This Week: Proper 27A
Gospel: Matthew 25:1-13
Honestly, this week’s gospel never sat right with me. At no point did I hear it in church or read it on my own and go “Yeah, that sounds like you, Jesus.”
Now, this line of thinking never went the cynical route. It’s more like…I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to read this and go “Time to stock up on lamp oil!”
The exceptional argument
When talking about the Bible, I like to tell people that there is something natural and easy about the gospels for people of faith. The path of interpretation isn’t so much a matter of being simpler to understand as it is a style that matches our intuition nicely.
With histories, we are too obsessed with factuality. With proverbs, we are too obsessed with truisms. And the prophets are full of righteous anger and the epistles are full of Paul’s theologizing. But the gospels—in them we connect with Jesus’s life story and with his teachings.
It makes intuitive sense.
We read the gospels and usually, they just connect with us. It is the opposite of Revelation, which is entirely an interpretive experience. We essentially must read that in translation.
I say this often about the gospels. And now we read these dark parables in Matthew. And I go…well, here’s the exception to that rule.
Our interpretive struggle
It is precisely this ease in the gospels that can cause us confusion late in the gospel of Matthew. We’re not used to the interpretive process—at least not one that taxes us.
And it is that which makes us most susceptible to mistaking the nature of this parable. Because we’re used to reading about Jesus’s life. Or his teaching. And the character of his teaching is usually generous and encouraging of love, hope, and commitment to serving others.
Even parables, which are rich stories of complex values, often point our minds toward those expectations for the blessed community.
So, what happens here?
We have a parable that seems to be about being prepared so as not to be left out.
Right for all the wrong reasons
The most clever part of this parable is that our intuitions about it aren’t wrong.
Jesus does teach throughout this section of the gospels about urgency. He does want his followers to prepare for what is to come.
In short, the straight interpretation is full of truth. I honestly think this is stuff Jesus wants us to care about.
And also…
The parable depicts a horrid scenario that doesn’t at all resemble the Kin-dom.
In this duality: that urgency and preparation is virtuous AND that the parable offers that teaching through a bad scenario: we are forced to wrestle with right and wrong at once. That it isn’t all right or all wrong.
Much like beautiful work by a problematic artist or humanitarian aid from a dictator. Our moral compass wants it all to be in alignment together.
The Dark Parables
This parable occurs in a sequence I like to refer to as The Dark Parables. They are exclusive to Matthew and all come at the end. In Jerusalem. Amid confrontation and speculation of disaster. When Jesus trashes the Temple and its leaders and predicts the coming apocalypse.
And in this time, Jesus tells these disturbing parables of bad land owners and negligent bridegrooms. Of people’s selfishness and disreputable financial growth.
He tells these parables that we can’t help but think are allegories for God and creation. As if we’re supposed to see God as a bad landowner or the guy who locked the bridesmaids out in the cold.
We don’t actually have to do that.
In fact, I doubt Jesus wants us to.
He wants us to think about it. To wrestle with this stuff. And question it.
When Jesus breaks out a parable about being prepared, we too often show we are unprepared to hear it. To respond to it. That is the most telling!
Is this the Kin-dom? Sure doesn’t sound like it.
So, what does it sound like?