33 - Chapter 33
CHAPTER XXXIII THE BRIDESMAIDS
Mat 25:1-13. No parable of Jesus has impressed itself more deeply on the imagination of the Church. The story of the simple village wedding, the sleeping bridesmaids, the midnight cry, the dismay of the unprepared, the flashing of the wedding torches in the darkness of the night as one has so often seen them in India, the shut door and the vain pleading of the laggards: these memories enhanced by many a poem, picture, hymn and sermon, have become part of the Christian consciousness. Nor is there any parable that leaves us in a more critical mood. It is not so much that when the thoughtless five reach the festal chamber they find the door closed; for that they have themselves to blame: what puzzles us is the harsh answer given by the master of the feast to their pleading: “ Verily, I tell you, I do not know you.” It is difficult to think that these words formed part of the original parable.
However true they might be in the spiritual sphere, they could hardly be true in the story.
We note also that a saying closely parallel occurs in a far more probable context in Luk 13:25-27. As we have suggested, a wrong turn is given to the parable by the epithets ’ wise ’ and ’ foolish “ commonly applied to the two parties of bridesmaids. Nor is it correct to find the fault of the thoughtless in their falling asleep.
What distinguished the two sets was that some made their preparations before they slept; others slept unprepared. (In some manuscripts in verse I the party goes out to meet “ the bridegroom and the bride,” but it was the custom of Jesus to omit all reference to the bride.)
What did Jesus have in mind when he spoke the parable? We can be fairly sure that, in the disciple circle, there was at least one who, when the time came to start, was seldom ready, though he always had an excellent excuse for delaying the others. The inconvenience to the others and the more serious consequences that might result from this failure to make one’s preparations in time, would suggest a lesson that might take the form of a parable. But Jesus was thinking of something deeper than any one single point of character, however important. In the Great Supper the invited guests had no desire to attend; they had more important engagements. The rich ruler did wish to be a citizen of the Kingdom, but he was not prepared to pay the price. The five careless bridesmaids were eager to attend the wedding feast, were thoroughly loyal to the bride and bridegroom; they did their best to remedy their mistake; to be shut out at the end was a bitter grief to them; yet, when they arrived, the door was shut. In our Lord’s parabolic teaching about the qualifications for citizenship in the Kingdom, one important lesson remained. Luke quotes another reference of Jesus to a wedding feast (Luk 12:35-38). This time it is the master of the house who has been attending a wedding.
However late in the night he may return, he expects to find his servants on the watch, their belts buckled, their lamps lighted, ready to open the door the moment he knocks. The moral is the same as that which Matthew ascribes to Jesus at the end of the Bridesmaids: ’ Be ever on the watch.” A general sympathy with the aims of the Kingdom, a general loyalty to the King are not enough. The citizen must be prepared to take the trouble to make his citizenship effective. Good will is of no avail without good works, loyalty does not help the King without loyal support in his time of need; admiration of the Good Samaritan does not carry one far: ’ Go thou and do likewise..” The citizen of the Kingdom must live his life in a state of expectant readiness. In the moral and spiritual world there are no holidays, no occasions when we can safely relax. We cannot live to-day’s life on the strength of yesterday’s prayer; we cannot face to-morrow’s temptations on the strength of to-day’s Bible study. If we allow ourselves little indulgences, occasional lapses, a lowering of the ideal in some branches of life, for a time it does not seem to matter very much; but when a crisis comes, a great and unexpected temptation, a sudden call for courage and sacrifice, we find that our lamps are going out and our oil-flasks are empty.
We cannot burn our spiritual lamps any more than our oil lamps without constant renewal. Our spiritual life is not a tank but a river; it cannot continue to flow unless every day and all day it is renewed from on high.
