Trim Your Lamps

Matthew 25:1-13

November 12, 2023

 

            In my final year of seminary, I faced my ordination exams. The ords, as we called them, are a series of five exams that must be passed to be ordained. They focus on biblical content, worship and sacrament, theology, polity, and biblical exegesis. As potential lawyers must pass the bar exam to practice law. presbyterian candidates for ministry must pass the ords to practice the ministry of word and sacrament.  

            The time of my ordination exams was upon me. I spent months, well actually four years, preparing. The morning of my first round of exams, I woke up early. I made sure to get plenty of sleep the night before, so waking up wasn’t hard. I went for a walk to get exercise and clear my head. I ate a healthy breakfast. I made sure to have all my materials that I could bring with me the night before. I got to the exam room early. I was calm. I was prepared. I was ready to go. Then a classmate looked at me and said, “Amy, where’s your Book of Confessions?” We were allowed to bring that with us into the exam for reference. I knew exactly where it was. It was sitting on my bedside table in my apartment. I had been reading through it the night before.

            I am not a runner, and when I do try to run, I am certainly not speedy, but I have never run so fast as I did that morning, running back to retrieve the one thing I’d forgotten. Gone was my calm. Gone was the peace of mind that I felt from having such an organized and well planned morning. My heart was pounding. Adrenaline was racing through me, and all the anxiety about the exams that I worked so hard to quell was now overflowing. But I got back to the classroom with minutes to spare. I was able to take some deep breaths, regain a little of the calm I’d felt before, and proceed with my test taking. And, in case you were wondering, I passed.

            Remembering this moment in my life gives me a lot of empathy for the five bridesmaids who are collectively known as foolish. Maybe they thought they were well-prepared for the wait for the bridegroom. Maybe they believed they had done everything necessary to assume their responsibility as bridesmaid. Perhaps they trusted that their lamps were fully trimmed, that their oil was plenty, and that they were ready to go. I can imagine how they must have felt when they realized the opposite was true, how their hearts must have raced when they had to run to the shops to buy more. And unlike me, who made it back before the exam doors closed, these bridesmaids must have felt nothing but bitter disappointment that the door to the wedding was closed on them. They may be known as the five foolish bridesmaids, but I feel for them in their foolishness.

            When I come to this text, I must admit that I have more questions about it than I do interpretative answers. Debi Thomas, in her essay from a few years ago, brings many questions to this text as well, and her questions inspire and provoke many of mine. So here are a few that I have of our passage.

            First question, where is the bride? There are 10 bridesmaids and a bridegroom, but no bride. I know that this is a kingdom parable, it says so right at the beginning. But where is the bride? Who is the bride? Who is the bride meant to be? Is the bride an allegory of the kingdom? Is she God or creation? Who is the bride?

Second, at what wedding is there not a specific time for the bridegroom to show up? When Brent and I planned our wedding, we both knew that at 4:00 pm we were heading down the aisle. This uncertainty about the bridegroom’s arrival makes me anxious.

Third, why are the five “wise” bridesmaids so stingy with their oil? I have a hard time not hearing them in my head as a cross between mean girls and valley girls.

“Please give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out.”

“Like no. There will totally not be enough for you and for us. I mean if we were you, which we’re not, because, you know, ew, we would go find an oil dealer and get some more. So, you better go. No, really, you better go.”

And my final question, why is it that the bridegroom doesn’t even recognize the other bridesmaids when they return? Be angry at them for not planning? Okay, I get that. But not to even recognize them? Shut the door, lock them out, cry ‘I don’t know you’?! I don’t get it.

I don’t get it, and that’s why I’m asking these questions. It isn’t to be irreverent or to make fun of the parable and the characters within it. It is to try and make some connection, cling to some inkling of understanding that might come my way if I only ask the right questions.

But I cannot ask these questions of this parable without asking questions of the larger context around it. This parable Jesus tells does not stand alone. It is surrounded by other stories about people told to watch and to wait. In the chapter and verses before these, Jesus spoke about the end times, about the necessity for watchfulness, and the signs and events to watch for. At the end of our passage today, Jesus warned those who would listen to stay awake. Keep watch. Neither the day nor the hour of the bridegroom’s return is known, so you must stay awake. And unlike the foolish bridesmaids you need to be prepared for the long haul.

Maybe the question to ask of this parable is not so much about the details, but about the message that is being relayed through them. What is Jesus trying to tell people to do in this parable? What is he telling them about the kingdom? What is Jesus saying about the people’s response?

