The Politics of Re-Presentation: Reflecting Matthew 25:1-13

As a child I remember the ‘parable of the ten virgins’ enacted as a musical play by the moms in our local Bethany Lutheran Church in India, where all the ten women were dressed in white, holding lanterns in their hands and journeying to meet the bridegroom. On the journey they were tired and lowering the flame of their lanterns, they all fell asleep. Suddenly at repeated loud shouts, they woke up one after the other, and started to adjust the flame for more light. Five of those women carried a bottle of oil and were filling their lanterns to increase the flame, and the other five did not have sufficient oil and were struggling to trim their lanterns. These five women with no extra oil requests their friends to lend some oil, at which the others replied that it wouldn’t be sufficient to both and directs them to a dealer to buy for oil at that night. The groom arrives and takes the five women who had their lanterns burning with him and entered the wedding banquet. When the other five women came and knocked the door calling him Lord, Lord, the reply that came was he does not know them. The facial expressions of the five women who made it into the wedding banquet were gloomy that their five other friends couldn’t make it inside. The woman narrator of the play concludes by announcing keep awake, be prepared to meet the returning groom, for he can come at any time of the day or night. The play was written, directed, sung and enacted by the moms of our Women’s fellowship in our local Church. This enacted parable stayed in my memory all along, and now when I am reading Matthew 25: 1-13, it comes alive, making me nostalgic of my local congregation. 

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http://www.politicaltheology.com/blog/the-politics-of-representation-matthew-25-1-13-raj-bharat-patta/