Spasmodic religion means a life lived dangerously. Things may go on smoothly for a time, even a long time, when nothing particular seems to happen, and the warnings about watchfulness seem to have no special point. And then, in such an hour as we think not, comes the midnight cry. If our belts are unbuckled, our spiritual muscles out of training, our strength unrenewed, our condition finds us out. The midnight crisis reveals us to ourselves; but God knows before the cry comes that when it does come it will find our lamps going out. The unready maidens took a gambler’s risk; had the bridegroom arrived at the expected time, their slackness would never have been discovered, but God would still have known. The parable has its lesson for every age. In our own day, as in Jesus’ day, the temptation is ever present to regard life as an easy business, to think we can stand in our own strength, to make no preparation for the coming of storm and stress. But from the position in which ’ Matthew ’ places it, it is clear that in the apostolic age the Bridesmaids took on a more detailed, if more restricted, significance. A number of parables seemed to point to a future day of reckoning. The Sower and the Darnel among the Wheat laid stress on the coming of the harvest; the Fishing Net spoke of a great separation; the Talents and the Pounds specifically mentioned a Day of Reckoning and a Judgment. So did the Vinedressers; so, though in a somewhat different form, did the Unfruitful Fig-tree. We know from Mat 13:1-58 that the apostolic Church regarded the Darnel and the Fishing Net as picturing the Last Judgment. These other parables, more or less definitely, would be given a similar reference. That “ Matthew “ believes both the Bridesmaids and the Talents point to the Last Things is clear from the position he gives them, just after the discourse on this subject in Mat 24:1-51, just before the picture of the Last Judgment in Mat 25:1-46.
Jesus had spoken of himself as the bridegroom (Mark 2:19). As time went on the bridegroom of this parable would inevitably be identified with Jesus, the coming of the bridegroom with the return of Jesus, for which the early Church, as we know e.g. from the Thessalonian epistles and I Corinthians, was waiting. As year passed after year and the expected return did not take place, some mocked at the whole theory and sneeringly asked: ’ Where is his promised return; for since our fathers fell asleep everything goes on just as it has done since the creation ’ (2Pe 3:4). Others, again, said: “ The delay, long as it seems to us, is just a moment in God’s sight. One day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. Wait, and the Day of the Lord shall come as a thief “ (2Pe 3:8-10). The fourth Gospel gave a third explanation, which has become traditional among educated Christians, The Coming of the Christ is a spiritual coming in the hearts of his followers, a coming present, gradual and continuous, not catastrophic and relegated to some future date. By those who accepted the second explanation importance would come to be attached to those features in certain parables which, in allegorizing explanations, pointed to a delay before the final consummation. In the Talents the master returns ’after a long time’ (Mat 25:19). In the Vinedressers the wicked tenants are given repeated respites. The gardener in the Unfruitful Fig-tree pleads for a year’s delay. In the Bridesmaids it was the unexpected tarrying of the Bridegroom that brought to shame the five thoughtless ones. In the little quasi-parable at the end of Matthew xxiv. it is the head-servant’s confidence that the master will not come till late that encourages him to maltreat his fellowservants. As a matter of fact in every case the delay in question is essential to the story, and need be given no significance except on extreme allegorizing methods. In the Talents the master must leave his servants a reasonable time for trading before calling them to account. The point in the Vinedressers is not the delay but the matchless patience of the owner of the vineyard; in the Unfruitful Fig-tree it is the gardener’s eagerness that the tree be given a real chance to show what it can do before it is condemned. Had not the bridegroom been delayed, the want of forethought of the thoughtless bridesmaids would never have been discovered and so the story could not have been told. We must look elsewhere than in the parables for corroboration of materialistic theories of the Second Coming of Christ.
IT seems worth while to take a retrospective glance at the parables in general. In view of the variety of subjects covered, the care with which they were composed, the accuracy with which on the whole they were preserved, and the importance attached to them, it seems reasonable to believe that the bulk, if not the whole, of what Jesus regarded as ’ ’ saving truth ’ ’ is embodied in the parables. In them Jesus pictures a new ideal as having entered the world and a new power to achieve that ideal. For those who appreciate and accept it, it becomes the supreme object of existence. All the ordinary ambitions and even affections of life must take a second place; many of them are good, but they are not the good; to reach this ideal no price is too high to pay. The new way of life is embodied in a community, whose members regard it as the object of their existence to make the way prevail in their own lives, in the community and in the world.
