A timely reminder from Jesus to spend our lives in readiness. "Belts fastened around your waists and your lamps burning ready" - like people waiting for their master to return from a wedding feast. They have no idea when he will come back so they have to be ready at every moment. There are two ways in which we can understand this teaching. One is to be ready for Jesus to come into our lives at every moment of every day. As one writer put it, every moment of every day is a sacrament of God's presence, of God's love. How often do we miss His presence in the words people speak to us or in the actions which people do? Some of them we may like and some may be unpleasant. No matter. Each one is a challenge to respond in love to Jesus' presence before us. The other way is to remember that our final call can come at any time and often in a way that we could never anticipate. The only way is to be ready at all times, to live every moment of every day as a friend of Jesus. Then we will not hear those terrible words: "I do not know you."