Conscientious Discipleship
Lent 4 – Narrative Lectionary 1
March 31, 2019
Grace, Mankato, MN
Matthew 25.1-13
About 16 years ago, when I was an associate pastor at Central in Winona, the Directing Pastor retired. An interim pastor, Duane Salness, came and helped prepare us for our next Directing Pastor. (That’s what I’ll be doing in the next year or so as I transition from Grace.) Part of his duties was to evaluate and meet with staff. The only thing I remember from our conversation is his comment about how focused I am. At the time, it sounded like a compliment and I sure considered it one. However, as time went by and I thought about his comments, I wondered if he was telling me that I was so focused that I sometimes missed things.
The five so-called foolish bridesmaids were so focused on not having enough oil that they were so distracted they forgot their purpose for being there in the first place. (By the way, the Greek word for foolish is the same that gives us the English word “moron.”) The parable of the 10 bridesmaids is one of the hardest parables to enter and it’s very frustrating. Some of it seems straightforward enough. They all fall asleep waiting for a bridegroom that operates on his own timetable. We get that part because we know that the early Christians wondered why Jesus was taking so long fulfilling his promise to return. Matthew uses this parable, not to explain the delay, but to stay alert. Even so, Jesus’ admonition to “keep awake” hardly seems fitting since all 10 of the bridesmaids slept.
And there are parts of the parable that seem fantastic, are there not, even for a parable. For example, why would the five foolish bridesmaids go for oil when there weren’t any vendor open at that time of night? Remembering that parables are not puzzles to be solved but rather mysteries to be entered, that they are designed to open us up rather than be opened doesn’t help. There doesn’t seem to be any opening in this parable for us to enter. However, I was reminded this week that another function of parables is to upset our worldview, to get us looking at something in a different way. If, indeed, parables are supposed to disorient us and reorient us, this parable does a pretty good job of it.
Yet, even these details are distracting us from where the parable is pointing us. The fault of the foolish bridesmaids wasn’t that they didn’t plan ahead; their problem was they forgot their purpose. Their main purpose wasn’t to light the way for the bridegroom. Their purpose was to welcome the bridegroom as he brought his bride into their home and they didn’t need oil to accomplish that. It would have been better for them to be there with no oil than to not be there at all.
Frankly, even the so-called wise bridesmaids were a bit on the foolish side, for they also forgot their main purpose. And their notion of scarcity, that there wasn’t enough oil to go around, runs contrary to scripture: God provides all we need. So, here’s where the parable turns our world upside down: it doesn’t matter how much oil we think we have or don’t have; what matters is being focused on God’s purpose four us as disciples. It’s so easy for us to be distracted by issues that have little to do with mission and ministry. God doesn’t want us to miss out.
Now, some of you might feel like you are one of those foolish bridesmaids, without enough oil and running on fumes when it comes to following Jesus. If so, please don’t give up; stick around with people who do have a bit more oil and wait until Jesus shows up. Next week, we’ll explore more about what conscientious discipleship looks like in the parable of the sheep and goats. But for now, remember that whenever a door seems permanently shut, we have a God who has shattered death’s door forever, and who passes through the doors of our insecurities and calls us to follow. Amen.
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