They are called on, not to obey certain rules, but to live in a certain spirit, to judge not others but themselves, and to judge themselves by comparison, not with others, but with the standard God has set for them (The Pharisee and the Tax-collector). They find their welfare, not in what they have but in what they are (The Rich Fool). Abandoning all self-centred demands, the thought of the world as a pleasure-resort and life as a holiday, they conceive themselves as living in their Father’s home, their one ambition to serve and to do the Father’s will. In this home there are others besides themselves, and so they have to learn the family spirit, the filial spirit, the brotherly and sisterly spirit (Luk 15:1-32). On the way they will meet with many sufferers: every sufferer they meet is an invitation to help, irrespective of the creed, race or social class of the victim, and whether or no the afflicted one is wholly or partially responsible for his plight (The Good Samaritan). No member of the community can plead that his neighbour’s troubles are no concern of his. In particular for the rich man to be indifferent to the distress of his poor neighbour is a mortal sin against the community (Dives and Lazarus). A member of the community may suffer wrong and insult: his feelings and his dignity are of no account; the one thing that matters is the restoration of harmony in the community.
Advances towards reconciliation made by the offender must be not only welcomed but sought (The Unforgiving Creditor). No one works for glory or reward; every gift of every member is thrown into the common stock, used for the common weal (The Talents). A stern, though noble task this, to which these citizens of the Kingdom are called, a task that involves trampling on many human emotions and impulses, that demands grit and unwearied perseverance. Before enrolling one must sit down quietly and consider whether one is prepared to pay the price (The Tower and The Threatened King); but after one has enrolled, there is no more counting of the cost; all that a man has will he barter for his citizenship (The Treasure and the Pearl). When one has donned the livery (The Wedding Garment) stores of reserve strength and a state of constant alertness and of readiness which involves all needed preparations are imperative (The Bridesmaids).
Among the virile qualities required of the citizens of the Kingdom is dauntless determination; and this determination is backed by the knowledge that the world will respond to it. For the world is God’s world and the work is God’s work, so that the citizens of the Kingdom are co-operating with God; they are indeed the instruments through which he works. The petition for the necessary help is made to one who is more than willing to respond, and who, being in supreme command, is always able to respond (The Midnight Petitioner). However unpropitious the occasion may seem, however impossible the demand, there is no door that will not open to persistent knocking, no expectant, confident search that will not be rewarded (The Unjust Judge). For this community is God’s community; he is the Father of the family, the King of the Kingdom. It is he who inspires the ideals, who guides and controls the workers and the work, who guarantees the consummation. His thought of men and women is that of the shepherd for his sheep, of the Father for his sons and daughters (Luk 15:1-32). Having thought for them, planned for them, travailed for them, he would not have one sheep absent from the fold, one child absent from the home. One wha- strays is followed with grief and longing, is welcomed home with unrestrained joy. All have sought in a hundred ways, by self-seeking or perversity, to thwart the will of the King; when they confess their folly and acknowledge their allegiance, he forgets their past. In gratitude at this unexpected forgiveness, for which he can urge no plea save that atonement is beyond his power, the citizen enters the service of the King with joyous zeal and devotion. It is indeed the King’s ready forgiveness of his erring subjects that is the ground and inspiration of their forgiveness of each other (The Two Debtors). The King would have the world brought under the sway of the spirit of the Kingdom which has been established in His world. The citizens of the Kingdom, with no thought of reward but only in loyalty to the King, are to strain every nerve to mould the world after the pattern of the Kingdom. The toil is for some strenuous, painful and dangerous; others are called to lighter tasks in a pleasanter environment, all that the King asks of each is whether he is doing with a will the particular bit of work he has been given to do (The Labourers in the Vineyard). Brain as well as heart must be dedicated to the work. If it does not seem to prosper, often the reason is that we have expected to win a harvest without preparing the ground (The Sower). There are, too, enemies as energetic and enthusiastic in trying to thwart the growth of the Kingdom as its citizens are in fostering it (The Darnel). Yet the gradual growth of the Kingdom and its ultimate conquest of the world are as certain as the laws of nature.
