MARCH 4 2017
A VERY WEIRD WEDDING TALE
Occasionally my 8 years of post-primary schooling come back to haunt me. During that time – 1941-1949 – I had every school day – 6 days per week in those days – one 50 minute period of Latin, Yet, thanks to them certain Latin phrases readily pop up my mind, such as “CONCORDIA PARVAE RES CRESCUNT, DISCORDIA MAXIMAE DILABUNTUR, translated as: “Concordia – a meeting of minds – causes small matters to blossom while Discordia – mixed-up emotions – destroys great causes.
That’s what’s happening today: Discordia is ruining the Western world to the extent that we now have entered a new, utterly destructive phase.
We all have heard the word “Enlightenment”. It was coined by intellectuals in the 17th and 18th Centuries celebrating the powers of human reason, the promotion of religious tolerance and the desire to have governments free of tyranny: then there was unbridled optimism.
Now there is a new word perfectly fitting for today’s somber mood: ”the Endarkenment”.
Yes, the lights are dimming. This fading away of mental, spiritual and even physical illumination reminds me of a parable Jesus spoke, as recorded in Matthew 25.
A TIMELY PARABLE BUT A WEIRD TALE
In that parable Jesus continues his outline on the End of the World, as related in the previous chapter, a time when suddenly everything goes haywire, by referring to that event with three simple words: “at that time.”
“At that time”, just before the trumpet sounds to announce the Coming of the Lord, everything seems perfectly normal. The future looks so bright that people marry. There’s no inkling that time is up. The wedding takes place just before the terrible end of the world which is so vividly described in Matthew 24, where it says that “The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light.”
Perhaps that alludes to today! Already in many places on earth the stars have become invisible. Also it is now quite common in many cities that, because of air pollution, neither sun nor moon can be seen.
The parable centers on ten bridesmaids, five wise and five foolish. What is their significance?
Here’s where the real weirdness comes in. Picture them.
If I were to film this scene I would see ten excited young women, each having done her best to look pretty. To me all these ten young ladies would look equally qualified. But somehow Jesus makes a definite distinction: five he calls foolish, five he calls wise.
That’s one thing I found questionable because the foolish were labeled that way because they had not taken extra oil along.
Think back 2000 years. Look at these containers! These oil jugs weren’t like the metal or plastic ones we have today, no, they were frail, cumbersome and heavy. Suppose that this heavy jug would break and spill its contents all over the new dress. Mother was right: just to carry a lamp with a full tank would be enough.
And then there are the presents: where one hand is needed to carry the light and another for the extra oil, how to manage all this? I agree with the so-called foolish maidens. Their action made perfect sense.
What would you have done? Use your common sense. Say the wedding is at three o’clock, the party is somewhat later, but certainly it’s all over before midnight, because tomorrow is another busy day. The lights are needed for that short trip to the wedding hall, so, until that time the lamps are trimmed low. With a full tank there’ll be plenty of oil, with fuel to spare. After all, the Bridegroom is known to be a punctual man, so why take along extra jars of that heavy and precious oil?
“But,” says Jesus, “five wise women took the trouble of lugging these clumsy jars with them.” Why would they do this? How could they properly attend to their task preparing the bride, and also carrying the extra wine and food? That greasy stuff could easily mix with these provisions! Nothing could be more impractical. Those who Jesus called ‘wise’ do things totally beyond the call of duty, needlessly complicating their lives. To me the foolish make much more sense.
What had Jesus in mind when he called the practical teens foolish and the overcautious wise?
Let me give an example. Take being a church member. We all know that going there for one hour on Sunday is just a small part of a larger commitment: that’s why so few want to do that. It’s the way of life, that counts. The super-cautious-oil bottle-bearing women are called wise because they look beyond the immediate, take the long view, see life in terms of eternity. That became clear when the Bridegroom took long in coming. That really weird, isn’t it: the groom late for his own wedding! No wonder the church is leaking members!
But that’s what we are experiencing now! The End times are upon us. The earth has to go full circle, from chaos to chaos. We have to be prepared for the unexpected. Yes, even look like a fool for still going to church.
That is plain from the context of this parable, which is set after Matthew 24, which has as its heading, “Sign of the End of Age” and “The Day and Hour of Jesus’ Return Unknown.”
Jesus, after a long sermon on the final days of humanity, spoke this parable. He began, “At this particular moment, at the End of Days”. That means ‘Now.’
Today too there are two kinds of people: foolish and wise, people who think that science will save us, or that RAPTURE will occur, and those who expect Jesus to come, as the groom, as ‘humanity personified’, to marry humanity with the earth, make us finally perfectly united with creation!
Ah, I see some divine humor here!
Jesus knew that at the End of Days oil would be a key element in the world. Jesus has a perfect overview of history from the embryo beginnings to our pollution- saturated end. In the parable and in our real world today, he has delayed his coming, with the result that the young girls, exhausted after extending their teenage chatter well beyond their usual bedtime, turned the wedding feast into a slumber party, just as we are asleep at the wheel.
