Ten bridesmaids[1] were supposed to go to a wedding party, but only five of them were allowed inside. The other five got there late, and when the groom answered the door, he didn’t even know who they were. I’m grateful that on my wedding day, I had no doubt that my groom was going be there on time, and of course that he knew my bridesmaids. In some ways it feels like this story would be easier for me to preach on if this groom acted a bit more like mine, gracious and understanding. As I would expect from “any man of mine” to quote the fabulous Shania Twain.

I’m challenged by this parable, because I believe that God has a ridiculously radical inclusive love for humanity and that God offers each of us endless grace for our failures and shortcomings, which should be enough to cover some bridesmaids running late because they ran out of lamp oil. But that’s not the story we have, or rather the parable, because remember this is not a tale about an actual wedding. It is a parable, which I would define as a story that is meant to make us think. They are powerful because we can relate to them as stories about human things like weddings, and I think we learn from them through how we grapple with them, so, please excuse me while I grapple for a little bit.

This is a parable about the kingdom of God, a parable about God’s people who wait in the night with lamps burning, for the beginning of the eternal wedding feast of shalom, for all-encompassing and everlasting peace. It’s also a parable about oil, a precious resource in the ancient world, which was used for everything from anointing holy leaders, to making food and medicine, to lighting people’s homes at night. You needed to plan ahead in order to have light in ancient times, there were no light switches then, only the oil you had on hand, and your hopefully well-trimmed wick against the darkness of night.

I have no idea what it’s like to rely on oil lamps, but for a while, Logan and I did live in a home with a woodburning stove, where I learned that you can’t burn wood in a stove to heat your house in the same way that you burn it on a bonfire to make smore’s. If you want to heat your house, especially through the night, you have to make sure that the fire inside the stove has just enough oxygen to keep it going, but not so much that it burns through all your wood, which will leave you waking up in a cold house to re-light your fire from scratch. Lights must be tended in order to last, and in our story today some of the bridesmaids didn’t plan for there to be a delay. This is a fitting parable for stewardship because it’s about our resources, and how we keep the lights on without running out of oil before the good we’re hoping for arrives.

The kingdom of heaven is like this. We do not know how long it will take for God to break through in any situation. We do not know which moment will be the one where everything changes. And we do not know how long the church will need to advocate for peace and justice until they come. So, we might see the oil as a metaphor for lots of resources, like our money and our time. For me right now it represents our resilience because we who follow Christ are called to care about our neighbor, and to stay awake to what’s going on in our world, and frankly that can be exhausting. Especially as our technology keeps giving us more and more opportunities to bear witness to other people’s pain, there are many of us who are struggling with compassion fatigue, literally exhaustion from caring so much, and feeling powerless to make a difference.

The fact of the matter is humans cannot stay awake forever. Every lamp runs out of oil eventually. The fire in the woodstove must be allowed to go out so that the stove can be cleaned of ashes. The lamp must stop burning so that you can replace the wick when it’s gone. I think you get my point. Whether we’re talking physically, emotionally, or spiritually – we cannot always be alert or even always be prepared. We must rest. We must recover. We are only human after all, just like the bridesmaids. And if God is the groom in this parable, what does that mean? Will God really turn us away because our lights burned out waiting for him to arrive? I don’t think so.

He doesn’t let them in because he doesn’t know them, he doesn’t know them because they left before he arrived, and they left only because the wise bridesmaids sent them away to buy more oil in the middle of the night. And the question I can’t get over is, why? Because either way, the light from their lamps isn’t there to help the groom when he arrives. Despite their absence, the party goes ahead and gets started anyways. Apparently, five lamps were plenty to get him and everyone else where they needed to go. So, there’s no good reason for them to go stumbling off into the darkness, missing the wedding while they look for oil that isn’t needed, at a time when the stores where they could get some weren’t even open anyways.

Sermons on this parable usually emphasize being like the wise bridesmaids and not being like the foolish ones, but I’m not sure that’s the only point to be taken from this parable. Jesus says the lesson is to stay alert, and keep awake, which actually none of the bridesmaids did – they all fell asleep, just like the disciples would while they were with Jesus in the garden, in the very next chapter of Matthew’s gospel. Maybe that line was supposed to be a heads up for them.

In an article on Patheos.com, titled, “The Breaking of the Bridesmaids: Rethinking a Problematic Parable,” David Roberts calls into question this distinction between wise and foolish bridesmaids.[2] Because when have human beings ever only been foolish OR wise? Every single person I know, myself included, is both of those things every day. Not to mention that the Bible is full of warnings for those who think themselves wise, because God’s wisdom is foolishness to the world. So, should we really aspire to be like the “wise” bridesmaids who send the others away without sharing their oil? When has it ever been Jesus’ point that we should not share what we have even when we have little to share? And isn’t this the shepherd who leaves 99 sheep to go looking for just one who is lost, and celebrates when that one is found safe and brought home? Where is the celebration for their arrival here? I mean, if they were my bridesmaids, I would have just been glad that they had made it, and I am certainly not more gracious than God is.

So, I’ve been chewing on this parable for weeks now, trying to make it make sense to me, and here is where I’m at now: I think that we are fellow bridesmaids, sometimes we are wise, and sometimes we are foolish, but we are not just members of one group or the other, we are both.

I think that it is important for us to stay alert, and to not be indifferent when it comes to the human beings God cares so much for. To not always look away when our privilege gives us that opportunity. It is important that we pay attention and keep bending the universe towards justice.

I think that our resilience in the face of evil and suffering is like lamp oil; that there are more long nights ahead of us; and that we won’t have a long-lasting light for those nights unless we prepare ourselves for them. So, I think that it is necessary for us take care of our lamps, to set aside extra fuel when we can, and to keep our wicks trimmed, so that they are ready to burn when needed to dispel the darkness.

And I think that we make more light together than we do divided. Because sure, maybe the ones who were wise enough to plan ahead couldn’t share their oil – but the whole reason they were there was to share their light, and they still could have done that. Instead of sending those five away, imagine if they had said, “Hey, the groom is already here! Come stand next to me, I have enough light to share, let’s all go together. It’s party time, and I don’t want you to miss out.” I think they had the ability to bring those fellow bridesmaids along with them, even if they didn’t earn it, and even though they had messed up, and that sounds like some good news to me.

No single one of us can produce an eternal flame of resilience, but we who are the church keep the lights on together, when we take turns lighting the way for each other, and sharing our light with each other. It’s not just one night we must prepare for, it’s all our nights, and some nights we’re going to run out of oil, but other nights we might just have a jug full of oil we can share. I think we all get to be both, and that’s grace, alive among us. That’s why we bother to ask you for your pledges for the year ahead, to get a sense of where each of us is at. Because it takes more than one person’s resources to fuel the church, and our resources are changing all the time.

I don’t expect any one person to be able to provide all the light all the time, but I do think that if we tend to our lamps, and we share the light we have, we can light up the way for everyone, when we gather together. When people are running low on oil the answer is not to send them out into the darkness to find some, it is to gather them in and to share our light with them, and to do our best to not leave anyone behind. We take what resilience we have, the gifts we have been blessed with, and the stockpiles of our preparation, and together, we can light the way for everyone, building the beloved community and kingdom of God ever wider and ever brighter, to welcome everyone in. May it be so. Amen.

[1] (Yes, the literal word is virgins, but the important thing here is they are young unwed women. “Bridesmaids” is a pretty good description, though their relationship to bride and groom was different from modern bridesmaids.)

[2] https://www.patheos.com/blogs/davidhenson/2014/11/the-breaking-of-the-bridesmaids-how-scripture-undermines-a-parable/