So friends, our teaching scripture today comes from
Matthew chapter 25 verses 1 to 13.
It says then the Kingdom of heaven will be like this. 10
young women took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 5
of them were foolish and five were wise.
When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with
them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps.
As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and
slept. But at midnight there was a
shout, Look, here is the bridegroom come out to meet him.
Then all those young women got up and trimmed their lamps.
The foolish said to the wise, give us some of your oil, for
our lamps are going out. 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.
And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those
who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet, and the
door was shut. Later the other young women came
also, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
But he replied, Truly I tell you, I do not know you.
Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the
hour. This is the word of the Lord.
We gave my 5 year old daughter Edith a Bible for Easter this
year. A real Bible, not a storybook
Bible or some other collections of verses or themes.
The actual Bible. She keeps referring to it as a
grown up Bible, which we subtly try to correct because of the
mistaken assumption baked into that declaration that the Bible
is somehow more for adults than it is for kids.
Because that's totally and entirely false.
Now, this particular Bible, covered in blue faux leather and
yellow shooting stars, is the New Life version, not to be
confused with the much more popular New Living Translation,
both of which are biblical paraphrases.
That means instead of something like a literal word for word
translation of ancient Greek and Hebrew texts upon which the 66
books of the Bible were recorded, the translation is in
a paraphrase. Less word for word and more idea
for idea. It would be like if I said
dinner's ready to my family rather than I have prepared food
and it is available for your consumption.
I just said the same thing twice.
But the first way, the colloquial way, is actually much
clearer, although the second way is more concrete and conceivably
could be the word for word translation of some other
languages. Expression of gather to eat in a
common space with other people for the third time today.
The NLV paraphrase utilizes 850 unique words plus proper nouns.
Most words it uses only have one meaning and distances.
Measures and money are phrased in such a way that they can be
understood whether 1 is in the metric, imperial, or some other
kind of system. Thus, what if a woman had 10
pieces of money and loses one of them?
Not a woman has 10 silver coins and loses 1.
I had never heard of the NLV before, but we came across it in
an Indianapolis half Price book over spring break last month.
It's a translation originally prepared in 1969 for Indigenous
populations in Canada for whom English was a second language.
And you can see how the translations limited number of
unique words could be of particular benefit in that
context. I will also say just as a
bracket aside, the translation as far as I can tell had nothing
to do with like the Canadian like residential school system,
although of course, missions is always complex, going all the
way back to the book of Acts. But it's this great beautiful
translation. And here's the thing, similar to
how sidewalk curb cuts were originally designed for people
who utilize wheelchairs, but they really help everybody,
including other folks with mobility related disabilities,
stroller pushers, people carrying lots of stuff, people
moving stuff, kids. The NLV was designed for people
for whom English is a second language, and it is incredible
for use with young readers and other kids.
And so we've been reading the Bible together at night.
And unlike most parents who start in a normal spot, say one
of the Gospels or Genesis or maybe even the selection of
Psalms or Proverbs, we started in Daniel.
I believe we got there that first night because there was a
page with a picture on it in the book of Daniel.
So I read that page and then I read Daniel one.
And we kept going because Thomas pointed out that there's some
really cool narratives right there at the beginning of
Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego get thrown into the
fire by the king and they walk out alive.
Daniel gets thrown into a lion's den by the king and he walks out
alive. Great stories.
And after those stories, Daniel gets a little weird.
It gets very weird. If you have never read
apocalyptic literature with A5 year old, it's really something
indeed. On our seventh night reading
Daniel Daniel Chapter 7, Daniel has a dream of four large
animals coming up from the sea and none of them are like normal
animals. There's a lion with wings like
an eagle, a bear like creature with ribs between its teeth, and
a leopard with four heads and bird wings, and another fierce
animal with 10 and then 11 horns.
The ancient of day, God, God's self takes God's throne.
