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Jubilee Episcopal Church is an incense-swinging, sanctus-bell-ringing, stomp-your-feet- singing ancient way of following Jesus with more than enough room for you to bring your compassion, curiosities, and complete self. We're rooted in NW Austin, Texas, but connect with folks globally in sharing a joyful and inclusive Christian faith. The title comes from a prayer found in Compline, a service in the Book of Common Prayer, where we intercede for Jesus Christ to care and tend for the hurting, the sick, and the weary, but also, to shield the joyous. This prayer is our heartbeat at Jubilee. You'll hear sermons, devotions, and other occasional audio treats here -- including the occasional baby squawk or squeak from our decidedly family-friendly community!
We worship Sundays at 9:30am in person at 12129 FM 620 Ste 310 Austin, TX and online!
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Website: https://www.jubileeatx.org
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the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated. Good morning Jubilee. Good morning. Oh wow. I felt that when I was like coming in from the parking lot this morning. I could feel the vibration, you know. There's a lightness in the room this morning. Some of you walked in with smiles. Some of you were humming or singing. Some of you came in, nearly lost your voice. Having to drink some tea back here. And friends, I want to tell you that that joy is holy. And so don't even try to apologize for it or to hide it. It is a sign and a witness. This congregation carries that name. It means exactly this. Jubilee is the year the trumpet sounds across the land and debts are forgiven. Those held captive go free. Thanks be to God. And land returns to the families who lost it. Everyone gets to come home. Jubilee is God's great reset. God's announcement that the way things have always been is not the way things always have to be. And let me just say, Carly, thank you so much for that song this morning. It was the first time I had heard it, and it's just so perfect, and it's just so perfect coming from here and from you. Thank you for sharing that with us. To proclaim the year of the Lord's favor is what Jesus did when he started his ministry. He was announcing that Jubilee year. And maybe at a time such as this, you understand the power of that. He was bringing good news, and he was also bringing dangerous news. It is fitting this morning on a week such as this that we have a gospel that takes us into a joyful scene, a jubilant wedding scene. And so I want you to think about the best wedding that you have ever been to. Think about the music, the food, the aunties dancing, the moment the doors open and everyone turns and the whole room just lifts. That's the picture Jesus reaches for when he wants to describe the coming of the kingdom of God. Not a courtroom, not a boardroom, no corporate structures. Our Lord describes a party, a feast where the doors are thrown open and the celebration goes on all night. The kingdom of heaven, Jesus says, is like a wedding and the bridegroom is on his way. That's the good news. And so we should sit with that for a moment because the parable also has a hard edge and we need to understand both. There's a long night of waiting. And to hear this parable well, we have to back up one chapter. In Matthew 24, Jesus sits with his disciples on the Mount of Olives and speaks about the end of the age. He talks about wars and rumors of wars. He says the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall even from heaven. And then he says, they will see the son of man coming in the clouds with power and great glory. What he's trying to say is you are not going to miss it. The signs will be there and I want you to be looking for those signs. I want you to see it. The disciples want what we all want. Well, when? When is that going to happen? Please tell us. And Jesus gives them one of the most astonishing answers in all of scripture. About that day and hour no one knows, he says, neither the angels of heaven nor the son, but only the father. So even Jesus, the son, doesn't know the timing. And so think about what that does to a community of faith. If you knew Christ was coming back next Tuesday, you would be ready. You'd clean the house and you would call your mother and you would forgive your brother-in-law. You do it all by Monday night. But when the hour is unknown and the wait stretches longer than anyone expected, something subtle creeps in. Not rebellion, not wickedness, but just something quieter. Maybe indifference. But really, it's what's described in our gospel as falling asleep. The slow drift. It has just been so long and surely it doesn't matter if I let this slide. Surely someone else will keep watch. And Jesus says before our passage that the servant who thinks my master is delayed is the one who starts mistreating the household and keeping bad company. The danger of the long wait is not that we stop believing. It is that we stop practicing. We become lacks in the very tasks that we were given to do. And that's the problem the parable of the bridesmaids is meant to address. They were ten women with one job. Ten bridesmaids take their lamps and they go out to meet the bridegroom. And in a first century wedding, these women had that one job and it mattered when the groom finally returns home. And if you're not familiar with the wedding practices of the first century, I mean, first of all, how dare you. But typically the groom would build a room onto his father's house and then go and get his bride and the wedding would happen and it would be a big celebration when they would return to the house for the first time. And that's what the bridesmaids were doing. They were there to greet them. And so when the groom finally arrived, often late at night, after the families had finished their negotiations, both the groom and his bride would return. And the bridesmaids met them in the dark with their lamps blazing. They lit the road. They led the procession home. They threw open the doors of the household and welcomed everyone into the feast. They were the welcome. They were the light that said you are here. You have arrived. And we have been waiting for you. I love that Jesus puts women at the center of this story. Ten of them entrusted with the light, trusted to stand at the threshold and decide that the doors of the celebration would be open. As, you know, as gals up here, you know, we're pretty excited about that as we stand before you with our collars this morning. And I don't take that lightly. For a very, very long time, the church told women that our place was somewhere other than the threshold. But Jesus didn't. And notice something. It's all ten that fall asleep. The wise and the foolish all fall asleep. Jesus doesn't scold anyone for being tired. The night was long. The groom was late. Weariness is not a sin here. Some of you know exactly how that long night feels. And you've been waiting and watching and holding on and you're tired. And Jesus doesn't condemn anyone for that. The difference between the wise and the foolish isn't who stayed awake. It's who came prepared for the long haul. Five brought extra oil and five didn't think they would need it. The church has long read this story with the church herself as the bride, the beloved community Christ is coming to claim. And here is the beautiful double vision of this parable that we are both. We are the bride being welcomed home by a bridegroom who loves us beyond measure. And we are also the bridesmaids sent out with lamps to welcome everyone else. We are welcomed so that we can welcome. We are found in the dark so that we can carry light back into it. So what is this lamp and this oil? What does it mean to keep our lamps burning? And I think the psalmist gives us the key. