A Reflection on Matthew 25:1-13, The Parable of the Bridesmaids
Delivered at St. David of Wales Episcopal Church, Shelton WA
November 8, 2020
 
When I read this parable for the first time as a new Christian in the mid-1980s, the end of the world through nuclear war weighed heavily on my mind, and my newfound faith in God didn’t offer any comfort when I encountered this scripture passage. I wasn’t yet part of a faith community and I didn’t know how to read the Bible any other way than literally.

Jesus said, “Keep awake,” and I’d kept awake all my life plagued by insomnia as far back as I could remember. My father, a deputy sheriff, patrolled the streets all night, and I cowered under my covers at six, seven, and eight, afraid of intruders without him home to protect us. At age ten and eleven, alone overnight with my little sister, I tossed and turned all night, terrified of intruders without my mother home to protect us.

“Keep awake,” Jesus said. But my childhood vigilance couldn’t guarantee anything except exhaustion the next morning. I didn’t expect anything different as an adult. In my mid-twenties, I still lay awake in fear most of the night, if it wasn’t Armageddon, it was that my husband would leave at the slightest disagreement. I could keep awake away all night, but I still wouldn’t know the day or the hour that the world would explode, or my own life implode. Living through three parental divorces before I was fifteen and, having each one come as a complete shock, I knew I belonged with the foolish and unprepared bridesmaids. I knew which side of the door the nuclear holocaust and the second coming would find me on.
 
Now, in thirty-five years as a believer immersed in communal faith, worship, and study, I’ve learned something about the Bible, how it was written, and the varying contexts for its content. I’ve come to understand it not as an encyclopedia or repair manual, but as an ongoing conversation with God and the prophets, psalmists and apostles, Jesus and readers over the centuries. So, when I discovered that the Parable of the Bridesmaids was the gospel lesson for today, I was thankful for the opportunity to redeem this troubling passage and to form a new understanding of its meaning.
 
I turned, as I always do, to articles from writers, preachers, and theologians for their thoughts on the scripture. I was surprised, and a little relieved, to find that everyone I consulted struggled with this parable. In her essay at Journey With Jesus (.net)*, Reverend Debie Thomas, Director of Children and Family Ministries at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Palo Alto, CA, writes:

I’ve never liked the parable of the ten bridesmaids.  When I first heard it as a child, I annoyed my Sunday School teacher by asking all the “wrong” questions in response: why do the bridesmaids have to bring their own light to a wedding reception? Why are the “wise” bridesmaids stingy and mean? Why doesn't the groom show up for his own wedding until midnight? Why does the bride — whoever she is — put up with such a ridiculous delay? Where even is the bride in this story? And why, after keeping his poor bridesmaids waiting for hours, does the groom blame them for lateness — and shut his door in their faces?

“In all honesty,” she says, “these questions still bother me.”

They bother me, too. I suppose some of the wedding logistics would make more sense to us if we lived in first century Palestine. We’d know what role the bridesmaids were expected to fulfill and what sort of delay the groom might have encountered that would’ve been long enough to put all the bridesmaids to sleep. I can only extrapolate from my own experience.

When I got married as a college student thirty-eight years ago, my husband and I ordered tuxedos from Sears to save money. On the wedding day, when one of his groomsmen went to pick up the order, Kevin’s tux was nowhere to be found. After fruitless phones calls and spread-the-blame-run-around, he was finally presented with a hastily tailored ill-fitting outfit pulled off a mannequin. During the delay, I sat with my dad inside an air conditioned building (unlocked only for us by an acquaintance), but everyone else stayed put at their stations and on folding chairs inside an arbor. The guests and wedding party sweated in the August heat as 1 p.m. came and went and the clock inched toward 2 p.m. Some worried there wouldn’t be a wedding at all, thanks to a groomsman who thought it’d be funny to say Kevin had cold feet rather than nothing to wear.
 
Through it all, none of my bridesmaids fell asleep, and none wandered off to a restroom to restyle her heat-wilted hair, or drove to the nearest 7-11 for a cold beverage. Everyone was a little thirsty and bedraggled when it finally came time to process. But everyone was there.
Everyone stayed.
 
