The Oil of Grace Nurtured over Time

In our gospel this morning, Jesus tells a parable about 10 bridesmaids waiting to light the way to the wedding ceremony for the coming bridegroom. As with all of Jesus’s parables, each element of the story would have been familiar to his hearers from their everyday lives: in this case the preparation for a marriage ceremony. But each element of the story also points to aspects of our lives with God. We call this use of familiar symbols to point to a deeper spiritual meaning, allegory.

So we hear about these 10 bridesmaids with their lamps ready to show the bridegroom to the wedding feast. Jesus tells us that five of them are wise and 5 are foolish. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As might have been typical of the time, the bridegroom was delayed and so all of them became drowsy and slept. Inevitably, the bridegroom does come around midnight and there’s a shout to come out and meet him. All 10 bridesmaids get up to trim their lamps but the foolish ones of course don’t have enough oil and so their lamps are going out. They ask to borrow some from the 5 wise bridesmaids, but the latter reply, “no there won’t be enough for you and us, so you better go get some for yourselves.” Of course the bridegroom comes while they’re gone. The bridesmaids who were ready go with the bridegroom to the wedding feast and the door is shut. Later the foolish bridesmaids come saying, 'Lord, Lord, open to us.' But he replied, 'Truly I tell you, I do not know you.' Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour."

This parable has a long history of interpretation where most of the early church fathers, medievals and early modern interpreters agree,7 on what these elements stood for spiritually beginning with St. Augustine in the fourth century. He suggested that all 10 of the bridesmaids are in fact all Christian. That’s the real rub of this parable and its deepest warning to those of us in the Church: this is not about those outside the church; it’s about us: all ten are waiting for the bridegroom, who of course is Jesus himself; all ten have lamps, which represents having faith; all ten fall asleep, which represents our inevitable deaths. The bridegroom is delayed, which indicates that many will die before they see Christ return. 

So what then, is the difference between the wise and foolish bridesmaids? The oil. The oil represents God’s grace poured out for us. Augustine suggests that those who carry sufficient oil, i.e. the wise bridesmaids, don’t simply receive grace, they nurture it over their entire lives, regularly, habitually; not substituting idols of work or possessions, or ideologies, not engaging in gossip, or slander, or envy, or coveting, not simply spending their lives showing up at church and then going and doing what they want week to week. The five bridesmaids nurture the grace they receive so that it flows out of their mouths and their hands as works of charity, of love for God and through God, for one’s neighbour. This is the extra oil: that grace nurtured or multiplied returns and multiplies to God the grace that one receives. Nurturing that grace involves daily prayer, reading the Scriptures and contemplating what they mean deeply, spending time in confession where one has failed to uphold his commands, receiving the sacraments, and being attentive to those things - trials and successes - that God has put before us with thanks and praise. These are the elements that expose us to God’s whittling, reshaping, discipline, and healing; this is what transforms our hearts and allows us to act toward others with charity rather than presumption and show. This is the oil to walk with Christ into the wedding banquet at our deaths.

The wedding feast of course, is eternal life with God, described throughout the Gospels as a banquet, a celebration. The door that closes behind the five wise virgins is the final judgment of our lives which cannot be reopened once shut. The midnight cry represents the moment of death, which arrives without warning and at an hour we do not choose or foresee.

Why, you might ask, do the wise bridesmaids not share their oil with the foolish ones? The wise are not selfish, but it is in fact impossible to share a lifetime of confession, thanks, praise, study, submission, sacrifice, letting go, being transformed, with another. No one can give to another the depth of their relationship with God. This must be built day in and day out through constant attentiveness in prayer, in study, in worship, in confession, in hope, love, seeking and submission to God.

This parable is in part, a warning to us as Christians, not to those outside the Church. The foolish virgins represent those Christians who carry faith as an external identity rather than as a living interior reality. Just showing up to church and reciting the liturgy may leave your lamp without oil if you are not otherwise turning yourself constantly to God to be pruned, renewed, and healed for his service. Jesus here calls us to attentiveness because we may be suddenly confronted with Christ, the Church’s bridegroom and judge. 

But the parable also leaves us with incredible hope. The wise bridesmaids symbolize those who prepare in advance by nurturing their faith through their lives, allowing themselves to be tested and tried by engaging God daily and openly, without reserve, sacrificing for the sake of serving others so that they can build reserves of oil, build, that is, the capacity, the skills, the heart, to love more and more. This is what allows them to act when the moment of judgment comes: they have internalized the love of God so that it becomes second nature. When death arrives, the wise person will find they are not scrambling for oil; but rather already burning with the light of love that has been tended for years. AMEN