Being ready to meet the Christ
Matthew 25:1-13

Reader one:
A wedding is almost never just a wedding. If you saw the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding you laughed at the hilarity of all the crisscrossing assumptions and agendas and customs. Clergy can often tell hilarious or heart-breaking stories of things that happened at weddings (Note: the minister could tell such a story at this point, if appropriate.)

The gospel of Matthew tells us a short little story about a wedding – a story that isn't really about a wedding. It is a story about a way of approaching life. It is a story about a way of approaching death.

The parable Jesus tells is about a wedding in a rural village – about wedding customs that are still observed in rural areas of the Mediterranean. One of the reasons for having a long, drawn out wedding, is not just to have a really good party, but to give other marriageable young people a chance to meet each other.

Listen.

Reader two:
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.

Reader one:
The bridesmaids are all eligible women. And when the bridegroom comes, who will he have with him. All his friends. All his eligible male friends.

Now we know the real agenda. But it doesn't work out very well for some of the bridesmaids.

Reader two:
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.

Reader one:
So those wise bridesmaids are in there partying with the bridegroom and his friends and the foolish bridesmaids are standing around outside with hang-dog expressions on their faces. They're not only being left out of the party, they are being left out of life.

Because in traditional, rural societies, if you didn't get married at an early age – and this was particularly so if you were female – if you didn't get married, you were left on the sidelines of life. Maybe it shouldn't have been that way. But it was, and this is what the story is about. Being ready to meet life.

As the first Christians told this story, the bridegroom was clearly Christ. For them, this story was about being prepared for the return of Christ. For us, the story is about being ready to live in the presence of Christ.

Reader two:
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.'

A Joyful Surprise - Inspired by Matthew 25:1-13

Ralph's list of readings and stories

See also:
The Wedding Party
Lectionary Story Bible, Year A,
page 236.