The Ten Virgins
Drama
The Devilish Dialogues
Advocates Of Good And Evil Debate The Parables Of Jesus
The Devil's Advocate:
The story of the ten virgins is a delightful little piece from the quaint past of a tiny and quaint country. It purports to be full of the happy joy of a wedding day and the festive mood of the well-wishing crowd. And the ten virgins had the task of keeping the bride company while she awaited the bridegroom's coming. Since he usually came unexpectedly at night, it was their task to keep their lamps in readiness to light the way for him. It was quite a delightful custom.
But I have changed all that, along with the help of my disciples. In the first place, in today's world, look at the difficulty you would have finding ten girls who would qualify as virgins. With the modern sex codes which have been introduced, most girls wouldn't be caught dead as a virgin on their wedding day or anybody else's. Whoever would want to be so na•ve, so innocent and inexperienced? Not our modern girls. You'll never find them dancing around, giggly-like, on a wedding day. Listen, they know the score. The only reason most of their friends get married is because they get pregnant.
Giggly virgins at weddings are a thing of the past. My girls are much more knowledgeable, blasé, and realistic -- they know that the only real enjoyment of sex is outside of marriage. It's only the suckers and weak-hearted who get trapped into marriage.
The Lord's Advocate:
Well, looks like the secretaries were right! The dialogue this time is going to be a juicy one! Guess we just have to have a little prologue about sex before we can get into the meaning of the Parable of the Ten Virgins. With the University of Minnesota achieving new fame lately with courses like "Sex For Credit," I suppose we could bill this as "Sunday Night Sex," or possibly something reassuring like, "Always On Sunday."
Of course, that's really no joke. Maybe what America needs is a lot more sex on Sunday -- a lot more teaching about sex by the Christian Church, and a lot more recognition by everyone that what you are on Sunday, what you hear, and say, and believe on Sunday had better jolly well begin to have something to do with how we live our sexual lives on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
Until we get God into our view of sex, we won't see that the only free, open, loving, happy, really "sexy" sex is the secure, safe, relaxed relationship that is possible in the intimacy and commitment of marriage. The intercourse indulged in the parked car, the college dormitory, or the motel room by the high school or college students who say, "It's okay because we love each other and have a meaningful relationship," can never be more than a pitiful imitation of the free, happy, loving act that can take place when you've publicly promised your life, your love, your support, and your faithfulness to a partner in marriage.
A lot of girls and a lot of guys don't understand this. A lot of Christian girls and Christian guys don't understand this. And there are fewer virgins at the altar today when weddings come.
Whose fault is it? God knows. Mine, I think, and yours. Let's let sex be something sacred. Let's give it a chance, again. Let's let women be people again, and not things. Let's get them off of billboards, and out of automobile advertising, and out of all the tawdry trade made of them.
You businessmen do it, and you advertising men, you publishers, and you parents, and we preachers! The tragedy of only ten virgins, when there ought to be 100, is a tragedy of our time.
The Devil's Advocate sees well into our sinful hearts. Let us take heed!
II
The Devil's Advocate:
The main point of this parable is not about virgins or the lack of them and, of course, it's not about weddings either. Rather, as we know, it is about being ready for the bridegroom when he comes. And, of course, the early Christians understood Jesus to be the bridegroom who was going to come again for his bride, the Church. Consequently, this parable is to teach Christians to be prepared for the second coming of Christ. Christians are supposed to be like the five wise virgins who had enough oil in their lamps. They were prepared to wait for a long time for Christ's coming whereas the five foolish virgins were not prepared for a long wait.
It is, of course, a charming story, but it is irrelevant and unheeded. People have wised up. They have seen that Jesus didn't come through with his promises. Most of the early Christians believed he was coming again in power and glory during their lifetime. Even Paul, the apostle, believed that. Yet that same Paul had to begin to alter his beliefs during his lifetime. He began to admit that Jesus was delaying his coming.
And he was not the only one. Christians throughout the Church began to wonder where their Lord was. Many of them looked longingly into the sky for him, only to be disappointed day after day right up to their graves. "When is he coming?" they would ask. And others would answer, "Remember that with the Lord a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years a day." So they put off in their questioning and they went down to their graves with a big question mark. Where was Jesus?