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my mouth. The lamp is God's word scripture and more than that it is a living word made flesh in Jesus Christ and it is the light by which we find our way in the dark. And notice what kind of light the psalmist describes. Not a flood light that shows the whole landscape. A lamp to my feet. Just enough light for me to see the next step. The lamp of the psalmist world for small clay vessels that you could hold in one hand. Casting light only a few steps ahead. And that's how the word usually works in our lives. It doesn't show us the end of the road right away. It doesn't tell us the day or the hour. It shows us the next fateful step. And then the next one. And then the next. If the word is the lamp, the oil is what keeps it burning and the oil is the daily ordinary unglamorous practice of staying close to that word. Prayer when you don't feel like praying. Showing up to worship. Breaking bread together. Reading scripture until it starts reading you. Serving the neighbor who cannot repay you. The oil is gathered drop by drop in the long ordinary hours, long before the cry goes up at midnight. And this is why the wise bridesmaids could not share. The part of the story that always troubles people is that part where they say, no, there's not enough to go around, sorry. We're going to have to be a little stingy with it. But some things cannot be borrowed. I cannot lend you my prayer life. I can pray for you. I can show you the Book of Common Prayer. I can teach you to pray. But I can't give you what it is that I contain. You can't hand me your years of trusting God through hard seasons. A faith formed over a lifetime of small faithfulnesses. Can't be transferred at that midnight hour. Each of us has to tend our own lamp. And so that is not something that you should hear as a threat. You should hear that as an invitation. This act of the invitation is at the heart of what is happening in the Gospel. But what we should do is really start gathering oil. Because here's the truth about seasons of celebration. They are exactly when we are most tempted to get lax. Right? Like there's the long struggle and it's constantly on our minds then. It's constantly playing in the news feeds. But actually the celebration tends to be kind of short lived for us. It's just the way that we're wired as human beings. And we also want to abandon our practices then. But we really need to concentrate and double down on collecting that oil. When the pressure lifts we exhale and sometimes we just keep exhaling when we think the work is done. But Jesus says, stay ready. The joy of this morning is real and it is meant to fuel that lamp. The parable ends with a hard word though. The foolish bridesmaids run off to buy oil and while they're running the door is shut. And I don't think we should rush past that. But hear what Jesus says next. Keep awake therefore for you know neither the day nor the hour. The shut door is not the point of the story. The point is don't miss the party. That's the point. We have a party going on in here. This is good stuff that's happening. It is a celebration. It is a grand feast that we celebrate with those who are gathered in this room and those that are gathered in churches all over the world today and those saints who are even past. That's what we do at this table every Sunday. Don't miss the party. Be there with your lamp lit when the doors swing open. So what does readiness look like for Jubilee? It looks like remembering our job that we are bridesmaids. That our task is to welcome and that we carry a light. And our job is to go out and give that light to others. Share it with others. It's to light the road home for someone still out in the dark. This community already knows a lot about that. You've built a place where people who were told that they don't belong. Maybe they were told that by the family or the world. Often told by the church. But you've built this place so they can walk in and be told you are beloved. In fact, you are beloved babes of God. Exactly as God made you. And there is a place for you at this feast. So to our LGBTQIA siblings, to women who are called to lead and to the people who have given up on church and are cautiously trying again, that welcome is holy work. It is lamp work. And you don't ever have to let it go dim. And readiness means that we keep welcoming. We keep our doors open wide even for the ones that we don't expect. The newcomer who sits in the back row this Sunday, unsure whether she's allowed to be here, we like the way for her. The young man who hasn't been inside a church since the one he grew up in, the same one who sent him away, we like the way for him. The neighbor still out in the dark who doesn't yet know that there's a party going on in here, we like the way. And yes, the repentant, the one who comes knocking late, who once helped shut the doors on us. If that person comes to our threshold, we hold out our lamp. If they're coming with a changed heart or even just asking how can I change my heart, we hold out our lamp. Jubilee is the year when debts are forgiven and everyone gets to come home. If grace found us, it can find anyone. Our doors do not get to be narrower than God's. And that's hard. And it takes oil to stay that open. It takes a lamp that's been fed by the word day after day until the light inside of you is steady enough to shine even toward the ones who hurt you. So gather your oil, Jubilee. Read the word. Pray. Show up for one another. Feed the lamp in ordinary days so when the cry goes up at midnight, hey, look, here's the bridegroom. Come out to meet him. You are ready. And your lamps are blazing and you are standing at that open door saying to everyone who comes in, welcome. We have been waiting for you. And this feast is just beginning. Welcome home. Amen.