The Challenge of the Bridesmaids

November 9, 2014
Pentecost 22, Proper 27, Year A
Matthew 25:1-13

One of my first really clear childhood memories comes from when I was in kindergarten.  School had just let out for the day and I was staying after with my sister and some other kids to work on something.  I’m not sure exactly what we were doing, but know it involved popsicle sticks.  And my mom came by and asked if we wanted to stay there or to come with her shopping.  My sister wanted to stay and keep working with the popsicle sticks, and I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do so decided to be like my big sister and stay too.  But a minute after mom walked out the door, I realized I really wanted to go with her.  And so I left school and started down the path toward our house, assuming I’d catch up with her.  When I didn’t see her I started going faster until finally I was running home as fast as my little legs could go.  Unfortunately, mom wasn’t to be found.  She’d probably driven to the school on her way to go shopping.  When I arrived at my house, my dad was there working.  I remember being so upset that I’d missed mom, and feeling so misunderstood that Dad didn’t get why I was so upset.  I felt like I’d lost something huge that could never be regained.  I remember wandering the neighborhood morosely, not wanting to play with the other kids, just wanting to go back in time and make a better decision so I could be with my mom.  I even remember watching these huge black crows circling in the air and thinking that somehow they were a part of my misery.

            Now I realize that doesn’t sound terribly traumatic.  Nothing bad actually happened.  I was perfectly safe.  My mom came home.  Looking back, I’m not sure why this experience upset me so much.  But that horrible feeling of a wrong move leading to such a sad result has always stayed with me.  Every once in a while that feeling hits me again and I am instantly returned to that 5 year old afternoon of panic and loneliness.

            It was that feeling that came back to me when I spent some time with our story from Matthew for today.  This strange story of the 10 bridesmaids.  There are so many problems with this story. 

            First, clearly the supposedly foolish bridesmaids were doomed from the start.  As the story begins they are already stuck in their “wise” and “foolish” boxes.  They never had a chance.  Any parenting expert worth their salt would be appalled.

            Second, why is the bridegroom so ridiculously late?  And since he’s the one delayed, why is it that the women are the ones punished? 

            Third, what’s up with the 5 women who won’t share their oil?  We aren’t told that they don’t have enough and yet they send the others out at midnight to go find dealers?  They aren’t even kind about it.  They almost seem to be gleeful in their refusal to share, as if this is some kind of competition and they’ve just shed half their rivals.  How could they possibly enjoy themselves at the wedding banquet, knowing that the other five were still outside, weeping and cold?

            Fourth, why such a dire result for the 5 foolish bridesmaids?  Are the 5 really being kept out of the feast because they didn’t bring enough oil?  That seems awfully petty.  Or are they being excluded because they ran to get more oil and missed the groom’s arrival?  But the only reason they left was because the others sent them away.  And even when they arrive, a few minutes late, but eager and repentant, the door still gets slammed in their faces.  The consequences seem so out-of-balance.  I can imagine the crows circling overhead and the bridesmaids’ desperate loneliness as they stand inconsolable outside the door of the party.

            So what gives, Jesus?  Even if we see the oil as a symbol for something else (like good works, or faith, or mindfulness) there still remains a mentality of scarcity, blatant sexism, a zero-sum-game outlook, the hoarding of resources, sheer pettiness, and unreasonable exclusion.  Are these really qualities Jesus wants us to emulate? Are these really qualities that Jesus wants associated with the Kingdom of God?  Where is the invitation?  Where is the joy?

            This doesn’t sound like Jesus. 

Jesus was all about sharing, not hoarding.  He told the disciples to give to whoever asked for help. 

Jesus wasn’t sexist.  His deepest and most revealing conversations were with women. 

Jesus didn’t promote a world of scarcity – he turned a few loaves and fish into a feast for a multitude.

Jesus didn’t play the zero-sum game.  He told stories with joyous parties thrown for the one lost sheep, the one lost coin, the prodigal son. 

Jesus didn’t reward the wise and punish the foolish, as the world might expect.  He made his place with sinners and tax collectors.  His disciples were repeatedly ashamed of the company he kept. 

Jesus constantly turned expectations upside down and introduced us to the dream of God where the blind could see, the meek would inherit the earth, and those who mourn would be comforted.

