How wise can a virgin be?

 

What if the foolish virgins never left to buy oil? What if they let their lamps go out, but stuck around anyway? I’m guessing they’d be as embarrassed as anyone who botches their job at a wedding, but they’d still have gone to the feast.

Now let’s talk about the “wise” virgins. They will not share their oil, and in fact it is they who send the foolish virgins out to buy oil – in the middle of the night. Would the market even be open? Are the foolish virgins foolish because they listened to the “wise” ones? Jesus doesn’t say the bridesmaids who came to the door after it was shut had even gotten the oil.

So what of the behavior of the so-called wise virgins? Assuming for the sake of the argument that oil represents faith, I can relate to the difficulty of sharing it, because my faith is rooted in my personal experience, an experience that no one else has had. Though some have had similar experiences – but I did not provide those experiences. I can guide people on their faith journey, but I can’t share my faith directly.

However in this story the “wise” give really shitty guidance – or at least some of them do. We know no oil was shared, but we don’t know who or how many suggested that the “foolish” go on a pointless errand. This brings to mind one of my biggest pet peeves about Christianity in America; people who convince others that they have to have all their shit together before they can approach God. That Church is for those who are so-called pure, and those who need Christ the physician do not belong there. You’ll find them in any church.

But these are all virgins we’re talking about, the inexperienced. So perhaps they’re all making honest mistakes. The true culprits are the groom’s entourage. The ones who have been with Christ and know better and still misinform virgins; clergy obviously, but also those who go along with them to avoid embarrassment.

You’d think they would rather be embarrassed and at the feast then to be told by the Son, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to err, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

Blessed are we who were told we do not belong, who were sent away by the so-called wise, and still stayed for the consummation of the marriage - which is the “good part” anyway. In fact consummation of our love, not of possessions, is why many of us were condemned. Blessed are we who looked upon the shed blood of those like us, while the so-called wise pretended that they were pure. 

No doubt this was a challenge. Many of us ran out of oil, yet could not stay away so long that we missed the feast. In the early Church, being a Christian meant found family. Love in a world that treated people like possessions. I believe the marriage of Christ and the Church is the first true love marriage.

May we be loving found family to others who have been sent away.