Burned by the Fire of Love
Jesus’s parable of the “bridesmaids” reflects the patriarchal custom of the time and place when a bridegroom would go at night to the house of the bride’s father. The bride and groom would then be escorted by bridesmaids processing through the town to the groom’s home where the marriage banquet would take place. Patriarchal, even sexist? But in that patriarchal society nearly two millennia ago, Jesus still managed to tell another one of his strange stories that open the door for us today, regardless of gender identity, to be brides of our Lord. And as we wade into that season focused on Jesus’s second coming, or Advent, we are called to carry the light for our Bridegroom into whatever dark looms before us.
It wasn’t some little lamps that the bridesmaids had with them. What good were lamps at night to light the way for the bride and groom through the dark and narrow turns in the town? They would have needed torches with cloths tied around the tops soaked in oil and held up high to light the way and announce the marriage to the whole town. That’s how we should imagine the bridesmaids needing to replenish the oil to keep the torches from burning out before the bridegroom arrived.
And who’s missing on the stage of our imagination in Jesus’s strange story? Where’s the bride? If you cast the bridegroom as Jesus, but you don’t cast somebody else as the bride, then up on the stage with Jesus, wise bridesmaids, foolish bridesmaids, and an uncast role, we can read ourselves into this story. Each of us is the Bride of Jesus, claimed by our Lord as his own. We are rightly more sensitive to masculine references to God. Bu to call Jesus “Lord” is not patriarchal. It is simply an acknowledgement that none of us created ourselves and none of us can save ourselves. Before our Lord, we are all equal as brides of Jesus.
At the same time, we can also see ourselves collectively as the ten bridesmaids. There are ten Commandments. Ten Jews could also constitute a synagogue or public council. The key word here is “public.” Jesus’s bridesmaids aren’t lighting lamps in our private basements. We’re lighting torches and processing through the dark streets of our world with our bridegroom who wants to claim everyone as his bride.
To keep those torches from going out, each of us needs to find a way to keep replenishing our oil, to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love. At diocesan gatherings with the clergy recently, Bishop Mariann has been asking us what one saying or story of Jesus has been most meaningful in our lives. I think she’ll be asking that of those to be confirmed or received next Saturday at the National Cathedral, of which four will be from our own parish family.
If you’re not sure, maybe thumb through the Gospels and see if you find something that clicks. Or maybe you might suddenly recall a story or saying that just needed to be triggered. This Gospel reminded me of something Jesus said just a few verses before today’s reading: “And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures [in love] to the end will be saved.” We never hear that verse on Sunday. But it sums up the world that has drastically changed for some of us, and for others is all they’ve ever known: reasonable fears that have turned cold. And yet our Lord promises that if we endure in love, even when others grow cold, we shall be saved in love, perhaps even also those who have grown cold.
Each of us has something that made us fall in love with Jesus. That’s your oil. And your processional torch is just waiting to be relit.
24th Sunday after Pentecost
November 8th, 2026, Proper 27, Year A
The Rev. David Kendrick