Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to met the bridegroom. ² Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. ³ When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; ⁴ but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. ⁵ As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. ⁶ But at midnight there was a shout, "Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him." ⁷ Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, "Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out." ⁹ But the wise replied, "No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves." ¹⁰ And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. ¹¹ Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, "Lord, lord, open to us." 12 But he replied, "Truly I tell you, I do not know you." ¹³ Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

The title of this sermon, Four Weddings and a Funeral, also happens to be the title of one of my favorite movies. In case you haven't seen it, it stars Hugh Grant and Asheville's own Andie McDowell, along with a completely loveable cast of eccentric characters who comprise their circle of friends.

Like today's text, I think the movie is a parable in some ways. The events of the film-the four weddings and the funeral-are the very stuff on which Jesus bases so many of his parables. And the unconditional love and zany interaction of the characters sum up for me what the kingdom of God, the realm of God, is like-or at least what I imagine it to be like. People who love and accept each other across time and through life's various rites of passage, both joyous and sorrowful. That small band of friends is like a sweet little congregation who shepherd each other through green pastures and through the valley of the shadow of death.

So I love the movie because it puts on the big screen for all to see a version of what the Kingdom of God might be like for those who are lucky enough to find such friends, such communion. But I also like it for a simpler reason-namely, because it's given me a wonderful wedding sermon, which I confess I've used on more than one occasion.

In the film after the first wedding (remember, there are four), Hugh Grant confesses during his best man toast that he is in awe of people who can make a lifetime commitment to each other. He himself doesn't think he could do it.

A short time later at the reception one of his friends, Gareth, speculates on why people get married. He says maybe it's because they run out of things to say to each other. They date for a while but when the fireworks die down they solve the problem of all those embarrassing silences that ensue by getting married. That way they can grow comfortably old with one another without actually having to talk to each other.

Another of Hugh's friends, Matthew, disagrees. He chimes in to say that he'd like to think that the reason people get married has to do with true love. What true love means and what true love looks like-we'll that's the stuff of my wedding sermon so if you want to hear that, we'll have to have a wedding here someday . . .

Now Matthew and Gareth happen to be partners and they feature centrally in the movie's most poignant moment. At I believe the third wedding of the four, Gareth has a heart attack while dancing. He drinks and smokes way too much and shouldn't dance with such abandon, but he's a Scott and so he can't help himself. His sudden death gives rise to the funeral of the movie's title.

At the funeral, his partner Matthew gives one of the most beautiful eulogies you'll ever hear. You get the sense that those two never ran out of things to say to one another, but in the end Matthew finally does run out of words to express his love for Gareth and his profound grief at his passing.

So he turns to the words of the great poet W. H. Auden to express what he cannot:

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

(From "Funeral Blues," by W. H. Auden)

It's Hugh Grant's winsome humor that makes this movie so delightful. But it's Matthew's abiding love for Gareth and his aching grief at his passing that make the movie so memorable.

And we find ourselves coping with a similar juxtaposition this morning. The lectionary gives us a wedding parable, a parable that is by definition, expressive of what the kingdom of God is like. The kingdom of heaven, says Jesus, will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to met the bridegroom. And suddenly our anticipation rises. We expect what follows to be full of wedding joy and cause for celebration.

And yet we are given this text on All Saints Sunday, a day in which we remember and honor our foremothers and forefathers in the faith. A day in which we recognize the formative influence of our ancestors on our lives. A day in which we remember in particular our loved ones who have preceded us in life's final rite of passage. Thus, a day in which the spirit of Auden's poem- I thought that love would last forever; I was wrong -in which that spirit may be closer to what we are feeling than the joy we associate with weddings.

What's surprising is that the text tricks us, in a way. It is a story about a wedding, but it's tone is solemn. We have 10 bridesmaids at the start but only five of them make it into the wedding.

The other five are foolish and unprepared for this great occasion. It's as though the wedding is tomorrow in Atlanta but they've gone to bed without gassing up the car and they wake to find that, thanks to a hurricane, there is a gas shortage and they can't make the trip. And they miss the wedding. So there is a hint of sadness about this text, even judgement.

