The Things We Carry

You might remember the classic 80’s tv show, MacGyver, about a good-looking, brilliant but mild-mannered secret agent who was always finding himself in some sort of life-threatening situation.  And wouldn’t you know it – MacGyver could always find what he needed to get himself and his friends out of a jam.  A piece of chewing gum, a paper clip, and some Chapstick could blow open an escape hatch; a penny, a Swiss army knife, and some peanut butter could make a dangerous weapon.  MacGyver always managed to find what he needed to save the day.

It’s a curious thing, I think, to see what people carry in their pockets or purses or backpacks.  You can sometimes tell something about them, about their life, even about their values.  A driver’s license, an auto insurance card, a triple A card: someone is conscientious and law-abiding.  Ten tubes of lipstick and a mirror: maybe someone needs to work on her vanity issues.  A medical alert bracelet, an inhaler, an epi-pen: someone has health concerns and is ready for a crisis.

I’ve always wondered what the Queen of England carries in that dainty little purse of hers - perhaps a pair of white gloves, because you never know when you might need them.  One would assume the Queen has all she needs, and has ladies-in-waiting to carry for her life’s little necessities and conveniences.

Being a lady-in-waiting might be an interesting job – it certainly had interesting consequences  for the ladies-in-waiting in today’s parable.  I often wonder what Jesus’ experiences with weddings were, because he so often set his parables in the context of a wedding.  In his time, weddings happened something like this:  the parents of the bride and the parents of the groom would arrange for their children to marry. On the appointed day, there would be day-long festivities with dancing, music, other entertainment, and a little food.  Then at night, there would be a great banquet which the guests would attend while the groom finalized the financial aspects of the marriage with the bride’s father.

When that feast was over, the bride was taken to the groom’s family’s house, where she would wait for her betrothed.  If the prenuptial negotiations weren’t going well, she would have to wait for a while.  Finally, usually before midnight, the bridegroom would be on his way, his arrival heralded by shouts of “the bridegroom is coming!”  At that point, the ladies-in-waiting, the bridesmaids, would collect their oil-burning lamps and escort him to his bride.

That’s the social setting of today’s rather dire parable.  Scholars don’t agree on what it means.  Some say Jesus told the parable with a real wedding in mind.  Some say he told the parable as a warning about the end time.  Others say Matthew constructed the parable for his own purposes.

By the 25th chapter, we’re in a pretty tough place in Matthew’s gospel.  As we move closer to the crucifixion, Jesus’ teachings take on a more harsh and urgent tone.  He only has so much time left to make his point.  The parables in this chapter (which we will be preaching on for the next few weeks) are all about the end time, when the Son of Man returns for the final judgment.  Men and women will be judged on their fidelity to God, on the way they lived out their Christian identity, on the way they lived out the gospel in practical acts of kindness and mercy.  Some will be received into Heaven with open arms.  Others will be found wanting.

In today’s parable, half the bridesmaids are found wanting.  But what was their failure?  They showed up for the wedding.  All ten of the bridesmaids fell asleep while waiting.  But when the time came for them to carry out their most important responsibility, half of them failed.  They hadn’t planned on the groom being so very late.  They ran out of oil.  And they ran out of luck.

The bridesmaids don’t have with them the one thing they need, so they are shut out of the wedding banquet.  The parable seems to be saying that Christians who don’t live out the gospel by their good works will be condemned for eternity.

Now I have a hard time accepting that God will condemn people for eternity (although once in a while I do make an exception.)  I don’t believe that God’s primary way of motivating people is by fear, by fear of eternal damnation.  I believe, rather, that God wants us to be motivated by gratitude for what we have received, gratitude for simple daily bread, gratitude for people in our lives. 

Fear is certainly an effective motivator, but live with fear for a long time and you find broken people, sometimes mean people, easily-spooked people, even people who have lost the ability to love, or even to be human. Gratitude is a better motivator for the long run. 

Today we are invited to express gratitude for those people in our lives and in our world whom we would call the saints.  Some are still living, and we know how different our lives would be without them. Some have died, gone on to God, and we know how our hearts ache because of their absence from us.

I think we could say that those people whom we call saints carried light, in a way.  It might have been the light of laughter, the light of presence, the light of kindness, or simply the light of relationship that comes after people have spent a long time together.  

Maybe all saints bear light in some way, or maybe they carry other things.  If there were a purse a saint carried, or a pocket in a saint’s clothing, what do you think we would find there?

Maybe one of those little plastic communion cups, a reminder of the forgiveness poured out by Christ for us.  Inside a little zippered pouch we’d find a magnifying glass to help see the goodness God is doing.  Deep down at the bottom is one of those pastel-colored candy hearts with the words ‘love you’ barely readable, but readable nonetheless.  A book of matches to be ready to shine in the darkness.  And handkerchief ready to share with those who mourn.  Maybe there’s even a pair of Groucho Marx glasses, a testament that the Christian life is a divine comedy.

And some of those dear to us here at Westminster had their unique things to carry – a coach’s whistle; a Bible covered in green leather; an apron and wooden spoon; anything, anything that was pink; an Arabic dictionary.  Some carried striking physical attributes: bushy eyebrows, a handlebar moustache.  Some carried less tangible things – the camaraderie of a Mariners group; the quality of gathering folks together;  a commitment to that or those who aren’t easy; adventure; intellect; love.

Those things the saints carry – those here now and those who’ve gone on – well, they might not save anyone in a life-threatening situation.  The saints aren’t MacGyver.  They couldn’t dismantle a bomb with a comb, wax paper, and spring from a ball point pen.  But they, like us, are given other things, and they figure out how to use them in service to God and to humanity.

I think of something Anne Lamott once wrote, “It’s funny.  I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kid of inner toolbox, full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience.  But then when I grew up, I found that life handed you these rusty, bent old tools – friendships, prayers, conscience, honesty – and said, Do the best you can with these, they will have to do.”  (Traveling Mercies, p. 103)

Maybe that is what we living saints hope to carry around with us – friendship, prayers, conscience, honesty.  Maybe we learned how to make do with those things because of the saints who have gone before, those saints who set an example simply by their living.  How we miss them.  How grateful we are for them.

The things we carry – the real things and the figurative things – belie who we are and what we believe and how we live our lives.  My hope is that you carry faith and hope, and this day, gratitude.  Leave Hell to those who would want us to cower in fear.  Let us instead trust in God’s light, that light mirrored by the saints, and in that light, let us see the wonders of God around us.


Beth Neel
Westminster Presbyterian Church
All Saints Remembrance
November 6, 2011