St. Matthew 25:1-13
November 12, 2017
Proper 27A
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~
The Parable of the Ten Virgins is filled with distracting details—things that just might make us miss the main point—if we don’t listen carefully to what our Lord is saying.
Take the term “virgin,” for instance. In our sex-saturated culture, virgins are seen as something peculiar. In a culture where sex is everything, virgins seem to be missing out. Virginity prompts sympathy and curiosity these days. But in the First Century, virginity corresponded to holiness and purity. Virginity was an honorable estate. The ten virgins in the parable are basically bridesmaids. And in
Other people hear this parable and get distracted by the part where everyone gets drowsy and falls asleep—as though the point is to stay awake and alert at all times. But please note that nobody gets condemned in this parable for falling asleep. Sleep is good. Sleep is natural. People need sleep—even baptized children of God who are awaiting the Lord’s return. No one will be damned for their drowsiness.
Other people focus on the aspect of waiting in this parable. Weddings in Jesus’ day didn’t start promptly at 3PM. They started whenever the groom decided to show up. The groom could be early or he could be late. The bridesmaids had to be ready and waiting. I’ve often preached about how nobody likes to wait—how impatient we get. But the waiting here is more like eager anticipation. It’s like waiting for Christmas. It’s not a dull, dreadful, drudgery—but a hopeful expectation. That’s the waiting these bridesmaids are doing. That’s the waiting we Christians do—as we eagerly anticipate our Lord’s return and the day of resurrection.
Having addressed the distractions, let’s now focus what matters most in this parable. First of all, note that there’s a distinction between the bridesmaids. They may all have matching dresses; but there’s distinct difference between them: Five are wise. Five are foolish. Now, in the Scriptures, to be “wise” ultimately means to have faith—to believe. To be foolish means to be unbelieving—to have no faith. All ten bridesmaids took their lamps along to meet the bridegroom. The difference was that the foolish bridesmaids didn’t bring any oil for their lamps, while the wise brought along flasks of extra oil.
This oil is an important detail in the parable. Oil is energy. Oil is fuel. It’s what lamps in the first century ran on. And this oil corresponds to something in the Christian’s life. It corresponds to the fuel of faith—the life-giving sustenance that our Lord provides in His Word and Sacrament. What our Lord gives you here in the Divine Service is what keeps your faith burning strong.
But there’s a bit of irony in the parable where this oil is concerned: The foolish bridesmaids must have looked plenty smart and sophisticated with their cute little wedding lamps cradled in their perfectly manicured hands. Yeah, the foolish bridesmaids seemed confident and carefree. For them, this wedding was just another thing on their to-do list. Go to the mall, get your hair done, go to the movie, go to the wedding.
And as for those wise bridesmaids, well, what can you say? Those wise women must have looked rather foolish and unfashionable. They lacked a certain flair as they lugged around those extra flasks of oil for their lamps. What kind of an accessory is a big flask of extra oil? That’s silly! What were they thinking? They acted as if this wedding (and the arrival of the bridegroom) was the biggest thing—the thing that mattered most in the whole world. Not cool. Kind of nerdy.
Are you getting this? The wise bridesmaids—those with faith—appear to be dumb and foolish. That’s also how it is in the world today. Those who are wise—those who have faith in Jesus and eagerly anticipate His arrival—they appear to be the biggest fools of all. That’s us, wouldn’t you say? How foolish we appear as we gather here week after week, watching and waiting for Jesus! How foolish it seems to get up early on Sunday and hear God’s Word preached to you when you could just as easily do other things. How foolish to consume a bit of bread and wine, trusting it to be the body and blood of Jesus. How foolish to give away a big chunk of your hard-earned money to God when there are so many other things on which to spend it. How foolish to preach about sin and sacrifice when all people really want is to be entertained.
Nobody likes to look foolish. We all go to great lengths to avoid looking foolish. So do you know what we do? We put down the oil. We set aside the faith and forgiveness that keeps us going while we wait for Jesus. We forego the very fuel we need. We package up and put away the commands and promises of our God so that we can appear more fashionable—wiser and smarter to those around us.
When do you do it? When do you set aside the oil of faith? When do you hide that little gospel light of yours so that you can appear to be fashionable and sophisticated? For some of us it happens at work or at school. We leave the faith and forgiveness of Jesus at home so that we can blend right in at work and run right along with the herd of complainers, backbiters, bullies, and deadbeats. For some of us, it will happen this Thanksgiving or Christmas when we get together with extended family. We package up matters of faith and forgiveness, sin and grace—lock them up—so as not to make our unbelieving, unchurched family members uncomfortable. For others of us it happens at home. We can be loving and gracious and forgiving Christians to every soul on earth, except for the souls we live with—with siblings, with parents, with spouses. When we deal with them, the gloves come off and our faith is drained down to nothing. It happens all the time. It’s a crisis of conformity. We carefully cleanse ourselves of every last visible trace of faith so that we can be stealth Christians—indistinguishable from unbelievers—always aiming to walk like them and talk like them—to be fashionable and trendy and wise like them.
And pretty soon—we ARE them. And sooner still, we’ve completely lost sight of the fact that Jesus, the Bridegroom, is coming. And the faith and forgiveness we once carried close to our hearts is nowhere to be found. The lamp of faith has gone out. The party will start. The door will be shut. And those who wanted so badly to appear wise to the world will grieve to hear the Lord say: “I don’t know you.”
In the end, when the Bridegroom shows up, when the Lord Himself comes down from heaven, with a loud command and the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God—when that happens those who looked like fools in this world will turn out to be wise, while those who appeared to be so very wise in this world will turn out to be damned fools. This is why Jesus says, “Keep watch.” Jesus wants you, His church, to be expectant, watchful, ready for the trumpet call of God with a rich supply of the fuel of faith on hand at all times, so that your faith might burn brightly at all hours of the day and night.
Thankfully, your God isn’t stingy about supplying you with all the fuel your faith will ever need. All the forgiveness, life and salvation that Jesus hung on the cross to win for the world—He gives it all away in a multitude of ways—in baptism, in absolution, in the Lord’s Supper, in His Word as it’s preached and proclaimed. In these precious gifts (which appear so foolish) is more forgiveness and life and salvation than we can even imagine. There’s far more JESUS in the Word and Sacraments than we think we need—more than enough to keep our little gospel lights burning and shining until the Last Day. Only a fool would say, “No thanks. I can do without that. I’ve got better ways to spend my time.”
The wise bridesmaids didn’t care how foolish they appeared with their extra flasks of oil. No, they knew the One in whom they hoped and the One for whom they waited. They lived and slept in the confidence of their bridegroom’s coming. They knew He was coming; they just didn’t know when.
You too are waiting—for Jesus. You know Him. You believe Him. You don’t know when He’s coming. Your salvation depends entirely on Him. He is the One who was crucified for you—for your sins—who rose from the grave for you, who is today interceding for you at the Father’s right hand in glory. He is the One who baptized you, who forgives you, who feeds you with His body and blood, who gives you His Holy Spirit. You are precious to Him.
To be wise—to have faith—means that we’re living each day in the hope and expectation that Jesus is coming. And what others may think doesn’t matter. For at midnight, when we least expect it, the cry will go out: “Here is the Bridegroom! Come out to meet Him!” You can live and work and sleep and die in the glad confidence that Jesus will come in glory on the Last Day. And on that day those who are wise—those in whom the fire of faith is burning—they will shine like the stars forever and ever. Amen.
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