From both the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts, we learn “Be Prepared.” The fifth point of Deism proposed by Lord Herbert of Cherbury espouses “the prospect of a life to come with rewards for virtue and punishments for sin”. These propositions prepare us for understanding the premise of the passage for the week. You will also want to look at Matthew 23:13-24:51 and 1 Cor 1:17-31. Now you are ready to begin ch. 25.
Matthew 25:1-13 presents ten maids, five foolish and five wise, who are waiting for the bridegroom to come to the wedding feast. The bridegroom has been delayed for some unexpressed reason. When he does arrive, the maids light their lamps. The foolish maids now fear that the amount of oil they have is insufficient. They ask to share the extra oil the wise maids have brought. The wise maids spurn them and tell them to go to the dealers to purchase more. When the foolish maids return to the wedding feast, crying “Lord, Lord, open to us,” they are refused entry. The bridegroom offers a stunning rebuke, “I don’t know you.” Jesus concludes the parable with an admonition to all who hear it, “Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”
How perplexing! How preposterous! If the paradigm for paradise presupposes that only the virtuous and prudent will be permitted beyond the Pearly Portico, then what prospect do any have? I mean, how much virtue is enough? With Peter (the disciple), we might ask, “Then who can be saved?”
Again, like previous parables in Matthew, this parable is problematic, presenting a paradisical outcome that mirrors the world’s specious expectations. Like the others, this parable does not take into account the frailty of the human condition. It rewards the perspicacity of the worldly wise and does not acknowledge the need experienced by the five foolish maids. It does not recognize the penance in the act of repentance, the pence paid for procuring proper proportions of oil to produce proper light for the ceremony of pomp and pageantry. In short, there is no room for understanding the cross nor our need for it.
This cannot be the paradigm for the great kingdom of heaven we envision. Instead, I suggest that the kingdom of heaven is that place where forgiveness abounds and those who act in a way to repair their profligacy are welcomed to a promised place at the banquet smorgasbord.
We are encouraged in this understanding of reconciled paradise through the words of Isaiah, “the people who sit in darkness will see a great light”. Elsewhere Isaiah pronounces that the people of God are to be comforted, that God calls them by name, that they are to be the repairers of the breach. Isaiah speaks of a world that is not only unprepared, but a people who cannot be prepared. He portrays people to be perpetually unworthy, unable to appropriately plan to populate the palatial spans of God’s realm. It is not preparedness and perspicacity that makes the difference, but the gracious welcome of a compassionate bridegroom that makes the wedding feast possible. Only God knows the day and the hour, and the foolish and wise both are only able to stay awake so long before they need refresh themselves in God’s sabbath time of rest.
If preparedness is what is required for entering the banquet hall, then God’s children must be prepared to be loved and forgiven. They need to hear and believe their pastors when they say, in these or similar words, “In the mercy of almighty God, by Christ’s authority, I declare to you the entire forgiveness of all of your sins, in the name of the Father, the Son and the + Holy Spirit.”. Belief in the prospect of a life to come must be based on Christ’s justification not personal or corporate virtue or merit.
Depend on Christ’s wisdom being foolishness to the world and pray that mortal foolishness is precious in God’s sight—red and yellow, black and white, mouse gray, and brown, too.
Your pal,
Nicodemus
Editor,
Theologian, Counsellor, Mouse
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