This Sunday Matthew brings us back to familiar territory.  As in the gospel from a month ago, we have a wedding feast and another situation where the kingdom of God looks, to me, like a place perfect for overachievers – a place filled with those who always have the right wedding garment, those who would never be caught without enough oil for their lamps.

As one who knows she would have been right there with the foolish virgins, full of good intentions but lacking the right stuff, I paid particular attention to the story’s dialogue.  It seems harsh, maybe even un-Christian.  After all the girls go out and all of them fall asleep, there is a rousing, anonymous cry of “Behold, the bridegroom.  Come out to meet him!”  After the foolish ask the wise for some of their oil (in their panic, they did not say “please”), the response comes, “No, for there may not be enough for us and for you.  Go instead to the merchants and buy some for yourselves.”  So much for God loving a cheerful giver.  But the most stinging reply comes from the bridegroom, aka Jesus, when the girls get back and the door is locked.  “Lord, Lord, open the door for us!”  “Amen, amen, I say to you, I never knew you.”  Ouch.  It’s not even that he says that it’s too much trouble to unlatch the door or that they’re too late.  His comment is razor-sharp in the message it carries.  I suspect I am not alone in my ability to recall moments when a friend or family member said something similar.  Lurking underneath the words “I never knew you” are undercurrents of disappointment, disillusionment, that painful gap between expectation and reality.  I feel for the foolish virgins.

The parable ends with an admonition to “stay awake” but most commentaries agree that what is really meant is something about preparedness.  Since all the virgins fell asleep waiting for the bridegroom, the message must not be about keeping vigil but rather about careful planning, foresight, faithfulness.

How are we supposed to prepare when we don’t really know what’s coming?  How do we know how long the bridegroom is going to take?  Speculation seems futile and doomed to error.  St. Paul – someone pretty holy and pretty smart – clearly thought he was going to be snatched up in the parousia.  Here we sit, almost two thousand years later, knowing that he wasn’t.  Hindsight is 20/20;  foresight rarely gets that close.

What did the virgins do besides get to the store on time?  The answer, perhaps, is cloaked in that piercing reply to the foolish virgins and in the passage from the Book of Wisdom.  When we get to the feast, we better have our oil – we better have lived lives doing what the gospel requires of us.  But we also need to be known by the Bridegroom.  How does that happen?  By opening ourselves up in the doing.  By letting ourselves be poked and prodded and pushed by a God who demands more than just action.  By seeking wisdom and growing in love for the One who is wisdom.  By, excuse my reversal here, labora et ora.

We are privileged to share four paradoxical gospels where the wise virgins get seats at the banquet though the foolish virgins get locked out – but also where Martha is worried and anxious about many things while Mary chooses the better part.  Apparently God knows that it does take all kinds.  Wisdom lies in rejoicing in that.  By accepting the mysterious love of Jesus for ourselves and our neighbor.  And then doing what we can to return that love.

I shared this reflection about the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A, twelve years ago, November 7, 1999.  For all of us – as individuals, community, church – the words are the same, the basic message – readiness, faithfulness – still holds, but we are different.  Six days after I stood at this ambo and said those words thirteen years ago, my dad died.  Faces who looked back at me when I first shared this reflection are gone;  others have arrived.  Our liturgy this morning is offered for Katrina, Gita’s granddaughter who died so suddenly in September – an event which surely has completely turned their family inside out and for which they could not possible prepare.  Our community struggles with wrenching and painful questions which face us at this point in history while, at the same time, we celebrate our 150th anniversary in Chicago.  Yet, despite all the shifting circumstances, we are given this message: be ready.  Do your work.  In the doing we make our way toward wisdom.  Which is, ultimately, getting a little closer to understanding the will of God.  The deeper we are pulled into that understanding, the wider our hearts become.  “Thus, we shall always be with the Lord.  Console one another with these words.”

 

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