Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost; 12 November 2023; Proper 27A (RCL); Joshua 24:1-3a, 14-25; Psalm 78:1-7; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13.
Matthew likes closed doors. I’m surprised that he didn’t add weeping and gnashing of teeth to this story for the five foolish bridesmaids. A wedding of course recalls the story of the king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and when those he invited wouldn’t come, he burned their city, and then threw out to poor guy who didn’t dress according to code. In that story, there was weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew is intent on drawing sharp lines between inside and outside. The parables of the wheat and the tares, and the net that draws in all kinds of fish, both end with the weeds or the bad fish being thrown out, and in the case of the weeds, being burned with fire. And Matthew wants us to know that in both cases, we’re talking about evil people who should not be included in the kingdom.
Joshua, in renewing the covenant with the people, makes sure to tell them that they cannot worship God, because God is a jealous God. This is the deuteronomistic editors making sure to insert into the history the set-up for its final act, the Babylonian captivity. “See,” the editors are saying, “we knew the outcome from the beginning. Because we (and especially our kings) worshiped other gods, we brought this on ourselves.”
Communities under threat want to draw neat lines. Matthew’s community has been thrown out of the synagogue, and so want to make sure that all the evil people get shut out of it. And the deuteronomistic editors are working during the Babylonian captivity, casting blame backward for their own predicament.
Drawing sharp lines is a human tendency, made worse by threat. We identify with a group as a way of saving intellectual effort. There is probably some evolutionary benefit to this tendency. Small bands of our ancestors didn’t have time to decide if another small band they met in the forest or on the plain was friend or foe. The default was, “They are not us.” A great time-saver, and probably helps keep our band alive.
But we are no longer hunter-gatherers with sticks and clubs and knives. We are now nation-states with weapons of mass destruction, or gangs with semi-automatic guns. We can no longer afford to isolate in ideological tribes. But, when threatened, that is exactly what we do, and you can see the results. Matthew and the authors of Joshua have lapsed into such thinking. And it is this kind of thinking that desires revenge and retaliation. It’s comforting to think of “not-us” locked out in the outer darkness, where they will weep and gnash their teeth in regret for not being “us.” And of course, they are thinking the same thoughts about us.
I don’t believe we worship a God who can be threatened by “the other.” We worship a God who, in an effort to be reconciled to the other, becomes that other, and takes the consequences of human evil into the divine self in the cross of Christ, and then demonstrates the effectiveness of love to overcome hate, and good to overcome evil, in the resurrection.
Matthew could have ended his story in so many different ways. The wise bridesmaids might have calculated the hours until sunrise, and said, “Sure, we’ve got enough oil between us to keep ten lamps burning until then, and then we can buy some more for tomorrow night.” Or, the master might have opened the door to the five foolish bridesmaids, and said there’s plenty at the feast. Certainly, in John’s Gospel, a closed (even locked) and the fear that goes with it is not enough to stop the resurrected Christ from entering.
And why close the door? In the Sermon on the Mount (in Matthew’s own Gospel), Jesus says, “You are the light of the world. No one lights a lamp and hides it under a basket, but sets it on a stand to light the whole house. A city on a hill cannot be hid.” The world needs the light of God’s gospel. Let’s trim our lamps and take them out into the night.