The 4th beast is destroyed, the others lose their power and one
like the Son of man approaches and there is a declaration of a
Kingdom that will never be destroyed.
This is apocalyptic literature that speaks of the Kingdom of
God proclaimed over and over in the New Testament, proclaimed by
Jesus himself who is referred to as the Son of Man, just like in
this epic bizarre scripture. It is a whale of a bedtime story
and I was thrown for a loop hearing it for the first time
through this new to me translation.
It prompted some good questions and discussions.
Edith was taken with the horns and I had to explain the concept
of metaphor which is a tall order for a young child.
I made a peace sign with my fingers and I said what does
this mean? And she said, be quiet, which is
what it means in an elementary school.
And I was like, yes, yes, the fingers represent something
else. And here in this passage, the
crazy animals, some of what's going on, it represents
something else. She thought for a while and then
we got into a discussion about the Father in Jesus in which I
did my very best to explain the Trinity without committing any
heresies, which is a little hard to do because that is the kind
of thing Thomas would be much better at.
But he had fallen asleep. It was great and it was really
hard. Today's parable is a little bit
like that. It is great and it's hard now.
Now, parables are always a little hard, unless we flatten
them into neat boxes with one-dimensional moral lessons.
They're often a little short. They are often meanings that can
be observed from different angles and different points of
view. They are commonly simple stories
in that what's going on could conceivably be illustrated with
stick figures, no reference sheet required to keep up with a
bunch of names or complicated plot lines.
And yet, inside of straightforwarded narratives are
profound truths that tell of the character of God and God's good
Kingdom with layer after layer of meaning.
Now we can turn parables into what we want, pull it out as
some kind of truism or a basic fact around which we can design
our lives. But the stories themselves
resist compacting like an accordion.
They pull and fold. They can move in One Direction
for a moment, but that's never all that's going on.
Today's parable is one that never made any sense to me until
suddenly it did a little bit. And I'd like to invite you to
hold that tension with me present in this parable that
Jesus told. And as we do remember this, the
gospel story told over and over and over throughout Scripture
and demonstrated to this day through the Spirit of God who is
with us, is one of God, forever leaning toward humanity and
indeed all creation. It is a story of love and
redemption and flourishing over sin and separation.
It is told through the story of Israel, the person of Jesus, his
life in ministry, death and resurrection, and the crazy days
of the early church. The love of God is for everyone,
especially the suffering. God leaves the 99 sheep for the
1, shares a table with the tax collector, heals the sick,
spends time with the scandalous. These truths are told in
individual stories in the Bible, and they are baked into the
themes of the whole structure. So in light of that, what do we
do with the parable of the 10 bridesmaids, a story that begins
then the Kingdom of heaven will be like this and ends with five
bridesmaids shut out from a wedding banquet saying Lord,
Lord, open to us and the bridegroom responding, truly, I
tell you, I do not know you. This too is the word of the
Lord. This too tells of the Kingdom of
God. Spirit, help us understand.
Let's go back to the beginning of the parable.
Then the Kingdom of heaven will be like this. 10 young women
took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 5 of them
were foolish and five were wise. When the foolish took their
lamps and they took no oil with them but the flask, the wise
took flasks of oil with their lamps.
As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and
slept. But at midnight there was a
shout. Look, here is the bridegroom
come out to meet him. Then all of those young women
got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise,
give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.
But the wise replied, no, there will not be enough for you and
for us, who had better go to the dealers and buy some for
yourselves. And while they went to buy it,
the bridegroom cream and those who were ready went with him
into the wedding banquet and the door was shut.
Later the other young women came also saying, Lord, Lord open to
us. But he replied, truly I tell
you, I do not know you keep awake therefore, for you know
neither the day nor the hour. This parable is giving left
behind vibes. But if that's where your mind
goes to 1st, I'm going to invite you to pause and remember that
parables are not one-dimensional moral lessons that exist for the
point of scaring us. And for whatever truths, harder
truths or otherwise, that exist inside of these words of Jesus,
those truths exist inside of the gospel story and the love and
the hope therein. So let's chip away at it.
