Pay Attention! Matthew 25:1-13
When I was 19, I did a bungy jump in Queenstown. It’s called the Nevis Bungy. It is a 134m bungy, with an 8.5 second free fall. It’s the highest and perhaps scariest bungy in New Zealand.
I remember the nerves as we went out on the cable car suspended about this huge valley. The view was exhilarating.
There were about 20 of us gathered out on the platform.
We were given a very careful briefing.
We were told that it was imperative that we dive outwards when doing the bungy, so that we get a nice arc on the rope and can descend as safely as possible. On our third bounce back up we were instructed to pull a tab on our belt which would switch our harness into a sitting position for the long haul as we were winched back up to the platform.
This all seemed pretty straightforward.
The first up was a big British fella, who looked like a bag of nerves. His face was pale, his palms sweaty. His mates were egging him on and offering words of encouragement.
He shuffled up to the platform, hands visibly shaking. The bungy man looked him in the eye and said “remember to dive outward.”
The big fella mumbled something and then proceeded to stare off the edge of the platform for what seemed like hours. With a bit of friendly harassment from his mates he jumped.
But I don’t know if you could call it a jump.
It was more of a shimmy.
His head just cleared the platform and down he went feet first.
He wobbled from top to bottom like a salmon making its way upstream over rapids.
And eventually he got to the bottom.
That was the moment we all realized why we were told to dive.
In the twinkle of an eye his body snapped around 180 degrees into head first. There was a frightened scream, followed by stunned silence. The man was fine, just mild whiplash and a very red face.
After winching him back up on to the platform there was no need to give a lecture about diving from the platform. The other thrill seekers all looked like Olympic divers that day out on the Nevis.
This was a classic case in paying attention. This man was so preoccupied by his fear, so distracted by the view, and the taunts of his mates, that it appears that the instructions from the bungy guides, though repeated more than once went in one ear and out the other.
We all know what it can be like to not “pay attention”, and if the stakes are high things can go haywire.
I was a fairly dreamy kid myself and remember the repeated mantra by parents and teachers – pay attention!
Today’s passage from Matthew’s Gospel is set in a section of Matthew which has a major them of calling people to pay attention. In Matthew 24 Jesus talks about signs of the “end of the age” and about his second coming. He uses metaphors and stories to describe this – a ripe fig tree, stars and sun and moon, a thief breaking in to a house in the night.
He speaks of readiness and expectancy for an event.
Theological context - Jesus’ return.
The theological context and setting of the parable about the bridesmaids is one where Jesus is teaching about his second coming, and the kingdom come in all its fullness. It is about that which is yet to come.
When it comes to talking about Jesus’ return, or what is often referred to as “end times”, or in theological terms “eschatology, it is easy to fall into one of two extremes.
Hypervigilance on one hand.
Or apathy on the other hand.
To be hypervigilant is to be on high alert, to be obsessive and anxious about what is to come or what might happen. Some teachings on the second coming of Jesus lean this way – teaching people to see every rumour of war or earthquake as a sign that Jesus is about to return. Many of these teachings instead of contributing to peace, assurance and trust in Jesus can instead contribute to fear and discord.
To be apathetic is to be resigned, uncaring, or complacent about the return of Jesus. Teachings that lean this way see any reflection on the end times as simply a waste of time or purely speculative.
Neither hypervigilance or apathy is called for in the teachings of Jesus regarding his second return.
Jesus, here in Matthew’s Gospel actually has a lot to say about it, and what we see as theme in these later chapters of Matthew is a call to pay attention and to be ready.
Not hypervigilance, not apathy, but readiness.
PARABLE OF THE TEN BRIDESMAIDS
The parable of the ten bridesmaids (or virgins as in some translations) is about this.
Jesus was a master storyteller and used parables to make various points, often to show us what the kingdom of God is like.
The setting of this parable is a wedding.
Weddings in the 1st century Middle East differed in lots of ways from how we go about them in NZ today.
So, let’s make sense of the context a little.
In typical Jewish wedding, there would be a wedding feast at night – hence the need for the lamps.
There would be a wedding procession from the bride’s to the groom’s home along with singing and dancing. The bridesmaid torchbearers would go out to meet the groom with torches when he arrives and accompany him from the bride’s home to his home.[1]
The bridesmaids would have large lamps designed for outdoor use. Often these were large dome shaped containers with rags soaked with oil. They would burn for a short time and then need more oil.
What we see in this parable is the there were ten bridesmaids waiting for the groom.
Five of them are referred to as foolish and five of them are referred to as wise.
The ones that are referred to as foolish took no oil with them.
In other words, they were not ready.
It seems that the groom took a long time to arrive and it was late and so they all fell asleep – the foolish and the wise.
The falling asleep was no problem.
But at midnight there was a cry and give were ready and five were not ready for the groom.
