Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Matthew 25:1-12)
But at midnight there was a cry, “Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.”
Kä wäärdär cuɛ tekɛ rual i̱, "Nɛnɛ, cɔ nyaal ɛn! Bia raar kä luɔrɛ jɛ."
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
The parable of the 10 virgins in our gospel reading today is not really a parable first of all about 10 virgins. In the same way, the parable of the lost sheep is not really a parable about a lost sheep at all. It’s more of a parable about the shepherd who loves his sheep so much that he’s not willing to lose it even though he has 99 others. The parable of the lost coin is not really a parable about a coin, but rather, it’s a parable about a woman who scours her house up and down looking behind every cushion, looking under every cupboard until she finds her one missing coin. Even the parable of the prodigal son is not really a parable about the son, but more so, it’s a parable about the father who is waiting for him, who doesn’t even wait for the son to enter his house, but sees him from a long distance, and runs to meet him, flings his arms around him, and doesn’t even let his son finish his sentence, before he commands that the fattened calf be killed, and a banquet prepared.
And so, in today’s parable, the parable is not so much about 10 virgins. It’s rather about what these 10 virgins were waiting for. This is a parable about the bridegroom! It’s a parable about the wedding banquet, the wedding feast that the virgins were waiting to enjoy! It’s about the door that was flung wide open to and let these virgins walk in. It’s funny that most of the detail of this parable has to do with what was happening outside of the doors of the wedding banquet and what was happening before the bridegroom arrived. But really, this is not the main point. The main point in that there is a wedding banquet, that is not even described for us, we are not really told what happens at it. All we know it that it is there – it’s happening. And at midnight there was a cry, “Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.”… And we read: “The bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast.”
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But there’s a certain sense in which most of us can read this parable and work out what it’s about. But it’s not a parable that we can identify with so much from first hand experience, because here in this parable we’re dealing with wedding customs that are simply not part of our culture. And so we say, what’s going on? What’s these virgins got to do with anything? What are they doing?
It’s funny that Jesus’ ministry should begin with a wedding. He performs his first miracle of turning water into wine at a wedding. And here we are on the Last Sunday of the Church Year, and we read one of the last parables that Jesus tells which is also about a wedding. This parable is written in chapter 25 of Matthew, and in chapter 26 we read about his arrest and betrayal. In chapter 21, a few chapters before, we read about Jesus coming into Jerusalem on a donkey. So our reading today is a Holy Week reading. It’s a parable that Jesus tells after Palm Sunday, and before he goes and dies on the cross. And so in this parable which Jesus tells right at the end of his ministry before he dies, he is also telling us about a wedding. The bible starts and begins this way today. We have the marriage of Adam and Eve, and then at the end of Revelation we see the wedding banquet of heaven. We read: “I saw the holy city, coming down out of heaven from God, prepares as a bride adorned for her husband.”
And of course, weddings in all different cultures have different customs. And it’s a really great thing to go to a wedding, especially in a different culture, because you really get to see something special, something unique. But there’s one thing that all weddings have in common, and that is the joy. Weddings are quite different to funerals. There’s a joy in funerals too – the joy of the hope of the resurrection. But at a wedding, there’s the special joy celebrating a new couple, new love, a new family, a new beginning.
And we are living in very strange times, because if a visitor from another country spent a little time soaking up and enjoying our culture, they would be very hard-pressed to find a wedding. And this is a really sad thing. It’s not just sad because we’re losing a part of our culture, but it makes people sad. A culture without weddings is a sad culture. We don’t have weddings, because we don’t know why we should get married. A visitor to our country would find plenty of politicians and advocates talking about marriage – and in this current political debates, where people are seeking to change the definition of marriage in our country’s marriage act, we have to recognise something very dangerous and damaging. We have to realise that we are living in a country where many people don’t know what a marriage is. And so of course, we don’t have weddings, because people don’t celebrate something if they don’t know what the thing is. In the church today, you can’t imagine what a barrier this is to evangelism in our culture today, because if people even don’t know what a marriage is, how can people desire to enter the wedding banquet of heaven, the marriage between Christ and his church?
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So we come to this parable today about the 10 virgins and the wedding banquet, and we see all sorts of details here that are a little bit removed from our culture. Who are these 10 virgins and what are they doing?
In our gospel reading, we have described here a certain type of wedding. This is a special wedding, maybe even a royal wedding. In Psalm 45, we also have described there a wedding between a king and his queen. And we read: “All glorious is the princess in her chamber, with robes interwoven with gold. In many-coloured robes she is led to the king, with her virgin companions following behind her. With joy and gladness they are led along as they enter the palace of the king.”
