November 25, 2011
Keep Watch
Our church Thanksgiving pot-luck dinner was last Sunday and we asked
members and visitors alike to come for the meal and fellowship, whether or not
you brought a dish to share. The speaker announced the meal would start at one
o’clock, but the bulletin said we would be eating following the service. I
suppose because of our affinity for fellowship dinners the tables were quickly set-up
and the food ready for the buffet by 12:00 o’clock. What a dilemma. Do we wait
until 1:00 in case some people went home to get their food and come back, or
can we start early? The compromise seemed to be 12:30. However, I did feel
badly for a first time visitor we’d invited to stay for the meal. He had
confided in me that he was shy and so he decided to go home and then come back
at 1:00. When he came back there was enough food, but he was toward the end of
the line and the pickings were slim. The old-timer said, “I guess it would have been better if I’d just stayed and visited.”
I was reminded of the Parable of the 10 Virgins where five of the virgins ran
out of oil for their lamps, so they left the wedding banquet to purchase more
oil. Have you ever wondered if these five foolish virgins might have been able
to stay for the festivities with only a smoldering wick? Jesus reminds us, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not
know the day or the hour.” (Matt 24:13 NIV)
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2 comments:
Gail;
-----I’ve always accused myself of being too irrationally scrupulous of minor details. Then, as soon as I’ve convinced myself, I lament the principles severed to ignore those details. My wife has called me wishy-washy. But I know it better as this continuous chasing between loosing principles by ignoring minor details and refining principles by serving them. If I must lean to one side of my chase, I think it would be to the latter.
-----As I read your blog, honestly speaking, the parable of the ten virgins didn’t come to my mind at all. I know the minor detail has the responsibility to stay prepared with his lamp trimmed, if you can call any person a minor detail. But frankly, he was quite prepared in taking the speaker’s word for the food party beginning at 1:00. The fact that he was asleep in the corner instead of reading his bulletin with the other nine was not operative in defining the sufficiency of oil with which he trimmed his lamp. The quandary of what to do about the double message was not for his responsibility, it was for the church‘s. He trimmed his lamp according to his careless failure of not reading his bulletin, yet he prepared for precisely the watch he heard to wait.
-----No. The scripture which came to my mind was I Corinthians 11:33, “So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.” Should the food then go cold and old for the sake of holding to this principle for him? Or should holding to the minor principle of reading the bulletin have shouldered him with the disappointment he received for the sake of everyone else? I suppose the right decision would have been to serve the meal according to the bulletin and let the speaker explain how the one principle operates over the other. The compromise attempted to honor both principles. But had the decision been left to me, the meal would have started at 1:00, not for the sake of the missing sheep, but because I would have been in the back room until 1:00 thinking in circles.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Steve,
Good verse…I wish I’d thought of that!
Gail
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