This is part of a wedding scene. The visible characters are 10
young women, 10 bridesmaids, sometimes called the 10 virgins,
5 are called foolish, 5 are called wise.
There are people who sell oil called dealers, and there's the
groom. The women are waiting.
Waiting in this kind of scene would not have been unusual
because weddings, before wedding ceremonies would begin, there
was extended negotiations related to the dowry, which was
a significant cultural and economic transaction known to
take a while. And so the bridegroom's delay
isn't because the groom has lost track of time.
It's not a statement on his perception of the importance of
the wedding or nerves or anything like that.
It's part of the process. At the conclusion of the
negotiations, the bridegroom would come to the bride's home
and join his bride in possession to procession to the groom's
home for the wedding. And now the the bridesmaids,
they had an important role in this procession.
They accompanied the bride, and being centuries before Thomas
Edison invented the light bulb, centuries before lamplighters
processed through city streets with long poles illuminating gas
lights in the evening and snuffing them out in the
morning, the bridesmaids role in carrying light was critical.
There was moon and there were stars and there was darkness.
The ancient lamps the bridesmaid carried were torches that
functionally illuminated the way to the wedding, supporting safe
passage on dark streets, signifying ceremony and
celebration. It's still common for
bridesmaids to process at weddings, but walking the 30
feet from the back of the sanctuary to the altar is not
the same thing. Though the idea that there are
particular roles for actors within weddings expected to be
carried out in specific ways, that's familiar to us.
If it isn't, Emily Post would have run out of things to write
in her column a long time ago. Did you hear the bridesmaids all
get to choose their own dresses Now it just has to be the same
color. It's rude to ask for money, but
if it's going to the honeymoon fund or a deposit on the House,
it's OK. The mother of the groom wore a
white skirt and thought it was OK because it wasn't a white
dress. Some of these traditions evolve
over time, some more quickly than others, like having a photo
booth at a wedding reception or the love millennials once shared
for decorative burlap and Mason jars, the bride sporting chucks
with her wedding dress. Other traditions also evolve,
but much more slowly and reverently.
For example, a wedding without wedding rings, even simple ones,
would be quite unusual for us. And so in this ancient parable,
Jesus speaks of five bridesmaids, that is, five young
teenagers who neglected to fetch sufficient oil for their lamps.
What scandal? What shame?
What would their mothers say? And the bride who is not named
in this story, She would have had to have been there.
I wonder if her not being named is because within the context of
a wedding, we're apartment to turn our attention toward the
bride, and she's not the point here.
In my middle school band, there was a page in our books that
offered the definition of harmony, explaining that it's
what happens when two or more notes are played simultaneously
and produce a pleasant sound together, like AC and AG.
And my band director always railed against the printed
definition and then would then play the two most dissonant
notes he possibly could play together.
And he would. And she would say that's harmony
too, It's just one that we don't like.
This parable has a few things going on inside of it at the
same time, and some kind of sound like dissonant notes
blaring on a piano like a toddler banging instead of a
artist composing. One note, particularly to an
ancient audience, is that of the five bridesmaids who are failing
at an essential duty. 5 bridesmaids without enough oil.
Another one perhaps super loud to us peace loving moderns
familiar with the kingdom's reach towards all people and the
Lord's compassion. Why can't the bridesmaids with
oil share their oil? The five foolish bridesmaids did
leave to fetch oil, and they came back looking to join the
party. They remedied their heir, and
there was a real consequence to that.
There's a problem, but they have come back and appear to be
seeking to make right what they can.
Why are they not extended grace? In another parable, that of the
prodigal son, a foolish young man runs away, spends all of his
father's wealth, then eating slop amongst the pigs.
He realizes he could eat better in his father's house, and he
goes home and his father runs to meet him and throws him a party.
