Mathew 25:1-13 page 1

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The story is told of a church that ran separate sermon series in its morning and evening services, and advertised the titles for the forthcoming Sunday on the noticeboard. At one point they had a series in the morning on the parables and in the evening on mission. As a result one week the noticeboard read, 'Five foolish virgins. What can one man do?'

Five foolish virgins. (Or bridesmaids in other translations, such as the NRSV linked to above.) It's today's Lectionary Gospel passage and it gives me a chance to preach from a favourite area of the Bible, namely the Parables of Jesus.

I love the parables, because Jesus communicates through a story. Like many novelists, he has a message to get across but doesn't always bang you over the head with it. Sometimes he gives an interpretation, but often we have to ponder the meanings for ourselves, with the help of the Holy Spirit. It's not so much a case that 'Jesus is the answer', it's more like 'Jesus is the question'. And because of this, I'm not planning to give you all the answers this morning - as if I could, anyway.

So how can we approach this? Well, engaging with stories was something I didn't enjoy at school. I thought English Literature was the least worthwhile subject I ever had to study. But perhaps if you're a teenage boy bent on studying sciences and you have a rather wispy female English teacher you do come to conclusions like that! I want us to explore this parable by examining the main characters in it - ironically, something we had to do in English Lit at school!

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Copyright © David D Faulkner, 2006 except where other sources are attributed or noted as inspiration.