Wisdom of Solomon 6.12-16 Wisdom is found by those who look for her
1 Thessalonians 4.13-18 Do not grieve about those who have who in Jesus
Matthew 25.1-13 Stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour
Keep awake therefore,
for you know neither the day nor the hour.
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This evening’s gospel reading is both familiar
and uncomfortable.
Perhaps it is familiar because the parable of
the wise and foolish bridesmaids is one that can easily be visualised.
Ten bridesmaids with their oil fuelled lamps;
five have got enough oil and five haven’t, and on the stroke of midnight, when
the lookout calls that the Bridegroom is coming five are ready to go and meet
him, and five are not.
It’s the subject of the great Advent hymn,
‘Wake, O wake!’
Wake,
O wake! With tidings thrilling
the
watchmen all the air are filling,
arise, Jerusalem, arise!
Midnight
strikes! No more delaying,
'The
hour has come!' we hear them saying,
'where are ye all, ye virgins wise?
The Bridegroom comes in sight,
raise high your torches bright!'
Alleluia!
The wedding song swells loud and strong:
go forth and join the festal throng.
(New English Hymnal,
16, Philipp Nicolai 1556-1608, tr R C Burkett 1864-1935)
That is a stirring and inspiring hymn.
It envisions the Church as the bride (cf Ephesians
5:22-33), and her children, the baptised, as the Bridesmaids who hear the call
of the watchmen, those prophets who are the lookouts, who see and point out the
coming Bridegroom, who is Christ himself.
That evokes a vision of the Book of Revelation:
After
this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from
every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the
throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.
(Revelation 7.9)
There is the Church, in all her diversity
living and departed, saints and martyrs, gathered around the Bridegroom, the
Lamb of God, Jesus Christ; the Church witnesses to the light.
The hour has come! At the wedding feast at
Cana Jesus tells his Blessed Mother, my hour has not yet come, but now the hour
is here, the Bridegroom comes, bringing the wine of the kingdom.
So we bridesmaids then raise are torches, our
lanterns filled with oil, praising the Lord and join the festal throng of the Church
throughout the ages to the wedding banquet.
What a glorious and rich vision that is!
It is lovely to contemplate that, as Jesus
says as he begins the parable, ‘the kingdom of heaven will be like this’.
But that is also what makes it an
uncomfortable parable to hear.
‘The kingdom of heaven will be like this’.
If so, the kingdom of heaven challenges us
because the foolish bridesmaids were not ready and, despite having the extra
time granted to them - the bridegroom was late - they did not gain admission to
the banquet.
This sits ill at ease with contemporary
sensibilities around inclusion and is hard to hear, surely, we assume, everyone
will be admitted to the kingdom of heaven?
This parable contains invitation to all, in
that way it is thoroughly inclusive; but it also contains judgement: not everyone
gets in to the banquet.
Likewise it seems unfair, but all ten
bridesmaids were similarly equipped.
They had their lanterns and no one was denied
oil – it is that the foolish bridesmaids just didn’t replenish the oil that was
there for them.
This is a theme of some of the parables in St
Matthew’s gospel: the foolish rule themselves out of attending the banquet,
like the man who thought he could be admitted to another wedding banquet
without the garment the guests wear.
Sop this parable is about openness
to grace: grace is the oil that fills the lanterns of our faith as an unmerited
and boundless gift to us.
We don’t enter the banquet on our own terms:
conversion of life, vigilant expectation is part and parcel of being a follower
of Christ the Bridegroom.
What’s then the measure of the wise bridesmaid-disciple?
It could be summed up like this: wake up; shine
out; come in.
In our discipleship we will get drowsy, we
will doze off: that speaks of our human frailty and sinfulness.
Whilst we will doze off, the wise bridesmaid will
wake up ready and prepared: ‘Wake, O wake!’.
As St Paul writes in his letter to the Romans:
…you
know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For
salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far
gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on
the armour of light; (Romans 13.11-12)
The hour is here.
As we've seen, at another wedding feast, the one at Cana,
Jesus said to his Blessed Mother ‘my hour has not yet come’. Then to the woman
at the well, ‘the hour is coming’ (John 4.21,23; cf also 5.25,28), then as he
looks to his Passion, ‘the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified’
(John 12.27) and then at the last supper ‘Father, the hour has come’ (John
17.1).
The hour is here! Wake up.
And then shine out.
What is the newly baptised person told as they
are handed a candle lit from the Paschal Candle of Easter?
‘Shine as a light in the world to the glory of
God the Father’.
We are to be the lamp that bears the light of
Christ.
The oil that replenishes us is the grace of
Christ; in this way we share the life of the Church and inhabit the heavenly
city.
This is the mystery of what the vision of
Revelation describes: ‘And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down
out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband’.
(Revelation 21.2)
Wake up; shine out and, now, come in.
Finally let us come to the banquet now -
vigilant, expectant and prepared - for in this banquet of the Eucharist, we
have a foretaste of the banquet of heaven, we replenish the lamps of our lives
with the Bread of Life and Wine of the Kingdom, Christ’s body and blood, and we
grow in wisdom.
Blessed are those who are invited to the
marriage banquet of the Lamb.
