Not Too Late to Believe

Homily for Sunday, November 8, 2026
The Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Matthew 25:1-13

The Rev. William Willimon, a retired Methodist Bishop and recently retired also from the faculty at Duke Divinity School, tells the story from early in his ministry when he served a parish in rural Georgia:  The relative of a parishioner had died, and though the relative wasn’t a member of his church, he nonetheless went to the funeral.  If Willimon’s parish was rural, this other parish – what Willimon called an “off-brand Baptist” church – was even more rural, in the so-called “backwoods.”  At the service Willimon was scandalized by the preacher’s fire and brimstone message, which was:  “It’s too late for Joe.  He’s dead. He might have wanted to straighten out his life, but he can’t no more.  Joe’s life is over, finished.  Joe is dead!” Willimon says he sat in stunned disbelief, thinking to himself, “This is no way to comfort a grieving family.” The preacher continued, “But it ain’t too late for you!  People drop dead every day, so why wait?  Now is the time to make a decision.  Give your life to Jesus Christ.”  Willimon tells how on the way home in the car he said to his wife, Patsy, “That was the worst homily I’ve ever heard – manipulative, cheap and inappropriate for a grieving family.” His wife agreed – “Yep.  Totally.  I agree.”  And then she said, “And the worst part is everything he said was true.”

Now, a story from when I was a younger man…  When I was in my twenties and in seminary at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, I did my New Testament studies with Prof. Dan Harrington, known affectionately to the generation of Jesuits whom he taught as “Dan the Man.”  During a lecture on Jesus’ so-called “Eschatological Discourse” in Matthew chapters 24 and 25 (from which today’s Gospel lesson comes), a fellow student asked how first-century Jewish audiences might have understood these chapters.  Professor Harrington first gave an academic answer about how apocalyptic scenarios were “a dime a dozen” in the first century: Some had a Messianic figure, some did not; some had resurrection of the just and the wicked, some had resurrection of the just only; in some cases the Kingdom was a heavenly place, in other cases the Kingdom is the world made new.  “But they all share an ending in which there is a judgment in which the just are vindicated, and the fullness of the Kingdom will ensue.”  There may have been another question that I didn’t capture in my notes, for the next words I wrote down from Professor Harrington were:

Apocalyptic language has a bad rap in today’s culture because we associate this kind of language with fundamentalist churches. Be aware of our tendency to ignore this language, which is foreign to American cultural assumptions, especially to our desire to control.

And I know he said it again because I underlined it and wrote next to it “x 2:”  “Be aware of our tendency to ignore this language.”  “Because,” to paraphrase Patsy Willimon, the Bishop’s wife, “it’s true.”

Whether we tend to ignore this apocalyptic language in the latter chapters of Matthew because it’s so “over-the-top”– like, “Yeah, right, ‘The sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven’” (Mt 24:9).  Or whether we tend to ignore this language because we’re Episcopalians and we prefer to focus on other scriptures.  Or whether we tend to ignore apocalyptic language because we like to be in control… “Be aware of our tendency to ignore this language.”  “Because it’s true.”

It may not literally be “true” that “the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.”  It may not literally be “true” that “two will be in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left” (Matt 24:40-41).  It may not literally be “true” that there will be ten bridesmaids, or a master going on a journey who entrusted his servants with talents (Mt 25:14-30), or that Jesus will separate the sheep to his right from the goats on his left  (Mt25:31-46).  But what is “true,” and that we can attest with our own eyes and experience, is that:  “People drop dead every day.”  Just last month the sister-in-law of one of my swim teammates was active and seemed perfectly healthy until… she collapsed to the floor and six minutes later was dead. My dad, though he had Parkinson’s, seemed to be doing alright until…suddenly he wasn’t.  Six weeks later, he was dead.  Many of us knew David MacNair, a beloved, life-long parishioner here at Trinity Parish – one Saturday afternoon he mowed his lawn, went for a walk with a neighbor, and that night laid out his suit and tie to come here to Trinity in the morning; and sometime that night or early morning, he collapsed dead on the bathroom floor.  We know from our own experience that, “People drop dead every day.”

We can also attest that, “It ain’t too late for you.”  We are still alive.  Though you may or may not “believe in the resurrection of the dead,” why not, if only for this life, “Give your life to Jesus Christ”?  Is there a better, more satisfying way to live this one, wild and precious life than to give ourselves to Jesus and to follow him?  It is He who is the Truth we seek.  It is He who is our Way.  It is He who is the Life we want .  To quote the preacher:  “Why wait?  Now is the time.  Give your life to Jesus Christ.”  Or, if you feel you already have given your life to him, why not ask Jesus to show you how you might follow him even more nearly and how you might love him even more dearly? For us, there is still time.  We do not know how long – “For you know neither the day nor the hour” – so why not today ask Jesus for help to give, or to more fully give, your life to him?

In the Episcopal Church, we are much indebted to the Benedictines, those monks and nuns whose monasteries King Henry VIII dissolved in the 1530’s.  Though their monasteries were closed, their liturgies still survive, forming the backbone of The Book of Common Prayer.   If you find yourself among those who tend to ignore language about the apocalypse and to associate it with “fundamentalist” churches, perhaps the words of St. Benedict will more readily speak to your Episcopal ears.  I will leave us with words of St. Benedict, from the Prologue of his Rule:

Listen carefully… to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart…. Let us get up… for the Scriptures rouse us when they say: It is time for us to arise from sleep (Rom 13:11).  Let us open our eyes to the light that comes from God, and our ears to the voice from heaven that every day calls out this charge: If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts (Ps. 94 [95]:8)... And what does he say? Come and listen to me… I will teach you the fear of the Lord (Ps. 33[34]:13).  Run while you have the light of life....While there is still time, while we are in this body and have time to accomplish all these things – we must run and do now what will profit us forever…  Do not be daunted… but run toward the road that leads to salvation.  It is bound to be narrow at the outset, but as we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love.  Not swerving from his instructions… but faithfully observing his teaching… we shall through patience share in the sufferings of Christ that we may deserve also to share in his kingdom.