The Ten Bridesmaids - Be Prepared

Matthew 25:1–13 NRSV

1 “Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 2 Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. 3 When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; 4 but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. 5 As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. 6 But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ 7 Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. 8 The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ 9 But the wise replied, ‘No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.’ 10 And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. 11 Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ 12 But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ 13 Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

Future of our Faith — Preparing and Adapting

Service in our own church

Loneliness and isolation

Shifting Modes of Faith Communities

Alright, before we dive in, let’s get clear on what’s going on here. This is a parable and, therefore, these people are representative of members of God’s kingdom.

The bridesmaids are the church, you and me, the members of God’s people who await our coming bridegroom, Christ. Now, this isn’t the most familiar of metaphors to our context, so let me unpack it briefly: In preparation for an ancient wedding feast, the members of the wedding party would prepare the banquet and await the arrival of the honored guest, the groom. In this scenario, Jesus is describing a banquet that would be ready and occur at night, it seems, so the bridesmaids (the wedding party) need to have their oil lamps ready to light the way for the groom to enter. Think about it like those sparkler lines people do as the couple leaves a wedding reception — you need to make sure they work, right?

And, it seems, some of the party is unprepared for this task. They haven’t gotten enough oil and think in the last minute, they can siphon a little off from their friend. But we all know that isn’t going to work. How foolish? Some of us aren’t attentive to the details. Some of us fall asleep in the preparation process.

So they scramble to find more oil — which, again, we know is not a good plan. We need to be prepared. We need to be watchful for the times and the change of seasons and be ready to move at a moments notice, ready to light up our oil and welcome our guest.

I’ve been that guy, who invites people over for dinner and then realizes last minute that I don’t have all the ingredients I need. It’s embarrassing.

So the question is — how do you make sure you’re prepared and ready for the good moments, the crucial moments, when they arrive?

But, there’s a twist to all of this.

When the bridesmaids who were unprepared meet the groom, the Lord of the house, he tells them he does not know them. He says, “you weren’t ready, and so we’re moving on.” Pay attention, be ready.

This is a parable that endures and hits us — are we ready to use our oil, our gifts, our ingenuity, our imagination, to welcome Christ when Christ shows up in our midst? Are we ready to adapt, keep trimmed and ready, to adjust to the shifting circumstances of the world, where Christ still arrives to us? Are we ready to light our lamps, filled with oil, to the surprising, fresh ways Christ WILL call us to live out our faith?

Or will we hear — I do not know you.

As I say, this is an enduring, timely parable. And I believe it is one that calls us to take deep account for what we are actually doing, how we are actually preparing ourselves and readying our oil, our gifts, to be used and offered when the time is right.

Friends, the time to be ready is NOW. The landscape of faith communities in our world has shifted. We must be prepared to adapt and face new challenges together. We must keep awake, watching for Christ as Christ arrives to us in the face of the one we least expected him to.

Over the past 6 months, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in a gathering of faith leaders from around the Pacific Northwest, discussing the Future of the Faith in our region. The Pacific Northwest is highlighted in multiple sociological and religion-focused studies as a space of innovative spiritual expressions and fresh articulations of “church.”

Along with our propensity, as a region, to be pioneering and creative, we are a region with some of the highest religious disaffiliation. We are a region of “spiritual, but not religious.” This reality, along with additional data reporting at least a 30% decline in religious affiliation in the last 30 years in the United States, creates a confluence of factors that led to this conversation.

The group was convened by seasoned faith leaders, elders of the Boomer generation, but focused specifically on gathering together Millenial generation leaders (like myself) to discuss how we see the future of our faith and explore ideas of what it might mean to adapt and look forward.

The statistics and studies can be very discouraging, to say the least. Of the many people who identify as spiritual, but not religious, a good portion are people who were previously affiliated with a Christian church and denomination — we are the ones that people are walking away from.

