September 18, 2007
Sugar and Spice
There’s one verse in the parable of the 10 Virgins that seems, well…unchristian. The five foolish girls didn’t bring enough lamp oil, so naturally they asked the other five to share. “No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.” (Matt 25: 9 NIV) Doesn’t this just fly in the face of everything we’ve been taught by our mothers, grandmothers and Sunday School teachers? Aren’t we supposed to share? Now, if this parable were written about 10 young boys it would be more understandable…
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Gail;
-----Your moms, grandmas, and Sunday School teachers also taught the little boys to share. I remember many lessons when I was a boy about sharing. But the difference between the teaching of the two was that the boys were given a pass, maybe two. “After all, boys will be boys.” It is a cute saying, but having been a boy and having undergone the pressures to become a man (oh alright…being a boy and undergoing the pressures…) I can testify to the excusing effect that cutesy saying actually has on behavior. After all, principles will be principles. How different culture would be if that had been said about the boys!
-----Also, the adage, “Girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice, but boys are made of sticks, snails, and puppy dog tails,” has had its detrimental effect as well. I actually grew up thinking that women were the moral stay of the culture. I believed, “only bad girls do,” and I believed it was anathema to corrupt the moral character of a girl, although I often wanted to. Women’s Lib didn’t set too well with me because I thought women’s decline to men’s moral low was not the answer. I called it, “The Second Bite of the Apple.” I was well through High School before I began realizing that maybe I should try understanding that girls were only human, too.
-----But the world has had and does have its good men. There are some fathers around who will not put up with the excused behaviors of boys. I don’t think my dad would have put up with my excuses had I spent my adolescent and teen years in his home. During my childhood, He taught me a few fundamental principles which I eventually applied across my life, and thank him for continually.
-----I think the five virgins having the plenty of oil were well taught by their mothers. I see in their refusal to lend a learned responsibility toward what is the most important point of moral character: relationship with the Lord. Their oil was about the maintenance of that relationship they had and the gaining of more to come. To share it would be to jeopardize their very purpose of life. Doing such would serve no one well. As for their relationships with the other five, they were obligated to help them in as much as they had an excess of what they needed themselves. Paul refers to the same principle in II Corinthians, and John does, too, in I John. It is not Christian to give what you can not spare, but it is to give what you can. The women in these girls’ lives taught them some very fine moral clarity.
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