At this point a conversation happens.
The five foolish bridesmaids ask the five wise ones – “Share your oil with us.”
You can imagine the panic.
It makes me a think a little of exam time in high school where there was the student who hadn’t done any study – they had been out partying and having fun with their friends. And then the morning of the exam, they notice you going over your notes and beg you to share the notes with them. “Go on, just let me have a wee look, it would be so helpful.”
As we read the conversation about the oil, we see that the wise bridesmaids don’t share.
At this point a lot of people think- well that’s not very Christian. Why wouldn’t they share? Surely Jesus isn’t advocating for selfishness here?
But with every parable we are unwise to push the metaphor places it isn’t designed to go.
This isn’t a parable about sharing or about kindness, it is a parable about being prepared, it is a parable about being ready.
And so, the wise bridesmaids don’t share.
They know that they will need the oil to keep their lamps burning.
What we see here illustrated is a call to be ready. The contrast between the bridesmaids is about preparation.
There is also an emphasis on personal responsibility.
No one else can prepare you or I to be ready and prepared for Jesus’ return. No one else can take responsibility for our own response to Jesus.
There is a reminder here of personal responsibility and readiness.
So, the foolish bridesmaids go to fetch some oil, the groom comes and in the second scene of the parable, the wise bridesmaids go into the party to join in the festivities – the feasting and dancing, and fun. And the five foolish bridesmaids are left out in the cold.
They knock on the door asking to be let in and the groom says these words: “Truly I say to you, I do not know you.”
This is reminiscent of Jesus’ words in Matthew chapter 7 in which he says this:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 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 mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
It seems that in this passage and in the parable of the bridesmaids that their preparation itself and the readiness isn’t about doing the right thing but rather a relational term of intimacy – it is about knowing.
Also, this parable highlights the consequences of preparedness or not.
This like the other parables in this section of Matthew’s Gospel has a tone of judgement. There are insiders and outsiders -those welcomed into the party, and those left outside of it. There are serious consequences.
The foolish bridesmaids get distracted in running after oil at the last minute, when the whole point of their job is to welcome the groom.
The readiness and the preparation is a relational kind.
This parable calls us to have open hearts, to respond readily to Jesus, and to be prepared looks like being ready to welcome him when he comes to us – both today, right now, and in the future as he comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead.
For me, I see an urgent and beautiful invitation for us to respond to the good news of Jesus.
The Gospel message is that the banquet has been prepared, the feast is ready. Jesus through his life, death, and resurrection has rescued us from sin and death and welcomes us to sit at the table with him and share in abundant life.
We like the wise bridesmaids are called to respond with readiness and to be attentive.
THE INVITATION:
In fact, the word “attentive” is one that has become really important to me in recent years in my relationship with the Lord.
To be attentive is to pay close attention, to notice, to listen and attend to.
Our world today is perhaps more distracting than ever. We can avoid paying attention to God all together if we wish. We can tune in on Netflix, browse social media, watch TV, keep ourselves busy with our work, rush from one thing to the other with a jam-packed schedule.
But I think today’s passage invites us into a different kind of life.
An attentive life.
I’ve been on quite a journey with this myself. Over the past few years I’ve been seeking to develop a more contemplative stance in my prayer life – a stance open to listening to God.
There are all kinds of ways we can do this. On our Facebook page we recently did a whole series of videos called “Thursday Formation” which looked at a variety of practices.
But simply put, developing a contemplative stance “simply means stopping and paying loving attention to God who comes to meet us in the midst of everyday events or places.”[2]
The ever-present danger is distraction.
Pastor Ken Shigematsu names the element of distraction in our lives really well:
“It is true that God is with us all the time. He is reaching out to us each day through people in our lives, by creation, and by Scripture. He speaks in moments of beauty, through our memories and desires. Sadly, most of us remain distracted and unaware.”[3]
I think this is so often true. It can be in my life. How about yours?
The central issue in the parable Jesus told was that the bridesmaids walked away from the main task which wasn’t even so much about the lamps, it was about greeting the bridegroom.
May we hear the invitation in this passage to pay attention. May we meet Jesus today as we are attentive to His voice in our lives. And I wonder, this summer if we can respond. As we find perhaps some extra space with a holiday or longer days in the garden or on the beach, or simply in the midst of the bustle of our ordinary day – may we open our eyes to see and our ears to hear what Jesus is up to around us and in our lives.
Like the wise bridesmaids, let’s pay attention, let’s be ready.
The party is worth it.
Amen.
[1] Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary.
[2] Sue Pickering, Spiritual Direction: A Practical Introduction (Canterbury, UK, 2008), 28.
[3] Ken Shigematsu, Survival Guide for the Soul: How to Flourish Spiritually in a World that Pressures Us to Achieve. (Grand Rapids MI: Zondervan, 2018), 52.