Homily for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
Many years ago, before I became a Jesuit, my parents celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary with a trip to Italy. I had just finished two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kazakhstan, and I decided to meet them in Italy—but I wanted it to be a surprise. So I made up an elaborate story about where I was going—a complete fake itinerary—and I pulled it off. I have never seen my mom’s mouth open so wide as when I showed up and said, “Happy anniversary!”
If you’ve ever pulled off a surprise party—and it’s not easy—you know that both the anticipation and the surprise itself are fun. There’s something about knowing what is going to happen when others don’t, the cleverness it requires, and then the shock, which in the end turns out to be joyful.
Let me be clear about today’s reading. Jesus is NOT trying to surprise us. The arrival of the bridegroom surprises all of the virgins—they all doze off and are awakened by shouting in the night—but for the wise virgins it is a joyful surprise, which brings a wedding feast, and for the foolish virgins, it means darkness. It means remaining outside in the darkness of the night because they did not care for the light that was their responsibility. In the Gospel parable, the foolish virgins are surprised, but Jesus is telling us the parable precisely so that we will not be surprised.
The parable, like today’s second reading, St. Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, has to do with the Lord’s second coming, the end of time, a theme which very much dominates the readings during this time of year. The reason Jesus is warning us about this event, his second coming, as all of this month’s readings make clear, is that he will come to judge. He is making this fact explicit; he is giving us a fair warning; he is not trying to confuse or fool us; he is, in fact, repeating himself to get the point across. We will be judged.
There’s an apocalyptic flare to St. Paul’s words to the Thessalonians, as there is in Gospel, but we would be foolish to think that because the apocalypse—the end of the world—has not yet come, we can relax, let our guard down. We don’t know when the end of the world will come, and history shows that those who think they can predict it—Nostradamus, the Mayan calendar, Y2K—end up looking foolish. But we do know that we will be judged and we know when we will be judged: each one of us at the end of our lives. No surprises there, no tricks; God is not trying to fool us.
But even though Jesus is not trying to surprise us, the five foolish virgins, half the people in the parable, end up unprepared. In fact, all of the virgins drift off, though the wise ones are ready anyway. God does not want us to be surprised, but still we are. Why? Again, the Gospel is not particularly mysterious on this point. We become distracted with other things, things that really aren’t as important as eternal life—our careers, the opinions of others, momentary pleasures, ego, fashions and trends and buzzwords, power—and we become drowsy. Not all at once. We don’t decide, “At this moment I’m going to sleep.” We get comfortable. We drift off bit by bit.
I think there is another reason as well, a related reason. We don’t particularly like even to hear the word “judgment.” I’ve been using the word a lot in this homily—judgment—and I wonder, does it make you feel uncomfortable? A little. It makes me a little uncomfortable. And, that, I think, is why Jesus tells this parable. A little discomfort sometimes helps us stay awake.
Today in particular we try to avoid the word judgment. We pride ourselves on being non-judgmental. Sometimes we judge others for not being non-judgmental enough; our hyper-sensitive speech codes would make the Pharisees blush. Never, in fact, has an age been more hypocritical when it comes to passing judgment as our own.
In other words, we are uncomfortable with being judged but we can’t give up judging. This discomfort hints that perhaps our lamps are not as trim as they ought to be. Perhaps we try to deflect talk of judgment because we aren’t ready to face it. Perhaps today’s world is so desperately attracted to the language of non-judgmentalism because we feel a great deal of unresolved guilt. The fact that we are less willing to talk about sin does not mean that it has become less common.
So where does that leave us? We want to take Jesus’ warning seriously, but at the same time we might not really want to face it. I teach a class on the sacrament of penance, and preparing for class this week, I read a work on the subject written by St. Ambrose in about 390. And I think he gives a pretty good answer to this dilemma. To paraphrase, he says, plead guilty.
We have a sacrament, after all, precisely for that purpose. St. Ambrose says, if you confess your sins there’s nothing left for the devil to accuse you of. There’s no surprise to dread. All the energy we waste on hiding our guilt from others and from ourselves, negotiating with it, ignoring it, getting defensive, justifying, minimizing, explaining away—we can have that energy back and use it to live.If we plead guilty, the judgment is done, and we are simply at the mercy of the court. And the judge, the bridegroom who is coming, is Jesus. The sentence that he will pass on those who plead guilty and throw themselves on his mercy is no surprise to us either. St. Paul writes elsewhere: “This saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim 1:15). Jesus does not hide his intentions; he is not trying to surprise us about his mercy either. Perhaps it only feels like a surprise, the joy of suddenly finding oneself, a sinner, guilty as charged but pardoned, forgiven, suddenly in a new reality. Perhaps the wisest move, since we know the bridegroom has come and is coming, is not to wait in drowsiness, hoping that he won’t notice that the oil in our lamps has run low, but to run out and meet him.
Readings: Wis 6:12-16, 1 Thes 4:13-18, Mt 25:1-13
November 12, 2023
Oratorio San Francesco Saverio del Caravita
Tony Lusvardi, S.J. 