Some things never change. Like weddings and funerals (which some wag once said were the same except at weddings you smell your own flowers).

Jesus’ wedding parable in this week’s gospel reading describes a situation where things don’t go quite according to plan. We don’t know a great deal about all the particulars involved in a first century Jewish wedding. But like twenty-first century weddings, things never run right on schedule. Delays and minor “disasters” are the norm, it seems, across the centuries.

Though told by Jesus as a parable, the “ten maidens” has most often been interpreted by the church more as allegory than parable. In these allegorical interpretations (full disclosure: allegories make me nervous), the focus is on the coming parousia of Christ who is, of course, the brideg…