Paul Walker, “When God is Late”
Let’s talk about punctuality for a moment. Are you a person who is always on time, and you think others should also have the decency to be on time? Or are you someone who lets time get away from you, and you wish others wouldn’t be so uptight. People, even cultures approach time differently. In northern Europe the trains run by the second. You will miss your train if you are 10 seconds late. In southern Europe, you can show up 30 minutes late and still wait for your train to depart. I feel like I’ve spent years of my life waiting in the Milan train station.
I’m a northern Europe kind of guy. I hate being late. If I’m supposed to meet you at 3 and my ETA says 3:01, I will text you while I’m driving through the UVA grounds full of students who are also texting while driving, or texting while walking, to apologize to you for keeping you waiting for 1 minute. Unsafe and illegal, but I can’t help myself. I’m married to a southern Europe kind of person. Her favorite expression is an Irish one (they classify as southern Europeans in this sense): When God made time, He made plenty of it. She feels that she has been liberated from the cruel and arbitrary constructs of hours and minutes. She likes to live in Kairos rather than Chronos time. This makes for some special moments in our relationship.
When it comes to the Bible, however, Christie has God squarely on her side. God has a well-established history of being late. He promises Abraham and Sarah a child. Years go by. Decades go by! No child. So, they take matters into their own hands. They “have” a child by Hagar, Sarah’s servant. It does not turn out well. Moses goes up Mt. Sinai to get the 10 commandments. He tells Aaron and the people to wait. Turns out he’s up there for 40 days. They can’t wait that long. They take matters into their own hands. They make a golden calf and have a wild party. Moses finally returns to witness this debacle. It does not turn out well. Jesus was basically never on time. Everyone was always looking for him. And when Lazarus died, both of his sisters tell Jesus, “If you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”
I could go on, but I’m wondering about you this morning. Have there been ways you wanted God to show up on time? And when He was late, you took things into your own hands? And maybe it didn’t turn out well? I’m betting that we can all relate to the psalmist, who says, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me.”
In the gospel reading for today, God is late. And it does not turn out well for 5 of the bridesmaids in the story. 10 bridesmaids bring their lamps to greet the bridegroom. But the groom is late – really late. He doesn’t show up until midnight! When his approach is heralded, the 5 maids who brought a flask of extra oil, lit their lamps, and prepared to greet the groom. The 5 who brought just enough to last through the planned arrival time ran out. They had to scramble to find a shop open at midnight so they could replenish their oil. And while they were gone, the bridegroom arrived and took the 5 lit lamped maids into the wedding banquet. When the other 5 finally arrived, the door was shut. It did not turn out well for them. When the asked to come in, the bridegroom said, “I do not know you.”
Rough parable, eh? This is one of Jesus’ parables of judgment. But it just doesn’t seem fair. Whose fault is it that the 5 ran out of oil? As I said, it is the bridegroom’s fault! He is the God figure in the story, and He is unconscionably late. The 5 brought plenty of oil for the scheduled event. It was blocked out on their google calendars, they had told their friends and families exactly when they would be back. They had full schedules the next day and were planning on leaving right after the cake was cut. And here it was midnight (!) and the party hadn’t even started!
These are clearly the northern European bridesmaids – the ones from northern Germany and parts of Sweden. These were the ones, who like the speaker in T.S. Eliot’s poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, say I “have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” The other 5 – the ones from southern France and parts of Italy, didn’t even have calendars. There was even 1 Irish bridesmaid who knew that when God made time, He made plenty of it. It didn’t matter when the party began, they just knew that being there was the most important thing in the world.
This is clearly a judgment on those of us who like to be in control, who are parsimonious about our evenings, mornings, and afternoons. Those of us who would buy and believe Oprah’s and Arthur Brooks’ new book called, absurdly, “Build The Life You Want.” As if! Believe you me, “the walls will come tumbling down.” Those of us who may spend a few minutes “waiting for Godot” but would rather take things into our own hands, when clearly God can’t be bothered to show up on time.
The walls came tumbling down for football legend Jim Kelly, the former Buffalo Bills quarterback who is famous for leading the Bills to 4 Super Bowls, and more famous for losing all 4 Super Bowls. A long article this week in The Athletic does a deep dive into his life. Fame and fortune, but also heartache. He and his wife lost an 8-year-old son. Jim has had cancer of the jaw. And along the way, he lost his way. Despite having a loving wife, Jim strayed and had an affair. The plight of their son put an enormous strain on their marriage. He says he was in a dark and doleful place, having believed that God would show up and save their son. His mother-in-law discovered the affair.
For one week, Jacque prayed and fasted. Then she wrote a letter to Jim and asked him to meet her in a mall parking lot. She handed him the letter. He glanced at it and drove away. Then he pulled over and wept while reading every word. He confessed to his wife and asked forgiveness from her and from God. It was then, he says, that he felt the weight of a piano
lifted from his back. “I was certainly angry at him,” Jill says. “But I was more joyful and thankful than anything else because Jim saw this need for God, and moving forward, everything would change.” From then on, Jim would call himself a Christian.” It was when his life fell apart that the door to the party opened up. As one C.S. Lewis scholar put it, “there is a life changing magic in throwing ourselves on the mercy of Christ.”
The good news is that the shut door of judgment isn’t the end of the Story. For it is when Jesus’ life fell apart that the door to the party was opened up to us all – lamped and lamp-less alike. The supreme example of God being late is on the cross – Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” On the cross, the Light of the World was extinguished.
God’s apparent lateness for His Son on the cross turns out to be perfect timing for us. As we read in Galatians, “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem us.” The Light of the World, snuffed out on Good Friday, burst open the door to the tomb on Easter Morning, shining in glory for all the world to see. So, in the end, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, or whether you’re late. For God has come to you, with the mercy of Christ, in the fullness of time.
Amen.
