I did it a few times that summer, feeling very grown up and helpful, until a kindly gas station attendant suggested that maybe that wasn’t the best idea.
Oil and gas have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and are the lifeblood of the American energy infrastructure. Over one third of all of our energy usage is petroleum, which is remarkably energy dense and painfully finite. Even if we Americans help ourselves to all of Venezuela’s copious proven reserves, it’s a finite resource that will…at current consumption rates…cease to be viable in the lifetime of a child born this week. Well, that’s not entirely true. Fossil fuels are renewable, technically. All that oil we’re using now will naturally reform, as current carbon-based life is broken down into refinable hydrocarbons, in a process that only takes about fifty million years.
And reliable? Well, nothing is more stable and consistent than the supply and price of gas. *cough*
I was thinking all that a few months back, when I fired up our old but trusty Honda generator during a day-long power outage. It hummed along nicely, extension cords snaked through towel-sealed windows, giving the household power for morning coffee and lights, wifi and refrigeration. I know it’s good for about thirty-six hours of reserve power, given my supply of stabilized fuel, but what of a longer outage? What of an actual crisis?
Fossil fuels come to us through a wildly complex and globe-spanning network, one whose extractive engineering and logistical sophistication are modern marvels. That marvel, though, has limitations. The primary limitation, as we learned in the 1970s and forgot and learned again this last year, is the common flaw of all complex systems: the more complex they are, the more points of failure exist. Being aware of this, and ensuring we have at least some redundancy in our systems? That seems wise.
Paying attention, and being ready are good things, particularly when it comes to dealing with what’s truly important in life.
When we’re distracted, though, these things sneak up on us. We assume, after all, that we can leave things to the very last moment. We’re distracted by life, by the bustle and chatter and flutter of a thousand things that seem like they’re the most important thing at the time. We chase from thing to thing, from meeting to activity to moment, so diligently pursuing our calendars and our schedules that things of real significance can slip right on by us. Or come crashing right into us, as we move along through life thinking that tomorrow will be exactly like yesterday.
What Jesus has to offer up in the first verses of Matthew 25 is all about being ready. This section of Matthew’s story is what can be called the “Judgement Discourse,” in which Jesus tells stories and lays out some pretty core things about what actually matters. How will things end? What is the destiny of the rich and the self-righteous and the powerful?
Among the stories that were told to answer some of these key questions was the one heard today, which is generally known as the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids. Let me be the first to note that this is a very parable-y parable, told for the purposes of symbolism.
The images presented are a call for wisdom in how we approach our relationship to the Kingdom of God that Jesus was always, always, always going on about. The parable itself is intended to indirectly describe the nature of the reign of God among us, and begins, as do many of the parables of Jesus, with the words “The Kingdom of God is like...”
Here, the issue is not just being prepared for what you expect. All ten of the bridesmaids begin by being prepared, arriving with their lamps filled with oil. The five wise ones, though, remember to bring extra oil, more fuel in the event that the bridegroom is delayed.
The others? Well, they don’t quite manage to get around to it. They just assume it’ll all work itself out.
It’s a typical wisdom parable, in that there are the wise, and there are the foolish, and the wise are the ones who plan and prepare, who set aside their resources under the assumption that maybe, just maybe, things won’t go exactly the way they’d anticipated. They’ve got what’s needed to deal with reality when things go a little off kilter.
The bridesmaids? Well, they’re us. Do we do what we keep ourselves focused on the things that matter, not just in the short term, but over the long haul? Are we easily distracted by the moment, convinced that whatever it is, it’ll just be the same today as it was tomorrow.
But when our lives and our faith are not prepared for that unexpected moment, for that change in the nature of things, for that thing that arrives unexpected or does not come when we assumed it would, life doth not roll well for us.
We know, with some degree of certainty, about the limitations of global petroleum. We can look around at everything that uses and relies on gasoline. Every car, every truck, every oil-burning furnace, every ship, all of it functionally useless in less than a century. My little church has been trucking along happy as a clam for 178 years. It’s gone from woodburning heat to heat pumps, and the sanctuary itself remains as useful as it ever was. If you're paying attention, and act appropriately, and don't cling to that which is not necessary, you can make it through. We’ll need to adapt, all of us, and being ready for that change sooner rather than later makes a whole lot of sense, in a Scout-being-prepared sort of way.
But what do we know about the arrival of the Kingdom of God? When will that be, and how ready are we for it? It’s easy for it to feel like an abstraction, a distant thing, so far off that we don’t need to pay any attention to it at all.
Is this so? If midway through a sermon on a Sunday morning all four doors of the church flew open, and the little sanctuary was filled with the roar of wind and a great golden light suddenly poured through the windows, the wind’s roar harmonizing with the sound of a thousand far-off trumpets, and all of the Presbyterians present knew without question that this was that event that we typically assume is just a metaphor? Beyond being grateful that the sermon was finally over, how would folks in my church feel? Would we feel ready in heart and mind and soul? How are we prepared? Have we been wise and compassionate, and done what we could to be ready?
There, we are challenged to fill up our reservoirs of grace, and understand that those choices we make, day in and day out, set us towards whatever might come.
