Some years ago, I received a phone call from a funeral home director asking me if I could do a funeral for a family that claimed to be members of the church I served. When he shared the name of the deceased, I did not recognize it, so I respectfully told him so. Still, the family was adamant that they were members, and both they and the director were annoyed that I had not been immediately accommodating. It was rather odd and off-putting. But still, I checked with our secretary and others at the church, and no one had a clue who the deceased and family were. In an attempt to be conciliatory, I called the funeral director back with the intention of offering my services if they were still needed; the response I got was rather curt and rude. He told me they found someone else to do the funeral.
Throughout the years, I have usually been willing to help and do a funeral for a family I didn’t know when the funeral director called. But I must confess that over time, doing such funerals for someone as well as a family I did not know got to be wearing and even embarrassing. Sure, I was “witnessing to the Gospel,” but there were also many indications that the family and those gathered didn’t really care. The usual reason I got the phone call is that these families requested a Lutheran pastor because there was some connection to a Lutheran church at some point or another. For example, the deceased had been baptized or the grandmother who died thirty years ago was a faithful Lutheran. Nonetheless, the more I did such funerals, the more I began to be plagued by an uneasiness about doing so. Though I had been trained “to err on the side of grace,” to view such requests as opportunities to tell people about Jesus, I felt I was cheapening something very valuable. I felt I was bringing something that was taken for granted because of cultural expectations and, in some cases, carryovers from the previous generation. Lastly, I began to feel a subtle resentment growing within me when such requests came in. Altogether, these things produced an intuitive itch within me that I felt compelled to scratch resulting in some reexamination and exploration into the scriptures.
If there was one phrase Jesus speaks that has struck a note of discomfort and even terror within me, and I think in many others, it is, “Truly I tell you, I do not know you.” Of course, these are not words that Jesus spoke to someone in Matthew’s Gospel. Rather, these are the words of the bridegroom in his Story of the Ten Bridesmaids (Matthew 25:1-13).
Still, those words were said to the foolish bridesmaids who desperately wanted to get into the banquet but couldn’t because they hadn’t prepared properly. Despite their pleading, they were denied entrance. The denial of the bridegroom, a type of Christ, certainly does not bespeak a gracious and loving God. At least, initially, it doesn’t. For those of us of a Lutheran, Protestant, American Evangelical, and, by extension, Moralistic Therapeutic Deist variety, this may stump us. What about grace alone? What about a loving and gracious God? What about the thief on the cross?
However, grace alone or even justification by grace through faith can sometimes do more harm than good. What I mean is that it can lead us off track, so much so that we misunderstand some of Jesus’ teachings and actions. The Story of the Ten Bridesmaids is about proper preparation and anticipation; it is about taking the journey of discipleship very seriously in hearing and doing (preparing). Thus, if taken seriously one will be prepared, one will have enough oil, and not carelessly ask for more at the last minute. In so doing, we will come to know God, and God will come to know us.
One key to truly unlocking what is happening here is Matthew’s use of “foolish” and “wise” to describe the bridesmaids. What strikes me as fascinating is that the only other place where Matthew uses the words “foolish” and “wise” in contrast is in the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount concerning the two builders (Matthew 7:24-27). Many of us know this story well due to the Sunday School song. The wise man built his house on the rock and the foolish man built his on the sand. The wise man is everyone who hears the words of Jesus and does them! The foolish man is everyone who hears the words of Jesus and does not do them! The intriguing part about the wise builder is that getting to bedrock would have been hard and arduous work. That is, doing the words of Jesus is hard and costly; it is not easy, it involves remaining close to Jesus. However, building on the sand, which is obviously foolish, is also an easy and uncaring way to build. It involves no hard work or forethought.
I think the growing resentment I felt towards the aforementioned requests can be connected to these texts or at least help make sense of the said feeling. There was certainly a respect and expectation that the Church would be there amid the death of a loved one, which is a good and beautiful thing. At the same time, I think this dynamic also highlights a major flaw in the thinking that the Church should always be there for others no matter what. As if to suggest that the relationship should be a one-way street. The foolish operate under the assumption that God should know them, yet he says otherwise. Why is that? Because they didn’t prepare, because they didn’t hear and do. We might say that they didn’t engage in the actual hard work of a relationship both with God and his people, the Church. We might even say that the actions of God therein are the actions of someone with healthy boundaries. He lays out his Way and expectations (the Sermon on the Mount) and invites us to follow accordingly, dying and rising daily. Such doesn’t mean that we won’t mess-up, get it wrong, fail, but it does mean we continue in the journey and relationship both with God and with other disciples. But what of those of us who don’t do so? Who expect the benefits without the praxis? How can we know someone we’ve never spent time with? And how can we expect God to know us if we have never spent time with him?
Maybe that was my issue and the issue all along. Please know that my intention is not to liken myself to the bridegroom or to Jesus himself, thereby suggesting that I am God. Not at all! At the same time, I really didn’t know those people who called. Yet they were adamant that I did or that I should.
[Author’s note: There is much more to unpack within these texts. For example, the connection to the disciples’ falling asleep in the Garden at the arrest of Jesus later in the Gospel. That is, their failure to stay awake and be prepared like the foolish bridesmaids. Another fascinating connection is Matthew’s use of “οἶδα” in 25:12 rather than “γινώσκω” which is used in 7:23 right before the wise and foolish builder section.]
***If readers are interested in getting a more detailed breakdown of the wise and foolish builder Kenneth’s Bailey’s Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels is a great resource.***
A Foolish Way 