Don’t Fall Asleep at the Wedding—Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 24A/Proper 27A

 

Bride's Maids Sleeping, St. Giles Church, Oxford, UK

Matthew 25:1-13 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

25 “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.

*******************

                Weddings are always fraught with danger. Despite every effort to make sure things go off without a hitch, things can go awry. Sometimes it’s before the wedding, like a bridesmaid getting sick and the wedding party having to return home, delaying the wedding for an hour. Or maybe chasing down the father of the bride who has been drinking too much delays things. Then there’s the possibility of a bride’s train catching on a candelabra, threatening to turn her into a human torch. These are just a few of the things I’ve encountered performing weddings. In reality, most have gone off without a problem, but you never know what might happen. So be prepared!

                As we continue our lectionary journey through the Gospel of Matthew, the hour is getting late. For one thing, the liturgical year is drawing to a close. Before long we’ll start turning to Mark for guidance, but within the context of Matthew’s Gospel, the hour is getting late. We’re still with Jesus as he addresses the crowds of admirers and critics on Holy Monday. The parable he shares in our reading is one of several with an apocalyptic message. It moves us closer to the famous (infamous) message of judgment that closes out both the Gospel of Matthew and our liturgical year. We’re not quite ready for sheep and goats. Instead, the lectionary invites us to consider the parable of the “Ten Bridesmaids” or “Ten Virgins.” The message here is one of preparedness.

                This is another one of Jesus’ Parables of the Kingdom (in Matthew it’s the kingdom of heaven). When we think of the Kingdom of Heaven, we might want to think back to Jesus’ introduction of his model prayer as part of the Sermon on the Mount. In that prayer, he invites us to pray that God’s will would be done “on earth as it is in heaven.” This set of parables, which Matthew locates during Jesus’ final week of life, can be challenging, especially if we find apocalyptic/judgment messages problematic. While some scholars have attempted to extricate Jesus from apocalyptic theology, I find that difficult to do without jettisoning a lot of his teachings, including the teachings we find here in Matthew 25. These texts remind us that while Jesus’ message is one of love, sometimes his messages are not as “nice” as we would like. While we’re not there yet, the passage in Matthew 25 that many of us on the progressive side of things like to quote because it speaks of justice for the least of these, Jesus does speak of the judge sending the goats away to eternal punishment. Again, we’re not there yet. We’re just in the preparatory stages!

The parable we have before us features ten bridesmaids/virgins. They took their lamps and went off to meet the bridegroom. Five of the bridesmaids took extra oil with them in flasks, while the other five did not. According to Jesus five were foolish and five were wise. You know which ones are foolish! The problem, which the five wise bridesmaids prepared for, is that the bridegroom was delayed in coming. Because the groom didn’t arrive promptly, the ten bridesmaids fell asleep. Here’s where the contrast in wisdom comes into play. When the groom does arrive, five of the bridesmaids are not prepared to welcome him.

We need to stop for a moment and think about who it is that is waiting for the groom. Who are these ten bridesmaids, and why might they be virgins instead? First of all, we need to take a look at the Greek word Parthenos, which is translated as bridesmaid in the New Revised Standard Version, and young women in the updated edition. Eugene Peterson’s The Message has “ten virgins,” as does the New International Version. Alan Culpepper settles on virgin as the most straightforward translation, as “bridesmaid” is anachronistic. However, the focus is not on virginity here. Instead, as the updated edition of the NRSV suggests, they simply are unmarried young women [Matthew: NTL, p. 487]. Whatever the translation, these ten young women have a job to do. They are assigned the job of going out and meeting the groom as he comes to get his bride. Who is the groom? It’s possible Matthew’s Jesus has himself in mind, or at least the Messiah.  

When it comes to the identity of the young women, that is a question largely left unanswered. Whoever they were, they were assigned the responsibility of welcoming the groom when he came. Their identity is rather incidental. The focus here is on the young women who were prepared for the coming of the groom (who may or may not be the Messiah) in contrast to the five who forgot to bring with them extra oil. 

Eventually, the groom arrives, and the ten women wake up. Unfortunately, when the foolish five try to light their lamps, they discover their lamps are empty and they don’t have any extra oil. The other five, of course, had extra oil so they lit their lamps rather easily. Now whether these were torches, as some scholars suggest, rather than lamps is really beside the point. The point is that some of the young women were prepared for his arrival and the others weren’t.

Now the foolish five didn’t give up. They asked the five wise virgins to share. Unfortunately, as the wise ones let the foolish ones know, there wasn’t enough to share. They would have to go out and purchase oil, which they did. This answer given to the foolish five by the wise ones does raise concerns as it assumes a sense of scarcity, an ideology that is prominent in many circles today, limiting the ability of all manner of entities to address needs in the community and beyond. Is God not a God of abundance rather than scarcity? If we keep that question in mind, then we can move on to hear the larger message of the passage. Aimee Moiso provides a helpful caveat here: “Acknowledging that the parable is about being ready, not about generosity or distribution of resources, can help mitigate interpretations that are self-serving or congratulatory about our own oil supplies.” [Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship (p. 1049). Kindle Edition]. Keeping in mind the message of preparation, we can turn to the choices made by the foolish five. Unfortunately for them, getting oil for the lamps would not be easy. Though perhaps they found a dealer open at night and could get oil, by the time they returned it was too late. They were shut out while the other five got to go into the wedding banquet with the groom. Despite knocking on the door and asking that the door open up for them, it was too late. They are told by the Lord, “Truly I do not know you.”

The moral of the story is simple: be sure to stay awake because you never know when the groom will come. Indeed, we don’t know the day or hour. Interestingly, Jesus tells us to stay awake, but sleeping really wasn’t the problem. All ten fell asleep, but the foolish ones carried extra oil with them. Whatever the case, just be prepared for every eventuality because, despite the delay, you must be ready with lamps full of oil when the hour and day arrive.

So, what is the meaning of the parable? I noted earlier that this parable, like many of those that surround it, has an apocalyptic dimension. The wedding feast/banquet itself has an eschatological flavor, as it is symbolic of the realm of God. By the time Matthew’s Gospel was written, it was decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection. We see throughout the New Testament hints that the people were concerned that, despite Jesus’ proclamation of the approaching advent of God’s realm, he seemed to be delayed. When things get delayed, we can get complacent, lose focus, and perhaps fall asleep. I mean you can’t stay awake perpetually, but Matthew’s Jesus wants us to stay prepared. If you can’t stay awake, at least remember to have an extra flask of oil ready.

So, what about us? It’s been more than a few decades since Jesus walked the earth delivering his message of God’s coming realm. While periodically prophetic types pop up telling us that the last days are close at hand (think Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye), I think most mainline Protestants don’t think much about the Second Coming. However, when wars break out like the one in Ukraine, and especially when there is another large outbreak of violence in the Middle East, as we are witnessing at the moment, inquiring minds want to know if this is a sign that the end is near. These questions that pop up regularly is one reason my friend Ron Allen and I wrote the book Second Thoughts about the Second Coming. We wanted to provide a bit of oil for the lamps in our churches. Although many of the Advent texts we’ll encounter in a few weeks often have eschatological elements, we tend to treat Advent only as a run-up to Christmas and ignore the implications of the message of a second advent.

Many Mainline pastors and their congregations embrace forms of a realized eschatology. That is, the kingdom or realm of God is already present among us, and it is in our power to build it. This was the message of the Social Gospel. While I believe that the kingdom is here among us, it’s clear that it is not here in its fullness. As we ponder the message of this parable could it be that we may find ourselves asleep and having forgotten to take that extra oil for our lamps, so we’ll be ready when the realm comes in its fullness?  That is, is it possible that we’ve gotten so used to things the way they are that we’re no longer preparing ourselves to welcome the one who brings into its fullness the realm? In other words, is this all there is? Matthew’s Jesus would say to us, no there is more to come, so be prepared. This is a word of hope because it’s clear that humanity left to ourselves cannot bring into existence God’s realm. We need help! So, don’t fall asleep! Oh, and may the oil that is the Holy Spirit light our way forward.

Image Attribution:  Bridesmaids Sleeping, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. https://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=57769 [retrieved November 4, 2023]. Original source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/6317715388/ - Fr Lawrence Lew, O.P..