And so I have to believe that a lot of this story is Matthew, pure and simple.  And thankfully, the scholars who have looked at this reading with a historical eye have generally not attributed the worst parts of this story to the historical Jesus but to Matthew.  The scholars of the Jesus Seminar say that “[t]his story does not have any of the earmarks of Jesus’ authentic parables.”  Phew!  Instead, this story seems to be largely the creation of Matthew, who liberally sprinkles judgment and doom into his writing.  Casting people into the outer darkness, punishing them in the eternal fire, predicting copious weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Matthew wrote his Gospel at a time when his Christian community still had strong Jewish roots but was trying to distinguish itself from the Jewish community.  And so the Gospel sometimes seems almost frantically concerned with separating sheep and goats, true believers from lip-service followers, the wise from the foolish.

            To me, this story is more like a cautionary tale.  Jesus tells it to people anxious about the end of time.  Maybe he is confronting them, and us, with our usual ways of being.  Spurring us to think about how we live in the meantime so that we don’t turn out like any of these bridesmaids.

            How can we be different than the world that labels people wise and foolish and worries about who is in and out?  This story is a challenge to our tendency to judge, separate, and draw lines.

            How can we avoid turning into the bridesmaids hoarding their lamp oil?  Jesus calls us to be the light of the world, not to hide our lamp under the bushel basket but to shine our light before others who are having trouble making their way out of darkness.  This story challenges us to share our resources, whether monetary, physical, or spiritual. How can we be God’s partner in ensuring that scarcity and the zero-sum game don’t get the last word?

            And how can we avoid turning into those bridesmaids who were so worried about coming to the banquet imperfect that they ran off to buy more oil rather than staying and greeting the groom? This story challenges our fear that God can’t love us just as we are.  And it’s a challenge to our tendency to live in anxiety, worried about the future rather than living in the moment, and so missing the coming of God into the here and now. 

Now I realize I’ve taken some liberties with the text before us and so I want to assure you that I am in good company.

In The Last Temptation of Christ, writer Nikos Kazantzakis re-imagines Jesus telling this story to his disciple Nathanael as they walk with a crowd to a wedding banquet.  Jesus stops at the part where the “foolish” bridesmaids return with their lamps lit and begin to pound on the door of the banquet.  Nathanael, desperate to hear what happens to the foolish bridesmaids, urges Jesus to continue: “And then, Rabbi, what was the outcome?” 

“What would you have done, Nathanael,” Jesus asked, pinning his large, bewitching eyes on him, “what would you have done if you had been the bridegroom?” Nathanael was silent. He still was not entirely clear in his mind what he would have done. One moment he thought to send them away. The door had definitely been closed, and that was what the Law required. But the next moment he pitied them and thought to let them in. “What would you have done, Nathanael, if you had been the bridegroom?” Jesus asked again, and slowly, persistently, his beseeching eyes caressed the cobbler’s simple, guileless face. “I would have opened the door,” the other answered in a low voice. He had been unable to oppose the eyes of the son of Mary any longer. “Congratulations, friend Nathanael,” said Jesus happily, and he stretched forth his hand as though blessing him. “This moment, though you are still alive, you enter Paradise. The bridegroom did exactly as you said: he called to the servants to open the door. ‘This is a wedding,’ he cried. ‘Let everyone eat, drink and be merry. Open the door for the foolish bridesmaids and wash and refresh their feet, for they have run much.’ ” Simple Nathanael glowed from head to toe as though he were actually in Paradise already. But old poison nose, the village chief, lifted his staff.  “You’re going contrary to the Law, son of Mary,” he screeched.  “The Law goes contrary to my heart,” Jesus calmly replied.

And then there is Thomas Merton, writer, monk and mystic, with his poem, The Five Virgins:

There were five howling virgins

Who came

To the Wedding of the Lamb

With their disabled motorcycles

And their oil tanks

Empty.

But since they knew how

To dance

A person says to them

To stay anyhow.

And there you have it,

There were five noisy virgins

Without gas

But looking good

In the traffic of the dance.

Consequently

There were ten virgins

At the Wedding of the Lamb 

 

 

Thanks be to God for not just inviting us, but challenging us, to bring all that we are and all that we have to God’s joyful banquet!  Amen.