We are approaching the end. We’re approaching the end of Ordinary Time, that long, green Season after Pentecost. This season has been described as the time we examine the life of Jesus. This is the time when we learn to become disciples. In a few weeks we will begin liturgical time – Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, and Easter. That is the time we examine the events of the life of Jesus: his birth, baptism, trials, death, and resurrection. But for now, we are coming to the end of the season.
In our gospel readings, Jesus is also coming to the end. He’s in Jerusalem and living through Holy Week. He will soon be arrested and crucified. He is coming to the end of his season on earth. And as he comes to the end, he presents a series of four Advent parables, so named because they deal with the end of days and preparing for the coming of the Messiah.
For us, Advent begins in three weeks. Right now, as Ordinary Time winds down, we are in a mini-Advent – a time of preparing for the time of preparation. These parables are Jesus telling us to keep awake and pay attention, because the end of days are near.
The Advent parable we hear today of the ten bridesmaids/young women/virgins is probably the most famous of them. We all know this story. The women gather to wait for the arrival of the bridegroom and to gain entry into the banquet. They fall asleep. The bridegroom comes. Five need to go buy oil. Five get in, while the five who left to buy oil are locked out.
This story isn’t so much a parable as it is an allegory – where each part of the story stands for something else. The bridegroom represents Jesus, the expected one who is delayed in coming. The women are those faithful people doing their best to follow and wait for the Messiah. The oil they carry has often been attributed to representing good works. And the wedding feast is the heavenly banquet we look forward to and, for us, is symbolized by Holy Communion. But allegories can only take us so far.
Here are some things to notice.
All ten women had oil, so all ten performed good works. All ten fell asleep. Had the bridegroom shown up when expected, all ten would have been allowed into the party. From this story Jesus tells us to, “Keep awake, for you know not the time or hour.”
One problem I have with this story is that because the bridegroom was late, he caused five women to be shut out of the banquet. Due to his poor timing, he was the reason that five women, who had originally been prepared for his arrival, were no longer welcome. If the bridegroom represents Jesus, what do we do with a story that shows him locking those out of heaven who were originally worthy?
Another problem I have with it is that it has often been used as part of hell and damnation sermons. People are told to always be working for Christ, because if you aren’t, you’ll be locked out of heaven. And while we might initially think that’s a good thing (always working for Christ, that is), it falls apart when you really examine it. It can also cause a lot of angst. What if Jesus returns while I’m sleeping? What if he returns if I’m arguing with my spouse or children? What if he returns while I’m doing something not holy?
These concerns can drive some to think, “I’m not good enough,” or, “I’m not doing enough for God.” This can lead to all sorts of emotional and spiritual problems.
So if this story isn’t about hell and damnation, if it isn’t about blaming five women for being foolish and ill-prepared, if it isn’t about blaming one guy for his own poor planning and bad timing, what is the point of this story? I think the point of this story is being willing to wait.
The five foolish women were only prepared to wait for a short time. Or maybe they were only prepared to wait for a time convenient to them. The five wise women, however, were prepared to wait for a longer, undetermined length of time. How are we at waiting?
It used to be that we would wait for letters to be delivered and answered. Then fax machines appeared and we didn’t have to wait so long. Now we have cell phones and smart phones that give us everything we want right now. How many of us get annoyed when a person doesn’t respond to a text within five minutes or less?
Or think about the approaching holiday season. I remember when Christmas decorations didn’t dare appear until after Thanksgiving. Now they are side-by-side with Halloween decorations. It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown Easter special was prophetic when it showed the kids going shopping for Easter supplies and the store was decked out with Christmas decorations and a banner that read, “Only 246 Days Until Christmas!”
Or think about all the false prophets in Christianity who promised the coming of the Messiah on a certain day. People like William Miller who said the end was coming in 1843, and then revised that to 10/22/1844. Hal Lindsey wrote The Late, Great, Planet Earth in 1970 predicting the end of the world, only to have to update it multiple times. There’s Tim LaHaye’s poorly written Left Behind series which is so far off the mark it would be comical except that people believe it. John Hagee has made multiple false claims about the end of the world, the most recent having to do with lunar eclipses and “blood moons.” And on and on and on. People would rather believe the escapist fantasies of false prophets than do the hard work of waiting in the here and now.
These are good lessons for us as we prepare to enter the Advent season in a few weeks. The push for Christmas is here. The push for the apocalypse is here. The push to have everything right now is here. But we must learn to wait.
And in the end, this is why the five foolish women were locked out of the banquet – not because they didn’t have enough oil, but because they wanted the bridegroom to arrive on their schedule. They believed that their timeline was more important and more accurate than the timeline of the bridegroom.
Miller and Hagee and LaHaye and Lindsey and all the other false prophets have convinced too many people that Christ will appear when they say he will because they have read and understand the signs. We must have the courage in the face of popular apocalyptic fantasies to say, “No, we will not follow you, and we will wait.”
The end is surely coming. The question we need to answer, though, is this: Are we willing to wait for the actual arrival of Christ, doing the work we have been charged with; or are we only willing to wait as long as it is convenient for us, attempting to force Christ into our timeline?
This story of the ten women makes it clear that we should be prepared to wait as long as it takes, doing the work of Christ and the Church until such time as we are invited into the banquet.
Amen.
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