HOW SHOULD WE THEN LIVE? PART SEVEN
A parable with a curious twist
The Bible has some very interesting passages with Matthew 24 among the most intriguing. The bible editors gave this chapter this heading: Signs of the End of the Age, quite appropriate, because it is chockful with dire predictions. Look it up on the internet, read it aloud and be very concerned because in verse 15 you will read “So when you see standing in the holy place (yes, that is God’s creation!) the abomination that causes desolation”, you are observing this very event in California, the form of droughts, and in Great Britain with severe floods and in Eastern US with scores of unnatural natural events.
It is precisely today, the second decade of the 21st Century, that the next Chapter,# 25, refers to when its opening words are: At that time (this means now) the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. That there an ordinary wedding party is taking place means that, for all appearances, life is totally normal: not a cloud in the sky. In essence this chapter tells us to expect the unexpected because you never know when the End comes. Or the New Beginning.
Somehow this episode reminds me of an encounter I had with two dedicated environmentalists when I spent a weekend Cross Country skiing in the Algonquin Park, Ontario’s largest provincial park.
In the lodge there I met a professor of Environmental Studies at a large Ontario University who did not possess a car and biked to work. After talking together for quite a while, I asked him pointblank “Given the present condition of the environment and the nature of humanity, not really willing or even able to sacrifice anything substantial for the plight of the earth, and seeing how our economic and political system usually chooses jobs and profit over ecological considerations, what are our chances to clean up worldwide pollution?”
His one word reply was, “none.”
”What about us, humans?” I then asked.
Answered his lawyer friend from another university town, and who did have a car, “That is not important. Humans have been on the scene for perhaps 20,000 years and the world can quite well function without them.” Said the professor, “as long as there is somewhere, say in Newfoundland a rock left with some lichen on it, a new start can be made and evolution can have a new beginning. Perhaps the second time around things will turn our better in, say, another 10 billion years.”
These two people, he a specialist in environmental matters, she a well educated woman, had no hope that the present brand of humanity would be able to rectify the mess we have made of God’s creation.
Almost every day we read about the grave dangers the cosmos faces, from Global Warming, to fish stocks collapsing, to Greenland turning green again, to the ice in glaciers and both int the Arctic and the Antarctic melting so fast that the danger of flooding cities and entire countries becomes ever more real.
I think that these two professional people have a very valid point, a point I happen to agree with, a point that the Bible also makes, when it says that –Romans 6:23 – ’ the wages of sin is death.’ When we sin against creation, death is certain to follow. The professor, certainly not a Christian in the church-going sense, nevertheless had a better grasp of the Christian duty to preserve creation than any person I know, and taught me that it takes extra-ordinary action, that it requires going against the stream, to do the right thing in God’s eyes.
The parable is well-known
This parable telling us how 10 young women wait for the Bridegroom to appear has long puzzled and intrigued me. Off and one for decades I have tried to make sense of it. I take my hat off for the insights of Robert Farrar Capon evident in his three books on The Parables. His musings helped me to come to a solution that I find satisfactory.
The parable speaks about Ten Bride’s maids, young girls, teenagers, I imagine, who are responsible for preparing the bride to meet the bridegroom.
If I were to film this scene I would see ten excited young women, all invited to an important wedding, and even better, all asked to play a part in the proceedings. The tension whether they would be invited or some other girls from among the bride’s circle of friends and relatives, is over. They made the cut and are happy.
The scenario would see them gathered in a large hall, looking no different from young women today: because there was no prescribed dress, each one of them had done her best to look pretty, but, still a bit unsure how they would compare to the others, they had entered the hall with some trepidation, and when they had seen how the others were attired, they felt better and actually quite pleased with themselves.
If we would have had an opportunity to watch these females, to us they all would look equally qualified. But somehow Jesus made a definite distinction in the group. Five he called foolish. Five he called wise. That’s one thing I found questionable. Why are the foolish called foolish? We know that the foolish are labeled that way because they had not taken extra oil along for their lamps.
