Versicle for guidance

This is not one of my favorite stories from the New Testament.

Toward the end of his earthly life, Jesus told this parable, the parable of the ten maidens. The parable begins, like so many others, with an invitation, a gracious invitation to come to a party. It thus reminds us of all the other parties, such as the party that the father threw for the returning prodigal son, when a gracious, extravagant host invites everyone to come and make merry.

Yet the bridegroom, the one for whom this party has been organized, is delayed. Some people wander off while they await his arrival. Know­ing that oil will be needed for their lamps, some of the guests go and buy more oil so they will have enough, just in case the wait is long.

Others have other things to do, or they have nothing to do, so they fail to go get more oil. At last, late in the night, there is a shout, "The bridegroom is here! Let the party begin!"

Those who have no oil for their lamps scurry through the streets to buy the needed oil. By the time they return, it is too late. The door is shut. They bang on the door but no, the party has begun, the door is shut, it is too late.

Jesus says that God's kingdom is like that.

I don't particularly like this story. I like stories of parties, of gracious invitations, and this story begins that way. Yet there are those words, those haunting, final, so very final, words, "And the door was closed."

The story seems at odds with so many other stories and sayings of Jesus. Did not Jesus tell many stories of the open door, the very open, always available party in which all were welcomed, no matter what the hour of their arrival? Now, what's this talk of the closed door?

A little over a month ago, our gospel was another story, the story of the laborers in the vineyard. Remember that one? Some workers come at dawn and begin to work. Other workers arrive at noon and go to work. Some get there in the middle of the afternoon. Finally, some come just one hour before quitting time. In the end, the master pays everyone the same wage, beginning with those who got there last.

See? The door is always open! Don't worry that you did not get here until the midnight hour. There is still room for you. God is gracious, always, forever gracious. Now, a little over a month later, what's happened to the grace? The maidens may be foolish, imprudent, but they are not evil. Yet, when they get there, the door is shut, locked, bolted, and they are excluded. There is that awful phrase, "Truly I tell you, I do not know you."

Those two stories are found, just a few chapters between them, in the same gospel!

I know that consistency is not everything, but why on earth would Matthew include both of those stories in the same gospel?

I don't know. Except perhaps because life is really like that, the gospel is like that. In one sense, there is always time to accept the invitation. How many Sundays have you sat here in church and heard the gospel invi­tation? How many times have you heard these parables? God is gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. There is still time.

Yet there always comes that time when there is no more time. Life is also like that. The little beeper on the machine falls silent, the ticking heart stops, we gasp, life flashes in an instant before our eyes, and it is over. The door is shut.

Does that sound morbid? Or does it sound merely true?

This parable begins a final cycle of parables in Matthew’s gospel. Jesus began with parables of grace, moved to parables of the Kingdom, and here, at the end of his earthly ministry he teaches with parables of judgement: The Ten Virgins, or Maidens, or Bridesmaids as it is variously known; Next is the Parable of the Talents and the servants to whom the Master entrusts this wealth; Finally the Judgement of the Nations when the Shepherd will separate the sheep from the goats.

All of the ten virgins, wise or foolish, are equally members of the wedding from the start. All three ser­vants who received the talents are fully accepted by their lord. Both the sheep and the goats have lived their entire lives in full, if hidden, presence of the King in the least of his brethren. Once again, therefore, faith is set forth as the only criterion of judgment. Those who are congratulated at the end are those who believed in the mysterious, vindicating parousia (the return and arrival) of the main character and who lived their lives on the basis of that trust. Those who are condemned are those who did not. It is not the good works of the blessed that saves them, any more than it is the evil deeds of the cursed that damns them. It is faith or unfaith that matters.

But there is also something else here. In these last parables, the primacy of faith is finally set forth in a way that meets a lurking objection you may have felt when ever I brought it up. That objection, to give it its proper name, was about the danger of quietism. Almost always, when salvation by faith alone is seriously preached, we feel that somehow it has all been made too easy. Assuming, falsely, that faith is simply a kind of intellectual assent to a proposition, we then go on to conclude that the general reaction of the human race to salvation by faith will be an equally intellectual reaction to indiffer­ence. We are afraid they will say, "Well, if all the real work of salvation has been done and all I have to do is believe, why should we bother to be good, kind, or loving? If the world is saved in spite of its sins, what's to stop us from going right on doing rotten things?"

Since those are two separate questions, let me deal with them in order. The fallacy in the first is precisely the erroneous assump­tion already noted that faith is assent to a proposition. It is not. It is the living out of a trust-relationship with a person. If faith were only something in our heads, then we might well con­clude that it had no implications for what we might do with our hands or feet or with any of our other members or faculties. But since nothing is simply in our heads—since we will always, as long as we live, be doing something—that is a false conclusion.

Therefore a better form of this first question would be, "If he has already done it all for me, why shouldn’t I live as if I trusted him?" If he has made me a mem­ber of the Wedding of the Lamb why shouldn’t I act as if I am at the party? If he has already reconciled both my wayward self and my equally difficult brother-in-law, or children, or wife, why shouldn’t I at least try to act as if I trust him to have done just that and to let his reconciliation govern my actions in those relationships?

