Give Me Oil in my Lamps

Last night was a big deal in Cleveland. It was my family’s first time to go out and experience the tree lighting to kick off 50 Nights of Lights. The whole town gathered around to witness the event of the season. It really was a grand celebration.

This kind of fanfare and excitement is not unlike what you might have witnessed at a wedding in ancient Jewish culture. Everyone showed up. Everyone celebrated.

And if you were lucky enough to be a bridesmaid, well that was a special honor. In Jesus’ day, the bridesmaids were there to provide lamps for the procession of the bridegroom to the bridal chamber. The bridal chamber was a room that the groom’s family would build and decorate like a honeymoon suite. Once the bridegroom was ready he would send a messenger that would run and shout “the bridegroom is coming” and the bridesmaids would then line themselves up on either side of the path to light the way.

Now when Jesus starts to tell this parable of the ten bridesmaids, he is in the midst of telling stories about the end times. Normally such tales would be ominous and frightful, and so maybe it seems out of place to have a story about a wedding here.

Right on the heels of the faithful and unfaithful slave, Jesus launches into a wedding story, this time with ten bridesmaids, five wise and five foolish.

The scene is set. It is time for the bridesmaids to go and prepare to greet the bridegroom. The foolish take their lamps but take no spare oil with them. The wise it says instead carry additional flasks of oil. But things get delayed. Unlike a wedding that operates on a tight schedule, only the bridegroom knew when he was going to arrive. Sometimes the wait would be a few hours, sometimes a lot more. This time it was delayed more than usual and everyone had fallen asleep. Finally at midnight in the middle of their slumber, they hear the call that the bridegroom is coming. The foolish bridesmaids look and see that their light is going out and they don’t have any oil left to light the way. You can’t light the way when you don’t have any oil. So they turn to their wiser counterparts, asking them to share. They brought plenty after all. But the wise ones say that there is not enough for both and say “go buy some for yourselves.” So the foolish bridesmaids head off in a hurry, thinking if they can just grab a little before the bridegroom arrives then all will be well. But most places have already sold out and it takes them longer than expected. They hurry back. Phew! But the procession has ended. The bridegroom has come and gone. The door has been shut. They knock and knock. They had good intentions. They had been waiting, but they just ran out of oil. Please let us in. “I do not know you” is what they hear. Suddenly the tale of the wedding has turned sour.

This is a hard story for Jesus to share and a hard one to preach on. Wisdom and Foolishness. Is it really so easy to tell them apart? Did the wise ones buy up plenty of oil ahead of time or were they hoarders of oil? Did the foolish fail to stop by the 7-11 on the way overt? We don’t know. Is this what wisdom and foolishness boils down to?

Leonard Sweet talks about how the Greek word for foolish and wise are based on the root of the same Greek word that means mind. So when we are talking about whether one is wise or foolish, we are really talking about whether one is mindful. So in this case, what does it mean to be mindful of oil? Mindful of the bridegroom?

I remember I used to have a small vial of anointing oil that sat on my shelf in the office. It stayed there for weeks upon weeks. And more than once I would be out visiting or present in someone’s crisis and think “if only I had time to run back and get the oil. If I had just brought it with me. If only I had it with me.” And so after awhile, I started carrying the oil in my purse. I wanted to be ready.

Anna Carter Florence says “Maybe this is not a story about how much oil you have. Maybe this is a story about the oil you carry with you…When your lamp goes out, you may have gallons of oil sitting at home, but it’s not going to do you any good there.”

I remember when I served in Tupelo how I could always tell when the altar candles were out of oil. I sat right behind the altar and I would watch their flames burn high and bright like a Pentecost flame. A few minutes would go by. I’d look again, only to find them completely extinguished. Without oil, they could barely hold out for even an hour.

Our spiritual oil, the oil of the Holy Spirit, is meant to burn brightly within us. Near the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructs “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Sadly, too often we are running on fumes, left scrambling for oil because we didn’t bring any with us. And when we are without oil, we can’t light the way for anyone.

Maybe it seems harsh that the wise bridesmaids didn’t share their oil out of their own excess. How is that like the heart of Jesus? But could they have? Try as we might. Pray as we might. Encourage as we might. We cannot copy and paste our own faith onto another person. The first pastor I served under and dear friend Rev. Rick Brooks, says “No one can make it on another person’s oil. We can’t make it on our parents’ supply of oil, or our spouse’s, or that of our dearest friend. We have to go to God’s market and buy for ourselves....Bereavement, sickness, divorce, betrayal by friends, violence and war, rejection, disappointment with ourselves- in all these dark roads while we wait, we need oil to light up the way.”

So I ask today, what fills the oil in your lamp and keeps you burning? Where is the joy of the Lord your strength? What brings you peace that you can carry with you? How do you experience awe and wonder? In other words, how do you stay filled with the Spirit and in love with God? How do you seek the oil of joy and gladness?

These are some of the questions that my cohort and I began asking last year when we applied for the Thriving in Ministry grant. You see, when we applied for this clergy renewal grant, many of us were in a place where the oil of gladness had begun to feel more like the oil of obligation. And so we named our group Seeking Joy, that we might together seek joy in the Lord. This group of six clergywomen (comprised of four UMC pastors and two Episcopal priests) began meeting in January and we meet once a month and will continue to gather each month through April of next year. If I am honest, when we first started meeting, I was like the bridesmaid standing there tired and struggling to rekindle a dying flame. Too long I had been trying to pour from an empty and broken cup. Maybe you know how that feels too. To be out of your reserves,. Too little. Too late. But the light of my sisters encouraged me and so I kept waiting and seeking the Lord.

And on this past retreat I was overwhelmed by where the Lord has brought me, and what it feels like to be filled with the oil of joy. While on this retreat, my friend Jenny was telling me about a friend of hers whose spiritual practice is watching a sunset every day and that after watching each night, they would clap. During our time, Jenny and I would rise each morning and try to catch both a sunrise and a sunset each day. We would sit in the dark and wait for light to fill the whole sky, filling our souls at the same time. And each time, I began to clap with joy.

Anna Carter Florence says “You don’t fill your lamp because you’re afraid you’re going to get locked out of the Kingdom of Heaven. You don’t stockpile oil because you then can turn everybody else away… You fill it with joy. That’s the only price of the oil… the desire to meet Jesus when he comes.”

Joy is the price of the oil, and O Lord, give us oil in our lamps today. Give us oil in our lamps we pray. Give us oil in our lamps and keep them burning. Burning until that glorious break of day.