Page last updated

 

 

brides.jpg (2585 bytes)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.