32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Westminster Towers
Mt 25: 1-13
Dc. Larry Brockman
Are you ready! That’s the main question posed by the parable of the 10 virgins. I hope and I pray that all of you are watching and are ready.
Now this parable, like all of Jesus’ parables has both a surface and a deeper hidden meaning. Before we get into the meanings, it is helpful to have a little appreciation for Jewish culture. You see, the story of the watchful virgins attending the bride at the reception was, and still is, a very common practice in Palestinian culture. It wasn’t just some story pulled out of the air. A wedding is a big deal there, and the custom goes like this:
The bride awaits the arrival of the bridegroom at the couple’s new home. She is attended by her bridesmaids, who, at the first sign of the groom go out to meet him, day or night, and they light the way for his entry. In the meantime, the bridegroom and rest of the wedding party parade through the streets of the town heralding the wedding event. They take the longest possible route, and often this is done on the fly. So, the bridegroom often tarries as he randomly parades around expressing his joy and announcing the event. Even today, this process can take from hours to a day, in reality. So, there is no fixed time for the wedding itself! When the bridegroom does arrive, the throng enters the home, the wedding begins, and then the celebration. The doors are locked, and latecomers are not let in. So, rather than begin what our culture calls a honeymoon by themselves; the couple shows hospitality and shares their joy right after the wedding. They get married, and then celebrate their marriage with family and friends over what might be days. Very different than our customs, that’s for sure. And so this picture painted by Jesus was very familiar to the crowd at the time.
Now, the most immediate meaning of the parable was a warning to the Pharisees and the Jewish hierarchy. They had been telling the people that the Christ was coming for thousands of years. But, the Jews had waited so long, that they had all but fallen asleep. They simply were totally unprepared for the great moment that they had been waiting centuries for. Jesus was trying to tell them that they were about to miss the greatest event in their salvation history.
You see, the arrival of Jesus was the arrival of the Christ, the anointed. And Christ is the Bridegroom in the parable. The Bride, who symbolizes the body of believers, or the Church in today’s terms, waits inside. But the attending virgins, the Pharisees, were caught asleep with the lights out. Indeed, most of them did not make their way out to welcome the Bridegroom, Christ. They didn’t recognize him, they didn’t understand him; and they didn’t embrace him. They certainly didn’t light his way. As Pharisees, they may have the most pure and holy of the body of Jewish believers, but they had no oil- no fuel for the lights that should have been turned on to herald the Christ. Not only that, Christ’s salvation parade would pass them by, and they would find themselves locked out, almost before they knew it. From a historical perspective, that’s what the immediate meaning was.
But, this parable was intended to speak to all the people at a deeper level, and indeed, still speaks to us today. Only now, the coming of the bridegroom refers to the second coming of Christ.. Every year, the Church calendar includes several weeks of gloom and doom end time prophecies in the Gospel just before we get to the season of Advent, where we prepare for Christmas. These Gospels predict the second coming of Christ with the Last Judgment. This Gospel, proclaimed in most of our Churches this weekend, marks the first such gloom and doom Gospel in the series.
Now both the King James version of the Bible, and the New American version, the Catholic version, specifically call the ten attendants “virgins”, whereas other paraphrased versions use the term “bridesmaids”. I think the term “virgin” fits better- for while they are all bridesmaids attending to the bride, Jesus intended for them to be described as virgins as well. First, notice that we really hear nothing of the bride. Now church people- that’s people like me- like to call the Church the “Bride of Christ”. And so, we have the Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, on his way to the wedding of Jesus with his Church. The salvation history of the Jews spanned a couple of thousand years. And it has been 2,000 years since Jesus came amongst us. It is any wonder that everyone has fallen asleep waiting!
Now, the ten virgins collectively symbolize the bride, or Church. So we can look at this as if all of us are represented by these ten virgins. We are all still sleeping, waiting for the last judgment. And the Bridegroom will come as a surprise. But when the wedding occurs, It will be after the last Judgment in the Kingdom of God. That means that when the wedding party enters that house, the collective bride must be pure and holy for the wedding. So these bridesmaids need to be virgins in that sense.
