"Oil You Can't Borrow" (November 8, 2026 Sermon)

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Oil You Can’t Borrow

Rev. Dr. Stephen M. Fearing·November 8, 2026·Guilford Park Presbyterian Church

24th after Pentecost (Year A)

Matthew 25:1-13

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten young women took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, ‘Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.’ Then all those young women got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ 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.’ 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. Later the other young women came also, saying, ‘Lord, lord, open to us.’ But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’ Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

This is a weird parable. We may, in fact, call it the Parable of the Stingy Bridesmaids. You know, these bridesmaids must not have watched Sesame Street. I guess they never saw that Sesame Street episode where Elmo really struggled with sharing, right? I really struggle with this parable because, you know, I’ve got a four-year-old and a six-year-old, and right now we teach them, to the best of our ability, that “sharing is caring,” right? Yeah, those bridesmaids — at least those five “wise” ones — did not get that memo.

It’s a weird passage. What do we do with it when Jesus gives us a parable that seems to run counter to everything else he has taught us? It’s just plain weird.

I want to lift up for you all the words of my preaching professor, Anna Carter Florence, who, in a sermon titled “Filling Stations,” wrestles with the tension we have between the “stingy” bridesmaids and what the rest of the gospel teaches us.1

But she tries to wrestle with this perceived stinginess by reading this text alongside other parts of Matthew’s gospel to see where that leads. And she says this:

“Sometimes when I’m working on a sermon, I try to imagine what it would be like to read other passages of Scripture through the lens of the particular text I’m working on. So, for example, what would happen if we placed Matthew 25:1–13 next to other portions of Matthew’s Gospel and then read them together? What would this parable have to say about those passages? Well, I tried that here, starting with the Sermon on the Mount back in Matthew 6 and 7, but I didn’t get very far, because the wise and foolish bridesmaids were making mincemeat out of the Beatitudes. I was coming up with rewrites like this:

“Matthew 6:19: Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasure in heaven. Although to get there, you will need large oil reserves. So forget that first part of what I said. Store up for yourselves oil on earth, so that you will have treasure in heaven.

“Matthew 6:25: Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Worry about your oil. That’s the main thing. Worry about whether you have enough for you, and forget about everyone else. They are not your problem.”

“Matthew 7:7: Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. Unless, of course, you are late, and the bridegroom answers, in which case you might as well forget it.

“Matthew 7:12: In everything do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In everything, that is, except oil, which changes all the rules.”

So I think we can assume this text is not about “every bridesmaid for herself.” This is not a doomsday or stockpiling scenario. It never mentions all the oil these bridesmaids have at home. It talks about the oil they have on their person, right here and right now.

Oil We Cannot Share

So what does this mean? In Matthew, oil is a metaphor for being prepared to live the kind of life Jesus calls us to live, right here and right now. One of the things Anna makes the case for in her sermon, which I want to lift up for you all this day, is that there are types of oil we cannot share with one another. There are types of oil we are responsible for procuring ourselves.

And I want to lift up three examples from my own life as I was wrestling with that this week.

I remember cramming for an AP exam back in high school, right? I don’t remember which one, but I remember saying to one of my best friends, who I knew had stayed up all night studying, “Hey, can you give me some of that knowledge you spent all evening cramming for?” Obviously, that just doesn’t work. I really needed to procure that “oil” for myself. I don’t remember how I did on that AP exam, but that’s neither here nor there!

Secondly, mental health. I think we are all responsible, to the best of our abilities, for caring for our own mental health. And there are things — that “oil,” so to speak — that I need to procure for myself. I can’t go up to Catherine Eagles and say, “Hey, you are so emotionally regulated because of all that yoga you do. Can you give me some of that emotional regulation?” It doesn’t work that way. There are certain kinds of oil we need to procure for ourselves.

And I also want to lift up artificial intelligence here, because I know this is a hot topic right now. I could go to ChatGPT and say, “Hey, give me a ten-minute sermon on the parable of the bridesmaids for me to give at Guilford Park Presbyterian Church.” ChatGPT would crank out an okay, if generic, sermon. But it wouldn’t be me. ChatGPT does not know the hopes, the fears, the dreams, and the gifts of this congregation. ChatGPT does not know the relationships we have. ChatGPT may, in fact, be a helpful tool for prep and research. But that’s a kind of “oil” I have to procure for myself as a preacher — by spending time in the text, by spending time in the text with you all, like we do every Tuesday at 11 o’clock. I cannot outsource those relationships to an algorithm. That is “oil” I’m responsible for procuring myself.

For Ourselves, Not By Ourselves

Now, I also want to be very clear: just because there are some kinds of oil that we need to procure for ourselves does not necessarily mean that we need to do so by ourselves.