If that story is true, why are these women shut out at the
door? Friends, both the parable of the
10 bridesmaids and that of the prodigal son tell of the Kingdom
of God, and both demonstrate God's character.
Both for us and the seeming contradictions is OK.
Both are for us and the seeming contradiction is OK.
These stories mean something. But like what I was saying
earlier about how the same thing can be said in so many different
ways, even a single sentence or phrase in a Bible translation,
the parables themselves stand together on their own and they
fit together. And how we understand.
Jesus tells the parable of the 10 bridesmaids just shortly
before his crucifixion. We are in Matthew today, but
piercing the stories together between the Gospels and drawing
on the book of John. It is just a few days after
Jesus mourned the death of his friend Lazarus, wept alongside
Mary and Martha, and raised Lazarus from the dead.
It is a few days after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem
on Palm Sunday. Here at the Mount of Olives,
Jesus teaches his disciples who have privately asked him about
the coming destruction of the temple and the sign of the
coming age. Jesus is teaching and it is a
kind of an escalated moment. Lazarus's resurrection is in the
immediate rear view, but so is Jesus flipping tables in the
temple. Direct public criticism of
self-serving religious leaders in the establishment.
And of course, other healings. Notably, and not at all out of
character for Jesus. Jesus doesn't directly answers
his disciples question about the temple's destruction or the sign
of the coming age. He answers their questions by
telling stories and quoting books that are now part of the
Old Testament, like Daniel 7. There was, wait here, a desire
for understanding urgency. Do you all know what it's like
to speak with wisdom to a room that is desperate?
A certain kind of populist speaker will use the desperation
to whip the crowd into a frenzy, get them hanging on every word
and, like a coach swinging in a circle, a baseball attached to a
rope for a child to hit as part of batting practice.
Whatever it is that the crowd is anxious about stays proximate.
Their hurt and fear stay right there with them, and so does the
speaker holding the rope with a ball that won't ever go anywhere
at all. That's not what Jesus does.
He recognizes the seriousness of what is being asked of Him.
He sees the disciples in front of him and he knows that they
are reaching to understand. He knows what's coming in a few
days and holding it all there, he uses the disciples question
to redirect their attention to where it needs to be.
The theologian Stanley Howerwass explains it this way.
According to Jesus, the disciples tasked is not to
anticipate the end of time, but rather their task is to learn to
endure even under persecution. All the disciples need to know
is the new age has begun in Christ.
This is what Jesus is teaching about in Matthew 24 and 25.
And so we have this string of stories about staying awake and
keeping watch. The faithful and unfaithful
servant, the 10 bridesmaids, the parable of the talents, the Son
of man, judging the nations and separating the sheep from the
goats. Where the King says come you are
that are blessed by my father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for
you from the foundation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me food.
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink.
I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
I was naked and you gave me clothing.
I was sick and you took care of me.
I was in prison and you visited me.
And the Lord has asked, when did we do this?
Truly, I tell you, just as you did to the least of these who
are members of my family, you did to me.
We are misreading the discourse if we think of it as primarily
focused on the when of future events.
Jesus is directing their attention to the here and now
and teaching them how to occupy this precarious moment.
The Kingdom is here. They have seen it.
It is never going away and it is not all the way here yet.
Indeed, there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
There is lost grief and ache that does not subside.
Jesus says this two days before Pilate washed his hands and
gives into the wayward demands of the crowd in a state
sponsored lynching. Jesus's death on the crossed.
The parable of the 10 bridesmaids is weird, but the
point is not live on thy tip toes and do not make a misstep.
For you do not know the day or the hour, and so sit with
trepidation and do your good works because you don't want to
be a foolish girl or worse yet, one of those goats.
In chapter 25. When we make this the lesson of
the parable, I think we're doing a version of exactly what Jesus
was trying to steer his followers away from.
It's a way of focusing on the when we might not be charting
stars and drawing a horoscope, but it's kind of like that, just
with a little bit of extra religious guilt and performative
good works. There are layers and layers and
layers of meaning packed within Matthew 24 and 25.
