This is a year that has been all about weddings for our family, and I discovered something. Wedding coordinators carry a lot of stuff in their bags. I suppose they learn how to be ready; it’s part of the job. From their personal experience and probably from one another, they learn all the possible things that might go wrong on a day that is supposed to be perfect. They pay attention. They take heed, because the wedding couple depends on them to fix whatever goes wrong.
And so they come to the wedding dragging a suitcase full of emergency supplies. Safety pins, bobby pins, straight pins. Needles and thread and buttons. Fashion tape, duct tape, scotch tape, and glue. Stain remover, nail polish, lint remover, zip ties. Pain meds, drinking straws, batteries, scissors, breath mints, energy bars, and more. And they wear their running shoes, because if there is something they don’t have, they might need to make a quick run to the nearest store to get it.
You just never know, really, what kind of need there might be. So you have to be prepared.
That seems to be the message of the Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids. It comes at us blaring through a megaphone too loud to miss. You had better be ready. Have everything you might need, and have enough of it, because you do not know when the moment will arrive and what it will demand.
The stakes are high. If the wedding coordinator doesn’t plan carefully, they might find themselves in a position where they are unable to help, unable to solve a problem for the wedding couple. That could be a real problem for the coordinator; the last thing they want to do is let the couple down on their big day. It could destroy the wedding coordinator’s reputation, destroy their career.
The stakes are high for the young women in Jesus’ parable, too. The women who failed to bring sufficient quantities of oil found themselves barred from the wedding banquet, which they have been waiting for all night. Upon their return, after frantically running out to find more oil for their lamps, the bridegroom says to them, “I do not know you.”
The stakes are high; this is mission critical. So serious is this matter that it is every bridesmaid for herself. Do not expect anyone to cover for you. Do not expect anyone to carry you through this. You are on your own.
That is actually the most puzzling aspect of the parable, I think. The fact that no one is willing to share their resources with the poor foolish women, seems to contradict our fundamental understanding of the gospel: that we are all in this together, we are the beloved community, that we are to share all things in common. When you think about it for a minute, it seems that maybe the selfish women who refused to share their oil ought to have been the ones left out of the banquet.
This story is confusing, hurtful, it’s scary. Since when is it good to be selfish? Is it really that bad to have forgotten to bring extra oil for your lamp? Is this an unforgiveable offense? And even if it is bad, why isn’t anyone mad at the bridegroom for being so inexcusably late? Late to your own wedding? Now that seems bad. This is pretty disorienting.
But then we remember this is a parable. And it is not really about a wedding. It’s not really about oil. It is about the church, the life in Christ, and the kingdom of God.
And it is not really about sharing our stuff with one another – which is generally good to do. It is certainly not about the very practical issue of finding a 24-hour convenience store in ancient Palestine to buy a refill bottle of oil. This parable is about the church, the life in Christ, and the kingdom of God.
We are in the 25th chapter of Matthew’s gospel – we are near the end. And Jesus has been concerned with final things. He has been speaking to his disciples about the end of the age. He knows that he will soon be leaving them, and there are some assurances he wants to give them: that he will return to them, that the kingdom is coming. That they must be vigilant. They must wait.
He warns them that there will be persecutions to come. He promises them that the Son of Man will come to gather them together. But no one knows the hour or the day. He tells them they must watch and wait. They must be faithful so they will be ready.
That is what Jesus said to his disciples, according to Matthew, around the year 33. But Matthew is writing these words for the church about 50 years after that. And in that time some things have happened.
He is writing to a church that has been waiting for what feels like a long time already. A church that has suffered rejection from their brothers and sisters. A church that remembers what Jesus said about returning and now they are wondering. And growing weary of the wait. They wondered, “How long?” They wondered, “When?”
And it is good that they wondered. It is good that they were waiting, even as they grew tired of the wait. Because the worst thing that can happen to the church is that we stop waiting. The worst thing we can do is to stop expecting. A church that stops expecting has lost its faith. A church that stops watching for God to move in the world has stopped believing in this God.
The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids is really about just that. What happens to a church that is foolish enough to stop watching and waiting for the kingdom of God to move in this world and right the wrongs that have weighted us down and wearied us for so long? The parable is an urgent message for the church to stay on the path. Keep your lamps burning. Expect the bridegroom to come. Be ready.
The watching and the waiting and the expecting is for the end times but also for right now. It is waiting for the ultimate day when God will create a new heaven and a new earth. But it is also for the small moments in any ordinary day when God’s justice breaks in to this world. It is for the glimpses we might miss of God’s light of righteousness to shine. The watching and the waiting and the expecting are to seize the moment to be a part of it. Be ready.
But what, you might ask, does one do to be ready? Good question.
Because we are expecting the kingdom to come, we live as citizens of this kingdom. Because we expect the kingdom to come, we know what truly matters and we live our lives attentive to the things that matter. The way to be ready for the kingdom is to live as though it is here.
The foolish women are not ready because they have not been attentive to the things that matter. I have no idea what they were paying attention to, but as we hear the parable we must understand that the foolish women have neglected to live lives of faith. And that is something each one of us has to do – you cannot expect someone else to give you some of their spare faith. You cannot expect anyone to “do” faith for you.
We are clearly not talking about oil here. We are talking about faithful living that each one of us is ultimately responsible for. Your sister might have enough crackers in her bag to give everyone a snack, but your sister cannot give you her faith. Your brother might have enough tools in his garage to take care of your every repair need, but your brother cannot give you his faith.
Faithful living – the watchfulness and vigilance that Jesus is speaking of – is a kind of daily life. A life built on the daily practices of letting your actions and words be a reflection of Christ. To borrow words from Nietzsche, it is a long obedience in the same direction. The life of waiting that the church is called to is a life of being conformed to the image of Christ each and every day.
No one knows how long the watching and waiting will be, Jesus tells us. But know this: eventually the hour will come. The bridegroom will arrive. When the foolish women return and see that the wedding celebration has begun without them, and the doors have been closed against them, they cry out, “Lord, open to us!”
He says to them, “I do not know you.” I think what he is really saying is, “You don’t know me.”
You don’t know me because you have not actually tried.
The day and the hour will come. But now is the time to be ready.
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