God invites man’s co-operation, needs man’s co-operation; but God and God alone. gives the growth: man does his tiny part; God does the rest (The Seed Growing Automatically).
However apparently insignificant the Kingdom in its infancy, it will spread by its own expansive force, subduing one region after another, one department after another of thought and life, till it dominates the world (The Mustard Seed and The Leaven).
Yet the world and the Kingdom will never be co-terminous. One of God’s self-imposed limitations is that he will compel no man to accept his will and become a citizen of the Kingdom. The presence of the Kingdom and its ideals divides men into classes as the shepherd separates his sheep from his goats, as the fisherman sorts out his catch into edible fish and inedible. Many refuse to enter the Kingdom because they will not pay the price of citizenship (The Tower); others are so much preoccupied with their own concerns, not necessarily ignoble in themselves, that they have no thought to spare for the Kingdom (The Great Supper). Some set themselves deliberately to oppose the growth of the Kingdom and its ideals, because these will rob them of prestige, power or wealth which they prize (The Vinedressers). They who ignore or oppose the very purpose for which they were sent into the world have no justification for cumbering the ground; yet God will condemn no man, and no institution, till it is certain they have had their chance, that it is internal rottenness, not want of nourishment from without, that is responsible for their failure (The Barren Fig-tree). It is to no empty life that the citizens of the Kingdom are called, but to the fulfilment of every worthy desire, to a life of light and joy and fellowship, while those who refuse the invitation are left in darkness and loneliness.
(The Great Supper).
It may not be a complete Gospel; but it is a noble Gospel, which if it were adopted throughout the earth would give us a vastly better and happier world. The creed, it is true, is of the slenderest, even the doctrine of God; but if we have not the metaphysical God, we have the ethical God. There is no doctrine of the Trinity, but the Son has his rightful place. If we miss the resurrection of Jesus, we have the continual working of God in human life. If there is no explicit doctrine of Atonement, it is the murder of the Son that flings down the barriers of the vineyard and opens the gates to the new vinedressers. There are no sacraments in the parables, but there is the sacramental view of life, that the world, and the labours and experiences of them that dwell therein, for those that have eyes to see, are messages from God. The parables tell us nothing of Church organization or of worship; yet there is revealed in them the basis of all organization and of all worship, the members of the fellowship linked to each other byties of affectionate service, because they are all linked to God byties of reverent devotion as the children he loves.
If the parables do not give us a complete Christianity, they do give us a way of life, a way of life which is making an appeal to-day far beyond the bounds of the Christian Church; and, whatever be the value of the remark, it seems safe to say that some at least of the features in metaphysical Christianity which have proved the greatest stumbling-blocks among educated non-Christians are not found in the parables. At first sight an element indispensable in any form of Christianity seems to be lacking. The life to which Jesus invited men was one of personal devotion to himself. ’ Bring him to me,” “ Follow me,” were two of his most characteristic sayings. Shorn of this sense of personal loyalty to the Lord, the Christian life would be immeasurably weakened; but, speaking generally, our Lord does not figure in the parables. We may, if we so choose, find him in the Good Samaritan; otherwise only in the Vinedressers is he certainly present. If we may reckon among the parables (though this is not justified) the picture of the Last Judgment at the end of Matthew xxv, in it the Son of Man appears as King and Judge. In Matthew also, as we have seen, the Great Supper becomes a Wedding Feast in honour of the marriage of the King’s son. Quite apart from all such references, the world will never separate the parables from him who told them. Great as they are in themselves, they are infinitely greater as utterances of him who not only spoke the Word but was the Word. Apart from all allegorizing, the story of the Good Samaritan owes the spell it has cast over men to the knowledge that he who spake the parable did for life’s wounded travellers all and more than all that the Samaritan did for the half-dead trader on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho.