Those Pesky Maidens - Reflections on Matthew 25:1-13, 24th Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

by john C. Holbert on Wednesday, September 9, 2026

         I have long found this famous parable from Matt. 25 quite troubling. I simply have a hard time determining just how to approach its meaning. It is one of Matthew’s “kingdom of heaven” stories; in other words, somehow this tale is to offer an insight into the meanings of the rule or reign of God. That seems clear enough, but just how it is illuminative of that kingdom is what remains difficult for me to determine.

         Let me say immediately that the allegorical way it has often been heard should be rejected out of hand. I am deeply suspicious of allegory in regards to parables in any case, but this familiar reading is for me both impossible and deeply dangerous. In this fanciful reading, the ten maidens (lit. “virgins,” since the Greek parthenos is used) are divided between the “wise” and the “foolish,” the former being the Christians and the latter being the Jews. Hence, we Christians are the wise ones, accepting and greeting Jesus (the bridegroom) when he comes, while the foolish Jews are unprepared and are in the end locked out of the kingdom. This is odious, and moves inexorably toward anti-Judaism, a stance that has led to horrors uncountable in the two millennia that follow the telling of the story. Such an allegory will plainly not do.

         So, then what? It seems clear that the “wise” maidens were wise because they were prepared to greet the delayed bridegroom by taking “oil in flasks with their lamps.” That is, they had an extra supply of oil so that when their lamps went out, they could top up their lamps and safely greet the bridegroom in the dark. The other five were “foolish,” because when their oil disappeared, they had no more to revive their now-defunct lamps. But here is where the story troubles me. When the foolish ones ask the “wise” ones, “Give us some of your oil because our lamps are going out” (Mt.25:8), the response of the wise is both cruel and absurd. “Perhaps there will not be enough for us and for you. Go instead to the dealers, and buy for yourselves” (Mt.25:9). We will not share with you, they say, and then suggest, absurdly, that they should “go to the dealers” and buy their own supply of oil. At midnight? Would any oil merchant have an open door at midnight? I, of course, do not know all the customs of first-century Palestine, and it may be that on wedding nights, oil merchants could be open late to accommodate the foolish, unprepared among them. But I am not fully convinced of this. And I am not convinced that sharing oil was not a possibility for the “wise” maidens.

         Being prepared is surely the question here, being ready for the coming kingdom of heaven, and for the bridegroom who is to herald its coming. Still, I am haunted by that story soon to be relayed about the coming judgment of the nations in Matt.25:31-46. There we will learn what it means to be a true follower of this Jesus. In that magnificent tale, not finally the “parable of the last judgment, “as it is often named, but rather the parable of the daily judgment. For the “Son of Man” (perhaps more literally “the human one’) will assemble before him, seated on his glorious throne, either the nations or the Gentiles (there is a lively argument just how the Greek ethne is to be translated), and will judge them in one basis, namely how they have treated the one speaking to them in this life. The answer is that some have fed and clothed and visited and comforted him, while others have done none of that. All assembled are astonished at this judgment and cry loudly that they never knew that while doing these things they were in reality dealing directly with the Son of Man. Both those who did, and those who did not are completely non-plussed! All are finally judged on their simple treatment of their fellow humans.

         Then, given that notion, we return to the ten maidens. Could we not say that the so-called “wise” maidens, and their nasty treatment of the “foolish” ones, denying to them some of their oil and telling them to get their own oil at midnight, have exactly failed the call of the Son of Man later in the parable of the daily judgment? I know that the “wise” ones greeted the bridegroom and followed him into the delayed wedding feast, and that the foolish ones, because they went in vain to find more oil, were shut out of the feast, though they cried to be allowed in, and were told by the bridegroom, “I do not know you” (Mt.25:12). I find this distinctly distressing, nor am I much helped by Matthew’s conclusion: “Watch therefore, because you do not know the day or the hour” (Mt.25:13). That is a Matthean theme, found elsewhere in his Gospel, but the fact is that ALL the maidens fell asleep, and were not watchful, but only those with extra oil found their way into the feast.

         I continue to struggle with this story, especially when it is read in the light of Mt.25:31-46. Could it be that Matthew tells this parable as a way of warning his hearers that the kingdom is coming all right, and that preparation for its coming is crucial. However, in that preparation may be the need to open one’s heart to those not prepared, to be willing to make room for all who seek the kingdom. If that is a possible hearing, then the bridegroom is not Jesus, or the Son of Man, but a restrictive and angry person who refuses to open his heart in the way that God’s heart is open, and who bids all of us to open our hearts if we truly wish to find our way into the rule and reign of God in our lives. That is one way I might find the power of this story for me. How do you hear it?