Quietism, you see—do-nothing-ism—is not a viable op­tion. And it is not viable for one simple reason: Jesus' recon­ciled version of all relationships is the only version that really counts—the only one that in the end will be real at all.

That is the final answer to quietism. And therefore the best of all possible forms of the first question is, "Since he has al­ready made me new—since there really isn’t any of the old me around to get in my way any more—why should I be so thickheaded as to try to go on living in terms of something that isn’t even there?" Faith, you see, is simply taking his word about what really is and trying our best to get all the unreal nonsense out our lives. Strictly speaking, faith does not save us; He does; but because faith, once given, inexorably leads us to try to stop contradicting what he has done, it becomes the only instrument of salvation that we need to lay a hand to.

The second question is likewise based on a fallacy. To ask, "If the world is already saved in spite of its sins, what's to stop people from sinning?" is to misunderstand the nature of sin.

Sin is not something the human race has any choice about. The occasional sin (small s), we might manage to stop: some of us might possibly avoid this lie or that adultery. But none of us will ever avoid the Sin that trust in ourselves – and that distrust of anyone else reflects and which lies at the root of the world’s problems. Those twin fallacies of faith in self and unfaith in others are as irremovable by human effort as they are unpardonable by human good will. And therefore, if they are ever removed or pardoned, it will only be by God’s gift. And that gift, please note, stands in no causal relationship whatsoever to our responses. It will neither force us to be better nor enable us to go on being worse. It is simply a fact, to be trusted or not as we choose. It is a free gift, and it aims to elicit only a free response of faith. Without constraining anyone or condoning anything, it just hands us a new creation and invites us to live as if we trusted it.

A theme which resides in all three of these final parables is this: they insist that the judgment upon faith will be a judgement on faith-in-action, not on faith-with-folded-hands. And this goes to the heart of the biblical view of history and is precisely the scandalous message of James (James 2:26) "For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead."

Biblical commentators believe that this parable of the wise and foolish maidens, all this talking about being prepared, waiting, watching for the arrival of the bridegroom, was addressed to a church that had become frustrated waiting for the return of the Christ. Christ promised that he would return, that he would bring to fulfill­ment all that he had begun. But where was he? The waiting had become long and hard.

Now, it has been nearly two thousand years since those days and two thousand years is a very long time to wait and to watch.

But I wonder if this parable may be even more urgently addressed to our church. It's not only a matter that we have been waiting even longer than Matthew's church waited, it's also a matter that we live in an age in which the language of decision, of crisis seems most strange.

So when Joshua addresses the tribes of Israel (in today's Hebrew Bible Lesson) urging them to "Choose this day whom you will serve," whether it be the true God of Israel or idols, I wonder if Joshua's words are meant for us. When Jesus tells of these young women who fail to move, fail to act, fail to prepare themselves for the bridegroom's arrival, I wonder if he is speaking directly to us.

"Someday, I'm going to spend more time with the family.."

"Next year I will increase my pledge of support to the church..."

"When I get around to it, I'm going to do a regular program of Bible study,... sometime."

"When I retire, I hope to devote more time to church activities.."

But not to decide is to decide. The young women in the parable may not have thought they were rejecting the offer of the party when they did nothing, but they were.

And, as I said, I don't like this parable. It sounds so harsh, so severe, so unlike the graciousness of Jesus.

Those withering, awful words, "and the door was shut."

Or do I resist this parable simply because it is true? As I think I am just drifting along, keeping all my options open, certain options are being closed to me. Certain doors do not remain open forever. Not to decide is to decide.

The word "decision" comes from the Latin decsiso meaning "to cut." One reason why we fail to decide is that we know that, in deciding, we are cutting off some options in order to embrace others. Yet every day is a day of decision because every day some doors are being closed, every day we are being cut off from certain possibilities.

I say that I am keeping my options open, that I am waiting for more data to come in, waiting for that day when I get all the information I need, but what I may be living is the simple cowardice of the uncommitted. Life does not go on forever.

There will not always be a tomorrow. Today is the day for decision, as is every day.

Choose this day whom you will serve, says Joshua. And the door was shut, says Jesus.

(Matthew 25:11-12) "Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, 'Lord, lord, open to us.' {12} But he replied, 'Truly I tell you, I do not know you.'"

This is a simple truth about their condition. He does not say, "I never called you." He does not say, "I never loved you." He does not say, "I never drew you to myself." He only says, "I do not know you – because you never bothered to know me."

Every parable places a kind of burden upon us. There are some parables that are hard to understand; they depict a world alien to our own. Some parables are hard to believe; the story they tell is so outlandish and inconceivable that we just don't buy them. Other parables—such as the one we read for today—place another burden upon us. It is not that we don't understand them; for we understand them all too well. I don't like this parable of the foolish maidens who are locked out of the party when the door was shut. I don't like it, not because I don't under­stand it, or because I can't believe that something like this could happen.

I don't like it because it’s true.

Amen.