Next, notice half of the ten virgin are described as wise; the rest foolish. The wise virgins have oil for their lamps, the foolish do not. Now, think about that for a moment. Think about a young virgin excited about her friend’s wedding. She prepares herself to be an attendant at the wedding. All ten are wise enough to bring a lamp because, as the custom goes, the arrival of the bridegroom is indefinite. It could be day or night. So, they all thought about what kind of preparation was needed. And yett half of them don’t bring any oil.
Having or not having oil is really what it’s all about. Most of us feel called to the wedding. And, most of us think we are prepared, and would respond to the call to be a bridesmaid. But do we have our oil? Suppose oil symbolizes our readiness for the Kingdom of God. Let’s look at it this way: Do you remember when you were in school, and you would wait till the last day to study for an exam? Or do you remember times that you needed to buy food for a special occasion, but you just kept putting it off? Or do you remember when you needed to practice a dance or a sport, or prepare for a speech, and you kept putting it off till tomorrow? Well, suppose the test was all of a sudden right now; the dinner is an hour from now; and you are going to have to come up to give your speech right after I get done here. That would be like bringing your lamp, but forgetting your oil. And in a spiritual sense, all of us have the same problem as well. We can hear the call to the Kingdom, and we can feel that we are ready, but when it comes right down to it, we really are not ready- there is something missing- the oil. Maybe there are people that you should reconcile with; Sins that weigh you down that need to be offered up and confessed to God; and other tasks that have gone undone that weigh on your consciences. But whatever it is- you may not be ready. Because you see, Jesus could come at any time, maybe even this afternoon. And there won’t be any time left to go get your oil then. You either have it now, or you don’t.
Now the parable also talks about how some of the foolish virgins tried to borrow some oil. When I first read this parable, my first impression was that the wise virgins seemed a little harsh. Because there are always folks out there who plan to be generous- bring something extra for someone else. So why don’t we see that here? Jesus is making the point that the oil is a personal thing. You really have to have your own oil. You have to be ready for the test, not your neighbor; and you have to give the speech, not your neighbor. Likewise, you have to reconcile with those who you have offended; and you have to confess your own sins.
When the foolish virgins finally return to the house with their oil, they find that the procession has passed them by and the wedding and celebration have begun. In fact, they find themselves locked out. Not only that, the Bridegroom is behind the locked door and he denies even knowing these foolish virgins. Well, this is the gloom and doom part. Each of us has a lifetime to be ready, and that should be sufficient. If you build a relationship with God in that lifetime, he will know you. If you wait for the last minute; well it just may not all happen for you. And I think the real issue here is what’s in the heart.
Going back for a moment, it would seem that if all the virgins brought lamps, then they recognized the need for these lamps to have fuel. Could it be that some of the virgins were just cutting corners. Perhaps they were people who really didn’t know the couple that well; they had heard about the celebration and just wanted to party. They thought they could show up at the last minute, find the Bridegroom arriving, light their lamps for a few minutes, and then join the party- their real motivation. They were going through the expected motions just to get into the party. They were not really rejoicing for the wedding party, but they were in it for themselves. They are the lukewarm, follow the crowd, self-serving types who don’t really take things to heart. But Christ does not want party crashers in His Kingdom. He wants people who know Him and who are committed to him. He really doesn’t know people who just know him when it is convenient because these are people who deny him in times of trial.
All of us here have been blessed with a long lifetime. We’ve had careers and hobbies and interests. We all have been through relationships with Moms and Dads and Grandparents and kids and grandkids and maybe even great grandkids. And we’ve had battles with our bodies- some we’ve won, and some we’ve lost or are losing. There have been lessons and blessings, joy and sadness through it all. But in the course of those lives, we have had the opportunity to know Jesus Christ. And in parallel with all that life has dealt us in this world, we have had the opportunity to ready ourselves for our God.
Are we ready?
Alfred Lord Tennyson one wrote a poem that was included in one of his books. A novice nun recited this poem to Queen Guinevere. The poem addressed the cost of sin, and was based on this parable. The first verse goes like this: “Late, late so late the dark and chill! Late, late so late! But can we enter still. Too late, too late! Ye cannot enter now”
Is it too late for you?
