Ignored Parables--the Ten Bridesmaids
Matthew 25:1-13
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.
My guess is that you’ve never heard of Howard Storm. There’s really no reason why you should have. But it’s worth hearing about him because his life story is fascinating. Storm has a different life now, but a number of years ago he was a professor of Art at Northern Kentucky University. As a self-proclaimed intellectual and man of reason, he was an atheist, and an aggressive one at that.
He saw himself as being a very bright, aware, and awake man who understood life better than most. He had been living his life thinking he was so awake and so aware, when in reality he was dead. And it wasn’t till he actually died that he woke up and became alive. Due to a perforated stomach, he died in a hospital, surrounded by his wife and hospital staff. Let me share what happened next in his words:
Struggling to say goodbye to my wife, I wrestled with my emotions. Telling her that I loved her very much was as much of a goodbye as I could utter because of my emotional distress. I waited for the end. This was it, I felt. This was the big nothing, the big blackout, the one you never wake up from, the end of existence… To my surprise I was standing up next to the bed, and I was looking at my body laying in the bed. My first reaction was, "This is crazy! I can't be standing here looking down at myself. That's not possible."
Not knowing what was happening, I became upset. I started yelling and screaming at my wife, and she just sat there like a stone. She didn't look at me, she didn't move – and I kept screaming profanities to get her to pay attention… I wanted this to be a dream, and I kept saying to myself, "This has got to be a dream.” But I knew that it wasn't a dream. I became aware that strangely I felt more alert, more aware, more alive than I had ever felt in my entire life…. This had to be real. I squeezed my fists and was amazed at how much I was feeling in my hands just by making a fist. Then I heard my name. I heard, "Howard, Howard—come here."
Wondering, at first, where it was coming from, I discovered that it was originating in the doorway. There were different voices calling me. I asked who they were, and they said, "We are here to take care of you. We will fix you up. Come with us.” Asking, again, who they were, I asked them if they were doctors and nurses. They responded, "Quick, come see. You'll find out."
With some reluctance I stepped into the hallway, and in the hallway I was in a fog, or a haze. It was a light-colored haze. It wasn't a heavy haze. I could see my hand, for example, but the people who were calling me were 15 or 20 feet ahead, and I couldn't see them clearly. They were more like silhouettes, or shapes, and as I moved toward them they backed off into the haze… So I had to follow into the fog deeper and deeper.
As we traveled, the fog got thicker and darker, and the people began to change. At first they seemed rather playful and happy, but when we had covered some distance, a few of them began to get aggressive… They began to make jokes about my bare rear end which wasn't covered by my hospital dicky and about how pathetic I was. I knew they were talking about me, but when I tried to find out exactly what they were saying they would say, "Shhhhh, he can hear you, he can hear you."
All my communication with them took place verbally just as ordinary human communication occurs. They didn't appear to know what I was thinking, and I didn't know what they were thinking. What was increasingly obvious was that they were liars and help was farther away the more I stayed with them…. They began shouting and hurling insults at me, demanding that I hurry along…. Finally, I told them that I wouldn't go any farther. At that time they changed completely. They became much more aggressive and insisted that I was going with them. A number of them began to push and shove me, and I responded by hitting back at them.
A wild orgy of frenzied taunting, screaming and hitting ensued. I fought like a wild man. All the while it was obvious that they were having great fun. It seemed to be, almost, a game for them, with me as the center-piece of their amusement. My pain became their pleasure. They seemed to want to make me hurt by clawing at me and biting me. Whenever I would get one off me, there were five more to replace the one.
Each one seemed set on coming in for the sport they got from hurting me. My attempts to fight back only provoked greater merriment. They began to physically humiliate me in the most degrading ways. As I continued to fight on and on, I was aware that they weren't in any hurry to win. They were playing with me just as a cat plays with a mouse… To my horror I realized I was being taken apart and eaten alive, slowly, so that their entertainment would last as long a possible. At no time did I ever have any sense that the beings who seduced and attacked me were anything other than human beings. The best way I can describe them is to think of the worst imaginable person stripped of every impulse to do good… Basically they were a mob of beings totally driven by unbridled cruelty and passions.
Fighting well and hard for a long time, ultimately I was spent. Lying there exhausted amongst them, they began to calm down since I was no longer the amusement that I had been. By this time I had been pretty much taken apart.
Exactly what happened was... and I'm not going to try and explain this. From inside of me I felt a voice, my voice, say, "Pray to God." My mind responded to that, "I don't pray. I don't know how to pray." It was a dilemma since I didn't know how… I started saying things like, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want... God bless America" and anything else that seemed to have a religious connotation. And these people went into a frenzy, as if I had thrown boiling oil all over them. They began yelling and screaming at me, telling me to quit, that there was no God, and no one could hear me. While they screamed and yelled obscenities, they also began backing away from me as if I were poison… I screamed back at them, "Our Father who art in heaven," and similar ideas. This continued for some time until, suddenly, I was aware that they had left. It was dark, and I was alone yelling things that sounded churchy. It was pleasing to me that these churchy sayings had such an effect on those awful beings.
