Matthew 25:1-13

1 "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; 4 but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5 As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a shout, "Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.' 7 Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish said to the wise, "Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' 9 But the wise replied, "No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.' 10 And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. 11 Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, "Lord, lord, open to us.' 12 But he replied, "Truly I tell you, I do not know you.' 13 Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,

My favorite course this term (other than the one I’m taking with Andrew, of course) has been Introduction to Ethics. For their fall TV line up, CBS picked up on how much fun Christian Ethics can be with their show Madam Secretary. The series explores the life of Elizabeth McCord, as she navigates the murky waters of making ethical decisions as the US Secretary of State. Luckily for her, she is married to Henry, who just so happens to be a Christian Ethics professor at Georgetown. In the episode “The Operative,” Elizabeth believes that in order to save the life of a Pakistani secret agent she needs Russia to offer a ballistics system to Pakistan. The Russian diplomat agrees on the condition that Henry, who just so happens to be the diplomat’s daughter’s ethics professor, raise his daughter’s grade from a C to an A. Apparently she cannot get into Princeton Law School with a C in Christian Ethics, even if she is the daughter of the second most important man in Russia. Henry refuses to change her grade. Elizabeth needs him to change her grade to save the life of her operative. And protect the diplomatic relationship between the US and Pakistan.

Both Elizabeth and Henry can ethically justify their positions. For Elizabeth, the greater good of peace in the Middle East outweighs the morally questionable move to give a student a grade she has not earned. For Henry, he feels that all he has to offer his students is his integrity. He believes that maintaining his integrity is more important than peace in the Middle East, because without principles, how can their be peace? Both Elizabeth and Henry want to avoid war in the Middle East. They are quarreling over how real the threat of war in the Middle East is. And how their ethical decisions will either lead to war, or avoid it.

Elizabeth and Henry’s dilemma reminds me of today’s parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids. The issues at stake are bigger than simply telling the foolish bridesmaids to bring more oil with them next time.

The 10 bridesmaids are positive and negative models of how to act in view of the bridegrooms delayed arrival. The parable helps us, the Christian community, think about how we should be preparing ourselves for the second coming of Christ.

I think that we should read this parable allegorically. That is, we should expect that the story will reveal a hidden meaning to us about the kingdom of heaven. The 10 bridesmaids represent Christians with different understandings of when Christ, the bridegroom, will return. The foolish bridesmaids took no oil with them. In taking no oil with them, they were unprepared for the bridegrooms delay. They missed his return because they were out buying oil when he returned. The wise bridesmaids took flasks of oil with them. The text doesn’t tell us that they brought oil with them because they thought the groom would be late. In fact it doesn’t matter if they thought that the groom would be late, only that they wanted to be prepared in case he was.

The text then tells us that since the bridegroom was delayed in meeting them, all of the bridesmaids became drowsy and slept (v. 5). I’ve always wondered why all of the bridesmaids slept. Surely if the wise bridesmaids were wise enough to bring extra oil for their lamps, they were wise enough to take a nap before the wedding? Luckily, Augustine struggled with this question too. He concluded that we are to understand the sleep of the bridesmaids, not as sleep, but death. He writes, “do you imagine that just because one is wise, she does not have to die? Whether the virgin is foolish or wise, all suffer equally the sleep of death.”

Augustine argues that one of the hidden meanings of this text is that the wedding banquet is a metaphor for the last judgement. Whether we are wise or foolish bridesmaids in our life here on Earth, we will all die. The text even suggests that we will all die before Christ comes again. But what separates the wise from the foolish bridesmaids is not whether they believed in Christ while here on earth. But if their actions on earth prepared them for Jesus’ second coming- whether he comes again when we are alive, or after we have died.

The text also suggests that Christ, the bridegroom, will come again when we least expect it. The narrator tells us that Christ came at midnight. I don’t know about you, but the only time of year I am voluntarily awake at midnight is on New Years Eve- and even then, as my family will surely tell you, I’m in bed by 12:05. Midnight is the time of night when I am completely unaware of my surroundings. Rome could be burning outside my window and I would probably miss it. I do not think it was an accident that Christ returned for his bridesmaids at midnight. He wanted to catch them off guard to see who was prepared and who was not.

 We quickly see who was prepared and who was not when the bridesmaids awaken. The foolish ones ask the wise ones to borrow some oil. The wise ones tell them that they do not have enough to share. While the foolish ones are out buying oil, the bridegroom returns. When the foolish ones return to the banquet with their oil, Christ tells them that he does not know them. In verse 13, the narrator reveals the moral of the story: “keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Now that we have a sense of what’s going on in this parable, how do we think about it in relation to our own lives?

If we return to Elizabeth and Henry’s dilemma for a moment, we see that they aren’t fighting over whether or not human life is sacred. Just like the 10 bridesmaids aren’t disagreeing over whether or not the bridegroom will return. They are disagreeing over the outcome of their present actions in the future. Henry, like the wise bridesmaids, is trying to explain to Elizabeth that we need to weigh the long-term ramifications of our actions against the short term gains or losses. We need to prepare ourselves for the fact that war with the Middle East will probably happen. Though we do not know the day or the hour. Since we don’t know the day or the hour, we can’t compromise our integrity. The five wise bridesmaids understand that we don’t know when Christ will come again. Since we don’t know when Christ will come again, we need to prepare ourselves for the fact that Christ’s second coming might come later than we anticipate.

Theologically, the wise bridesmaids were living into the already, but not yet, reality of the Kingdom of God. While the foolish bridesmaids were living only in the already. Our eschatological hope (our hope for the end of times) is a hope in the resurrection-that Christ lived, Christ died, and Christ will come again. If we only live in the already reality of the kingdom of God, like the foolish bridesmaids, we loose our hope that Christ will one day gather everything up into himself and create a new heaven and a new earth. It would be like preparing for war if we don’t believe that war will bring peace.

So how can we live into this eschatological hope of Christ’s second coming? We, like the 10 bridesmaids, are called to live in the tension of the already, but not yet kingdom of God. Henry and Elizabeth lived out this tension by Henry giving the Russian diplomat’s daughter an “incomplete” so she could re-take it with another professor the following term. This compromise illustrates one way that our belief that Christ will come again soon, impacts how we live our lives today. How should our lives be different given the reality of Christ’s second coming? I love the way that C.S. Lewis describes it in his book Mere Christianity:

Again, Christianity asserts that every individual human being is going to live for ever, and this must be either true or false. Now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only seventy years, but which I had better bother about very seriously if I am going to live for ever. Perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are gradually getting worse -so gradually that the increase in seventy years will not be very noticeable. But it might be absolute hell in a million years.

This is the hidden message of the parable of the 10 bridesmaids. To recognize that Christ will come again. Probably later than we think. And probably when we least expect it. How we prepare ourselves in the choices we make everyday determines whether or not we’ll be ready to meet the bridegroom when he comes again.

Amen.