THE OIL CRISIS
Matthew 25: 1-13
There are a number of commodities
that can be given or loaned to someone else: at Thanksgiving a neighbor who is
unable to get to the store herself can knock on your door and ask to borrow a
cup of sugar, two eggs, or any of a dozen ingredients one might need for a
feast. On golf courses I’ve seen players borrow a sand wedge or “bum”
cigarettes. And as the choir sits up front in plain view of all,
and one starts to cough, silent hands around the person, without being asked,
offer cough drops. But there are some things that are hard to
borrow. When I was growing up, gas could be siphoned from automobile gas
tanks if necessary; with today’s cars it is much more difficult, and people
have learned how dangerous it can be with the electronic devices we carry that
can spark. In today’s lesson, we learn about a crisis of oil, lamp oil, for
bridesmaids in Jesus’ day who are waiting for the return of the groom. Some ask
for oil, but are turned down. Some have wondered about the lack of kindness
that seems to exhibit. There are two ways of looking at that request and
denial: one way is to understand the gravity of the situation: if you give
something that will deny you something important (Like water, air, life,
salvation) then you yourself will have the heavy burden instead of the
one who was unprepared. In this lesson it’s about getting in to the banquet to
which you were invited and asked to attend. “But it’s just a banquet” you say.
As we get ready for our second wedding in a year, I’ll tell the men present here
that there really is no such thing as “Just a wedding banquet” to a bridesmaid!
They want to be included, be featured, and be important. The day of a service,
if one has forgotten her contrasting colored belt that
is part of her dress, no other bridesmaid can afford to loan hers, or she’ll
have none! Likewise, as one faces death with one parachute between two
people on a crashing plane there is nothing that can be successfully
shared. But when it comes to the oil in these lamps, we have come to know
that Jesus uses well-known examples to stand for other things. When he teaches
the parable of the sower, it is not about farming but
about witnessing; when he teaches the parable of laborers in the vineyard it is
not about promptness but about grace. Now when he talks about lamp for
the oil of the bridesmaids, he is not talking about actual oil. He is talking
about how those, who are waiting for Christ’s return one day, should do to be
ready. His crowd knows the wedding tradition of the day: that a father and son
choose a bride, pay the bride price to her father, and then go off to build a
room on the groom’s father’s house in which they will live. The crowd
understands that only the father knows when it is decided it is time for his
son to return to claim his bride, the time in which the bridesmaids would be
called on for their invited service. But if they are not ready or available
when the groom returns, they are not included. We already heard about a man who
was kept out of a wedding because his heart was not clothed in the garments of
Christ in the sermon “Wedding Crashers.” Now we must decide what the oil stands
for in the lamps of the bridesmaids: if we want to be ready when Christ comes
again, do we just buy gallons of oil and dozens of wicks? Or is there a more
subtle message than that?
George Painter’s class is now
studying a book by Episcopal Priest Dr. Cynthia Bourgeault, that, in one
part, examines this parable. She notices that Jesus in most cases is all about
sharing, but in this parable, there is no sharing that occurs. Why would he be
telling this story? She asks, “How do you make this parable fit with the
‘Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy’ of the fourth
beatitude? At some point the light begins to dawn that Jesus is teaching at a
whole different level here ….These hard teachings are exclusively about inner
transformation (not outer actions) and make sense only within that frame of
reference. The reason the five bridesmaids who have oil can’t give it to the
five who don’t is that the oil symbolizes something that has to be individually
created in you…. Nobody can give it to you….The oil stands for the quality of
your transformed consciousness, and unfortunately, it’s impossible to it [get]
through a donation from someone else.” [THE WISDOM JESUS, Shambhala
Publications, 2008, p.52.] If you prefer a classic example, back in 1949
Methodist preacher Halford E. Luccock
who was professor of preaching at Yale Divinity School, introduced the featured
Lyman Beecher lecturer, Leslie Weatherhead (whose
book Pete Zahn’s class is studying) with these words:
“I have read his sermons, and they are good; I have preached his sermons, and
lo, they are very good.” It was Luccock
who noted that the oil in this parable stands for character. These are his words: “It was one
of the truths which were recovered from neglect by the Protestant Reformation
that character cannot actually be borrowed. No merit from another person’s
acts, or faithfulness, or his service can pass to us. The foolish virgins
could not borrow oil from the wise; they
must buy for themselves. This was not due to arbitrary hard-heartedness on the
part of the wise virgins…. Personal reserves of spirit and character cannot be
transferred in any immediate and easy way. It is impossible for one person to
impart to another the spiritual power which comes from frequent communion with
God and continued practice of his will. No religious person can give of his
character; he can only tell how it may be obtained—no more than a firm-muscled,
broad-shouldered athlete can give his strength to an invalid.” [STUDIES IN THE
PARABLES OF JESUS, The Methodist Book Concern, 1917.]
We know from our studies in
October of Jesus’ parables that banquets and weddings refer to the great second
coming of Christ when we will be with him forever. Even as he walked the lanes
of Galilee and the streets of
Jeffrey A.
Sumner