“The Foolish & The Wise” Colchester Federated Church, November 12, 2023, (Matthew 25:1-13) Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Let me begin by saying that this is not one of my favorite parables Jesus tells.  The “parable of the ten young bridesmaids” or “ten virgins” or “ten maidens” depending on the translation is not exactly an easy parable to understand.  Or maybe it is easy to understand, but it’s just uncomfortable.  So I turned to my favorite commentary on Jesus’ parables from New Testament Professor Arland Hultgren and listened to a great podcast called Pulpit Fiction where clergy discuss the weekly Lectionary texts to wrestle with this parable, lamenting the whole time, with occasional bouts of weeping and gnashing of teeth.[1] 

Anyway, Professor Hultgren explained the scenario by relating that in the parable the ten young women gather at the place where the wedding would be taking place, most likely inside the home of the groom’s parents.  The women are there to await the groom’s arrival, and plan to meet him as he comes toward his parents’ house.  All ten of them have oil lamps.  Though the “wise” bridesmaids have extra oil in containers and the “foolish” bridesmaids have no other oil except what is already in their lamps. 

All of them get tired and fall asleep.  The groom is running late!  Though it seems that the lamps were lit and burning throughout the evening.  Because the “foolish” bridesmaids eventually wake up and say, “Give us some of your oil, because our lamps have gone out.”[2]  Meanwhile, the “wise” bridesmaids get up and prepare their lamps, and that means they poured oil into those lamps from the containers they had brought.  The exchange between the “foolish” and “wise” bridesmaids seems harsh, with the “wise” saying, “No, because if we share with you, there won’t be enough for our lamps and yours.  We have a better idea.  You go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.”[3]  It’s the lack of oil that is troublesome for the “foolish” bridesmaids, so much so that they leave the house to get oil because their lamps have gone out completely.  Though lo and behold, as they are away to buy more oil, the groom finally arrives.  The “wise” bridesmaids were ready to welcome him and return with him to the wedding festivities.  But “then the door was shut” to the “foolish” bridesmaids.[4]

Okay, this all just bugs me.  Where to even begin?  Here’s the thing, if the “wise” bridesmaids were truly wise, couldn’t they have come up with a plan to ration that oil so that it would be enough for everyone to have lit lamps to greet the groom?  There’s five containers of oil.  Don’t even get me started on why the groom was so late to begin with, as if that should be the problem for the bridesmaids to handle. 

But really, don’t we teach our children that sharing is caring?  That we hope and pray for a world where sharing by all will mean scarcity for none?  Aren’t there Gospel stories about an abundance of fish and bread, enough to feed thousands and jars of water turned into an abundance of good wine at a wedding?  And then we have this story in Matthew’s Gospel about these (admittedly unprepared) “foolish” bridesmaids who get shunned in the end.  “No, because if we share with you, there won’t be enough for our lamps and yours.”[5]  Doesn’t that seem incredibly harsh?  The story ends with the “foolish” bridesmaids rushing back and saying, “Lord, lord, open the door for us” and the groom replying, “I tell you the truth, I don’t know you.”[6]  Matthew ends the parable with Jesus saying, “Keep alert, because you don’t know the day or the hour.”[7] 

The truth is that some of Jesus’ earliest followers believed that Jesus would return in their lifetime—the Second Coming was imminent in this worldview.  So these texts about keeping alert and being prepared (texts we sometimes hear during Advent, soon to come in our liturgical calendar) were all about warning the followers of Jesus to stay faithful, to keep living out the teachings of Jesus no matter what they were facing.  Because they could envision Jesus as the groom about to show up for the wedding.  And we had better have our lamps lit and extra oil to keep the lights on as we await his return.  After all, this is a parable that Jesus told.  Sometimes modern people subscribe to this focus on the End Times.  There are those who even applaud when there is war in the Middle East for instance because for them it signifies that the Second Coming should be here any minute now.  And that is deeply disturbing.

So what can we do with this parable of the ten maidens?  Perhaps the most compelling understanding of this parable in all my research (because Lord, this is not one of my favorite parables that Jesus tells if I haven’t emphasized that enough already) came from Rev. David Henson (as quoted on Pulpit Fiction).  David Henson asked some astute questions that are worth considering.  Henson mused, “But what would have happened, I wonder, had the bridesmaids simply continued to wait, with sputtering lamps and dwindling lights?  What would have happened had the bridesmaids simply waited in the darkness of the night?  To me, this was their mistake. They left, when they should have stayed. The bridal couple surely would have welcomed their friends into the light of the banquet, unconcerned about the state of their oil lamps, happy just to see their friends waiting for them.  What faith it would have taken, though, to wait in such frailty, in such honesty!”[8]

Let’s face it, we will have times in our lives when we are wise and times when we are foolish.  There will be times when we are prepared and we have it all together, and there will be times when we miss a meeting or forget a deadline and we are hanging on by a thread.  This story was written for folks who were anxiously awaiting the return of the Messiah, and many of them believed that it would happen in their lifetimes.  Well, two thousand years have come and gone, so it seems that the invitation is to focus on helping God create heaven on earth now as opposed to waiting for the clouds to part and the Son of Man to come down to complete what he began.  Yes, we can continue to stay faithful and true to the teachings of Jesus.  But we can do so for one another, co-creating the kingdom of heaven on earth with God.

Because how would the story change if the bridesmaids decided to just stay with their sputtering lamps?  The groom shows up and maybe they all get a good laugh about those dwindling lights and the oil they forgot.  The oil that they even set aside at the house and it’s sitting right there in the place where I thought I would remember to bring it, only I forgot with everything else on my mind.  Can you ever forgive me?  I’m sorry, but I was just so excited to come to your wedding!

What if the wise bridesmaids didn’t let the foolish ones leave?  And when all the bridesmaids woke up with a start and realized with shock that the groom has almost arrived and the foolish ones realize that there won’t be enough oil to light their lamps again, the wise bridesmaids say, “Don’t worry about it.  Let’s share the oil we have or why don’t we all just stand outside together to greet the groom because our lamps will provide enough light for all of us to welcome him?  You all can just throw some confetti or something!”  Sometimes the invitation may be to simply wait in all our imperfection and frailty and flickering light, knowing that God will just be happy to greet us, just as we are.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] Arland J. Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus: A Commentary, pg. 173 & Pulpit Fiction Podcast, https://www.pulpitfiction.com/notes/proper27a/#Matthew25%3A1-13=
[2] Matthew 25:8, CEB.
[3] Matthew 25:9.
[4] Matthew 25:10.
[5] Matthew 25:9.
[6] Matthew 25:11-12.
[7] Matthew 25:13.
[8] David Henson as quoted in the Pulpit Fiction Notes on Matthew 25:1-13, https://www.pulpitfiction.com/notes/proper27a/#Matthew25%3A1-13=

Photo by Vladimir Fedotov on Unsplash