And that's what Christians have been asking for centuries. "Where is Jesus? Where is Jesus in all his power and glory as he promised?" So in all countries of the world, among old people and young, you'll find upturned faces scanning the skies for his coming.
And when they've finished scanning, they lie down and die like everyone else. He didn't come. Yes, they had to face life's ultimate reality before they realized he wasn't coming. In a way it's sad that people can follow such delusions so long with so much hope. But on the other hand, I say it serves them right, trying to follow such a pipe dream.
The Lord's Advocate:
Pipe dream, you say? Not at all. They hope and we hope for Christ's coming in the clouds of glory --Ênot at all as an impossible dream, but as a daily-authenticated assurance!
"Why?" you say. Why can we persist in holding such hope? Because for us, Jesus has already come again! Not in visible public power and glory -- but in the just as real unseen power of his Holy Spirit! He rose in the Resurrection with a body his disciples saw. He moved among them, appeared to them all. And he told them exactly what would happen: "I will pray the Father, and he shall send you the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit who will come to you in my name, he shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." And then he said, "Lo, I am with you always -- even unto the end of the world!" And this word: "Wait in Jerusalem until you have been endowed with power from on high."
He's with us right now. We have life. He lives! He's alive and at work --Êin his Church throughout the world. Don't you believe "Christ is dead, and long live the Devil until he comes again!" He'll come all right, in visible glory. But we don't have to worry and wait. He'll come when he's ready. He'll come when the world can't stand not knowing him another minute. He'll come when every knee in heaven and on earth shall bow to him, and the Kingdom of God is ready and waiting to come in the heart of every person alive.
But we -- we live in the age of the Holy Spirit. This tremendous time when our Christ moves like wind through the world -- touching down everywhere where people claim him, in persons.
Maybe the parable of the ten virgins is not about sitting around and waiting for the Second Coming. Maybe it's about a fickle Church of Jesus Christ who knows the Lord is coming some day, some time, and still doesn't prepare itself to receive Jesus. Maybe it's about people like you and me, who have been invited to come to the Great Marriage Feast of the Church and the Lord, but forfeit our chance to be there because we don't care enough to get ready: enough to prepare the lamp of our lives to burn bright for him. Maybe it's told for people who refuse to sing, "This little light of mine -- I'm gonna let it shine!"
We'll never have it shining in us unless we prepare the wick with the oil of a daily walk with Christ: a daily prayer life with Jesus. A daily reading of the Word. A daily living, witnessing, shining, life of preparation for every day, as if it were the Kingdom-day.
III
The Devil's Advocate:
I am delighted to see, however, that most of you no longer believe in Christ's second coming. After all, just think of the oil you would have burned up standing around with those virgins for twenty centuries. Most of you have given up on that nonsense. You know he isn't coming. He has left you stranded.
But I notice that you have learned how to make the best of it. You get so you feel very much at home in this world. So you really don't look forward to another one very seriously. And I'm with you. You're makin' it right here and now. You are a people come of age. You are a secular people of the secular city. With soft carpets and climate-controlled homes and cars, who needs heaven? This is the good life. As for heaven or the second coming of Christ, who knows when that will be, if ever?
Just think how many people there have been throughout the centuries who have dolled themselves up in white robes to stand on mountaintops to wait for the Lord. Now I ask you, how do you face your friends after a fiasco like that? That's why it pays not to be an excitable type. People who believe in the Lord's return are perpetually disappointed. That's why it's better to forget all that and "make it" here and now.
Have you noticed how severe and austere those other-worldly types are? They look at you out of those sad, solemn eyes as if you're going to hell unless you become as somber as they. There's not a Good Time Charlie among them. They're all Bad Time Henriettas.
Besides, the people who really do something about life here and now are those who have given up a second coming and hereafter. They have learned it's no use whining to the sky hoping Jesus will come and make it better. You have to do it yourself. After all, that's the American way. We are practical people who get things done. We have made the Kingdom of God come on earth in our time. It's not in the future. It's here, by the power of our hands.
