Trinity Church in the City of Boston
The Rev. Morgan S. Allen
November 8, 2026
XXIV Pentecost (Proper 27), Matthew 25:1-13
In you, O Lord, have we taken refuge; for the sake of your name, lead us and guide us.[i] Amen.
In God’s expansive economy of salvation, the stocks of oil never run dry – no one suffers want … no one walks in darkness … no one lives in fear. Today’s teaching speaks to the world between now and that fulfillment. Christ calls us to do what we can do, while we can do it, to bring God’s reign – the very “kingdom of heaven” – nearer to us and to all people.
The setup for the parable of the ten bridesmaids begins on Palm Sunday – the essential context for most of this fall’s Gospel lessons. To paint that fence once more, we press our brush to the top of the picket[ii] and recall Jesus entering Jerusalem on a donkey and a colt.[iii] A very large crowd spreads cloaks and branches along his path.[iv] Those who walk before and behind him shout, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”[v]
Unsurprisingly, such an entrance causes a stir, and “the whole city” is asking, “Who is this?”[vi] The surrounding crowds answer, “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”[vii]
Jesus “enters the Temple and [drives] out all who were selling and buying [there. He] [overturns] the tables of the money changers [who converted imperial coinage,] and the seats of those who sold doves [to the poor for making sacrifices].”[viii] In turn, he quotes Isaiah: “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer;’”[ix] and Jeremiah: but “you are making it a den of robbers.”[x]
“The blind and the lame” then approach Jesus in the Temple, and “he cured them.”[xi]
Word of this Nazarene reaches the chief priests and scribes, and when they go out to see the commotion for themselves, children’s shouts of “Hosanna to the Son of David,” anger them.[xii] They confront Jesus: “Do you hear what [they’re] saying?”[xiii] Jesus replies from Psalm 8: “Yes … have you never read, ‘Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies …’?”[xiv]
Perhaps feeling the heat from those authorities, that evening Jesus withdraws to Bethany and spends the night there, about two miles outside of town.[xv]
Pulling our brush down further into the next morning, a hangry Jesus curses a fig tree for its fruitless branches,[xvi] and as he reenters Jerusalem, he finds the chief priests and their Empire-aligned entourage waiting for him: “By what authority are you doing these things, and who gave you this authority?”[xvii]
Jesus deflects their challenge[xviii] and instead tells two parables: the sons sent into the vineyard,[xix] that we read at the end of September; and the murderous tenants,[xx] that we read in October. Chapter 21 ends with the opposition intensifying: “When the [temple leaders] heard [Jesus’] parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because [the crowds] regarded [Jesus] as a prophet.”[xxi]
Chapter 22 begins with the parable of the wedding feast[xxii] and continues with Jesus answering successive questions about paying taxes to Caesar,[xxiii] about the resurrection,[xxiv] and about the greatest commandment.[xxv] The chapter then concludes with a reversal: Jesus asking the Pharisees three questions (about the Messiah).[xxvi] “[None of them were] able to give [Jesus] an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.”[xxvii]
Perhaps feeling he had gained enough of an advantage to speak directly, in Chapter 23 Jesus openly excoriates the scribes and Pharisees, who “do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others, but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them.”[xxviii] He continues with a series of woes pointing to their hypocrisies,[xxix] before a cry of exasperated lament: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!”[xxx] He then delivers the leading edge of a Passion prediction that more immediately anticipates today’s parable: “For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”[xxxi]
Jesus and his disciples again leave Jerusalem, and as Chapter 24 begins, his disciples look over their shoulders to face the city, pointing Jesus toward the grand buildings of the temple.[xxxii] As we’ve now heard several times this fall, Jesus asks them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”[xxxiii]
His friends, understandably concerned, press him to say more: “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”[xxxiv] Jesus warns of false prophets[xxxv] and describes “… wars and rumors of wars[xxxvi] … nation [rising] against nation … famines and earthquakes … the beginning[s] of the birth pangs.”[xxxvii] He warns that “many will fall away, [betray] one another[, and] hate one another. And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold.”[xxxviii]
The emblem of the faithful’s suffering will be the “desolating sacrilege,” the “abomination” of invaders instituting pagan worship in place of the temple’s traditional devotions.[xxxix] After many false prophets and “the suffering of those days[, the] sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall … [And t]hen … the Son of Man [will come] on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.”[xl]
Returning our brush to the bucket once more … and back to the fence … we finally pull its bristles down to unpainted picket. As Jesus redirected the Temple leadership, Jesus now redirects the disciples.[xli] Despite the alarming details of these apocalyptic miseries, he ultimately declares, “about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so, too, will be the coming of the Son of Man … Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.”[xlii] Then follows[xliii] the parable of the ten bridesmaids.
