Give Me Oil for My Lamp
11-9-08
It was once written, "Some are wise and some are otherwise." Such is the story before us. Wise and otherwise is an apt description of the ten bridesmaids in this morning’s passage. Five are prepared, like a mother who takes extra Kleenex in the car for sniffly noses, extra socks for the child who wants to play in the fresh snow, who takes extra band-aids and water on a hike, extra oil for lamp, because she is not quite sure how long she will wait. And five are unprepared. Not that they are any less devoted to the cause, any less excited for the arrival of the bridegroom, or any less Christian, but their children will likely have cold feet because they did not prepare. We see that a shortage of oil causes an emergency for five of the bridesmaids and this could aptly be the first context for our modern proverb: "non-planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." Half of the bridesmaids, all of whom wish to welcome the bridegroom in their excitement, all of whom are Christian in outlook will miss the big event - the wedding banquet.
Fair enough and clear enough, right? You’re not prepared, you pay the consequences. It may sound a bit harsh, but quite logical. But my Sunday school teacher, my parents, Jesus, taught me it was good to share. So why are five bridesmaid forced to go wake up some poor, tired, cranky vendor, at midnight, to replenish the oil in their lamps? Can’t these women just share? Is it any wonder why we don’t have this among our top five favorite Bible stories? 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. The strangeness of the story is readily apparent. Why the long wait for the bridegroom? Why does he show up at midnight? Oh yeah, and where is the bride? Who is the bride? What is going on? What does this all mean?
As some of you may have guessed, preparedness is the crux of the story. We need not turn this strange story into anything complicated…let’s think about it. It is important to know that the bridegroom does represent Jesus Christ. Jesus said, in effect, that the joy of a wedding is a proper sign of the kingdom of God.
Everybody loves a wedding. In fact they were such a joyful and important event in early Palestine, wedding festivities absolved one from studying the Torah for the day. Yet weddings take time to prepare, so the moment of greatest joy must wait, the arrival of the key players and the joy-filled procession to the wedding banquet. This was especially true in early Palestine. 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 wheeling-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 a bit of a slacker, I’m not sure I want him to marry my precious Martha." 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 turned 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. We wait much the same way for the long anticipated time for the kind of overwhelming joy that comes from a wedding, the joy that will abound when we see the kingdom in all of its glory and the muck, the pain, the oppression of the world is blotted out in joyful triumph. We wait, and we get tired, and we sleep.
I think that sometimes we forget that Jesus comes again and again in the twin adventure of life and death. "Unfortunately, our day goes by and we assume Jesus has not come. After all, there have been no apocalyptic fireworks, no trumpets sounding, no clouds parting. No pileups on the freeways. No airplanes tumbling out of the skies. None of that."1 You would think that the coming of Christ would be as dramatic as popular media would have us think. But here’s the deal: Jesus came today, and it’s possible we were so asleep that we didn’t notice, and if we were awake, our lamps were so dim that we couldn’t see him. Jesus was here today. Jesus was here yesterday. And Jesus is going to be here tomorrow.
So where will we find him? If we’re awake and alert, if our lamps are trimmed to shed some light, we’ll see Jesus in all the usual and unusual places: the prisons, along the highways, in our schools, in our neighborhoods, at the food bank, in the soup kitchen, at the office, in the hospital, at the dinner table, and so on. But if we’re lazy, if we’re sleepy, if we are unprepared, we will miss Jesus.
Just as we tire and sleep, the ten bridesmaids nodded and slept, and there was no crime in the slumber. But the foolish just fell asleep, and as a consequence of not being prepared, they had to go to the dealers: they had tapped the resources of God’s power. They lived, not merely for the moment, but against tomorrow’s emergency of joy. While the wise slept only after they had made due preparation. So the wise were awake at once, and quickly attentive to the joyous event at hand. The wise ones in their foresight were not deceived by apparent delay or by the routine march of days. They knew that life has momentary gladness throughout. Again and again, just as they renewed the oil in their lamps, they renewed their trust in God made known in Christ. And friends, at midnight, precisely at the darkest hour, when least expected, the bridegroom came…Christ came. Even when our nights are dark, we are not left alone to slumber. Joy at midnight! It almost seems a contradiction in terms.
When slumber was the deepest, when the night was the darkest, when the strength was spent, Christ came. So how prepared are we for the coming of the Lord? Can we awake prepared to meet him, or must we still scramble to get party-worthy? We must, spiritually speaking, trim our wicks, and replenish our oil. Putting our spiritual lives in order is not something to be put off till a later day. The day to be ready for the bridegroom is today and not tomorrow. So what is the oil we are short of: wisdom and education, compassion and/or passion, a connection with the Holy Spirit, or any kind of spiritual discipline throughout our day? How might we scramble around to get ready for confronting Christ today?
To be prepared for the party, we’re to trim our lamps daily. In hindsight, all 10 virgins would have had oil ready on that evening, and the five who didn’t would lament about just how unsatisfying the unprepared life really can be. There is a somber ending to this warning against slumber. The opportunity to be included as a member of God’s kingdom eventually comes to an end. That is why the previous lesson of being prepared has such import.
You see, we are used to plenty of second chances. Kids cry out "do-over" if they don’t like the outcome of a game played with friends. High-school students can retake the SAT to improve their scores. The delete key on our computers quickly offers the chance to fix mistakes that an old typewriter never could. In fact, the love and grace of God offer plenty of second chances ... even seven times 70 chances if necessary. But there is an eventual end-point at which these second chances are no more. When the bridegroom does return, the opportunities to prepare for him are no longer presented.
Jesus sounds a loving warning: "Live a spiritual life that is already prepared for my return." How then do we respond to this parable? We might take a spiritual inventory of our lives. What areas can we see that would be like the untrimmed lamp? What oil do we need to go and buy now? In our devotional lives ... in our workplace ... in the way we treat our families ... in the choices we make when nobody else is looking?
The point of the story is not the relationship between the
five prepared and the five unprepared virgins. As those who are prepared, we
know that the "Groom" is coming and that the "Groom" is
already here and will present himself on any number of occasions every day of
our lives. We must remember what we are preparing for. It is a wedding banquet,
a party, not something woeful. And this reality should speak to our motivation
in the spiritual life. There is no motivation of panic or obligation. We look
forward to the community of friends we will be with and we anticipate the
festivities that we are getting ready for. Jesus didn’t tell the parable of 10
virgins preparing for an IRS tax audit. It was a party. And the party Jesus
calls us to is worth getting ready for...it will be a banquet of unending
satisfaction. Always wake up prepared to go. The party is worth the
anticipation. The suitor is worth the preparation. And the life of unprepared
lamps only offers regrets. Amen.
1Bob Taylor, Homiletics, Nov.-Dec. edition
1996.
Blessings,
Melissa