The parable of the bridesmaids is a parable about the
fulfillment of human hope for a world of peace based on justice.[1] Good Jews, like Jesus, expected this hope to
be fulfilled on earth as in heaven; not in heaven after we leave earth. It is a this-worldly expectation. And in Jewish theology, the wedding banquet
was an image of the great celebration when all the conditions come together for
that hope to be realized. In Jesus’
time, a wedding was celebrated for seven days, mirroring the seven days of
creation. The wedding banquet is about
the promise of creation being fulfilled.
The first thing the parable tells us about the realization of this hope is “the bridegroom was delayed.”[2] Expect delays. Few things happen as quickly as we would like. Frustration with delays is a common experience. The road rage of impatient drivers, the rudeness of people waiting in check-out lines, the endurance of voters waiting hours to cast their ballot. Waiting to hear back from a job application or for a diagnosis from a doctor. Waiting for our young adult children to develop a fully formed brain! It all takes longer than it “should.” Some delays are inevitable. Some are avoidable. But no matter how often delays occur, we always seem to be surprised by them!
The long shelter-in-place public health orders we’ve endured to combat the COVID-19 pandemic are a good example. They’ve slowed everything down, when they haven’t brought them to a grinding halt. I think our frustration with the response to the pandemic exacerbated the already high stakes of this election, and made the delays in the results feel even more unbearable. We are tired of living with ambiguity and uncertainty. It isn’t easy to accept delays, especially when the matter at hand is of existential importance.
But I’m not going to lie to you. I think it is harder for white people do deal with delays. Part of the privilege of being white is that things just go smoother and faster for us: whether it is finding a job after being laid-off, securing a mortgage loan, waving down a taxi, or waiting in line to vote. Our siblings of color have had to learn to live with a different set of expectations. They expect delays.
Waiting for Travon Martin, or Sandra Bland, or Alex Nieto, or George Floyd’s parents to receive justice for their murdered children? Expect delays.
Waiting for justice for the indigenous people of this land who suffered the abrogation of treaties, apartheid, cultural and biological genocide? Expect delays.
Waiting for the children torn from the arms of their parents at the border to be reunited with their families? Expect delays.
Waiting for a woman to be elected to national office in this country? Wait no more! The Vice-President elect takes office in 73 days. But who’s counting?
I don’t mean to rain on anybody’s parade today. I celebrate the progress made in this country toward becoming a more perfect union, with liberty and justice for all. But it is important to acknowledge that some of us have been waiting for an awfully long time for the Bridegroom to arrive. Some are still waiting.
Four years seems like a long time to endure the lies, corruption, and sheer incompetence of the current administration and its party’s enablers. Eight months feels like an eternity to shelter-in-place. Four days seems like forever when you are waiting for a national election to be called that will determine the fate of democracy. But, friends, some of our siblings have been waiting their whole lifetime, some generations, some centuries for the Bridegroom to come. And they have faithfully kept their lamps trimmed and the oil stock supplied.
So maybe we need to learn to expect delays and to check our privilege the next time we are tempted to criticize others for not waiting more patiently. Maybe we need to see what we can do to speed things up for the bridegroom. Maybe he is delayed because we haven’t done our work. The prophet Amos criticizes the privileged people of his day; the immorality, decadence, and smug hypocrisy of those who “trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth and push the afflicted out the way.”[3]
Alas for those who are at ease in Zion, and for those who feel secure on Mount Samaria . . . Alas for those who lie on beds of ivory, and lounge on their couches . . . but are not grieved over the ruin of Joseph! Therefore they shall now be the first to go into exile, and the revelry of the loungers shall pass away.[4]
It is ironic, according to the prophet, that the very people who exploit the land and the poor, think that the “Day of the Lord” will be their vindication. They think the fulfillment of God’s covenantal promises to Israel will be a validation of their privilege – only more so! Amos disabuses them of this idea, and warns them that they will experience the “Day of the Lord” as darkness rather than light, as reeling from one disaster to another, unless justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.[5] Expect delays.