Oil and gas have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, and are the lifeblood of the American energy infrastructure. Over one third of all of our energy usage is petroleum, which is remarkably energy dense and painfully finite. Even if we Americans help ourselves to all of Venezuela’s copious proven reserves, it’s a finite resource that will…at current consumption rates…cease to be viable in the lifetime of a child born this week. Well, that’s not entirely true. Fossil fuels are renewable, technically. All that oil we’re using now will naturally reform, as current carbon-based life is broken down into refinable hydrocarbons, in a process that only takes about fifty million years.
And reliable? Well, nothing is more stable and consistent than the supply and price of gas. *cough*
I was thinking all that a few months back, when I fired up our old but trusty Honda generator during a day-long power outage. It hummed along nicely, extension cords snaked through towel-sealed windows, giving the household power for morning coffee and lights, wifi and refrigeration. I know it’s good for about thirty-six hours of reserve power, given my supply of stabilized fuel, but what of a longer outage? What of an actual crisis?
Fossil fuels come to us through a wildly complex and globe-spanning network, one whose extractive engineering and logistical sophistication are modern marvels. That marvel, though, has limitations. The primary limitation, as we learned in the 1970s and forgot and learned again this last year, is the common flaw of all complex systems: the more complex they are, the more points of failure exist. Being aware of this, and ensuring we have at least some redundancy in our systems? That seems wise.
Paying attention, and being ready are good things, particularly when it comes to dealing with what’s truly important in life.
When we’re distracted, though, these things sneak up on us. We assume, after all, that we can leave things to the very last moment. We’re distracted by life, by the bustle and chatter and flutter of a thousand things that seem like they’re the most important thing at the time. We chase from thing to thing, from meeting to activity to moment, so diligently pursuing our calendars and our schedules that things of real significance can slip right on by us. Or come crashing right into us, as we move along through life thinking that tomorrow will be exactly like yesterday.
What Jesus has to offer up in the first verses of Matthew 25 is all about being ready. This section of Matthew’s story is what can be called the “Judgement Discourse,” in which Jesus tells stories and lays out some pretty core things about what actually matters. How will things end? What is the destiny of the rich and the self-righteous and the powerful?
Among the stories that were told to answer some of these key questions was the one heard today, which is generally known as the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids. Let me be the first to note that this is a very parable-y parable, told for the purposes of symbolism.
The images presented are a call for wisdom in how we approach our relationship to the Kingdom of God that Jesus was always, always, always going on about. The parable itself is intended to indirectly describe the nature of the reign of God among us, and begins, as do many of the parables of Jesus, with the words “The Kingdom of God is like...”
Here, the issue is not just being prepared for what you expect. All ten of the bridesmaids begin by being prepared, arriving with their lamps filled with oil. The five wise ones, though, remember to bring extra oil, more fuel in the event that the bridegroom is delayed.
The others? Well, they don’t quite manage to get around to it. They just assume it’ll all work itself out.
It’s a typical wisdom parable, in that there are the wise, and there are the foolish, and the wise are the ones who plan and prepare, who set aside their resources under the assumption that maybe, just maybe, things won’t go exactly the way they’d anticipated. They’ve got what’s needed to deal with reality when things go a little off kilter.
The bridesmaids? Well, they’re us. Do we do what we keep ourselves focused on the things that matter, not just in the short term, but over the long haul? Are we easily distracted by the moment, convinced that whatever it is, it’ll just be the same today as it was tomorrow.
But when our lives and our faith are not prepared for that unexpected moment, for that change in the nature of things, for that thing that arrives unexpected or does not come when we assumed it would, life doth not roll well for us.
We know, with some degree of certainty, about the limitations of global petroleum. We can look around at everything that uses and relies on gasoline. Every car, every truck, every oil-burning furnace, every ship, all of it functionally useless in less than a century. My little church has been trucking along happy as a clam for 178 years. It’s gone from woodburning heat to heat pumps, and the sanctuary itself remains as useful as it ever was. If you're paying attention, and act appropriately, and don't cling to that which is not necessary, you can make it through. We’ll need to adapt, all of us, and being ready for that change sooner rather than later makes a whole lot of sense, in a Scout-being-prepared sort of way.
But what do we know about the arrival of the Kingdom of God? When will that be, and how ready are we for it? It’s easy for it to feel like an abstraction, a distant thing, so far off that we don’t need to pay any attention to it at all.
Is this so? If midway through a sermon on a Sunday morning all four doors of the church flew open, and the little sanctuary was filled with the roar of wind and a great golden light suddenly poured through the windows, the wind’s roar harmonizing with the sound of a thousand far-off trumpets, and all of the Presbyterians present knew without question that this was that event that we typically assume is just a metaphor? Beyond being grateful that the sermon was finally over, how would folks in my church feel? Would we feel ready in heart and mind and soul? How are we prepared? Have we been wise and compassionate, and done what we could to be ready?
There, we are challenged to fill up our reservoirs of grace, and understand that those choices we make, day in and day out, set us towards whatever might come.
And come it will, when we least expect it.
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