Download the Bulletin from November 8, 2026
READINGS
First Reading: Amos 5:18-24
18 Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!
Why do you want the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, not light,
19 as if someone fled from a lion
and was met by a bear
or went into the house and rested a hand against the wall
and was bitten by a snake.
20 Is not the day of the Lord darkness, not light,
and gloom with no brightness in it?
21 I hate, I despise your festivals,
and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.
22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
I will not accept them,
and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals
I will not look upon.
23 Take away from me the noise of your songs;
I will not listen to the melody of your harps.
24 But let justice roll down like water
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Second Reading: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
13 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died. 15 For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died. 16 For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.
Gospel: Matthew 25:1-13
[Jesus said to the disciples:] 1 “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten young women took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, 4 but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5 As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ 7 Then all those young women got up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ 9 But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ 10 And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet, and the door was shut. 11 Later the other young women came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ 12 But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ 13 Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”
SERMON—Pastor Mary Lindberg
[singing] Give me oil in my lamp; keep me burning.
Give me oil in my lamp, I pray.
Give me oil in my lamp; keep me burning, burning, burning.
Keep me burning till the light of day.
Wait, we know that song! Even when Pastor Mary, who can’t really sing, sings it.
We know that song because it’s a camp song. Remember? I know you do. Although no one is quite sure who wrote this song, it’s been a camp song for generations.
This summer they sang “Give Me Oil in My Lamp” at Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp in Montana, at Camp Calumet in New Hampshire, at Camp Cunard in South Carolina. Campers everywhere and for generations have sung this song that’s based on our Gospel text for this morning. However, I bet not one single one of those campers raised their hand after singing “Give Me Oil in My Lamp” and asked, “How can this parable actually represent God’s kingdom? What is going on here with people not sharing and doors being permanently closed?”
Too high on S’mores at the campfire, the Lutheran campers did not ask these questions. They just sang the song. But we’re asking those questions now. Jesus, how can you give us a parable story that features the worst in people, that includes consequences and heartbreak?
Parables, as we learned way back at camp, are earthly stories with heavenly meanings. Like it or not, there’s nothing more earthly than conflict and despair. Jesus set this parable in the midst of what his audience knew—wedding customs, oil lamp—but also competition, and limits. And in doing so, Jesus affirms to his listeners that God’s kingdom happens exactly in the middle of a mess, in the middle of people who face the same spiritual question we all face: “What is enough?”
Parables, of course, are not meant to be read two-dimensionally. There’s always a twist that makes parables three-dimensional, that reveals the heavenly meaning: what God is up to, not just what people are up to. Seeing these teenage bridesmaids get “what is enough” wrong, points so clearly to the ways that God gets “what is enough” right.
In the middle of the night, lamps or no lamps, arguments or no arguments, God’s feast goes on. The bride and groom arrive and are celebrated. Love wins. Even with only half the possible light, love wins.
In the middle of dreams and detours, there’s enough readiness to celebrate God’s action. The feast goes on.
Church camp may not have been the first place we learned about God’s “enough,” about God’s oil in our lamp. In the church, we mark babies’ foreheads with a cross, with oil at their baptism. “Child of God, you are marked by the cross and sealed by the Holy Spirit forever.”
Each year at Ash Wednesday, we mix a little oil with ashes and mark our foreheads again. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
I learned about oil on Ash Wednesday the hard way. I was an interim pastor, and it was my first parish. Nobody had ordered ashes, so I went home and got some out of my wood stove and had no idea that you were supposed to put oil with them to make them stick. Somehow, I missed that class in seminary. So, I went to church and put ashes on people’s foreheads, and they trickled down their noses all the way to their mouths! Talk about God’s kingdom coming in the middle of a mess, right?
In addition to Ash Wednesday, we use oil on Healing Sundays. We use oil at private confessions, and I’ve been at many deathbeds where oil was used with the Sacrament of the Sick and Prayers for the Dying.
God’s oil.
God’s oil anoints us throughout our lives, as it did the bride and groom in today’s parable. One of the reasons that they could have been late was because there were customs about dressing and anointing the bride and groom with oil.
Matthew’s audience, who heard this parable, they needed it. Jesus had been gone for a generation by the time Matthew wrote his Gospel, and Christians were searching for enough patience to wait, to be ready for Jesus’ return. Persecutions, church conflict, decreased audiences. They sent Jesus’ followers back to these stories, these parables of faith, seeking the ways in which God’s message of love and justice survives even the things we can’t survive.
The feast went on, in the parable. The feast goes on even today, even as our collective tears run under the door of the goodness we can’t seem to access in this world.
The early church, they waited. They pivoted. They passed on the faith to the next generation. And now we, too, wonder, “How do we wait? How do we measure God’s “enough”? How do we pass on the faith to another generation, when that generation is missing?”
The days of church camps in northern Minnesota, being able to merely turn on a tap and Lutheran kids pour out, those days are over at the moment. Churches are shrinking, even in the Midwest, and young campers and leaders are harder to find.
Yet the feast goes on in dining halls, at campfires. Camp leaders have expanded their range of participants, leaning into God’s vision of wider community and justice for all.
For example, Rainbow Trail Camp in Colorado worked with a program of transitional housing in Denver and brought 11 families to camp for the first time. Camp Frederick in Ohio offers a camp every summer for grieving kids who have lost a parent. And our own Camp Lutherwood in Bellingham, which is about to celebrate 80 years, acquired an accessibility grant to update their facilities and make them more welcome for all.
In the midst of evolving times, of fresh hope, and of parables that never stop teaching, we gather this morning to celebrate “God’s enough” that can withstand and redeem our “not enough.” To sing about oil in our lamps.
Give me oil in my lamp.
That’s a prayer, isn’t it? And we can sing that prayer our whole lives.
Give us oil in our lamps.
That’s also a prayer that we can carry to the communion rail each Sunday as we proclaim and participate in God’s eternal feast.
We’re wrapping up this sermon now, so you have a choice. You can listen to me sing this again, or you can sing it with me. I think we should sing it together.
[all singing] Give me oil in my lamp; keep me burning.
Give me oil in my lamp today.
Give me oil in my lamp; keep me burning, burning, burning.
Keep me burning till the light of day.
Amen.