Matthew 25:1-13 Dear Partner in Preaching, I am writing this one day before the 2020 election in the US, and you may be reading it on election day and likely preparing your sermon in its aftermath. Suffice it to say, we want to very much to come up with a meaningful sermon and, at just the same time, likely feel a tad inadequate to the task. (Or at least I do!) And… I’m not sure that Jesus’ parable of the ten bridesmaids offers a whole lot of help! Having said that, there is one element of this parable – illumined for me by my former colleague, Dirk Lange, that seems worth lifting up. While Dirk wrote this a dozen or so years...

Matthew 25:1-13 Dear Partner in Preaching, The refrain from Tom Petty’s “The Waiting” kept coming to mind while reading the parable of the bridesmaids.[1]  You probably remember the plaintive quality of the so recently deceased Petty’s singing, adding at least a third syllable to “waiting”: “The waiting is the hardest part. Every day you see one more card. You take it on faith, You take it to the heart. The waiting is the hardest part.” In her commentary on Working Preacher, Dr. Susan Hylen offers what I found to be a really helpful insight: the point of the parable is not constant readiness. “Keep awake” does not imply...