At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten teenagers who took their phones and waited for something to happen. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their phones but did not take their charging cables with them. The wise ones, however, took their chargers along with their phones. It was a long time before something interesting happened, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
At midnight the alert sound was heard and a text appeared: ‘Hey, party at my place!’
Then all the teenagers woke up and grabbed their phones. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Lend us your chargers, our batteries are almost dead.’
‘No,’ they replied, ‘we need to charge our phones now just like you. Instead, go to those who sell charging cables and buy some for yourselves.’
But while they were on their way to buy the chargers, all the fun stuff happened. The teens who were ready went to the party. Later the others also came. ‘Hey,’ they said, ‘let’s party!’
But the host of the party replied, ‘Sorry, too late, you missed it.’
Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour when something cool will happen.
(Based on Matthew 25)
The idea for this occurred to me in church yesterday, when the story of the wise and foolish virgins was read. There have been a lot of debates about the parable’s meaning and its cultural background. Some attempt to allegorize it. Surely even those who think that the oil for the lamps represents the Holy Spirit will think that recharging batteries with electricity can substitute? In fact, before my mind moved to a version involving phones, the first place my thoughts went was to the possibility that one could substitute taking extra batteries for one’s flashlight (in the UK one can simply use “torch” and not need to update the language quite as much) to make the parable more readily intelligible for today’s audience.
But what do you think of my FOMO version?
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