Then, finally, at midnight, there was a cry, “There comes the Bridegroom. Wake up to meet him.”
The parable portrays the practical reality of life: the unexpected does happen. It happens all the time. Fish stocks collapse; Climate Change occurs; the Trump Presidency scares people like me; Arctic ice is receding at a record rate; the North Pole is 30 degrees above normal.
Suddenly the doomsters have substantial evidence for their message. The unexpected does happen. Before you realize the Lord is there, so sudden that he’s there while we slumber the time away.
“Then all the maidens rose and trimmed their lamps.” They straightened out their dresses, quickly combed their rumpled hair, turned to their lamps and five of them discovered that they have practically run out of oil. They are no longer ready to welcome the Bridegroom.
All the wick-trimming in the world, all the shaking and trying is useless: their lights are dead: the oil-age is over: darkness dawns, Endarkenment is here. The always reliable, punctual bridegroom was late for his own party.
What does this all mean?
Well, listen to the rest of the parable.
“And the foolish said to the wise, “Give as some of your oil, for our lights are going out.” But the wise replied, “Perhaps there will not be enough for us and you. Go to the fuel dealer and buy some.”
Another weird happening. How is that for a Christian answer? Aren’t we supposed to share things with others? Try to buy some fuel at midnight!
For a long time I really did not know what to think of that rather snotty reply. Now I think the time has come that we have to shrug our shoulders and go our own way. “There is a time for everything, a time to be born and a time to die,” says Ecclesiastes, “a time to share and a time to refrain from sharing” I might add.
The parable suggests that it is now too late to reform society: too late to turn the ecological balance in the world, too late to reform the ecclesiastical situation, too late to revamp the economic structures, too late to change the political system. Now matters everywhere have their own inevitable momentum, leading to total chaos and anarchy and to Jesus’ return. The present discord, including our war with creation, threatens to destroy everything.
Again something weird.
It’s on that note that the parable ends. “While they went to buy, the Bridegroom came, and those who had the extra oil went with him into the marriage feast and the door was shut. When the others came, knocked and said, ‘Lord, open up,’ he said, ‘Sorry, I don’t know you.”
Isn’t that a weird reply? The Lord doesn’t say, “I have never called you, or I have never loved you.” No, he says, “Listen, you have never bothered to get to know me. You never really took it seriously that my coming would be delayed, finding you unprepared when I did come. You really did not bother to accept my ultimate promise, thus failing to really know me. That’s why I now reject you.”
Isn’t that harsh, far too harsh?
It’s difficult to learn about God’s Kingdom/Creation. In this age of instant solutions, instant heating and cooling, we expect instant salvation and an instant Jesus.
Life doesn’t work that way: a marriage, a faith, a friendship, one’s life in Christ takes a long time maturing. Jesus has come late to give us more opportunity to see what is good and what is bad in this world, so that we can avoid errors later. After all, our marriage with creation is for eternity.
In this late hour of our present civilization, the remaining time is of the utmost essence. How do I utilize this last hour before entering the wedding hall?
There is a curious word in the last verse of Matthew 5. The Greek word there is teleios, which is translated as ‘perfect: “Be perfect as my Father is perfect.”
Of course, we can’t be perfect. But we can be ‘teleios’, of which a better translation is ‘all inclusive’, ‘holistic’, keeping the ‘telos’ (the Greek word for End) in mind. In everything we do we must contemplate its final destination: will it pollute and so help Satan who wants to destroy creation, or will it help the coming of the Kingdom, the New Creation.
Somehow we must be different now that the age of ENDARKENMENT has arrived. The parable shows that the End times are different for Christians, requiring a different view on life. We must – the church must- explore ways to understand the creation-killing life style we are engaged in – and which leads to death for all – and try alternatives, so that we can prepare ourselves for Life Eternal.
It is curious that this parable deals with oil. There’s unholy oil, the very substance that is destroying the world today and there is holy oil, life-enhancing oil. In Leviticus 8: 12 Moses pours oil on Aaron’s head to make him holy. Jesus’ feet were anointed with oil by his good woman friend.
Unholy oil has an expiry date, just as everything today: our political system, the Euro, the welfare state, the ice near the North Pole, our capitalistic system, stable and productive weather, wild life, topsoil, potable water: yes, the age of ENDARKENMENT is upon us.
Father and son McNeill, both historians, jointly wrote a book on world history: THE HUMAN WEB. The concluding paragraph warns us:
“The most obvious alternative is collapse of the existing (human) web, which would bring radical impoverishment, catastrophic die-off, and perhaps, if humankind survived, a new start on the basis of local, broken fragments of the web. I conclude that we live on the crest of a breaking wave.”
Christians believe that the real Wedding Feast comes when Christ returns to bring his new creation. Today all signs point to its imminent but totally unexpected coming, initiating a very weird wedding feast because it comes totally unannounced.
But then Christianity itself is a very weird concept. Saved by grace!