We go through the exercise of that looonngg rehearsal because Jesus does not tell this parable or draw this metaphor in a vacuum. Recall: the scribes and the Pharisees claim power over the people as their entitlement. Jesus unveils the temple’ sacrificial system to reveal its rigging serves the priests’ interests rather than God’s hopes. Jesus repeatedly, relentlessly surfaces their hypocrisies, and as he looks to renew Israel’s faith, he urges his followers not to fall into the same traps as the temple leadership: As you become faith leaders, do not allow their behavior to determine your behavior! “The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humbled themselves will be exalted.”[xliv]
While Jesus may intend to inspire action – even urgency – he does not aim for cruelties. Unsettling as some elements of the parable can feel to me, the teaching points us toward God’s reign, not God’s judgement.
A closer look: ten bridesmaids[xlv] go to meet the bridegroom.[xlvi] Five of the “young women” (as other translations identify them) are wise, and five of them are μωραὶ, foolish.[xlvii] The wise bring oil for their lamps, while the foolish bring none.[xlviii] In his Chapter 23 diatribe, Jesus calls the scribes and Pharisees “foolish” for worshiping the gold of the temple, rather than the God of the temple.[xlix] Repeating the same term here pulls tight the tether between these five virgins and that temple leadership.
Upon the bridegroom’s delay, all the bridesmaids fall asleep.[l] When the groom arrives after midnight, the maidens go out to meet him, but the lamps of the foolish begin to dim. They ask the wise to give them oil, but the wise reply, “No! There will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.”[li] While the foolish are away, the bridegroom arrives, and “those who [are] ready [go] with him into the wedding banquet; and the door [is] shut [to the others].”[lii]
Importantly, this is not a justice parable. The story makes no commentary about the equitableness of ancient oil markets and gives no indication that the foolish do not have oil in their cupboard or cannot acquire it – if anything, they go to buy it from the dealers because they can afford it. Instead, the μωραὶ, like the scribes and Pharisees before them, pridefully believe they know the time, the terms of the bridegroom’s arrival. They presume an entitled status, and as a result, God does not condemn them to darkness! They condemn themselves to darkness by taking for granted that someone else will give them what they need, will do for them what they have not done for themselves.
And while I want the wise to share their oil – I want this to be that sort of story – if they do, everyone will suffer darkness: is that a better outcome? A more faithful outcome?[liii] And not all of what gives light to the world can be shared,[liv] can be done on behalf of another: kindness, graciousness, mercy, forgiveness, constancy. No matter my generous spirit and intentions, I cannot hope for you … you cannot love for me; some faithfulness, we must do for ourselves and for the sake of the world.[lv]
And when we do not, when we make our phylacteries broad and our fringes long for selfishness and not for service?[lvi] Well, we become unrecognizable even to those who love us most: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem … How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!”[lvii] … My beloved one, I do not even know who you are anymore.[lviii] Not because I have judged you harshly, not because I want to exclude you, but because you have chosen a different priority, a different path, one that does not lead to where I am … yet, there is still time – I tell you all this, because there is still time! You can still make for a different way and trade your foolishness for wisdom.
Trinitarians, take heart! In God’s expansive economy of salvation, the stocks of oil never run dry – no one suffers want … no one walks in darkness … no one lives in fear. Today’s teaching speaks to the world between now and that fulfillment, Christ calling us to do what we can, while we can, to bring God’s reign – the very “kingdom of heaven” – nearer to us and to all people.