So these 10 virgins in our parable today, are probably like these virgin companions of the princess described in the psalm. They are a bit like bridesmaids. And they’re waiting for the wedding party to arrive for the banquet.
And we read that five of these virgins are wise, and five of them are foolish. Five of these virgins have enough oil for the lamps only, and five of these virgins have extra oil in their vessels which they can use later on.
But let’s have a look at what these 10 young women have in common. First of all, they are all virgins. They all have lamps, and they all nod off and fall asleep waiting for the bridegroom to arrive.
As far as their virginity is concerned, all ten of them are no better or worse than each other. They are all as innocent as each other. No one is more or less pure than the other, or has anything over against any of the others.
As far as their sleepiness is concerned, all ten of them are no better or worse than each other. They all have a little nap waiting for the bridegroom. No-one stays awake more than any others.
But here comes the divide. We read: When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them. When it was time to wake up, they had no oil, and the others didn’t have enough to share. And we read: “While they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the door was shut. Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, “Lord, lord, open to us.” But he answered, “Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.”
And Jesus says, “Watch therefore, for you neither the day nor the hour.”
Now, the way in which we hear this passage depends a lot on how we view the oil. What do you imagine that this oil is that keeps the lamps burning?
We have all sorts of expressions in English about “burning the candle at both ends” and such like which have to do with expending energy and working hard. And so it can be easy for us too to hear this parable as if it has to with being energetic. “Make sure that your lamps are filled, make sure that you’re energetic, strong in the faith or you’ll be locked out. Make sure you’re fuelled up in the faith.”
But this isn’t right. Remember all of the 10 virgins fell asleep. This isn’t a parable about being filled with energy. There are plenty of people who are not very energetic or overly emotional, or whatever, and nevertheless they are still saved, they are still people who belong to the faith, their lamps are still burning.
The danger with seeing the parable like this, is that we see the oil, the fuel as something which ultimately belongs to us. We want to bring something that belongs to us to the banquet. We want to bring our own reason and strength, our own spiritual gifts, our own energy, our own sense of feeling good about ourselves, and we want to light out lamps with that. That is the sort of fuel that will run out.
It can be even dangerous to talk about the fuel as if it is “faith”, because often we want to talk about our faith just as if it’s another good work. Look at me, God, I’m so good, because I believe.
But listen to these words of St Paul: “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power to God and not to us.”
The jars of clay here are actually lamps. That’s what this passage is talking about. And the fuel that keeps them burning is nothing that belongs to us. The power doesn’t belong to us, to the lamps. The lamps are kept burning purely through Jesus Christ himself. We are baptised, and now Christ lives in us, and we live in him.
Jesus Christ himself, his words, his life keeps the lamps burning. Foolish virgins don’t recognise this. They don’t recognise Jesus Christ as the only one who can save. They don’t recognise in Christ’s death on the cross the salvation of the whole world. They don’t recognise Christ putting us to death and making us alive again in Holy Baptism.
So put your trust in Jesus Christ as he speaks to you and works through you. And watch. Expect him to come. Know that he will come. Be ready, not by yourself, don’t try to be ready without Jesus, be ready with him.
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But one last thing -- it’s a strange thing that in this parable there’s no mention of the bride. We have the 10 virgins and we have the bridegroom, but no bride.
Well, as we wait for Christ in this life, as we anticipate our own death, as we anticipate Christ’s return again at the end of time, we are like those individual virgins waiting for the bridegroom. But when we enter the door, and we are lead into the wedding feast, into the reception, into the banquet hall, we realise that we are not simply guests at someone else’s wedding, but that we, together, as one church, are Christ’s bride. We have longed and desired not just to be guests at the wedding, but Christ’s bride. We have longed to be one flesh with him, even one Spirit with him, as he has given his body and his blood to us continually in the Lord’s Supper, and given us to drink of the one Holy Spirit.
This is a great mystery. St Paul says: “Husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”
So enter in today. The doors stand flung open for you, Christ our bridegroom is here, so come out to meet him. He welcomes you in, he lights your lamps. Because all our longing, all our desire is fulfilled in Christ. Our hearts are always restless until they find their rest in Christ. Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, our heavenly bridegroom, draw us to yourself, let us run after you and follow after you. We long to be wherever you would call us, wherever you would draw us. Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, engrave our names on the palms of your hands. Fill us with longing and desire as we wait for that time when you will call us to enter the marriage feast of heaven. Inflame our lamps with your presence and with all your gifts. Amen.
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