So, for example, let’s go back to the mental health thing I was talking about. There are certain things I do for my mental health. I exercise, I have a therapist, and I try to get outside. There are things I do for myself. But mental health is not something I have to do by myself, thanks be to God, right? I lean on those around me: a very talented, wonderful therapist; a supportive wife and family; and a Dungeons and Dragons group that keeps me from taking myself too seriously. I’m surrounded by people who can’t give me their oil, but they will help me get to the “filling station,” so to speak, if that makes sense.

Lamps Trimmed and Burning

And so, bringing this back to the text, I want us not to forget that this is in the context of Matthew 25, where a few verses later Jesus famously says, “As you did it to the least of these, you did it to me”

And so for Matthew — some people have interpreted this as describing what happens when we die or when Jesus comes back. That may be one faithful interpretation of this text. But I think this is about keeping our lamps trimmed and burning here and now, so we can respond when Christ shows up in the least of these, here and now. That’s what it means to keep our lamps trimmed and burning.

And that’s one of the reasons I love being the pastor of this church, because you all have shown that we are a church that keeps our lamps trimmed and burning.

I want to remind us of the homeless shelter we ran together the summer before last. Do you all remember? It feels like so long ago, and sometimes I think we forget how quickly we threw it together. I know so many of us worked really hard: the Mission Committee, the Property Committee, and the Children and Youth Committee (just to name a few!). We had a lot of help from Greensboro Urban Ministry and funding from the city. But Christ showed up, and our lamps were trimmed and burning. We showed up because Christ showed up. We had a lot of help, but we had just enough oil in our lamps to respond to that moment.

And so I want you all to be curious about the kind of oil God is calling you to procure for yourself, so you can be faithful in whatever moment you find yourself. And remember that just because you are responsible for getting that oil for yourself does not mean you have to do it alone. That’s why we do what we’re doing, right here and right now, so that when Jesus comes in the form of the least of us, we will keep our lamps trimmed and burning.

In the name of God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, may all of us, God’s beloved children, say: Amen.

1. Anna Carter Florence, “Filling Stations,” sermon on Matthew 25:1–13, preached on the Day1 weekly broadcast (formerly The Protestant Hour), November 4, 2007. The quoted passages and the Sermon on the Mount rewrites come from this sermon, and the central idea that some kinds of oil can’t be shared is hers. https://day1.org/weekly-broadcast/5d9b820ef71918cdf2002671/filling_stations

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Stephen Fearing

Stephen was born in 1988 in Cookeville, TN, where his parents met whilst attending Tennessee Tech. Shortly after, they moved to Dalton, Georgia where they put down roots and joined First Presbyterian Church, the faith family that taught Stephen that he was first and foremost a beloved child of God. It was this community that taught Stephen that it was OK to have questions and doubts and that nothing he could do could every possibly separate him from the love of God. In 1995, his sister, Sarah Kate, joined the family and Stephen began his journey as a life-long musician. Since then, he has found a love of music and has found this gift particularly fitting for his call to ministry. Among the instruments that he enjoys are piano, trumpet, guitar, and handbells. Stephen has always had a love of singing and congregation song. An avid member of the marching band, Stephen was the drum major of his high school's marching band. In 2006, Stephen began his tenure at Presbyterian College in Clinton, SC where he majored in Religion and minored in History. While attending PC, Stephen continued to explore his love of music by participating in the Wind Ensemble, Jazz Band, Jazz Combo, Jazz Trio, as well as playing in the PC Handbell ensemble and playing mandolin and banjo PC's very own bluegrass/rock group, Hosegrass, of which Stephen was a founding member (Hosegrass even released their own CD!). In 2010, Stephen moved from Clinton to Atlanta to attend Columbia Theological Seminary to pursue God's call on his life to be a pastor in the PC(USA). During this time, Stephen worked at Trinity Presbyterian Church, Silver Creek Presbyterian Church, Central Presbyterian Church, and Westminster Presbyterian Church. For three years, Stephen served as the Choir Director of Columbia Theological Seminary's choir and also served as the Interim Music Director at Westminster Presbyterian Church. In 2014, Stephen graduated from Columbia with a Masters of Divinity and a Masters of Arts in Practical Theology with an emphasis in liturgy, music, and worship. In July of 2014, Stephen was installed an ordained as Teaching Elder at Shelter Island Presbyterian Church in Shelter Island, NY. Later that year, Stephen married the love of his life, Tricia, and they share their home on Shelter Island with their Golden Doodle, Elsie, and their calico cat, Audrey. In addition to his work with the people who are Shelter Island Presbyterian Church, Stephen currently serves as a commission from Long Island Presbytery to the Synod of the Northeast and, beginning in January of 2016, will moderate the Synod's missions team.