Sermon manuscript:
Our Gospel reading today is a rich text that is worthy of being
meditated upon for a long time. I’ve known this text for many years and have
taught it for many years, but I do not feel as though I’ve understood it
completely. There are texts in the Bible that are like this. A person can
profitably wonder about them for years or even a lifetime. We will take it up
again today.
The broad outlines of the parable are clear. This is talking
about Christ’s second coming. No one knows the day or the hour when Christ will
come again, so, as Jesus says in the conclusion to the parable, we should keep
watch. The bridegroom in the parable is Jesus. The ten virgins represent those
who self-identify as Christians. Christians are waiting for Jesus to come. There’s
a problem, though. Five are foolish. They end up getting locked out of the
marriage feast of the Lamb in his kingdom which has no end. These are all
things that can be clearly identified and understood.
There are other elements to this parable that are less clear,
at least to me. What do the lamps represent? What does the oil represent? What
does the extra flask of oil that the wise virgins are carrying with them
represent? What does it mean that all of them fall asleep while they are
waiting for the bridegroom to come? Why won’t the wise virgins give any oil to
the foolish virgins? Who are those who sell the oil? What does it mean that the
foolish are directed to go and get more oil, and how do they get any in the
middle of the night?
These are a lot of questions. Over the years you have
probably heard answers, and probably even good answers, to the questions I’ve
just asked. It is often taught that the oil in the lamps is faith. The reason
why the wise cannot give any oil to the foolish is because no one is able to
believe for another. Each must believe for him or her self. The sellers of oil
are pastors from whom a person can acquire faith through the Word and
Sacraments that they are called by God to dispense.
I’m sure that there are much worse ways that this parable
could be interpreted. The individual statements are true enough. What is said
about faith is true. No one is able believe for another. The only source for
Christian faith is the hearing of the Gospel and the receiving of Christ’s
sacraments. However, I’ve never quite been sold on interpreting the parable
this way. It seems to me to be an oversimplification.
It makes it seem as though Christianity is a religion where
almost the whole point of it is to go to church. That’s where the oil is sold,
so make sure that you have a good supply on hand. But the parable does not say
that the wise virgins had just come back from a shopping trip for oil. They
remembered to bring along some extra. If Christianity is just a matter of
attending church, then it hardly seems necessary for there to be a final
judgment at all. We’d already know whether someone has passed the test by
looking at the attendance records. There’s more to faith than attending the
Divine Service.
So I think it is helpful to think outside the normal
interpretation of this parable. The
obsession concerning oil and the lamps going out appears strange to me. They
had planned on having lit lamps for the bridegroom. I’m sure they wanted their
plans to succeed. But would the bridegroom care that much if their lamps had
run out of oil? Would he have banned them from attending? I’m not aware of any
custom or regulation from that time that made burning lamps a prerequisite for
attending a wedding feast.
So the obsession with having enough oil has always struck me
as being kind of feverish and dreamlike. I’m sure you’ve had those dreams that
keep you half-awake all night because of something that you are obsessing
about. It’s always something that is totally beside the point. You don’t have
something, for example, and you think that you really need to have it. All your
efforts at attaining it are thwarted. If you were fully awake you’d immediately
know that it is beside the point, but in the dream there’s no getting around it:
You have to have it, and you can’t get it. I’ve had many dreams over the years
with this kind of theme. They are very annoying. They disturb my sleep.
This parable always makes me think of these annoying,
disturbing kinds of dreams. It’s as though they are in a dream. When the
virgins awaken they are all in a panic. They’ve fallen asleep without meaning
to. They could have missed the whole thing by sleeping through it. Whew! But
then there’s a problem with the lamps. They aren’t working right. They are low.
The wise virgins are relieved that they have some extra, but the foolish ones
become panic stricken again because they don’t have any. They try to solve the
problem. “Please, give us some of yours.” But that doesn’t work. Now
what are they going to do? Go buy some more. Oh, what a relief. We can solve
this problem after all! But no! The stores are closed. It’s midnight. Now what
are they going to do? It’s dreadful. They’re running out of time! Finally, by
the time they manage to secure some more oil, it’s way too late. Their worst
fears have come true. When they get to the gate the bridegroom says that he
doesn’t know them.
Then the alarm clock starts beeping and you have to get up.
You’re tired because you didn’t sleep well, but at least you’re no longer
annoyed and frightened by your dream.
Of course Jesus says nothing about this being a dream. This
makes any interpretation based on what I have just said immediately suspect. On
the other hand, I think this interpretation accounts for more elements of the
parable and is a better description of what is going with faith.
Faith is a gift from the Holy Spirit. It is not a personal
accomplishment from attending church or any other activity we might engage in.
Faith is something that is immensely powerful. It overcomes the world, the
devil, and hell. However, at the same time, faith is something that is also
easily damaged and lost. This is something that Luther always said about faith,
learned from long experience living as a Christian.
