The
Ten Bridesmaids
a sermon based on Mt 25:1-13
by Rev. Thomas N. Hall
Listen to the wedding story that forms this
morning’s gospel lesson:
God’s kingdom is like ten young bridesmaids who took oil lamps
and went out to greet the bridegroom. Five were silly and five were
smart. The silly bridesmaids took lamps, but no extra oil. The smart
bridesmaids took jars of oil to feed their lamps. The bridegroom
didn’t show up when they expected him, and they all fell asleep.
In the middle of the night someone yelled out, "He’s here!
The bridegroom’s here! Go out and greet him!
The ten bridesmaids got up and got their lamps ready. The
silly bridesmaids said to the smart ones, "Our lamps are going out;
lend us some of your oil."
They answered, "There might not be enough to go around; go
buy your own."
They did, but while they were out buying oil, the bridegroom
arrived. When everyone who was there to greet him had gone into the
wedding feast, the door was locked.
They knocked on the door, saying, "Master, we’re here. Let us
in."
He answered, "Do I know you? I don’t think I know you."
So stay alert. You have no idea when he might arrive. [1]
Ben Jonson wrote in 1601, "Some are wise and some are otherwise."
Such is the story before us. Wise and otherwise is an apt description of
the ten bridesmaids. "Five of them are foolish and five are wise," Jesus
says. Negatively put, half of the bridesmaids will miss the big
event-the wedding banquet. Now why would Jesus make such a moral
distinction between these wedding attendants? Jesus’ qualifier about the
foolish and wise clue us into something very important: appearance alone
is an inadequate measurement for most things in life.
Could you, for instance, pick out the foolish ones from the wise in a
lineup? We’d have a tough time of it. All ten have come to the wedding,
all ten have their lamps aglow with anticipation, presumably, all ten
have dressed in their bridal attire. But five will never experience the
very thing they have anticipated. And so right from the beginning, we
have to look for more than oil and lamps or long dresses if we want to
enter the story’s meaning.
Is it any wonder why this strange story is little talked about? We
love the Good Samaritan for its social critique and compassion and we
cherish the Prodigal Son for the grace that comes when we’ve compromised
our lives. But what do we do with the Ten Bridesmaids? We’re suddenly on
a strange stage with strange customs and an odd ending. The strangeness
of the story is readily apparent. Where is the bride? And more
curiously, who is the bride? And why the long wait for the bridegroom?
Is he still in the gazebo posing for one last photo with his bride? I
think for most of us, this story is not one of our most treasured
stories. The story lacks the warmth of our other favorites.
Maybe another reason why we don’t gravitate to this story is that its
meaning is not completely clear. If the fair maidens parable had been
meant as an allegory-as some scholars think-we’re no longer sure exactly
who is supposed to be who in the character line up in the first place.
Allegorical interpretation connects characters or details in a story to
exact correspondents in our reality. Matthew could well have been
reflecting on the early Christian/Jewish conflicts that so divided the
church in his own time and place.
But in the hands of our earliest commentators, the meaning becomes
ever more creative . . .
- Caesarius of Arles: the five wise maidens = the five senses
through which life and death come to us, [2] or those who cling to the
holy catholic faith (Augustine)[3];
- the lamps = good works [4]
- Augustine: the oil = charity (because oil swims above all liquids
and the ‘greatest of these is love’). [5]
- Hilary of Portiers: the whole story = the great day of the Lord.
[6]
So let’s leave the allegorical answers to our patristic friends and
try to enter the story through the door of ancient culture. This was
apparently a folk wedding-very different from the royal wedding that
we’ll meet in the next chapter of Matthew. The parents did the courting
in those days with the arrangements completed between the two families.
Now when the time for the wedding had arrived, one more last-minute
detail remained: the fathers had to make the final marital negotiations.
One could imagine the haggling, wheedling, and wheel-dealing at the last
hour. "Whaddaya mean two donkeys and a tunic for the dowry? My daughter
is priceless. Three tunics." Maybe the other says, "I’ve heard that that
son of yours is lazy; I’m not sure I want this wedding to happen." But
sooner or later the bargain would be struck and the families would go
together as friends in the procession which would lead to the home of
the bride and her bridesmaids where she would join the bridegroom as
they proceeded to his home to be married and celebrate.
No one really could tell when the haggling would turn to handshakes.
So they waited always on the lookout for the procession. As the hours
slipped by the bridesmaids would catch a few winks. In Jesus’ story the
groom finally arrives and the ten bridesmaids awake and trim their
torches. A shortage of oil causes an emergency for five of the
bridesmaids and could aptly be the first context for our modern proverb:
"non-planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."
So the non-planners run to find (and awaken) an oil merchant and once
filled they hurry off to catch the procession, which unfortunately has
ended at the groom’s house.
Question: why was a torch necessary? Couldn’t they just jump in line
and follow the torch-bearers ahead and behind them? Yes-if this had
occurred in our pragmatic culture; but not here. Not in first century
Palestine. Protocol apparently made such an option impossible.
Why weren’t they prepared? That’s the question of the story! If they
knew the procession might be delayed until the wee hours . . . if they
knew about the unpredictability of the final bargaining session and the
uncertainty of the procession, why would have been so negligent? We
don’t’ know. No clue. That is the bite of the parable. What we do know
is that once the door was closed to the wedding guests, it was bolted
from the inside and no one was admitted. The door remained locked-no
matter that the bride could identify her bridesmaids on the other side
of the door.
What a sad sight! A locked door and five on the outside and five on
the inside. Do what they will, Jesus implies-knock on wood, throw
pebbles on the upper window, yell, cajole, whimper, or throw a
tantrum-the door is shut and locked. Perhaps this too, was an inviolable
tradition in Jesus’ day, a protocol that Jesus’ listeners knew only too
well.
The point? Maybe it is as stark as this: some people who are expected
to be there, who have been invited to be there and fully intend to be
there, won’t be there in the end. We’re not talking bad and good; all of
the maidens may be equally excellent. Maybe they all had impeccable
character. But Jesus is talking wisdom-talk: its all about being
wise-and unwise.
Maybe they assumed that the others of the bridal party would simply
share their oil. Sometimes we do that, don’t we? We can go off little
prepared when we know that someone will rescue us from our own lack of
planning.
Readiness is what living the life of the Kingdom is in Matthew’s
gospel. Living in the gospel of the beatitudes (chps 5-7) is a quality
of life that marks the wise ones’ lives. But what happens when the delay
comes? Being peacemaker for a day is not as demanding as being
peacemaker year after year and especially in the face of the new kinds
of violence that we’re experiencing following 9/11. From DC snipers to
the impending violence in Iraq or North Korea or Indonesia, to our own
neighborhood, we are called to bear shalom to any and all.
At the beginning of the life of faith, we cannot really tell the
followers of Jesus apart. They have lamps; they are excited about the
wedding; they all know how to sing, "Lord, Lord," but deep into the
journey, when we see someone trying to rouse slumping faith back into
action, then do we begin to distinguish wisdom from foolishness. For not
all who begin the journey will be prepared for the delays and setbacks
that disciples are called to endure.
"Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour."
_____________________________________________________________________
[1] Eugene Peterson, The Message Bible (Colorado Springs: NavPress,
2002), page 1795.
[2] Caesarius of Arles, cited in Ancient Christian Commentary on
Scripture Ib (InterVarsity Press, 2002), page 220.
[3] Augustine, Ibid, 220.
[4] Ibid, page 220.
[5] Ibid, page 220.
[6] Hilary of Portiers, cited Ibid, page 220.
