with the time we were left with?
This is where Amos’s words, made even more memorable because Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would not let us forget them, are a touchstone. What does God want us to be doing with our lives in the in between? What does God want us to be doing as we wait? Not speaking or singing or praying by rote. Not doing what has always been done (for Amos’s time, sacrificing animals and having great feasts or solemn assemblies). God wants justice and righteousness. God wants us to do and say and live as if God’s reign had already come. And God doesn’t want it to be a drop, or a trickle, or even a little stream. God wants “justice to roll down like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” or as the “I Have a Dream Speech” put it “we will not be satisfied until ‘justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
That is why we were left. Because there is work to do. Important work. Essential work. Work that will mean something to us and something to our world. We need to figure out what training regimen we need to be following. We need to imagine what the extra flasks of oil look like in our day and time. We need to participate in the maybe slow, maybe tidal wave, movement of justice. We need to have everything ready for when that mighty stream starts to move.
And, finally, what are looking towards? What are our eyes straining to see? What are we waiting to enter? Not some zombie apocalypse. Not some day with Christ seated on horse with sword in hand, surrounded by avenging angels. No, we are to await a banquet, a wedding feast, a time of joy and laughter and food for all.
That is what makes our preparation different. We need extra flasks to produce more light. We need to have trained our joy muscles. We need to have learned how to expand our heart to include so many we might want to exclude. We need to have our suitcase packed, and our ticket in our back pocket, and our lives ready to pick up in a moment’s notice.
Because there will come a time, Jesus says. Yes, it has been a long time coming in earth years. Yes, it has sometimes seemed that it will never come. Yes, there are times when we fall asleep at the wheel, when we crash into despair, when we can’t get out of bed, when we have a hard time putting one foot in front of the other. But…we need to be READY.
Remember what Jesus has been talking about for this whole gospel? About heaven showing up on earth. About the last being first and the first coming in last. About vineyards and their workers, about trees and their fruit, about shepherds and lost sheep, about weddings, about blessings amidst things that don’t feel very blessed, about our relationship with God/Abba, about what is most important—love of God and love of neighbor as self. Are we sure we are ready? SET!
May we be ready. May we be set. May we keep that idea--justice wrapped in joy--always in mind. For it is the finish line. GO!
Alleluia, Amen.