Then a most unusual thing happened. I heard very clearly, once again in my own voice, something that I had learned in nursery Sunday School. It was the little song, "Jesus loves me, yes I know ..." and it kept repeating. I don't know why, but all of a sudden I wanted to believe that. Not having anything left, I wanted to cling to that thought. And I, inside, screamed, "Jesus, please save me." That thought was screamed with every ounce of strength and feeling left in me. When I did that, I saw, off in the darkness somewhere, the tiniest little star. Not knowing what it was, I presumed it must be a comet or a meteor, because it was moving rapidly. Then I realized it was coming toward me. It was getting very bright, rapidly. When the light came near, its radiance spilled over me, and I just rose up —not with my effort—I just lifted up. Then I saw—and I saw this very plainly—I saw all my wounds, all my tears, all my brokenness, melt away. And I became whole in this radiance… The luminous entity that embraced me knew me intimately and began to communicate a tremendous sense of knowledge. I knew that he knew everything about me and I was being unconditionally loved and accepted.
The light conveyed to me that it loved me in a way that I can't begin to express. It loved me in a way that I had never known that love could possibly be… This was more loving than one can imagine. I knew that this radiant being was powerful. It was making me feel so good all over. I could feel its light on me—like very gentle hands around me. And I could feel it holding me. But it was loving me with overwhelming power..
Then I... I didn't say it, I thought it. I said, "Put me back.” What I meant by telling the light to put me back, was to put me back into the pit. I was so ashamed of who I was, and what I had been all of my life, that all I wanted to do was hide in the darkness. How many times in my life had I denied and scoffed at the reality before me, and how many thousands of times had I used it as a curse?… The being who was supporting me, my friend, was aware of my fear and reluctance and shame. For the first time he spoke to my mind in a male voice and told me that if I was uncomfortable we didn't have to go closer. So we stopped where we were… For the first time, my friend, and I will refer to him in that context hereafter, said to me, "You belong here."
Facing all the splendor made me acutely aware of my lowly condition. My response was: "No, you've made a mistake, put me back." And he said, "We don't make mistakes. You belong."
Then he called out in a musical tone to the luminous entities who surrounded the great center…These beings were giving me what I needed at that time. To my surprise, and also distress, they seemed to be capable of knowing everything I was thinking… Our initial conversation involved them simply trying to comfort me… Next, they wanted to talk about my life. To my surprise my life played out before me, maybe six or eight feet in front of me, from beginning to end.
The life review was very much in their control, and they showed me my life, but not from my point of view… My life was shown in a way that I had never thought of before. All of the things that I had worked to achieve, the recognition that I had worked for, in elementary school, in high school, in college, and in my career, they meant nothing in this setting.
What they responded to was how I had interacted with other people. That was the long and short of it. Unfortunately, most of my interactions with other people didn't measure up with how I should have interacted, which was in a loving way. Whenever I did react during my life in a loving way they rejoiced.
Most of the time I found that my interactions with other people had been manipulative. During my professional career, for example, I saw myself sitting in my office, playing the college professor, while a student came to me with a personal problem. I sat there looking compassionate, and patient, and loving, while inside I was bored to death. I would check my watch under my desk as I anxiously waited for the student to finish.
Every time I got a little upset they turned the life's review off for awhile, and they just loved me. Their love was tangible. You could feel it on your body, you could feel it inside you; their love went right through you. I wish I could explain it to you, but I can’t.
I knew that they loved me and knew everything about me. I knew that everything was going to be okay from now on. I asked if I could get rid of my body, which was definitely a hindrance, and become a being like them with the powers they had shown me. They said, "No, you have to go back."
They explained to me that I was very underdeveloped and that it would be of great benefit to return to my physical existence to learn. In my human life I would have an opportunity to grow so that the next time I was with them I would be more compatible. I would need to develop important characteristics to become like them and to be involved with the work that they do. Responding that I couldn't go back, I tried to argue with them. I pled with them to stay.
My friends then said, "Do you think that we expect you to be perfect, after all the love we feel for you, even after you were on Earth blaspheming God, and treating everyone around you like dirt? And this, despite the fact that we were sending people to try and help you, to teach you the truth? Do you really think we would be apart from you now?" They said, "There are people who care about you; your wife, your children, your mother and father. You should go back for them. Your children need your help."
They assured me that mistakes are an acceptable part of being human. "Go," they said, "and make all the mistakes you want. Mistakes are how you learn." As long as I tried to do what I knew was right, they said, I would be on the right path. If I made a mistake, I should fully recognize it as a mistake, then put it behind me and simply try not to make the same mistake again. The important things is to try one's best, keep one's standards of goodness and truth, and not compromise those to win people's approval.
