The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

The Wise and Foolish Girls

Now the time of the Passover was getting close, and this prompted the people who listened to Jesus to ask about the Kingdom again: when will it come? How will we know it? What should we do to be ready for it?

‘It’ll be like this,’ he told them. ‘There was a wedding, and ten girls took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom and welcome him to the banquet. Now five of them took their lamps and nothing else, no spare oil, but the other five were a bit cleverer than that, and they brought some flasks of oil with them.

‘Well, the bridegroom was delayed, and time went past, and all of the girls began to feel drowsy and closed their eyes.

‘Then at midnight there was a cry: “He’s coming! The bridegroom is here!”

‘The girls woke up at once and started trimming their lamps. You can see what happened next: the foolish ones discovered that their oil had run out.

‘“Give us some of your oil!” they said to the others. “Look, our lamps are going out!”

‘And two of the far-seeing ones shared their oil with two of the foolish ones, and all four were admitted to the banquet. Two of the clever ones refused, and the bridegroom shut them out, together with two more foolish ones.

‘But the last wise girl said, “Lord, we have come to celebrate your wedding, even the least of us. If you won’t let us all in, I would rather stay outside with my sisters, even when the last of my oil is gone.”

‘And for her sake the bridegroom opened the doors of the banquet and admitted them all. Now, where was the Kingdom of heaven? Inside the bridegroom’s house? Is that what you think? No, it was outside in the dark with the wise girl and her sisters, even when the last of her oil was gone.’

Christ wrote down every word, but he resolved to improve the story later.