Did you check your oil?

For storm season, we make preparations, here.  Year after year.  Stock up on the water.  Canned food is purchased and stored.  Batteries of all sizes.  Crank-powered storm radioes.  A generator.  Fill up the five-gallon gas cans.  (We have a few.) Check the plywood for the windows to make sure it's still sound. Restock the first aid boxes. In addition, when a storm is threatening, the important papers plus a utility bill and phone numbers go in a plastic bag. 

This very last thing is just in case we have to evacuate.  If you've been reading this blog for more than a year or so, you will notice we've not yet had to evacuate. 

We made all the preparations this year, too.  We still have things near to hand should they be needed.  Thankfully, we have not yet had need of any of these preparations.  The latest hurricanes, Florence and Gordon, have been out in the middle of the Atlantic, followed by Chase-their-tails Helene.  Still, we remain prepared.

But that's not all we're preparing for, as part of God's family.

Virgins.  Let's start there.  These were not young women who were planning on marrying the bridegroom. They were bridesmaids.  Part of the celebration, but not getting married.  The whole wedding waited upon the arrival of the bridegroom, who may have been coming in a caravan from some other town.  Some scholars have debated about whether this parable was taking place before the wedding or after it, but that isn't really germane to the lesson.

The lesson Jesus was telling his friends was: Be prepared!  Are you seeing a theme, here?  The disciples asked about when the time was for the End of the Age. What Jesus is emphasizing, though, is that they have to be ready for it. Don't just mark it on your calendar.  Make preparations. 

The virgins above had certainly all filled their lamps earlier in the day. The didn't know if they would need them, but they had them.  They waited and waited, far beyond what they thought they might need to do, but still they waited.  (After all, aside from their duty of being an attendant, they'd get to join the feasting!)  In the middle of the night, they heard that the groom was on the way. Though they had been sleeping, they woke, fluffed out their garments, checked their lamps...

And found they needed oil.

Half of these virgins had been wise -- they had brought extra oil.  Just in case the wait would be long.  The other half were foolish. Oh, they were the bridesmaids, the acknowledged virgins. They were.  They had adorned themselves appropriately.  They had brought their lamps, too. But...they hadn't been prepared adequately. They hadn't been wise, as the others were.  They had been foolish to think that the groom would come within their own timeframe as delineated by the lamp oil they had available.

So they tried to bum some off of virgins who had been much more wisely prepared.  They were refused.  After all, the light only went so far, and if they shared, it was very possible none of them would be able to go to the wedding feast. They'd all be left in the dark, alone.  The unprepared virgins went off to buy more oil.  From whom? We do not know.  But they were gone too long.

When they had finished their errand, they went to the feast, but were too late. The bridegroom declared he didn't know them. They hadn't been with the others, why should they be in the feast?  They were not allowed into the feast.

Again, the point of Jesus' parable here is that they are to be prepared, the disciples are.  They don't know how long they'll have to wait. Neither do we.

Look at the timing as Christ explains it in this parable.  The virgins -- representing those who want to enter the kingdom of Heaven -- have a general idea of when this wedding will take place, so they are where they are supposed to be.  Jesus implies, then, that people will have a general idea that the end is coming. Many signs are prophesied to show this, if you have been reading along with us or have studied the prophets of the Old Testament.  This is reasonable. 

They wait longer than expected and fall asleep waiting.  We do that too, don't we?  Wait longer than we think we should have to and get tired.  There is no judgment here in this parable for doing so. No sense that the virgins should have been up partying and staying all fresh and excited. It was all right that they had taken a nap.  But when they heard the bridegroom was coming, they got up, trimmed their lamps, and waited eagerly.

Yet still he didn't show up.  For us, this means that the waiting isn't over just because we hear he's coming or a messenger that we trust has said he's coming. The bridegroom -- Christ -- will not come before there are signs of his coming; he teaches that himself.  But they won't necessarily be in a time that we expect!

So the virgins waited, some running off for last-minute shopping.  And they missed out when the bridegroom came. 

You will notice they were excluded from the feast for their tardiness.  They were not allowed to celebrate a the wedding of the Bridegroom and his Bride.  In the book of  Revelation, that is a time when Jerusalem will be presented as a Bride to her Bridegroom.  It will be a special time.  A time long-awaited.  Those who are ready will get to party, too.

There is no further punishment, we notice in this parable.  No "weeping and gnashing of teeth," no "eternal flame." Simply -- with a door shut in their face -- the virgins are excluded from the wedding banquet. 

From the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus says the bridegroom will not know these women. They were not especially favored.  They would be treated as anyone else in the village...not as honored guests.  They have to bear the consequences of their own folly, their own ill-preparedness.  No last-minute reprieve. 

Be prepared.  Do not expect to be let into the kingdom "just because" or "because you really are a good person."  This parable -- this teaching story says otherwise.

Here, we prepare in advance of the storms of summer. If they come, we are ready. If they do not come, we are still prepared.  Over the year, we can use the supplies we have gathered, if we do not during hurricane season.  Next spring, we prepare again.  We do not know how the storms will travel.  We do not dictate the weather patterns. 

And we do not dictate the terms of entering the wedding feast.

Remember:  You do not make the rules for God's Kingdom.  He does. 

(For a deeper study on this parable, I refer you here.  Bring your Bible. ;) )