The parables of the Bridesmaids (Matthew 25:1-13), the Talents (25:14-30), and the Judgment of the Nations (25:31-40), all serve as warnings. To understand them, we need to pause for a moment to recognize how warnings actually work. Warnings don’t tell us the future as a fact; instead, they point out a serious danger we face if we continue heedlessly along the path we’re on.

How bad might it be? Much worse than you would expect, as you start through these three stories. How bad could it be, for unprepared bridesmaids? You’d think they might miss the ceremony. How bad could it be, for an overcautious servant? You’d think he might lose his job.

But no: the girls are shut out with an I-do-not-know-you rejection (25:12), and the servant is cast into the weeping-and-gnashing-of-teeth outer darkness (25:30). That symbolism is pretty stark, but just in case we don’t quite get it, the third story makes it quite explicit: those who failed to care for Jesus’ little brothers and sisters end up in the eternal fire (25:41, 46). It turns out that heaven and hell are on the line here.

Yet warnings don’t tell us the future as a fact: they warn us of a danger in order to motivate us to mend our ways, so that the predicted unhappy consequences do not come true. I am indeed unprepared like the foolish bridesmaids; and timid like the third servant; and blind-to-the-needy, like the goats: but I do not need to stay that way. My doom is not sealed: I can heed the warning, so that my story ends differently. There is still time to repent; I can respond to this gracious invitation and learn to be ready, brave, and compassionate.

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Grant me a heart of repentance, O Lord, that I may be your faithful servant: ready to move when the moment for action comes, bold to risk everything for you, visionary to see you in the face of the sick and poor and hungry.

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