Notes from the Wayside: Perspective: Who Are the Wise?

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Who Are the Wise?

Happy are those servants whom the master finds fulfilling their responsibilities when he comes.

Matthew 24:46 (CEB)

I wanna love because You loved
I wanna give because You gave
I wanna reach my hand out to the lost
Because I know Your hand will save

From "Only You Can Save" by Chris Sligh

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells a story about ten bridesmaids who wait with a bride for the arrival or her groom, who, for some reason, has been delayed. At midnight, word comes that the groom is on his way. Five of the bridesmaids had the foresight to bring some extra lamp oil, so they prepare their lamps and go out and meet the groom. The other five have already run out of oil, so they have to go out and find someone to sell them some oil. By the time they return, the groom has arrived, and the door to the venue has been locked. They end up missing the wedding celebration.¹

I don't like this parable, because, as I've commented previously, the details don't make any sense to my modern, Western ears. In my culture, a wedding celebration is planned out to the most minute detail, so this parable leaves me with a lot of questions that probably distract me from the main point. Why would the groom be so late to his own wedding? Why didn't the wedding planner set up some lanterns so that there would be plenty of light for everybody? If the five prudent bridesmaids couldn't share their oil with the others, could they not have shared their lamplight with them?

So often we read Scripture in bitesize pieces. When we study the Gospels, we might focus on one parable, teaching, miracle, or encounter at a time. I've learned that sometimes it can be helpful to step back and take more of a bird's-eye view when studying Scripture. Reading multiple consecutive passages together can reveal truths that a single passage might not reveal on its own. For example, the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke contains three parables, the last of which is the famous Parable of the Prodigal Son. Often we read this third parable by itself, but the first two parables establish a certain pattern, and reading the third in light of this pattern can reveal things that might go unnoticed otherwise.

The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids is only one in a series of parables that appear together in the Gospel of Matthew, the last of which might not really be a parable. Perhaps, if we take a step back and look at the series as a whole, we might discover something important.

Jesus sets up this series of parables by describing a servant who is put in charge of his employer's entire household, including the management of the other servants, while his employer is away. The servant then faces a choice. He can be responsible by faithfully doing what he has been tasked to do, or he can be irresponsible by living large off his employer's estate while abusing his fellow servants. Suppose the employer returns before this servant expects him to return. If the servant has been acting responsibly, he'll be just fine. On the other hand, if the servant has been acting irresponsibly, he'll be in big trouble with his employer.²

Scholar N.T. Wright suggests that the choice presented to the servant is the choice between wisdom and folly, which is a recurring theme in Scriptural wisdom literature.³ According to Wright,
Ultimately, the wise person is the one who respects and honours God, and the fool is the one who forgets him. But their wisdom and folly work themselves out in a thousand different ways in daily life, in business, in the home and village, in making plans for the future, in how they treat other people, in their honesty or dishonesty, in their hard work or laziness, in their ability to recognize and avoid temptations to immorality.⁴

With this hypothetical situation, Jesus establishes the pattern for the entire series of parables. In each parable, the wise and responsible are separated from the foolish and irresponsible. The former are invited to celebrate, while the latter end up in a place of "weeping and gnashing of teeth."

When it comes to the Parable of the Bridesmaids, we modern, Western folk simply have to accept that, in a different culture with very different wedding traditions, the details actually make sense. The point of the story is that five of the bridesmaids are prepared, and, as a result, they are able to join in the wedding festivities. The other five bridesmaids, by contrast, are not prepared, so they miss out on the celebration entirely. The former are wise, but the latter are foolish.

Jesus goes on to tell a story about a wealthy person who entrusts different sums of money to three servants before going on a long trip. Two of these servants aggressively invest the money entrusted to them, and both receive a one-hundred percent return on their investments. The third buries the money entrusted to him. In this parable, the first two servants are the wise, because they responsibly use what has been entrusted to them, but the third is foolish, because he doesn't use what is entrusted to him but rather hoards it. When their employer returns, the former are invited to celebrate and are given additional responsibilities, but the latter is fired.⁵

Wright suggests that these servants might represent the religious leaders of the day and that the assets entrusted to them might represent the gifts of their religion. Wright calls to mind what God promised to their ancestor Abraham, that "in [him] all the families of the earth shall be blessed."⁶ We use the gifts of our religion responsibly when we serve as a light that points others to God. We misuse or hoard the gifts of our religion when we use them solely for our own good, illuminating ourselves.⁷

Jesus then tells a story in which the Son of Man returns to take His throne. He separates the wise from the foolish "as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats."

To the wise, the King says,
Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me... Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.

To the foolish, the King says,
You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me... Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.⁸

As in the previous parables, there is celebration for the wise and "weeping and gnashing of teeth" for the foolish. As I hinted earlier, this last parable might actually be less of a parable and more of a prophecy.

Jesus tells this series of narratives in the midst of a discourse on events yet to come.⁹ One of these events is the coming of the Son of Man, known by some as Judgment Day. In the parables, it is represented by the arrival of the bridegroom and the return of the master of the household. People have different ideas about what this event will be. Maybe it represents events that occurred in Palestine nearly two thousand years ago. Maybe it represents a time in the future, when Christ returns to set all things right. Maybe it represents some judgment we face after we die. Maybe it represents any number of actions God has taken or will take.

Do we really need to know exactly what Judgment Day is? The parables teach us that, if we are faithfully doing what God has called us to do, we will be ready for it, whatever form it takes. We're ready for the Master of the household to return if we're doing what the Master has tasked us to do.

So who are the wise? The wise are those who are prepared for whatever action God takes, because they are faithfully doing what God has called and equipped them to do. They are serving God by serving the children of God.

Notes:

Matthew 25:1-13
Matthew 24:45-51
N.T Wright. Matthew for Everyone, Part 2. 2004, Westminster John Knox Press. p. 130
ibid.
Matthew 25:14-30
Genesis 12:3 (NRSV)
Wright, p. 138
Matthew 25:31-46 (NRSV)
See Matthew 24-25.