Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, “Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.” Then all those bridesmaids* got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, “Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.” 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.” 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. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, “Lord, lord, open to us.” But he replied, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour. (Mt 25:1–13)
Probably the most embarrassing moment of my life in church came as an acolyte at Vineville Methodist in Macon, Georgia. It was only my first or second Sunday on duty, and just as we started processing, my wick went out. I turned the knob, fished around at the end of the candlelighter: nada. The wick was burned to the end.
With burning cheeks, I processed with what little solemnity I could muster. Not knowing what to do at the end, I turned around on the steps to the altar, facing the congregation while holding the candlelighter the way marching-band members hold wooden guns. Flushed with confusion and shame, I walked over to the pew, sat down, and tried my best to focus on the church service. It was embarrassing, sure, but how much worse if I’d been rummaging around in some closet for a new wick and missed the whole thing.
***
The fears that most Americans are exposed to today are very different from the fears of those who lived before antibiotics and electricity and refrigeration and genetically modified crops. As late as the 1800s and early 1900s, if a bad summer fever broke out in London, in almost every family there was a significant chance of someone becoming critically ill. A late frost could bring starvation to working-class families or near-instant impoverishment to middle-class ones. Venturing outside at night risked attacks by wolves; voyages at sea were hazardous and uncertain; nature threatened a dozen calamities in any given month.
Now, our most common fears might be missing a bill payment and having our credit score knocked down for two or three years, or a similar act of inattentiveness with disproportionate repercussions. We might fear forgetting an oil change and a car breaking down, or failing to read the fine print on health insurance and ending up in a bad financial position. We might fear roof leaks, the pine trees that lean over our houses, letting our anger come out in a meeting with the boss, failing to study enough for a test and not getting into the college we want, or becoming unhealthy from a bad diet or failure to exercise. While mostly “first-world problems,” the anxiety that results can be consuming.
The difference between back then and now is that the old problems of nature have been largely tamed by human devices, but those devices must still be maintained. Safe drinking water is abundant but must be paid for, which requires an income, which requires maintenance. In a world mostly run by us humans, the day-to-day threats we face result less from capricious nature and more from our own lapses of will, attentiveness, or capacity. If something goes wrong in our daily lives, it’s often because we did something wrong. We are buffered in a world of our own making and maintenance, in a tight web of actions and consequences, and it’s on us to control it. This inevitably leads to an anthropocentrism, obsession with control, and focus on discipline that are, historically speaking, anomalous.
Still, our obsession with control is not completely unprecedented. In Luke, Jesus tells the story of a rich young fool who put his time and energy into building barns so he could have security and abundance for many years, but whose death happened long before he could enjoy his new estate. In today’s world, we have far more devices than the rich fool did for ensuring our own well-being, and we mostly can — up to a point. Eventually, though, we all discover we have way less control than we think. A friend’s house was ravaged by a bear when he was out of town; another had a freak accident; and so on. For many the recent hurricane provided a startling reminder of how vulnerable we are to nature. In day-to-day life, we control much more of our lives than the average medieval person did — and enjoy the comfort tinged with anxiety that control brings — but we are still fundamentally finite and susceptible to forces bigger than ourselves.
We often extend that same illusion of control to our spirituality. Just as most modern people in the affluent world try to harness our willpower and discipline to improve our material lives — reducing risks, increasing comfort — we often bring an anthropocentric and control-oriented attitude towards our spiritual lives.[1] Few of us would explicitly say that a close relationship with God depends on us getting it right, but implicitly we often assume it, without thinking about it and despite the head knowing better.
The problem is that failure, at some point, is inevitable. One of the roots of modern anxiety is the knowledge, deep down, that we can’t possibly master everything life throws at us with the resources we have.
In the parable of the ten bridesmaids, all ten fell asleep. Falling asleep without wanting to is among the deepest symbols of human powerlessness, a failure both of the body and the will. Falling asleep means reaching the very limit of one’s capacity, such that one cannot do a single thing more — all one’s energy is spent, and one enters a period of dormancy almost indistinguishable from death. And it is, in a sense, a death of one’s capacities, one’s ability to deal with life. In Jesus’ greatest moments of anguish, his disciples couldn’t even lift a finger; they were out cold.
Similarly, not a single bridesmaid could stay awake for the groom. The parable links us to the disciples at Gethsemane; we, too, are powerless to keep watch for Jesus in the garden or Jesus the bridegroom. These limits are a universal human condition; even the wise bridesmaids conk out and have to be woken up by a shout. [2]
Five of the ten bridesmaids have bigger problems: they forgot their oil. Their diligence or attentiveness failed; they failed to think ahead or simply forgot. The message of the parable seems harsh: they checked 99% of the boxes, but for forgetting one little thing and one momentary lapse of diligence, they’re locked out forever.
It’s easy to read the parable that way because it comports with our own tightly wound world of action and consequence. You get along in the modern world by exercising control and taking care of every little thing; if the bridesmaids were locked out of the feast, that must be the reason. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
But on a closer reading, the five bridesmaids weren’t excluded because they forgot their oil. Instead, they were excluded because they were away buying oil when the groom showed up. Imagine a modern wedding — half the bridesmaids forgot to get their hair done and ran off to the hairdresser’s as the grandparents were being seated. Come as you are, we would want to tell them. If they made you one of the bridesmaids, obviously they’d love to have you there, even if imperfectly coiffed.
In the parable, the five foolish bridesmaids’ main problem isn’t a failure to perfectly prepare for the wedding — it’s becoming so focused on their own perfect preparation that they miss the wedding altogether. Showing up without oil is the only way they can show up at all. The parable never says whether the couple would’ve forgiven the five bridesmaids if they’d stayed there, lamps out, looking bashful, but it’s a pretty good bet they would have. At the weddings I’ve been to, people show up all the time with the wrong kind of shoes, bowtie askew, in low spirits for some personal reason, hungover, hair sticking up, or having given a toast at the rehearsal dinner that deeply offended the mother of the groom — and every time, they’ve been welcomed with open arms. If our earthly brides and grooms know how to welcome imperfect guests, how much more does Jesus invite them in to the party? It’s not your burning lamp they want at the reception — it’s you.
***
After the service at Vineville where I ran out of wick, several people came up to me and expressed lighthearted sympathy for what had happened. Some said they didn’t notice at all, and maybe they meant it. As a self-conscious eleven-year-old, the church was probably the one place in the world I could have faced down three hundred people, looking hapless and incompetent, and not run for the hills. Having some assurance of continued love despite my flawed execution of duties, I stuck around long enough for a pretty good service and a great church picnic.
[1] An interesting parallel: for many medieval persons, the natural world was controlled and held at bay, albeit less predictably than in modern times, by superstition and ritual. Perhaps predictably, medieval Christianity was often characterized by an overemphasis on superstition and ritual. Whatever seems to work in one’s material world, there’s a temptation to see that same device as the key to spiritual attainment.
[2] Jesus waking the disciples in Gethsemane and the anonymous man waking the bridesmaids in Matthew recall the resurrection after our deaths, both physical and spiritual (see Romans 6); in both stories, the sleepers must be woken up by an agent beyond themselves.
This is so good! Thanks Will. More please.