That such faithfulness would come From These Stones,
Amen.
[i] From Psalm 31.
[ii] I’ve always connected the wisdom to Mark Twain, though the internet will not confirm that attribution: writing is like painting a fence. You start at the top of the picket with a wet brush, and you pull the brush down until you run out of paint. You then wet the brush again and return it to the top of the picket, incrementally pulling it further down the picket until the whole picket is painted. I have found the same general idea to be a helpful guide for reading and teaching scripture, resetting a given lesson’s Gospel context to understand its meaning.
[iii] Matthew 21:7.
[iv] Matthew 21:8.
[v] Matthew 21:9.
[vi] Matthew 21:10.
[vii] Matthew 21:11.
[viii] Matthew 21:12.
[ix] Matthew 21:13a, Isaiah 56:7.
[x] Matthew 21:13b, Jeremiah 7:11.
[xi] Matthew 21:14.
[xii] Matthew 21:15.
[xiii] Matthew 21:16a.
[xiv] Matthew 21:16b.
[xv] Matthew 21:17.
[xvi] Matthew 21:18-22.
[xvii] Matthew 21:23.
[xviii] Matthew 21:24-27.
[xix] Matthew 21:28-32, which we heard on September 26, 2026.
[xx] Matthew 21:33-44, which we heard on October 4, 2026.
[xxi] Matthew 21:45-46.
[xxii] Matthew 22:1-14, which we heard on October 11, 2026.
[xxiii] Matthew 22:15-22, which we heard on October 18, 2026.
[xxiv] Matthew 22:23-33.
[xxv] Matthew 22:34-46, assigned for October 25, 2026, though we heard a lesson appointed for All Souls, instead.
[xxvi] Matthew 22:41-45.
[xxvii] Matthew 22:46.
[xxviii] Matthew 23:3-4, though the whole section (1-6) comprises the excoriation, which anticipates instructions to the disciples I will pick up later.
[xxix] Matthew 23:13-36.
[xxx] Matthew 23:37a.
[xxxi] Matthew 23:39.
[xxxii] Matthew 24:1.
[xxxiii] Matthew 24:2. I referenced this lesson when setting our “From These Stones,” Program-Year theme, on September 13, 2026.
[xxxiv] Matthew 24:3.
[xxxv] Matthew 24:4-5.
[xxxvi] Matthew 24:6.
[xxxvii] Matthew 24:7-8.
[xxxviii] Matthew 24:10-11.
[xxxix] Matthew 24:15-22.
[xl] Matthew 24:23-29.
[xli] Most pointedly, Matthew 24:32-51.
[xlii] Matthew 24:36-39,42. An election-week margin scribble, with an arrow pointing toward those days before Noah’s ark: So what I’m reading here is that folks were mostly carrying on as usual until one night, a wave – a big wave … a flood, really – washed away the map as they knew it. That really is something to imagine.
[xliii] Following the very difficult conclusion of Chapter 24, 45-51, that ends: “He will cut him in pieces and put him with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Yowza.
[xliv] From 23:11-12, Jesus’ directing his disciples to distinguish themselves from the temple leaders.
[xlv] The Greek word παρθένοις rendered here as “bridesmaids” is the same word from the Chapter 1 Christmas story: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child.”
[xlvi] Matthew 25:1.
[xlvii] Matthew 25:2.
[xlviii] Matthew 25:3.
[xlix] Matthew 23:17.
[l] Matthew 25:5.
[li] Matthew 25:6-9.
[lii] Matthew 25:10-11.
[liii] This is a live theological question, and I do not intend to answer it in the sermon. Another option would be for the wise to give the foolish all their oil. There are scenarios where I can imagine making such a choice, just as I can imagine being the one without oil.
[liv] As my friend and colleague, the Rev. Mary C. Vano, sagely suggested to me this weekend.
[lv] We stake our freedom and agency on this claim.
[lvi] Matthew 23:5b.
[lvii] Matthew 23:27b.
[lviii] Matthew 25:12.