For the final lesson of our discipleship class this year, we studied Jesus’ parable of the ten bridesmaids, Matthew 25:1-13.
The parable gives out a key conclusion from the outset—of the ten bridesmaids, “five of them were foolish, and five were wise” (v. 2). Moreover, the text elaborates from the beginning the reason for their respective foolishness and wisdom: “When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps” (vv. 3-4). As a result, then, the suspense, the drama of the unfolding story, lies not in that five were wise and five were foolish, nor in the specific action that marks the line between wisdom and folly, but in why taking “flasks of oil with their lamps” should constitute wisdom. In order to answer that question, the reader will have to know more about the purpose for which the ten took lamps and did or did not take with them “flasks of oil”, which is the same as asking for whom did the bridesmaids take their lamps.
The second variant of that question, of course, is also stated from the outset—“Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom” (v. 1). Indeed, to meet the bridegroom was the sole purpose for which the ten took their lamps. Having one purpose, five took “flasks of oil” with their lamps and five did not. Seeing that one purpose, we wonder why five brought no flasks of oil with their lamps, and understand why having oil with their lamps is the difference between wisdom and folly. Indeed, if the bridesmaids truly cared about their one purpose, or for the one for whom they were bridesmaids, they would have prepared themselves against all contingencies. Though they—not even the wise ones—did not expect the bridegroom to be “delayed”, five of the ten were nonetheless prepared to meet him “at midnight” when the “shout” of his arrival went up (vv. 5-6). Consequently, the wisdom of the five who were prepared (“those who were ready”, v. 10), though they slept like the rest (v. 5), consists not in their foreknowledge of the bridegroom’s time of arrival but in their knowing what they needed to complete the task for which they were called. That sole task—to accompany the bridegroom into “the wedding banquet”—requires enough oil-powered light to illumine the narrow way (Mt. 7:13-14) forward through darkness.
To have enough oil to show the way absolutely forbids, in this case, sharing what one has with others who have not; the oil in this parable is not bread for the hungry, water for the thirsty, clothes for the naked (cf. Mt. 25:31-46). The giving of oil in their flasks to those who brought no flasks with oil but could have is akin to “throwing your pearls before swine” who will only trample (Mt. 7:6), to attempting to do for others what they must do but have failed to do for themselves. To give, in this story, is to try to do for someone else what only that person can do for herself. To give here is to intercede where no intercession is possible, to intervene between a person and her bridegroom—her Lord—where no intervention can work. That the five who brought flasks of oil with their lamps perceive that to give to those who did not bring flasks of oil with their lamps is a dead-end is precisely what makes them wise. They know, that is, that the whole purpose for which they—and their fellow bridesmaids who brought no flasks of oil—exist as servants—to go with the bridegroom into the wedding banquet—will not succeed if they give their oil. It is better to have five lamps, burning oil, making enough light to see the task through than to forfeit the task itself by spreading the oil so thin among ten that all the lamps will go out before the bridegroom enters his glory.
This, then, is the knowledge that pertains to knowledge, the wisdom of wisdom: It is better to put a lot into a few than to put a little into many.
If we should follow the wisdom of the first half of this statement, we will enter the wedding banquet with the bridegroom. If we follow the second half, neither we—once thought wise, once prepared—nor the foolish will enter.
Let, therefore, those who bring flasks of oil with their lamps go with the bridegroom into his wedding banquet.
-Joe
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