Father Tim Lemlin
The parents of a three-year-old decided to let her record the message for their answering machine. The rehearsals went smoothly. The young girl spoke clearly, "Mommy and Daddy can't come to the phone right now. If you'll leave your name, phone number, and a brief message, they'll get back to you as soon as possible."
Then came the test. The young girl's Dad pressed the record button and the three-year-old said sweetly, "Mommy and Daddy can't come to the phone right now. If you'll leave your name, phone number, and a brief message, they'll get back to you as soon as Jesus comes."
The story that we hear in today's gospel is concerned about wisdom. (Our first reading from the Book of Wisdom reinforces that this is true.) Jesus seems to be saying by this story that there are two types of people: those who are wise and those who are foolish.
The human capacity to fool ourselves seems to be as infinite as is the love of God. All parties involved in the story know that the wait will be long. Yet, some only bring a limited supply of oil. The story seems to suggest that these are those who rely upon their own resources. They are considered foolish.
Matthew's hand is evident in this reading. The writer places the original story into the life-situation in which he finds himself and the infant church. Matthew uses this story as a polemic against the Jewish authorities who reject Jesus as the messiah. He links these authorities with the five foolish bridesmaids who run out of oil.
The foolish bridesmaids are those who believe that they can find a way to make God love them. They externally are perfect in all of their ways. They believe that their life-situations (what they and others can see) are their lives. They hang the meaning of their lives upon their being a good or perfect parent, or clergy, or a respected business person. All of these are life-situations, not our lives.
When these become the source that makes us who we are, we become blind to the truth about ourselves. We maintain a positive self-image as long as we are successful. When, however, we fail (one of our children becomes addicted to drugs, or our reputation is questioned, or our business falters) our self-image is pummeled. We then try that much harder to re-gain good thoughts about ourselves, or we blame someone else for our troubles. This false self blinds us to the way we abuse ourselves and others with our bigotry, our arrogance, and our falsity. When religion is introduced into the mixed, then we can even convince ourselves that taking another person's life is justified.
St. Paul speaks of this often. He uses his life before his experience of the risen Christ as an example of just how blind we can be. He says that in the name of God, and with the authority given to him by church leaders, he went about the region rounding up all the Jewish people who were following the ways of Jesus; jailing some, killing others.
Matthew views the five wise bridesmaids as those Jews who experience Jesus as the messiah. They no longer rely upon their own resources. Now they are connected with a wisdom that is infinitely larger than themselves. Their self-image is not dependent upon their life-situations - their successes or failures. They are seen participating in something bigger than themselves.
When we create our own self-image we become shortsighted. We are most often unprepared to pass through what life throws our way. A slight becomes a major wound. A tragedy undoes us. An unfulfilled expectation brings us to cynicism.
When we experience ourselves participating in the life force that is bigger than us and our self-image emanates from this experience we can see a bigger picture. Life, we come to realize, is not about me. I am about life. Such an experience allows us to pass through our life-situations and to dwell in our life - the one who we call God. A slight hurts but readily heals. A tragedy causes us sorrow and stirs compassion. An unfulfilled expectation brings us to forgiveness.
All are invited to the banquet. The only difference between those who enter the banquet hall and those who don't is awareness that we are participants in something bigger than each of us and all of us. We are children of God.