There are powerful, dissonant stories that make us a little
uncomfortable, and they are swept up within commentary in
which Jesus says he is the Son of Man.
He connects for his hearers. Ancient apocalyptic prophecy
connected it to himself in the Kingdom, in the space and time
that they're occupying together in that moment.
But here's the thing. We're still waiting.
Jesus died and Jesus rose and we're still waiting.
The Spirit of God descended at Pentecost and is with us and we
are still waiting. I think Jesus word about how to
wait and how to prepare still has bearing for us.
Last year. Last year we lost a baby.
A long anticipated, much desired child whom we had prayed for for
years. Now maybe this is an experience
you can relate to. Maybe you have a friend you've
seen go through something like this.
If not, maybe you can imagine. But the experience of
anticipating a child and looking for the signs in your own body
is the most urgent lived experience that I know of a when
question. It was like it lived half an
inch below the surface of my person and reached all the way
down to the depths of my soul. It's consuming and painful.
And there was a moment when I couldn't bear it any longer,
where I had expressed the true fullness of rage and hurt and
loss and longing. And then I stopped there, and I
let the silence sit on top of the moment.
And then I returned to that same spot over and over and over and
over, 99% of the time in total silence with God.
Now. The longing never went away.
The loss was never diminished with a proof text, Bible verse
bow. And though I now rock a six
month old baby girl to sleep at night, there was no promise.
And yet somehow I was changed in that spot.
It was the most aware that I have ever been of the pull
between the already and the not yet of God's Kingdom.
And my role was to sit there, eyes fixed on the literal
horizon ahead of me, which may as well have been the face of
God looking back at me. So when the floor fell out from
underneath me and the baby was gone, I experienced the fullness
of that loss, directly hedging, no cover and self protection.
And somehow it was everything that it truly was and it was not
everything. I don't know how to explain it
any other way. I knew carnivorous emotion and
it did not kill me. And the only prayer with words
that could get out, the only thing that brought me comfort,
was the final phrase of a litany that Thomas wrote that we prayed
100 times leading up to the pregnancy.
My soul was anchored in that prayer.
In all we do. May we be found watching and
waiting for your Kingdom. It's not even scripture, but
that image of being found. While watching and waiting, I
thought of the bridesmaids, the wise ones who were found by the
bridegroom and inside the doors at the wedding banquet, praying.
Those words were like a promise that I would be found.
And though I still watch and wait, the Kingdom is coming.
Eventually I remembered how I had gotten there, the days of
quiet that I held while sitting with every emotion associated
with longing for this child. And I realized that there is no
way I could have accessed this promise that God's Kingdom is
still coming, that I was sitting inside the door with the
bridegroom the way that I was. Without the formation that
happened and the way that I eventually learned how to wait,
I wouldn't have been able to get the oil later.
In the same way, when the bridegroom says keep awake,
therefore for, you know, neither the day nor the hour, I don't
think it's a threat. I think it's Jesus looking ahead
at the cross, imploring his disciples to wake up and take
seriously everything that he has taught them to join him in the
Kingdom work where, in the words of the theologian Kate Buller,
Jesus undoes every guarantee that in loving him we will not
lose friends. Time can pass without any real
waiting. We have an incredible ability to
distract ourselves. There are literally millions of
hours of content, more things to be addicted to than can be
enumerated. And if that doesn't work, gosh,
there's always like the dirt on your laptop or the household
project someplace to go. We have the amazing ability to
always find something. But here's the thing, Waiting
isn't passive. It is always formational.
What is it forming in you? It can be painful and reflect a
reality that is far from the joy, life, and freedom of the
Kingdom of God. But it is what Jesus himself
experienced and what he urged his followers to in an
intentional embodiment, and one of the last conversations he had
before he died. We do wait.
We experience suffering and we observe it, but we never have to
wait alone.