Tell me: What would you have done had you been among the chosen Ten? Picture the scene; visualize it before your eyes: the wedding is in the afternoon, say three o’clock. They were all there at least an hour before that. The party is somewhat later, but certainly would be over well 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 to a mere flicker. With a full tank there’s plenty of oil for the entire proceeding with fuel to spare, plain common sense, and, because the Bridegroom was known to be a punctual man, why take along extra jars of that stinking and expensive kerosene? Suppose that the heavy crock pot would break and spill its contents all over the new dress. These containers weren’t like the metal or plastic ones we have: no, they were frail, cumbersome and heavy. Mother was right: just to carry a lamp with a full tank would be enough. Also, with a heavy lamp to carry, how about the presents when one hand was needed to carry the lamp and another to carry extra oil? No, I agree with the so-called foolish maidens. Their action made perfect sense.
“But,” says Jesus, “the five young women who took the trouble of lugging these heavy jars with them, were wise.” Why would Jesus call them that? To me it makes little sense. How could they properly attend to their task preparing the bride, and also carry the extra wine and food? That smelly stuff could easily mix with the other 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 young women make much more sense. So why would Jesus call the practical teens foolish and the overcautious wise?
A little detour
Jesus must have a reason, so let me make a guess, and for this I will take a little detour. Going to church is a bit like going to a wedding: we expect to meet the Bridegroom, and expect to hear about Jesus. The routine of Sunday, our hearing a sermon can be compared to the normal supply of oil.
But we all know, there is more to meeting the Bridegroom than routine matters. That’s why the super cautious oil bottle bearing women are called wise. They are prepared for more, and they probably don’t even know what that more is. However, they find this out when the Bridegroom took long in coming.
We must see the context of this parable. It 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, speaks this parable. He begins, “Then” or “At this particular moment, at the End of Days”. That could well mean ‘Now.’ Today too there are two kinds of people: foolish and wise.
I think that Jesus knew that at the End of Days Oil would again be a key element in the world. Jesus had a perfect overview of history from the embryo beginnings to the pollution- saturated end. It is a rather curious phenomenon that OIL has been the very cause of wars in the last decades. So, when the young girls, exhausted after extending their teenage chatter well beyond their usual bedtime – which was at sun down, as oil was too expensive to use for extended periods – the wedding feast turns into a slumber party. All ten are sacked out on couches and across the floor of the verandah where they were keeping a lookout.
Then, finally, at midnight, there was a cry, “There comes the Bridegroom. Wake up to meet him.”
Expect the unexpected
The parable portrays the practical reality of life: the unexpected does happen. It happens all the time. Fish stocks collapse. Ozone layers disappear. Pandemics might strike. Entire regions lose their pine trees to a tiny beetle. Arctic ice is melting at a record rate. Glaciers are disappearing. Suddenly the doomsters have substantial evidence for their message. The unexpected does happen. Before you realize the Lord is there, still quite unexpected while we slumber the time away.
“Then all the maidens rose and trimmed their lamps.” They all straightened out their dresses, quickly combed their rumpled hair, turn to their lamps and five of them discover that they have practically run out of oil. They are not ready anymore to welcome the Bridegroom. All the wick-trimming in the world, all the shaking and trying is useless: their lights are dead. The unexpected did happen. The Oil is gone. The always reliable, punctual bridegroom was late for his own party.
What does this mean?
So what must we think of all this? What does this all mean? I believe that the professor I mentioned in the beginning is right. God has taken so long to do anything that the world has dug its own grave. The lights are going out in this world. I also know that I am not the only one with this opinion: in the depth of their hearts many knowledgeable people realize this. The lights are going out for this world.
I was at a conference on Peak Oil in Boston a few years ago. The theme was: “Peak Oil has arrived: it’s all down hill from here.” The prudent ones, those with the common sense amount of oil, are sunk. We, in North America have built our entire society on the premise of cheap and unlimited oil. Unless there is something other than the wisdom of the world to help it, there is no way that the world can straighten out the mess, politically, ecologically and economically.
So, what do we do? Ignore the signs and go on as if nothing is the matter? What else must we do as Christians? That is the real question we face.
