Five out of ten were morons – 10 November 2017

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.  [Matthew 25:1-2]

So… in Jesus’s parable of the bridesmaids the ratio of foolish to wise in the Kingdom of God is about 50%.  (I don’t know how many weddings I have conducted in years gone by, but when it comes to bridesmaids 50% wise may seem a little on the hopeful side.)  The Greek adjective used here for foolish is mōron (μωρος).  It may sound familiar.  Their foolishness however was not that they were asleep when the bridegroom finally showed up – both wise and foolish, it says, were asleep.  It was rather that they had insufficient oil for their lamps when the moment came.  They were not ready.  The wise ones (and this is how it has always seemed to me since I first heard this story as a child brought up to share happily with my younger brother and sister, whether I wanted to or not) the wise ones may have been wise, but were nevertheless rude and uncaring: …there wouldn’t then be enough for all of us… go and buy some for yourselves.  And while the foolish were away doing that…the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut.  Later the (foolish) bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’  But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’  

It ends up with a slap in the face.  The door is shut.  He doesn’t know them.  This is in conflict with the prevailing sentimental religious hopefulness, that everyone gets there in the end… God shuts no one out… or as we learn in American movies: Everything’s gonna be just fine.  So we have a task as intelligent grown-up Christian believers in the 21^st century, to find the wisdom (σωφια) here if we can. 

The foolish bridesmaids had neglected to have enough oil.  In both Hebrew and Christian scriptures, oil is a potent symbol… olive oil of course, supplying light; essential for food; olive oil was a useful skin emollient…  The great seven-branched menorah in the temple was fuelled by oil (not candles).  There was a prevailing myth that its oil never ran out.  Olive oil was pretty well essential for life in the ancient world.  In ancient Greece it was a capital offence to cut down an olive tree. 

So we in the 21^st century might ask, what is essential, in that kind of way, in the life of faith – and living as we do in a maelstrom of competing faiths and increasingly no faith at all?  What makes the difference between a formal religion of generally good behaviour, sneered at by much of the world -- and a life of faith supplied, empowered, enlightened daily by love, grace and mercy…?  It is not a question of who gets to heaven and who doesn’t.  Rather, it is a question, as Jesus said, of setting self aside.  The enemy of faith is (grammar alert!) the first person possessive pronoun – my needs, my rights, my faith, my God, my church, my opinions, my tribe, our culture, our way of life…  In contemplative silence and stillness, nothing is less appropriate… words have ceased and hands are empty.  With the help of God we are gently consenting to the setting of self aside.