November 6, 2011 






 

WHAT’S MISSING?

Matthew 25:1-13


It is interesting that Jesus uses a wedding as the setting for this parable.  Weddings are, without a doubt, the most carefully planned, eagerly anticipated and emotionally complex occasions of any I know.  They are also destined to have at least one thing go wrong.  I am an expert on this.  In more than 30 years of ordained ministry I have been involved in so many I’ve lost count.
 Last Sunday afternoon I was standing outside the Cloisters on Falls Road calmly pinning a boutonnière on a very agitated father of the groom while trying to reassure him that weddings are boring unless something unexpected happens.  The more catastrophic, the better for telling the story later, although it might not feel like that at the time. No one, I told him, really wants to hear about the perfect wedding.  But let the cake fall apart at the last minute….now that is a story people like to hear.  
Pinning boutonnieres and calming anxious fathers  is not usually in my job at a wedding.  But there had been a delay of about 40 minutes because the bus that was carrying about a third of the wedding guests, including the groom’s parents, went to the wrong hotel.  By the time the driver (who was probably distracted by the Ravens game on the radio) figured out why there weren’t a bus load of wedding guests lined up to hop aboard, the bridesmaids back at the Cloisters were beginning to assemble themselves for the processional, with no idea that the grooms family was nowhere near….until the groom ran in in a panic to tell us.  Meanwhile, the wedding guests that had arrived were getting….well, chilly. This was an outdoor wedding and it was a balmy 46 degrees under the trees.  So, when the bus finally arrived the groom herded the arriving guests to the seats while I tended to the groom’s parents and the catholic priest uncle who was to deliver  the homily got the wedding party back to attention and sort of ready to process. At that point we weren’t too concerned about form…just getting on with it.  After over a year of planning, no one had anticipated a late bus and 46 degree weather.  (Ask me in the fellowship time to tell you about the Hawk)


Jesus tells a story about a wedding and that tells us that the meaning of the parable will be important and probably emotionally complex.  In this wedding the groom was late.  And it was the bridesmaid’s job to attend him and light the way in the dark if necessary. But despite all the advance notice not all were really prepared for the unexpected.  So some of them ended up trying to find lamp oil at the 7-Eleven at midnight and by the time they get back the party was in full swing and they were locked out. 
This is an interesting wedding story.  But obviously that isn’t its main purpose. But I will tell you that the full purpose and meaning behind it is quite possibly as diverse as each of us and our frustrations and longings as we live this life that God has given us.  I don’t think any story in the Bible has ONE meaning since no story is fully told until it has been encountered by the hearer and each of us hears something others don’t.  [variation of tree falling in the woods]. No matter what I say in the next five minutes, I hope you will let the story keep working in and with you later…just as it is doing with me.

Despite the delay of the groom (who may have had the same driver as the Kellys did last week) the end of this story, like the end of most weddings, and many of Jesus’ parables, ends with a party…always a symbol of joy and love, reconciliation and hope, all fully realized and experienced.  You do not need to push the meaning of this story into an afterlife to understand its good news.  God is present, is incarnate in our life so that we might know these things  (like love and joy, reconciliation and hope) in this life…in this good world.  And all are invited to the party.  Jesus said I came that you might have life and have it in abundance and not weighted down by all that baggage that you keep hauling around that threatens to suffocate your soul.  That’s why he kept talking about healing and wholeness and reconciliation and forgiveness.


But not all end up there.  In this parable five of the bridesmaids had apparently put off doing something they needed to do….and they missed it.  Maybe you can remember other stories Jesus told, like the story of the prodigal son where the older son thinks his father has treated him unfairly by throwing a party for his no good scoundrel of a brother.  At the end of the story we don’t know whether he’s going to the party or not.  He was invited and welcome but it might be that his sense of entitlement and resentment keeps him away.  There was a story about a king who threw a party and all the people who were invited said they had to tend to other matters.  So the king, determined to have a party,  invites all the street people in…all those who’ve been sleeping on the grates in stained oily torn up jeans, the ones whose hair hadn’t seen a comb in a month and whose teeth hadn’t encountered a dentist in 3 decades.  They waltz right into a banquet where the champagne is flowing while the investment bankers from the A list are sitting in dimly lit offices engaging in after hours trading.  Where would you rather be?  Why?


Do you see a pattern here?  We left the bridesmaids standing in the parking lot kicking themselves for not having purchased some lamp oil when they were at Target three days before.  Its not that they weren’t invited to the party going on inside.  Its just that they got distracted…they weren’t open to something unexpected happening,  and then it was too late.
So this parable has a good news/bad news quality.  The good news is, as I was reminded just a week or so ago, God’s love and grace keeps inviting us to experience abundant life….defined, of course, not in material terms of how much stuff we can pile up…that’s often what gets in the way… but by whether we are truly living the life that has been given to us to live, appreciating its beauty, engaging its challenges, loving fully and completely, applying our unique talents and gifts in meaningful, productive work.   It must grieve God’s heart that so many settle for so much less and it should grieve ours as well.  God’s party isn’t complete until all are not just invited and welcome but present and accounted for.


So what keeps so many on the outside looking in?  It might be easier to describe the obvious:  the entrenched inequalities and prejudices and fear and lack of access to the most basic needs,  human community remains divided and there remains so much pain, suffering and heartache.  If Jesus invites all to an abundant life then instead of cocooning ourselves away obsessing on our own problems part of what we must be about is clearing the path and removing the roadblocks.  And it also means being willing to carry those who can’t make it themselves, give up our place at the front of the line, and generally put serious effort into making sure that WE aren’t the roadblocks to someone else’s presence at God’s party.


But this parable addresses us at a more basic level.  It asks you where you are in the story.  Are you dancing with the bridegroom or have you made peace with sitting just sitting in the parking lot letting life go by?  Are you afraid of what might happen if you ventured beyond the safety zone?  Is there a YOU inside that is being held back by fear or guilt or just a lack of imagination?  Probably all of us are somewhere between the parking lot and the ballroom….kind of wanting to be in there but wondering if we really deserve to be or can be.  Stuff happens in our lives that give us the opportunity to improvise and maybe work a plot twist and we don’t even notice because we’re just reading someone else’s script.  Every generation must ask “how can I live with authenticity and joy and live….and as I talk with many of my generation…we now over 60 baby boomers….these questions have an urgency as we wonder what’s next. 


I said at the beginning, that the meaning of this parable will be different for each of us.  So keep asking yourself where you are in this story?  Because this story isn’t over until all of us are dancing.

 Mary Gaut   

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Matthew 25:1-13

The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids

Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, “Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.” Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.” 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.” 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. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, “Lord, lord, open to us.” But he replied, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.