And for all the questions and interpretations this parable raises, for all the wrestling with the literal and metaphorical meanings of the over-prepared but stingy bridesmaids, of minimally prepared and flighty bridesmaids, of the never mentioned bride, and of the woefully tardy and arguably cruel groom, it is what happens to those who’ve fallen asleep once they wake up that intrigues me. It is the possibility of staying that shimmers in my mind as I encounter the scripture today.

What if the bridesmaids who were running out of oil stayed put and were there to welcome the groom in the sputtering lamp light as their oil ran dry? What if they stayed even if that meant being seen with all their faults on display and having to admit to their failures? What if the oil-poor bridesmaids stayed and seeing their plight close up, the oil-rich bridesmaids had a change of heart and shared from their flasks?

We can never know the hour or the day (sort of like this week as we waited for election results). And so far, the waiting for Jesus’ return continues. So, what if we accept the inevitability of falling asleep sometimes? And what if learn to keep awake in anticipation rather than fear? What if we say yes to the wedding invitation and come just as we are? What if God wants only us, and our inner light, not what light we carry in our hands?
What if together, we all learn to dance in the dark?  What if?

 
 *For more of her thoughts on this scripture, I invite you to read Debie Thomas’s reflection.

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

Ars Poetica is in its ninth year here on the west side of Puget Sound. Poets living in Kitsap, Jefferson, and Mason (that's me) Counties submit up to three poems to a jury of local artists who choose one or more poems to interpret in their chosen medium. 

When complete, the art is displayed in participating galleries, and usually culminates in author-artist events at the galleries, where the poets read their poems standing alongside the artwork inspired by their poems, and the artist speaks about his or her creation, and how the poem inspired it. 

This year, of course, everything is different. The events never took place, and most of the exhibits were cancelled. Thankfully, a number of poems and the accompanying artwork are on display during the month of September at the Poulsbohemian Coffeehouse in Poulsbo, WA. In addition, local artist Bev Hanson has put together a virtual exhibit of the Poulsbohemian exhibit, features statements from both the artists and poets. 

I love the watercolor that accompanies one of my poems:

Outside My Window             
 
Outside my window
in early morning fog
eagle finds a salmon
bleached in decay
washed ashore the day before
lays claim with anchored talons
rips flesh with razored beak
until it sees me looking
out from behind glass
too close for its comfort
flaps its mighty wings
flies out of view
holding fast to the fish
I walk to the kitchen
for breakfast
one life feeds another

Midnight May 31, 2020
 
If a poem could keep
the world from exploding,
other lives from imploding
I’d never put down my pen.
I’d ink blank pages
until fingers cramped, blistered,
and bled, until the marks
of artistic suffering smeared
the alphabet of good intentions.
 
I’d write until compelled
to stop and look upon
the streaked mess
I’d made of creation.
Forced to cease
my frenetic struggle
for self-expression
I’d rub a tired hand
across my neck
and just breathe in and out
because I can
live in the present moment.
 
I’d see tears of privilege
smear my careful pages
forming corona bursts
that spread like wildfire
consuming poetic constructs.
 
Ink seeping into blood
bleeding into grief that overflows
its banks surging with despair
flooding foundations
that were supposed to protect
our fragility but crumble
under the weight of oppression.
Exposing the rotten materials
upon which we’ve built
systems that promise
to uphold everyone
but never could
support the weight of equality
and that fail all of us now
as illusions of protection
and safety collapse.
 
The walls tumble down
and we are broken, shattered
scattered along the streets
cowering in quarantined homes
victims of an unseen virus,
supremacy, and privilege.
Barely masked vitriol
is such flimsy covering
against what we truly need to face.
 
I should be standing
alongside those destroyed
by the shadow side
we once tried to hide
but are now parading and tweeting.
Our naked underbelly celebrated
our worst selves shined up
our deepest fears inflicted
upon others we dehumanize
in order to keep our motives
unexamined our wounds unhealed.
 
My voice is so easily spoken
my words so easily heard
my views so easily accepted
my pen so easily plied.
But you who’ve been silenced
you who’ve been ignored
you who’ve been shunned--
protest. Riot if you must.
Burn your truth into my skin
and may your cries
haunt me to the grave.