The Lord's Advocate:
Oh, yes, we are practical people. But what most Americans are building is not the Kingdom of God. That's hardly what we're building in wars or in the central cities, or on the college campuses. We are building a military machine the horror of whose might is beyond our imagining. In the cities we are building a divided city of haves and have-nots, a situation for revolution. And on the campuses we are teaching glorification of man and his might and pompous arrogance that is repelling a whole generation of students -- and should repel us!
Oh, no -- the people who are doing something creative and constructive about life here are precisely the people who have settled it in their hearts once and for all that Jesus is their Lord and liege, that to his Kingdom they give their commitment forever, and, trusting in that Christ who, on the cross, loved and saved them, claim heaven as their heritage, and have given all to the One who is victorious over death and so have paved the way to life beyond death for them!
When you've settled that and are no longer terrorized by the threat of death --Êthen you are the one who is free to live life now, freely and wholly and completely and victoriously!
So -- the Christians are the swingers! They're the ones who are living it up. Living it up with love, and laughter, and loyal service to their Lord.
They're happy. They are making it --Êbecause Christ is coming, and they're going to heaven.
IV
The Devil's Advocate:
The last thing to say about this parable is that it's unfair. Look who is criticized -- the five virgins who ran out of oil. And as they run off to buy some, the bridegroom comes and then he refuses to let the gals into the wedding party when they return with their oil. He closes the door against them and claims he never knew them, which was a lie. He knew who they were. They had been waiting for him for hours so they could honor him. Anyone can see that they received lousy treatment.
Yet this parable is supposed to illustrate the coming of Jesus. Sunday after Sunday my opponent assures us that Jesus is loving and compassionate, slow to anger, merciful and quick to forgive. If that is the case, why does he shut out those five virgins who've been standing around waiting for him? Where is all his forgiveness and kindness and mercy? At least they were trying. At least they were looking for him. They weren't even out partying it up. Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it? You wonder if it's worthwhile to wait for him, don't you?
Listen, if he's waited twenty centuries to come, you can be sure he'll wait twenty more. Who knows if he exists? No one really knows. So eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die and the good life will have passed you by.
I'll let you in on one more little secret. These religious types believe the same way I do. But they've got a thing going. They know that they can make money off you if you fear Christ's coming again and his threat of judgment. They try to convince you that you are all louses so you'll feel guilty and be afraid of judgment. And once you are guilty and afraid of judgment they know you will come to church, give your money, and even serve on a church committee as an act of penance.
So you see, my friends, it's a high-class, well-organized swindle based on your guilt feelings and your fear of judgment. Do you think these religious Joes really care about you? They care only about themselves, about their image and prestige. They're not concerned about how you look before God, but how they look before their peers and denominational officials. You are no more than a customer for their religious businesses. To put it rather indelicately, my friends, you are suckers.
Of course, it grieves me to say all this so bluntly, but I want you to know that I am your friend. I am attempting to save you from delusion and false hopes. I want you to see that your guilt feelings are being exploited by ecclesiastical egos. Your fear of judgment is being used for a handsome profit. Look how the clergy have exploited poor and rich in claiming control over their sojourn in the afterlife.
It's all a hoax. Don't hang around the church with false hopes. Use your oil for a good time. Christ isn't coming again.
The Lord's Advocate:
Want to bet? We can wait as long as you can. We can wait longer. Because the Lord who is someday coming, has given us work to do now -- exciting, important, lifesaving work.
And nobody's deluding us. We could "eat, drink, and be merry" if we wanted. Our way is more fun, that's all. Look what we have: the best friends a person could ask for, the love of tremendous people, and the chance to tell the world the best news it has ever heard! We have lots to do --Êa busy harvest to gather in before he comes.
The chaps who can't be bothered with heeding the message, and getting ready for Christ, and praying, and studying the scripture, and worshiping with the church, and learning and serving, are not being turned away from the love and joy of the bridegroom. They're shutting themselves out. They are refusing to pay the price --Êlove's price.
But it's not too late. They can turn and repent. They can take up their cross, and deny themselves, and join the band of brothers and sisters who work and wait with joy for Jesus. You come too!
