A Thought For The Week Of November 13, 2017

"As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept." (Matthew 25:5) I have to confess that I find the parable of the ten virgins to be perhaps the strangest parable Jesus ever offered. There's a lot I could say about the parable, which leads up to the idea of consequences for not being sufficiently prepared - certainly a worthy subject as Advent, with its focus on preparation, approaches. But I want to focus on verse 5. The parable begins by giving the impression that the five virgins with oil for their lamps were the faithful and prepared ones, while the five without oil for their lamps were unfaithful and unprepared. I can understand where that interpretation comes from - but what's strange is that at least at this point the parable actually makes no real distinction between the two groups. Some had oil and some didn't; some may have had more understanding than others - but what it all came down to was written in verse 5, which tells us that "all of them became drowsy and fell asleep." All of them! I'm fascinated that all of them had this problem. It didn't matter that some were more prepared than others. In the end, none of them could remain fully faithful. That puts me in mind of the tendency of a lot of Christians to want to divide the Christian community into the "good" or "true" Christians (in other words, "us") and the "bad" or "fake" Christians (in other words, "them.") You could divide up the ten virgins in the same way. They were "prepared" or "unprepared" (and those with the oil were probably mighty proud of themselves that they had thought to bring it when the others had forgotten) but in the end that distinction didn't seem to matter too much. Ultimately, none of them were as good as they should have been and all of them fell short. Which is surely a warning to them all. No matter how well prepared we think we are; no matter how faithful and pious we may feel ourselves to be - we're probably not prepared or faithful enough. Any or all of us could get caught by surprise when God finally appears. That's why, in the end, all we really have to fall back on with assurance is the grace of God. Because no matter how faithful or prepared we may think we are, we're probably never faithful or prepared enough.