God and Fools. For November 12, 2023

I am trying to find a way into the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids, something that doesn’t end with a door slamming shut in my face and an impossible moral. I’m wondering if there is any place in this story where the foolish can touch the hem of hope, as we stand outside the feast with our lamps and our too-late oil. 

The Star Word I received at Epiphany is “Wisdom”, but as for so many others, so it is for me – more aspiration than accomplishment. So my question isn’t exactly disinterested. I wonder if there are others who, like me, think that our wise (now-former) companions are pretty hard-hearted, the bridegroom’s expectations unreasonably high, and the consequences drastic. 

There were ten of us, and five of us brought extra oil for our lamps. The point was to have a lamp going when the bridegroom arrived, but he wasn’t about to be pinned down about when, exactly, that might be. 

So what’s the problem? Is it that we foolish five didn’t plan ahead and bring more oil? Well, that’s the cause of the problem, but the problem is that our lamps are going out. It’s a problem that will be solved – or not – by what people do or don’t do in the present. No point telling us we’re fools. We already know that. So five (we five) asked if the other five might share. 

Here’s what the other five might have said:

“Sure thing. We have lots and we’re happy to share.” 

OR

“We’re happy to share, but what if we run out? What can we work out so we all have enough? Can one of you go to the dealer so we don’t all run out later?” 

What they did say: 

“You’re on your own. You go to the dealer if you want more oil. You’re not getting ours.” 

And then, while we’re away at the dealer’s, the bridegroom arrives, the five smart bridesmaids welcome him, everybody goes inside, the door is locked. When the five (we five) who weren’t ready arrive, the bridegroom says, “I don’t even know who you are. Go away.” 

“And the moral of the story is, ‘Don’t fall asleep’.” Except it’s a parable, not a fable, a provocation, not common sense. So there is no “moral of the story”. Instead, Jesus pries open a mystery of the presence of God and the purpose of persons. He invites us to enter a narrative world in which certainties yield to novelty, the scope of “possible” becomes impossibly broad, and we are left to wonder with each other what closed common-sense door this parable sets out to breach? 

About all this, one person writes, “This isn’t about punishment, but choices have consequences.” This is, of course, exactly what someone who chose well would say to someone who did not. Smug? Prim? Perhaps. But if it’s all about being on the right side of the door when it closes, it’s pretty accurate. Except a parable is never “all” about anything. A parable is as interested in the foolish “out there” as it is in the wise “in here”. It follows the fool with particular attentiveness – the younger son comes to mind. It pays the latecomer as much as the early bird, and dares us to ask how this one landowner in Jubileeville got all this land in the first place. 

Though, on the other hand, there is this problem of “cheap grace” of which Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes. Cheap grace – a kind of “never mind” that skips over all the hard work of being human, like the painter who skips the sanding and priming and expects to be paid, or praised – or both – for a truly shoddy job. A parable is not an excuse we can prepare in advance, or a grace we can presume. It’s worth doing the thing that gets you into the party. Readiness isn’t on trial. 

It’s as if this parable sits Paul and James across the table from one another to provoke our searching of our own lives and of our life together: 

    “For by grace you are saved, through faith,” says Paul, 

while James scowls and replies, 

    “Faith without works is dead.” 

I invite you to wonder with me about those who stand outside the locked door with their lamps and their too-late oil. I invite you to wonder about those inside, who were ready for anything, except, perhaps, for being stuck outside with the losers. 

Doesn’t this seem like it’s the heart of the thing? I invite you to wonder if the Holy, found so often at work in surprising places (Ruth, David, Elijah, Hannah, a virgin’s womb, a wilderness, a foolhardy, fumbling Peter, a Syrophoenician woman, a tortured rabbi, a law-slaked coat-holding execution witness) can be contained in a room full of winners. 

Here we stand, then, we fools, with our lamps and our too-late oil, outside the locked door. Inside, the bridegroom – impassive, severe. Inside, the party in full swing. 

Where is God?