Advent Reflections, 2007
Thursday, December 20 – Scripture Readings:
Psalm 50, 59; Zechariah 4:1-14; Revelation 4:9-5:5; Matthew 25:1-13
Debbie Blue has written a book entitled Sensual Orthodoxy and in it she writes on the passage from Matthew. Here are a few of her quips – and then a few of mine:
This parable about the maidens and the lamps seems to say, “So you have to keep waiting? Well then, you have to stay prepared. Stay prepared always. Be perpetually prepared.” That…sounds horrible to me. It sounds at least very, very stressful. I can hardly manage to keep enough gas in the car or milk in the refrigerator. I can’t keep my son supplied with enough clean socks. I have not returned a video or a library book on time for years. I can’t really imagine being perpetually prepared for anything. Be prepared always. That doesn’t sound like good news. That sounds like something that might send a person off in search of heroin. (113)
You need to read the whole chapter to get where she goes with this and, frankly, I’d recommend the whole book. I’ll move you through though, just in case you didn’t put this one on your Christmas list.
She talks about the 10 virgins waiting and waiting and waiting. She talks about how the bridegroom finally comes and the foolish ones have run out of oil. They then go running about town in the middle of the night trying to light their lamps. Ultimately, they aren’t invited into the wedding feast and are sent away as unknown.
If the foolish ones run out of oil, it’s the most unsurprising thing in the world if you ask me. I mean who really has the kind of fuel to keep that crazy excitement going forever? And I don’t know if they even seem that foolish. It sort of seems like anyone very smart would have dumped the lamps and gone to bed hours ago, years ago, centuries ago…If the “wise ones” have some kind of fuel that keeps their lamps perpetually lit? Well, I just wonder what that oil is, and where in the world do you get it? It must be some oil…
Be prepared. Be ready. Keep awake. Awake to what? …Prepared, how? By seeing to it that you’ve accomplished all that needs to be accomplished. Could it be that all along the prophets, Jesus, have been calling the people to live by the grace of God, bu now when Matthew says “be ready” he means, “batten the hatches or you’re going down.” “You! get that oil now, or it’s all over.” I don’t think so.
It seems like the oil is the key to readiness. It’s the oil that keeps the lamp burning. The ones who’ve got it are the ones who are prepared. So. Where do you get that oil? It’s pretty clear from what comes before and after this story in Matthew, that wherever you get the oil, the light burning is living a life full of deeds of love and mercy: giving the hungry food, the thirsty something to drink, welcoming strangers. But later in this chapter you see that the ones who lived this life, according to Jesus, don’t even recognize themselves as the ones who are ready. (116-117)
I love where she goes with this. I’ve always understood this parable as a “buck-up-and-make-sure-you’re-ready-for-the-end-times kind of story. It’s frightening and disconcerting (whether or not it sends me off in search of heroin). It feels like I couldn’t possibly be prepared enough, ready enough, alert enough, awake enough. And it doesn’t sound like the grace of God.
What if Debbie Blue is right? What if these prophets we’ve been reading throughout Advent, and the voice of Jesus himself, are really talking to us about the oil; about “living a life full of deeds of love and mercy.” And ultimately, about just being. If the ones who don’t even recognize themselves as ready are the ones who Jesus sees as ready, then all the preparing, worrying, working, and striving won’t make a bit of difference. What does this mean?
I think it means that we are to continue looking for and longing for the bridegroom’s return, but in the meantime being and experiencing and extending the light that glows from our lanterns; being and bringing light to dark places. I think it means that we are to be about being and experiencing and extending the grace of God. Period. The end. No more. No less.
Debbie ends her essay with the following words:
What fuels the undying lamp? Your good deeds? Your ability to prepare, your ability to secure the disposition of your eternal soul? Perpetual fear? Perpetual anxiety? I don’t think so. I think the oil isn’t that different from what the whole scripture pretty much always says is indispensable to life: the grace of God. And to have an extra store of oil, to have wisdom, is trust in God. That wisdom may appear a little foolish. A lot of things seem smarter and maybe more logically sound. It might seem foolish to trust that despite everything time has taught you, despite your cynicism, and disappointment, it might seem foolish to trust in spite of all that, that mercy and love and grace will be the final victor. But I think that’s what Matthew is calling us to do here.
Not to make our deeds shine before the world, but to trust that love and mercy and the grace of God will be the final word. And maybe somehow, if you’re doing that, if you trust that, your light shines not like the Pharisees who must have their good deeds known to everybody, but like the lamps of the maidens, illuminating not your way, but the way of the bridegroom: the love and mercy and grace of God…(117)
‘Love this. It feels right to me. It feels consistent with what I know to be true about God. It feels like Advent: an anticipation, a longing, a readiness, and a way of just being…in relationship with God-with-us, Emmanuel.
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