The story of the ten virgins is a delightful little piece from the quaint past of a tiny and quaint country. It purports to be full of the happy joy of a wedding day and the festive mood of the well-wishing crowd. And the ten virgins had the task of keeping the bride company while she awaited the bridegroom's coming. Since he usually came unexpectedly at night, it was their task to keep their lamps in readiness to light the way for him. It was quite a delightful custom.
But I have changed all that, along with the help of my disciples. In the first place, in today's world, look at the difficulty you would have finding ten girls who would qualify as virgins. With the modern sex codes which have been introduced, most girls wouldn't be caught dead as a virgin on their wedding day or anybody else's. Whoever would want to be so na•ve, so innocent and inexperienced? Not our modern girls. You'll never find them dancing around, giggly-like, on a wedding day. Listen, they know the score. The only reason most of their friends get married is because they get pregnant.
Giggly virgins at weddings are a thing of the past. My girls are much more knowledgeable, blasé, and realistic -- they know that the only real enjoyment of sex is outside of marriage. It's only the suckers and weak-hearted who get trapped into marriage.
The Lord's Advocate:
Well, looks like the secretaries were right! The dialogue this time is going to be a juicy one! Guess we just have to have a little prologue about sex before we can get into the meaning of the Parable of the Ten Virgins. With the University of Minnesota achieving new fame lately with courses like "Sex For Credit," I suppose we could bill this as "Sunday Night Sex," or possibly something reassuring like, "Always On Sunday."
Of course, that's really no joke. Maybe what America needs is a lot more sex on Sunday -- a lot more teaching about sex by the Christian Church, and a lot more recognition by everyone that what you are on Sunday, what you hear, and say, and believe on Sunday had better jolly well begin to have something to do with how we live our sexual lives on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
Until we get God into our view of sex, we won't see that the only free, open, loving, happy, really "sexy" sex is the secure, safe, relaxed relationship that is possible in the intimacy and commitment of marriage. The intercourse indulged in the parked car, the college dormitory, or the motel room by the high school or college students who say, "It's okay because we love each other and have a meaningful relationship," can never be more than a pitiful imitation of the free, happy, loving act that can take place when you've publicly promised your life, your love, your support, and your faithfulness to a partner in marriage.
A lot of girls and a lot of guys don't understand this. A lot of Christian girls and Christian guys don't understand this. And there are fewer virgins at the altar today when weddings come.
Whose fault is it? God knows. Mine, I think, and yours. Let's let sex be something sacred. Let's give it a chance, again. Let's let women be people again, and not things. Let's get them off of billboards, and out of automobile advertising, and out of all the tawdry trade made of them.
You businessmen do it, and you advertising men, you publishers, and you parents, and we preachers! The tragedy of only ten virgins, when there ought to be 100, is a tragedy of our time.
The Devil's Advocate sees well into our sinful hearts. Let us take heed!
II
The Devil's Advocate:
The main point of this parable is not about virgins or the lack of them and, of course, it's not about weddings either. Rather, as we know, it is about being ready for the bridegroom when he comes. And, of course, the early Christians understood Jesus to be the bridegroom who was going to come again for his bride, the Church. Consequently, this parable is to teach Christians to be prepared for the second coming of Christ. Christians are supposed to be like the five wise virgins who had enough oil in their lamps. They were prepared to wait for a long time for Christ's coming whereas the five foolish virgins were not prepared for a long wait.
It is, of course, a charming story, but it is irrelevant and unheeded. People have wised up. They have seen that Jesus didn't come through with his promises. Most of the early Christians believed he was coming again in power and glory during their lifetime. Even Paul, the apostle, believed that. Yet that same Paul had to begin to alter his beliefs during his lifetime. He began to admit that Jesus was delaying his coming.
And he was not the only one. Christians throughout the Church began to wonder where their Lord was. Many of them looked longingly into the sky for him, only to be disappointed day after day right up to their graves. "When is he coming?" they would ask. And others would answer, "Remember that with the Lord a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years a day." So they put off in their questioning and they went down to their graves with a big question mark. Where was Jesus?