Is Jesus trying to make folks afraid, afraid they will be shut out of the kingdom? Or is he trying to make them let go of their assumptions that they will be the wise bridesmaids? Once again, I too often see myself as the “good guy” in scripture. I assume I do the wise and right thing. But it is quite possible that I am a foolish bridesmaid, instead of one who came prepared. It is highly probable that Jesus is warning me, not the person sitting next to me, to be watchful, to stay awake, and to make the necessary plans for the long haul that is waiting. When it comes to our faith and our understanding of God’s word, should we always assume we get it right? What do we need to hear in these words of Jesus? What message do we need to cling to and what lesson do we need to learn?

A colleague of mine said about this passage that maybe it means that when we are asked to show up, we should really show up. If we’re told to stay awake, we should try to stay awake. If we’re told to watch and wait, then that’s what we should do. Yet waiting and watching and staying awake is challenging to say the least because we cannot skip easily over verse 5. “As the bridegroom was delayed.” 

The bridegroom was delayed. They were waiting. Matthew’s gospel was written for a people who were waiting. None of the gospels were written at the exact moment of Jesus’ life.  They were written after his life, his death, and his resurrection. They were written by people for people who were waiting. The first letter to the Thessalonians, which was part of the lectionary choices for this morning, is considered the earliest of all the epistles. Paul was also writing to people who were waiting. Matthew’s gospel was written approximately 30 years after that letter. The people who believed in Jesus, who believed he was the Son of God, who believed in his resurrection, also believed that he would return to them soon; maybe not immediately, but soon. Yet here they were, generations after the resurrection and they were still waiting. You can’t really fault the bridesmaids for falling asleep. The bridegroom was delayed. 

Here we are, some 2000 years after the resurrection and we’re still waiting. If you think about it, our faith is based on waiting. We are people living in the interim. We are living in the time between the times, waiting for the promises of God that were embodied in Jesus to come to fruition. I am not shy about saying that I’m not generally an apocalyptic preacher. I don’t focus on the end times to scare people into faith. I disagree with the popular interpretation of the rapture because I think that what passes for rapture theology is iffy theology at best. I often think that we get so caught up in looking for signs of the end times that we forget to be the people God calls us to be right now, here, in the present. But the promise is that Jesus will come again. Again, to reference Debi Thomas, if we dismiss, minimize, or deny that, then we make Jesus a liar. We are almost to the season of Advent, and that season begins not with the story of a baby but of the time when Jesus will come again, and that the world as we know it will be transformed.

So, if Jesus is coming again, and we are called to be watchful and wakeful and to keep our lamps trimmed, than it seems to me that this parable challenges us to think about how we wait. It challenges us to consider how our daily lives connect with what we proclaim to believe. Waiting for the bridegroom is not a mindless state of being. Waiting for the bridegroom calls us to be intentional.  It calls us to be thoughtful about what we do and how we live. Waiting is not passive. It is active. No one knows when the bridegroom will finally arrive, so let’s assume that we are in it for the long haul. Let us wait with intention. 

What does this waiting with intention look like?  In our parable, it’s about being ready.  Amos chastises the people listening to him that they are more worried about correct ritual, then about caring for the least of God’s people. They worship in name only, but their hearts are not involved. It seems to me that waiting with intention is about trying to make our daily lives match up to the faith we profess. I’m not leveling criticism at any one of us. It is easy to say that those two things should match; it’s another thing to do it.  But that doesn’t exempt us from trying, from striving to make our waiting and our living sync. 

Waiting with intention means that we live with hope. We live with hope that the kingdom of God will come to fruition right here and right now. We live with hope that God truly is doing a new thing, in our midst in this moment, and what was flat will be lifted high, and what was high will be made low. We live with the hope that there will be streams in the desert and a way made in the wilderness. Hope may feel in short supply these days with wars raging around the world, and with violence here at home. Hope may even feel foolish in the face of so much hatred and death.

But hope, like waiting, is active not passive. Hope is intentional, and a reminder that our trust is not in ourselves or what we can do or not do. We hope because we trust the One who is the light of the world, and who promised to come again to finally and forever make us and all of creation whole. Therefore, we wait with hopeful intention, living as Jesus taught us to live, siding with the poor, the oppressed, and the marginalized, doing justice and walking in righteousness, and never taking for granted each day that we are given, keeping our lamps trimmed.

Let all of God’s children say, “Alleluia!” Amen.