The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids
25 “Then the kingdom of heaven shall be compared to ten maidens who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom.[a] 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 For 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, they all slumbered and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a cry, ‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ 7 Then all those maidens rose and trimmed their lamps. 8 And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ 9 But the wise replied, ‘Perhaps there will not be enough for us and for you; go rather to the dealers and buy for yourselves.’ 10 And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast; and the door was shut. 11 Afterward the other maidens came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ 12 But he replied, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ 13 Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
This parable is actually a slice of life in Palestine, not just in Jesus’ day, but even today.
William Barclay fills in the background to this passage: “A wedding was a great occasion. The whole village turned out to accompany the couple to their new home, and they went by the longest possible road, in order that they might receive the glad good wishes of as many as possible…
“The point of this story lies in the Jewish custom which is very different from anything we know. When a couple married, they did not go away for a honeymoon. They stayed at home; for a week they kept open house; they were treated, and even addressed, as prince and princess; it was the happiest week in all their lives. To the festivities of that week their chosen friends were admitted; and it was not only the marriage ceremony, it was also that joyous week that the foolish virgins missed, because they were unprepared.
“The story of how they missed it all is perfectly true to life. Dr. J. Alexander Findlay…tells of what he himself saw in Palestine. ‘When we were approaching the gates of a Galilean town,’ he writes, ‘I caught sight of ten maidens gaily clad and playing some kind of musical instrument, as they danced along the road in front of our car; when I asked what they were doing the dragoman [interpreter] told me that they were going to keep the bride company till [sic] her bridegroom arrived. I asked him if there was any chance of seeing the wedding, but he shook his head, saying in effect: ‘It might be tonight, or tomorrow night, or in a fortnight’s time, nobody ever knows for certain.’ Then he went on to explain that one of the great things to do, if you could, at a middle-class wedding in Palestine was to catch the bridal party napping. So the bridegroom comes unexpectedly, and sometimes in the middle of the night; it is true that he is required by public opinion to send a man along the street to shout: ‘Behold! the bridegroom is coming!’ but that may happen at any time; so the bridal party have to be ready to go out into the street at any time to meet him, whenever he chooses to come…Other important points are that no one is allowed on the streets after dark without a lighted lamp, and also that, when the bridegroom has once arrived, and the door has been shut, late-comers to the ceremony are not admitted.’”[1]
So, there it is: Jesus was simply recounting what actually happened in his day. Everybody hearing him would have immediately identified with what he was saying – they’d probably all had that experience at one time or another in their lives.
But what point was Jesus making?
We need to keep in mind the context – the back story to this was, of course, the failure of the Jews to recognize the Messiah when he came. Barclay puts it this way: “They were the chosen people; their whole history should have been a preparation for the coming of the Son of God; they ought to have been prepared for him when he came. Instead, they were quite unprepared…”[2]
I’d be willing to bet that the theme that most sermons on this passage focus on is “getting ready,” “staying alert,” and “being prepared.” I looked back at the sermon I preached on this lesson back in 2014, and sure enough, that was what I said, too: “Today’s Gospel lesson is about waiting, and about being prepared.”
This is not an unreasonable view to take. At the time of Jesus’ Crucifixion, it was assumed by everybody who followed Him that the end times He preached about were right around the corner. That’s why there was no effort made at first to write down His teachings; no one bothered to try to organize the faithful; no one spent any time thinking about even the near future. Since Jesus was coming back, and that very, very soon, doing any of these things would have been a waste of time and effort.
But as the months stretched into years and the years into decades, and those who had known, walked with, and heard Jesus first-hand began to die off, followers began to realize that perhaps they were in it for the long haul. For the first time, Christians began to worry about how – or even whether – the faith was going to be passed on to the next generation. It became much more important than it had been before to “get the story straight.” Paul’s letters – the first of which, I Thessalonians, was written in 50 A.D., nearly two decades after the Crucifixion of Jesus – were collected and distributed to as wide an audience as possible; and the writers of the Gospels sat down and began their work.
As I’ve mentioned before, Matthew’s Gospel was written sometime between 70 and 90 AD – that’s nearly a century after the events it records took place; Christians had now been waiting for Jesus’ return for over three generations. So Matthew’s Jesus warns the faithful about giving up on waiting for Him – it will happen, but, just like the bridegroom in the story, it will be at a time of Jesus’ own choosing. So the advice Matthew gives us is “stay alert.”