And that's what Christians have been asking for centuries. "Where is Jesus? Where is Jesus in all his power and glory as he promised?" So in all countries of the world, among old people and young, you'll find upturned faces scanning the skies for his coming.
And when they've finished scanning, they lie down and die like everyone else. He didn't come. Yes, they had to face life's ultimate reality before they realized he wasn't coming. In a way it's sad that people can follow such delusions so long with so much hope. But on the other hand, I say it serves them right, trying to follow such a pipe dream.
The Lord's Advocate:
Pipe dream, you say? Not at all. They hope and we hope for Christ's coming in the clouds of glory --Ênot at all as an impossible dream, but as a daily-authenticated assurance!
"Why?" you say. Why can we persist in holding such hope? Because for us, Jesus has already come again! Not in visible public power and glory -- but in the just as real unseen power of his Holy Spirit! He rose in the Resurrection with a body his disciples saw. He moved among them, appeared to them all. And he told them exactly what would happen: "I will pray the Father, and he shall send you the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit who will come to you in my name, he shall bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." And then he said, "Lo, I am with you always -- even unto the end of the world!" And this word: "Wait in Jerusalem until you have been endowed with power from on high."
He's with us right now. We have life. He lives! He's alive and at work --Êin his Church throughout the world. Don't you believe "Christ is dead, and long live the Devil until he comes again!" He'll come all right, in visible glory. But we don't have to worry and wait. He'll come when he's ready. He'll come when the world can't stand not knowing him another minute. He'll come when every knee in heaven and on earth shall bow to him, and the Kingdom of God is ready and waiting to come in the heart of every person alive.
But we -- we live in the age of the Holy Spirit. This tremendous time when our Christ moves like wind through the world -- touching down everywhere where people claim him, in persons.
Maybe the parable of the ten virgins is not about sitting around and waiting for the Second Coming. Maybe it's about a fickle Church of Jesus Christ who knows the Lord is coming some day, some time, and still doesn't prepare itself to receive Jesus. Maybe it's about people like you and me, who have been invited to come to the Great Marriage Feast of the Church and the Lord, but forfeit our chance to be there because we don't care enough to get ready: enough to prepare the lamp of our lives to burn bright for him. Maybe it's told for people who refuse to sing, "This little light of mine -- I'm gonna let it shine!"
We'll never have it shining in us unless we prepare the wick with the oil of a daily walk with Christ: a daily prayer life with Jesus. A daily reading of the Word. A daily living, witnessing, shining, life of preparation for every day, as if it were the Kingdom-day.
III
The Devil's Advocate:
I am delighted to see, however, that most of you no longer believe in Christ's second coming. After all, just think of the oil you would have burned up standing around with those virgins for twenty centuries. Most of you have given up on that nonsense. You know he isn't coming. He has left you stranded.
But I notice that you have learned how to make the best of it. You get so you feel very much at home in this world. So you really don't look forward to another one very seriously. And I'm with you. You're makin' it right here and now. You are a people come of age. You are a secular people of the secular city. With soft carpets and climate-controlled homes and cars, who needs heaven? This is the good life. As for heaven or the second coming of Christ, who knows when that will be, if ever?
Just think how many people there have been throughout the centuries who have dolled themselves up in white robes to stand on mountaintops to wait for the Lord. Now I ask you, how do you face your friends after a fiasco like that? That's why it pays not to be an excitable type. People who believe in the Lord's return are perpetually disappointed. That's why it's better to forget all that and "make it" here and now.
Have you noticed how severe and austere those other-worldly types are? They look at you out of those sad, solemn eyes as if you're going to hell unless you become as somber as they. There's not a Good Time Charlie among them. They're all Bad Time Henriettas.
Besides, the people who really do something about life here and now are those who have given up a second coming and hereafter. They have learned it's no use whining to the sky hoping Jesus will come and make it better. You have to do it yourself. After all, that's the American way. We are practical people who get things done. We have made the Kingdom of God come on earth in our time. It's not in the future. It's here, by the power of our hands.