Howard Storm did come back to life, but he came back as a different person. Once he got well, he quit his job and went to seminary. Eventually he became a United Church of Christ pastor, and until his recent retirement he was the pastor of the Covington, Ohio United Church of Christ.
Ultimately, Howard Storm’s story is one of a man who thought he was awake, but who was asleep. But after he died he became awake. Our parable is about waking up to God. But even more, it’s about the fact that we can so be completely engaged in life in such foolish ways that we don’t know how to act with wisdom because we’re spiritually asleep. That’s what our parable is about—it’s about learning to wake up to what matters most in life. It may be hard to quickly get this lesson from the parable because we don’t understand ancient, Middle-Eastern weddings.
Our present-day weddings are fairly simple compared to the ancient Jewish ones. We go to the church for a 30 to 45 minute ceremony. We then go to the reception for a few hours, and go home and to recover the next day, as the couple goes off on a honeymoon.
Jewish weddings were a bit different.They lasted a whole week, starting with a procession, moving into the wedding, and ending with a week of the whole town waiting on the bride and groom, treating them like royalty. The procession began the wedding, and wound all through the town, taking anywhere from one to 24 hours, depending on how slowly the wedding party proceeded. The procession ended with the ceremony.
A proclaimer preceded the party, announcing their coming to all the people of the town. The bridegroom’s party took their time, wandering through the whole town, picking up townspeople as they went along. The bridal party never knew when they would show up—10 am, 3 pm, 11 pm, or 2 am. They had no choice but to wait. When the wedding party did show, they had most of the town in tow. The bridegroom’s party hoped that by the time they got to the bridal party, they’d catch them asleep, providing lots of laughs.
The bridesmaids waited with the bride, attending to her and keeping her prepared for the groom’s coming. They had to be dressed and ready, no matter how long it took. There were also some rules that the bridesmaids have to abide by. One was that if the groom’s procession wasn’t there by nightfall, each bridesmaid had to have a lit lamp. They were not allowed to wait at night without one. This is mainly for safety reasons. To make sure that the lamps stayed lit, they had to have enough oil to last them through the night.
Half the bridesmaids in our parable were lazy. They didn’t expect the wedding party to arrive at midnight. They were dressed properly, but they weren’t prepared. They tried at the last minute to get extra oil, but there wasn’t enough time. We think, “Why couldn’t the other bridesmaids share their oil?” Simple: then no one would have enough. They had to go get some, but the rule was that once the procession reached the place of the wedding, the doors were locked and now one else could come in.
Jesus’ point in the parable was that it’s not enough to be religious on the outside. We have to be prepared on the inside. The question from Jesus was, “Do you have enough oil in you to burn with my fire?” Are you ready to have faith when you need it?
It’s so easy to get distracted by life that we fall asleep. I think it’s always been easy for people to be distracted from what’s important, but today the ability to be distracted is unprecedented, which means that the ability to be foolish is unprecedented. In Jesus’ day people could be fools, but life was more serious. So people were more likely to pay attention to serious things, and that meant that people paid more attention to God. Today, so much of life revolves around entertainment that even coming to church, for one hour a week, in order to be grounded in God is filled with distractions—and these distractions put us to sleep.
Let me close with a short ditty that I think captures how easy it is for us to fall asleep because of all of our distractions:
Newspapers, Sunday Brunch, Steelers pregame, plans for lunch. A little bit tired, a little bit harried, can’t come to church with that person I married.
I’ve got chores to do, golf to play, a game to watch,… it’s a busy day. Don’t need no church to be a good guy,… I’ll just move to Colorado and maybe get high.
I’ve got Playstation, iPhones, iPods, headphones, internet, TV, iTunes,… love my Wii?
I watch CNN, Fox News, whose opinion should I choose? Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, stupid blogs, YouTube, Netflix, Twitter feeds, barking dogs.
My head often hurts when I think deep thoughts, and I don’t like to hear what I should or I ought. Perhaps I’ll pray when I get a little time,… I’m sure God’s busy and doesn’t really mind.
After last night I’m a bit hung over. I’ll go next week when i’m a little more sober. Perhaps someday I’ll get my life in order, when I have more time,… when my to-do list’s shorter.
I have a good life, and there’s nothing wrong with that,… and maybe something’s missing, but there an app for that!
Perhaps there’s a God who wants my affection, but I’m a bit too busy to pay much attention.
Of course when I start to have a little bit of trouble, I want God to fix it—right now, on the double.
I always say to others, “I’m spiritual, not religious.” Who cares if my beliefs about God are ridiculous?
Okay, so this passage tells me I need to be awake,… but how much time is this really going to take?
Our passage is simply about the fact that it is so easy to become shallow by becoming so focused on the realities of life that we ignore the reality of God. The question for us is whether we are willing to wake up to God’s presence in our lives, and be ready for God when the time comes either for us to die, or for us to live.
Amen.