Note how different all of this is from the way that most
people think about faith. Most people think that faith is just a matter of doggedly
sticking with the truthfulness of certain statements. Statements like: Jesus is
God. He died and rose from the dead. Believing that such facts are truthful is
thought to be faith. But these are facts that the devil and the demons know
just as well as we do, and probably much better. Nevertheless, they certainly
do not have faith.
It is also very common for people to think that they have a
super-dooper strong faith as opposed to a faith that is easily damaged and lost.
I’ve met many people who live in open, unrepentant sin. They have absolutely no
intention of changing their ways. They are always irritated at the very idea of
it and that I should bring it up to them. And yet they are 100% sure that they
have a perfectly fine faith. They don’t have the least doubt that they will be
just fine when they die. They often look at me rather strangely when I tell
them that it’s not possible to live in open rebellion against God’s
commandments and continue to have a true faith. I suspect that they think there
is something wrong with my faith. They think I should have more faith in my
faith.
The goal, however, is not to have unshakeable faith in one’s
own ability to believe. It also is not right to have unshakeable faith in your
attendance record at church. The church is not your Savior. Jesus is your
Savior. You should believe in him. You should not believe in yourself, as
though it’s impossible to lose your faith. Better men and women than you have
lost their faith. Believing that you are just fine with your super-dooper
strong faith creates a smugness and a coldness that makes you insensitive to
God’s Word. God’s threats and promises go in one ear and out the other because
you’re already quite sure that your just fine just the way that you are.
The fact that our sins damage us and our foolish thoughts
make us sluggish is shown by the way that all ten of the virgins, both wise and
foolish, fall asleep. Jesus gives the summary conclusion for the parable at the
end when he says, “Watch, because you do not know the day or the hour,”
but the wise virgins fell asleep too. Our faith is not so strong as we might
like to believe. We can fall asleep. We can fall asleep with our faith and
never awaken.
It is also possible that we wake up, but all our actions are
in vain. The efforts that we make for our salvation all come to naught. This is
what I think is going on with these foolish virgins. They thought they were
fine just the way they were, so they make very poor preparations. They simply
don’t care that much, so they don’t think to bring any extra oil. When they
awaken from their sleep they go after all the wrong things. God scatters them
in the imagination of their hearts. They think that their getting into the
wedding feast is a matter of them having followed the rules. They’ve always
imagined that they’ve followed the rules well enough because faith, for them,
was a matter of having the right opinions. They thought they had these opinions
in the bag, and thus could otherwise live however they might see fit. Since
their faith has always actually been in themselves being good enough just the
way they are, they are sent on a wild goose chase to make themselves feel
acceptable again. It doesn’t even enter their minds that they should repent and
seek forgiveness from the bridegroom, to be admitted to the feast by grace.
They are not in the habit of repenting. They have long believed that they are
just fine. Their faith is solid as a rock.
But their “faith” has been in an idol. This is a very subtle
idol. It looks like the real thing. It looks very Christian, very pious. The
opinions are all correct. It’s an idol that is forged in the deepest part of hell
by the master himself. A lie is joined together with so much truth. The lie is
where the faith gets directed—not in Christ, but in one’s own piety. This trick
is so subtle and attractive that we’ve all been taken in by it at one time or
another. But it’s an idol nonetheless. Believing in your faith is the wrong
thing to believe in.
When the foolish virgins come to the closed door, the
bridegroom says emphatically: “Amen, I tell you, I do not know you.” And
it’s true. He doesn’t know them. They have not been believing in Jesus. They’ve
been believing in their correctness. The thought of being locked out has hardly
ever entered their heads. If it did, they’d have a ready answer to put their
conscience back to sleep.
They are the good ones. Any God who would lock them out,
they think, must be some kind of monster. How could God have the gall to
condemn them when they’ve lived a perfectly respectable life? Meanwhile,
prostitutes, tax collectors, murderers, drug users, and all manner of people
whom they looked down upon their whole life will be entering into heaven before
them. These people, as opposed to the
ones who are always correct, learned how to repent. These people were given the gift of faith by the Holy Spirit. These people believed in Christ.
See to it that you do not despise preaching and God’s Word.
Regard it as sacred and gladly hear and learn it. Do not learn to yawn at your
sins and consider them to be of little importance because you’ve got your faith
that you can believe in. Your faith in your faith will never save you. It is
not your Savior.
Wake up from your dream. Instead of making excuses for
yourself, think straight. Repent of your evil thoughts, words, and actions.
Believe in Jesus, the bridegroom. He’s coming! Come out to meet him. He is the
one to whom you must look. He is the one in whom you are invited to believe.
Notice how the wise virgins go toward him. The foolish virgins go away from
him.
This is already something that you can do now. Paul says that
the Lord’s Supper is the proclamation of the Lord’s death until he comes. If
you need to have your sins forgiven, then go toward him in the Lord’s Supper.
Do not go away from him, thinking you’re fine nevertheless. And when that final
trumpet sounds, lift up your heads and look up. Go to meet the bridegroom. Keep
your eyes on him instead of on yourself and whether you have followed the rules
well enough. Jesus Christ came in order to save sinners, even very bad sinners,
like you.
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