The Lord's Advocate:
Oh, yes, we are practical people. But what most Americans are building is not the Kingdom of God. That's hardly what we're building in wars or in the central cities, or on the college campuses. We are building a military machine the horror of whose might is beyond our imagining. In the cities we are building a divided city of haves and have-nots, a situation for revolution. And on the campuses we are teaching glorification of man and his might and pompous arrogance that is repelling a whole generation of students -- and should repel us!
Oh, no -- the people who are doing something creative and constructive about life here are precisely the people who have settled it in their hearts once and for all that Jesus is their Lord and liege, that to his Kingdom they give their commitment forever, and, trusting in that Christ who, on the cross, loved and saved them, claim heaven as their heritage, and have given all to the One who is victorious over death and so have paved the way to life beyond death for them!
When you've settled that and are no longer terrorized by the threat of death --Êthen you are the one who is free to live life now, freely and wholly and completely and victoriously!
So -- the Christians are the swingers! They're the ones who are living it up. Living it up with love, and laughter, and loyal service to their Lord.
They're happy. They are making it --Êbecause Christ is coming, and they're going to heaven.
IV
The Devil's Advocate:
The last thing to say about this parable is that it's unfair. Look who is criticized -- the five virgins who ran out of oil. And as they run off to buy some, the bridegroom comes and then he refuses to let the gals into the wedding party when they return with their oil. He closes the door against them and claims he never knew them, which was a lie. He knew who they were. They had been waiting for him for hours so they could honor him. Anyone can see that they received lousy treatment.
Yet this parable is supposed to illustrate the coming of Jesus. Sunday after Sunday my opponent assures us that Jesus is loving and compassionate, slow to anger, merciful and quick to forgive. If that is the case, why does he shut out those five virgins who've been standing around waiting for him? Where is all his forgiveness and kindness and mercy? At least they were trying. At least they were looking for him. They weren't even out partying it up. Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it? You wonder if it's worthwhile to wait for him, don't you?
Listen, if he's waited twenty centuries to come, you can be sure he'll wait twenty more. Who knows if he exists? No one really knows. So eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you may die and the good life will have passed you by.
I'll let you in on one more little secret. These religious types believe the same way I do. But they've got a thing going. They know that they can make money off you if you fear Christ's coming again and his threat of judgment. They try to convince you that you are all louses so you'll feel guilty and be afraid of judgment. And once you are guilty and afraid of judgment they know you will come to church, give your money, and even serve on a church committee as an act of penance.
So you see, my friends, it's a high-class, well-organized swindle based on your guilt feelings and your fear of judgment. Do you think these religious Joes really care about you? They care only about themselves, about their image and prestige. They're not concerned about how you look before God, but how they look before their peers and denominational officials. You are no more than a customer for their religious businesses. To put it rather indelicately, my friends, you are suckers.
Of course, it grieves me to say all this so bluntly, but I want you to know that I am your friend. I am attempting to save you from delusion and false hopes. I want you to see that your guilt feelings are being exploited by ecclesiastical egos. Your fear of judgment is being used for a handsome profit. Look how the clergy have exploited poor and rich in claiming control over their sojourn in the afterlife.
It's all a hoax. Don't hang around the church with false hopes. Use your oil for a good time. Christ isn't coming again.
The Lord's Advocate:
Want to bet? We can wait as long as you can. We can wait longer. Because the Lord who is someday coming, has given us work to do now -- exciting, important, lifesaving work.
And nobody's deluding us. We could "eat, drink, and be merry" if we wanted. Our way is more fun, that's all. Look what we have: the best friends a person could ask for, the love of tremendous people, and the chance to tell the world the best news it has ever heard! We have lots to do --Êa busy harvest to gather in before he comes.
The chaps who can't be bothered with heeding the message, and getting ready for Christ, and praying, and studying the scripture, and worshiping with the church, and learning and serving, are not being turned away from the love and joy of the bridegroom. They're shutting themselves out. They are refusing to pay the price --Êlove's price.
But it's not too late. They can turn and repent. They can take up their cross, and deny themselves, and join the band of brothers and sisters who work and wait with joy for Jesus. You come too!