But it isn’t just about that. We aren’t supposed to take on the motto of the Pinkerton Detectives “We Never Sleep.” That just leads to anxiety.
Susan Hylan, Associate Professor of New Testament at Emory University, Atlanta, GA, puts it this way: “However, the point of the parable is not constant readiness. ‘Keep awake’ does not imply that the disciples should never sleep, standing vigil through the ages for Christ’s imminent return. In fact, all of the bridesmaids, wise and foolish, are asleep when the shout announces the groom’s approach.
“What is distinctive about this parable is its focus on the delayed return of the expected one. The passage does not simply call for right action in the groom’s absence. It calls for recognition that he may be delayed.
“In this parable alone, the wise or prudent disciple is the one who prepares not only for the groom’s return, but also for his delay.”[3]
The focus, then, moves from “get ready! Be prepared!” to the attitude that “in waiting, there is fulfillment.” At the time of Matthew’s Gospel, the waiting was almost unbearable; but in the intervening 2000 years, we’ve gotten so used to waiting that we don’t even think about it. We don’t feel that sense of immanence and immediacy that those early Christians felt. How do we wait today?
In her post on the “Working Preacher” website for November 2nd, 2014, Karoline Lewis wrote this about waiting (and I think it’s appropriate that we talk about a veteran on this Veteran’s Day weekend): “My father-in-law was a World War II veteran and he died a year ago this past April at the age of 96. In the twenty-three years I have known my husband, it was only in the last few that Sam ever talked about the war. The last time I saw him was at his bequest to have as many of his grandchildren present, not necessarily for a final goodbye, but as you preachers know, people can sense that death is soon. Of course, that truth elicits its own sense of what waiting is like.
“On that final day, he bequeathed his war items to each of the grandchildren — a knife, his field sack. A belt that he had removed from a dead German soldier. His helmet. To my oldest son, he gave his uniform. My son tried it on. It was a perfect fit, and the last picture I have of Sam is with my son in his uniform.
“That day, Sam talked about the war. He talked about the waiting. You see, he had been selected, singled out, not to be sent to the front, but to stay behind. Why? He was good in math. He showed us his notebook in which he had calculated multiple ballistic measurements. And as he worked on his equations, he waited for his fellow soldiers, his friends, to return. Some did. Some did not. He could not understand how he was spared. Yet in the waiting and the wondering he knew God was there, and there was nothing else he could do but trust that truth”[4] (emphasis added).
Every one of us has had the experience of waiting, sometimes for quite a while. Some of the things we wait for are positive. We wait for that phone to ring to tell us that our loved ones have gotten home safely through the bad weather. We wait for the news of the birth of a niece or nephew or grandchild. We wait to hear whether or not we’ve got that new job, or that promotion. Some are less so – we wait to hear from the doctors for news as to whether the illness has returned, or, as we did six years ago yesterday, we waited for the medical staff at North Memorial Hospital to tell us that Dad should be taken off of life support. It was an extremely hard decision to make – yet even in that horrible moment, God was there.
No one knows the day and the hour when Jesus will return. Yet his return is inevitable and as certain as the sunrise. Professor Hylen tells us that “[t]he expectation of Christ’s return is central to Christian living.”[5] I think that’s what we’re getting at when we say that the Kingdom of God is “Now and Not Yet.” We know it’s going to happen, we just don’t know when. I think for us today, it’s not so much the waiting itself that we should focus on, but in how we choose to be in that waiting. We can choose to be anxious, or we can choose to trust that God is with us in our waiting. That’s where the fulfillment comes in – God fulfills our waiting with his graceful presence, and makes it holy.
So let us live in the confidence that, in the words of “The Desiderata,” “no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.”
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] Barclay, William, The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. Two, The New Daily Study Bible, Louisville, KY, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001, pp 372-3
[2] Barclay, p. 374
[3] Hylen, Susan, “Commentary on Matthew 25:1-13,” Working Preacher, https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3459, November 12, 2017
[4] Lewis, Karoline, “How To Wait,” WorkingPreacher.org, November 2, 2014
[5] Hylen, Susan, “Commentary on Matthew 25:1-13,” Working Preacher, https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3459, November 12, 2017