Indeed, judgment may seem to be the prevailing theme here. If we hear this parable as an allegory in which every character and detail has a single meaning, then how we understand it is a matter of the most basic kind of one-to-one interpretation. As the biblical scholar Walter Wink points out, on that reading, "the bridegroom equals Jesus, his delay equals the overdue Second Coming, the wedding equals the Kingdom [of God], the shut door equals the Last Judgment, the wise maidens equal true believers, the foolish maidens equal the backsliders, and so forth" (from "Letting Parables Live," published on www.religion-online.org).

That would seem to make a disturbing kind of sense. But here's the problem with that reading. This isn't an allegory; it's a parable. Allegories use familiar symbols to point us to things we already know and understand. As such their meaning is limited, even fixed to just one interpretation.

Not so with parables. Their meaning is not meant to be fixed, precisely because they point to things we do not understand, to ineffable things, to ultimate truths and transcendent realities that are beyond us. Realities with which we are ordinarily unfamiliar.

We don't know what the Kingdom of God is like. Thus it can't be described in the simple one-to-one mathematics of allegory.

And so Jesus gives us parables to give us a picture of that reality. To understand a parable, as Walter Wink says, is to enter a different world; it's to make oneself vulnerable . . . [to understand a parable requires] that we feel our way into its symbols and experience the parable's mystery . . . until we begin to sense that we do not understand it, but rather that it understands us (paraphrased from "Letting Parables Live").

So what is this parable telling us? What is its mystery? Well, as with any text, one thing we do have to understand-and this is the key not only to understanding this parable but to understanding Matthew's gospel in general-is the context in which it's given.

I noted just a couple weeks ago that Matthew's gospel is hard to preach. There's anger in these texts and exasperation with the Jewish religious hierarchy.

There is a reason for that. What we can't see directly is that Matthew has followed this man Jesus for three years. He's seen and heard his revolutionary message of love and freedom played out in person, first-hand. He's experienced that love and freedom for himself. He's been called out from a life as a reviled tax collector to a new identity, to a new vocation brimming with new hope and unforeseen possibility.

This is abundant life for Matthew. It's good news, the thing he'd been unwittingly longing for all his days. And so he lives to tell the story. And because it's good news he expects people to respond as he did, by giving up their old life and embracing a new one.

The problem, and the source of Matthew's anger and exasperation, is that so few people do. Historically, very small numbers of his countrymen respond to the invitation to stop waiting for the Kingdom of God, to stop waiting for the Messiah, and to join the celebration Jesus offered, to start living abundantly right now.

That's why he's angry. What he's saying is there's a wedding at hand and it's possible to miss it if you're not careful. So trim your lamps and come! Break out your best clothes-iron your skirt and shine your shoes and come! Get ready to dance for the festival is here, now! Come, I'm begging you!

It's perhaps no accident that Matthew anchors this message in a wedding story. Christ's first miracle was, after all, at a wedding. When the libations run out Jesus orders the stewards to go to the well and bring him several huge jars full of ordinary drinking water. And he promptly changes this day-to-day substance into wine. It is his first miracle, a sacramental moment that presages the institution of this Meal that we will share today. It is a referendum on joy, an extravagant commentary on the meaning of his own life.

Yes, you say, that's all well and good but I know pain of the Auden poem for myself. I thought that love would last for ever; I was wrong.

It is true that life gives us funerals along with weddings. But look around you saints. God has given us this bread and this wine to nourish and sustain us. But this Meal is more than that. It is a lasting symbol that in fact love does last forever.

And God has also given us each other, our own little congregation to shepherd us through green pastures and dark valleys, a band of friends whose unconditional love and zany interaction sum up what the Kingdom of God is like.

So on this day of remembrance, for the saints who have gone before, for the saints sitting next to us, far all the saints, we sing to God and Christ and Holy Ghost, alleluia!

Amen