Delays in the fulfillment of the promise are due to human injustice and greed. Our choices have consequences, and God’s desire for the fulfillment of creation does not abrogate human ethical responsibility. We can delay this fulfillment, and the consequences are severe: growing inequality, social discord, the unraveling of the bonds of affection that hold us together, and the desecration of the earth. So we must be prepared to expect delays, and avoid being the cause of them. More than that, we must actively work to overcome the evil that resists God’s desire. The Bridegroom is waiting for us to get the party started.
Expect delays, our Gospel reading warns us. It also warns us to stay awake. This message is echoed by many of my friends of color, who have expressed to me their fear that, after this election, white people will go back to sleep. I can’t blame them. We’ve done it before. We get all aroused over some media moment highlighting a particularly spectacular example of injustice, but never get around to actually deconstructing the structures and policies that make them possible. Will we do it again, or will we stay awake?
Preliminary estimates of the voting patterns in this most recent election are not encouraging. Trump actually increased his percentage of the white vote, from 54% in 2016 to 57% in 2020. If it were up to white people, Trump would have been reelected. It was the 63% of Asian-Americans, 66% of Latinos, and 87% of Black Americans voting against Trump who decided this election. It was the Navajo people and Latinos who gave Biden his margin of victory in Arizona. It was Black voters, especially Black women, who flipped Georgia and drove turnout in major cities.[6] It is important for those of us who are white to acknowledge that our siblings of color see this country very differently than we do. We remain a deeply divided people.
Who will be awake AND ready when the bridegroom comes, when God’s dream of a world of peace based on justice reaches the tipping point of its fulfillment? Who will be ready for the party God is throwing, and who will be off somewhere else? The five foolish bridesmaids were not ready, and went to the marketplace at midnight to buy some oil (good luck with that!). They miss the Bridegroom when he comes and discover that the party has started without them. The door is shut, and the bridegroom no longer recognizes them. The parable ends with the admonishment to stay awake, echoing the conclusion of the sermon on the mount earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, warning us that
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?’ Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.’[7]
The parable, like the prophet, points out that the fulfillment of God’s dream is a matter of ethical responsibility – doing the will of God. It is the life of the beatitudes, solidarity with the poor in the pursuit of mercy and justice, that defines how we should respond to the delay. It is the foundation that will allow us to weather the storms of life and prepare us to welcome Christ in our midst.
Is it too late for the foolish bridesmaids? The parable doesn’t really say. The door is closed for now. But the party is still going on – for at least seven days. I’m counting on the door opening again. I don’t think this is a one-time offer. But I suggest we stay awake. Who wants to miss even one minute of the party?
There is a certain realism in the prophet and the parable. They both recognize that the evil powers of this world resist God’s will. Expect delays. But the parable adds a twist: the Bridegroom, Christ, is here. Both the delay and the arrival are real. The delay is evil’s long rear-guard action resisting the fulfillment of our hope. Christ is already here among us – especially among the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and the prisoners – as Jesus will explain in another parable that we will hear in two weeks.[8]
When justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream, when we live beatitude lives in solidarity with the downtrodden – we begin to participate already in the great wedding banquet and realize that the Bridegroom is with us. Each generation in history has its part to play in the fulfillment of God’s dream of peace and justice.
Expect delays. But don’t despair. There is good work to do even while we wait. The Bridegroom is here so get ready to join the party. Stay awake, however long it takes.
[1] Matthew 25:1-13.
[2] Matthew 25:5.
[3] Amos 2:7.
[4] Amos 6:1,4.
[5] Amos 5:18-24.
[6] Fabiola Cineas and Anna North, “We need to talk about the white people who voted for Donald Trump,” VOX (November 7, 2020) at https://www.vox.com/2020/11/7/21551364/white-trump-voters-2020.
[7] Matthew 7:21-23.
[8] Matthew 25:31-46.