But, while this is discouraging to hear, I also find glimmers of hope in the fact that while folks are walking away, a high number of them are do not speak of losing faith. Rather, we are seeing fresh expressions of spiritual and religious devotion that are more able to address the present struggles many younger people face — issues like disconnection, isolation, and apathy. Along with this, communities of faith that are aligned with and focused on issues of social justice, gender equality, race issues, and affirming human sexuality — these communities seem to have the ability to adapt and welcome in those who are otherwise disaffected and hurt by the church. There is hope here.

This week, I ventured East of the Cascades to have a concluding retreat with these good people. We began our conversations looking at the loneliness epidemic that plagues our nation, based on research that has been conducted in just the last couple of years, with specific interest in the impacts of the COVID-19 shutdowns. I’m sure many of us will resonate with the research that shows we are collectively lonelier and more isolated following this pandemic. On the bright side, the studies also show that those who had tight nit groups (Pods as so many of us called them) did better at maintaining mental health and emerged from the pandemic with greater ease.

Our conversation expanded upon this and asked the question: “What now?” What is the church called to do in this season of our journey? What is Christ calling us to?

Some of the most exciting and potentially healing work we can do, it seems, is foster connection with one another. It may seem overly simple, but things like sharing a meal with a group of close community friends or gathering to play games or even our corporate singing together that we do when we gather on Sundays for worship — these things matter so much in how we are able to sustain through periods of great change, division, or isolation.

I immediately began to think of the things that happen around here and wonder at what we’re doing right and what we can improve upon. I thought of our Children and Family Director, Tracy Caruso, hosting a weekly Wednesday morning “toddler time,” with a play space set up in our Fellowship Hall for neighborhood parents and little ones to drop in for 90 minutes, play together, sip coffee, and connect.

I thought of our choir and, once again, the importance of gathering together to sing. Not just for worship, which is a primary focus of sacred music, but for the practical good of singing and resonating in our souls with one another.

And I wondered at what else there is. Do we have the opportunity to host a community meal? A breakfast or coffee time during the week where we can all get together and simply share in the breaking of bread, less formal than our worship time, and more focused on connection and care. Or do we think of more groups who could use our space? Not just for us to utilize this great building, but wondering — who needs space to be? At one point in our conversation, a leader from the Seattle area talked about how there had been such frustration in the city with the lack of all-ages venues where youth and young adults could go to simply “be” together. It made me think — where could I go in Seattle or the surrounding areas where I don’t have to pay for parking, buy a meal or drink, or pay for a ticket, simply to just exist in that space? Where can we do that in Bellingham?

We’ve been good at using our space creatively in the past, but this conversation sparks with more urgency to me, as we head into the winter months and we face more and more difficult economic realities in our region — who can we be to help in this?

Now, I’m sure you have reactions to some of this — some positive, some discouraged, some apprehensive. That’s fine. That’s natural. But I guess I’m asking — what do you see that we are prepared to do to help in our area? What oil do we have in our lamps and are we ready to help light the way into the future?

The future of our faith will take on life as it moves away from being the place people go to simply hear the right answers for what to believe and, instead, becomes the space where people know they can find safety, refuge, and holistic welcome — the kind of welcome we find in Christ. The future of our faith will look like open doors and open lives, not without boundaries, but yielding our isolation to attempt to draw near to one another and offer healing support. The future of our faith will look like us using the gifts we have, the blessings and the interests and the skills — not simply to sustain the church as it currently exists, but to creatively express our faith in Christ’s transformative power and adapt to these deep challenges we face.

Our parable today is one of urgency. It is time to be ready. It is time to tend to our giftings, our resources, our hope. This, for me, is what keeps me going. Hope. Hope that God is leading us into a new day, a new celebration, a new way to love and serve. And it honors all the work, the preparation, the loving care we’ve been cultivating for years. That is the oil that fills our lamps. Now, prepared, we share God’s coming light with our world.

Amen.