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 both us and you. Go to the fuel dealer and buy some.”
How is that for a Christian answer? Aren’t we supposed to share things with others? Try to buy some fuel at midnight!
That was another mystery for me. For a long time I really did not know what to think of that rather snotty reply of the Five Wise Women. Now it seems to me that this answer suggests that there comes a time, and perhaps has come, that we have to shrug our shoulders and go our own way. Time does run out as it always does in real life. “There is a time for everything, a time to be born and a time to die,” says Ecclesiastes 3, “a time to share and a time to refrain from sharing.” The parable suggests to me that a day will come when it will be too late to reform society.
Could it be that we have reached a point in world development where it is too late to turn to 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? I have no unrealistic notions that this writing will make an iota of difference to the church. It will continue to go on as if nothing has changed, as if the Lord never will return. It seems to me that matters everywhere have their own inevitable momentum, leading either to total chaos and anarchy or to complete redemption.
An unexpected conclusion
It’s on that note that the parable ends. “While they went to buy, the Bridegroom came, and those who were ready, those who had the extra oil, went with him into the marriage feast and the door was shut. Afterwards the others came, knocked and said, ‘Lord, open up.’ But he said, ‘Sorry, I don’t know you’.”
Isn’t that a strange 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 the time to seriously find out what I really stand for and what my creation is all about. You spent your time getting ahead in the world – nothing wrong with that. You developed good social skills. Good. You even dabbled a bit in theology. I’ll forgive you. But what about striving for a real close relationship with me? What about living your life in such a way that the entry into the Kingdom, the renewed creation, is not a shock, but makes it the next logical step in your life? Since you did not understand that to be my follower is to love creation for whose redemption I died, that’s why I now reject you. You were so caught up in the system and assumed that the commonly accepted, pragmatic solution was the norm, that common sense would triumph, that it was business as usual, that’s why I now don’t know you.”
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. I don’t believe that life works that way: a marriage, a faith, a friendship, one’s life in Christ takes a long time maturing. That’s why Jesus has given us lots of time. He has come late to give us more opportunity to discover what is good and what is bad in this world, so that we can avoid errors later.
In this late hour of our present civilization, the remaining time is of the utmost essence. How do we utilize this last hour before entering the wedding hall?
I try not to waste my time on unproductive dialogue, whether with government, business or within ecclesiastical structures, fully expecting that this venture is nothing more than a cry in the wilderness, a howl against the wind. It seems to me that it is too late in history to effect structural changes in society. Still I try to live a creational responsible life, in preparation for the New Earth to come, because I see this life as an experimental station for eternity.
I emphasize again that curious word in the last verse of Matthew 5. The Greek word there is teleioos, which is translated as ‘perfect: “Be perfect as my Father is perfect.” Of course, we can’t be perfect. But we can be ‘teleioos’, of which a better translation is ‘all inclusive’, ‘holistic’, having the ‘telos’ the End of matters 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.’ Make ‘teleioos’ your life motto.
There is hope for this world. That hope is more than a piece of lichen on a rock somewhere in Newfoundland: it is the New Creation, a renewed Earth under a heaven cleaned of all the space junk. I believe that now, as never before, is the appropriate time to share with others, people of all walks of life and from all denominations and no church affiliation that Jesus is All and in All things. Colossians 1:15-20. We must, with others, 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.
Perhaps thinking about it, talking about it, trying to comprehend what we are doing and have done to God’s earth, and ask for forgiveness, is all we can do.
We, as children of love, must show that we love God and thus his creation, and love neighbors as we ought to love ourselves. Those are the great commandments. The rest all rests on that given. Only when we show our love, will we know Jesus and will Jesus acknowledge us. That requires unconventional actions, such as taking along extra oil, be prepared for all eventualities, going against all accepted wisdom.
In practical terms that may mean to limit traveling by car or plane, or more positively, grow your own food, build an energy-efficient house or install solar panels. It does imply that we must consciously prepare ourselves for a life of eternal permanence, to live as if we already are in the renewed creation.
Next week, Part Eight “The Leaves of the Tree are for the healing of the nation.