PENTECOST 26

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: PENTECOST 26
PROPER: 28 A
PLACE: St. John’s Episcopal Church, Kingsville
DATE: November 17, 2002


TEXT: Matthew 25:14-29 – The Parable of the Talents
Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, “Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.”

ISSUE: Here’s a tough parable. Two men what the master has given them, and one does what was actually expected at the time; he buried the talent, and justifies the action by saying that the master was a hard man and he was afraid. This surreal tells of the enormously abundant bestowal of money given to his servants, and he is expecting a reversal of common culture to save up, and live in fear. The parable dares to call for risks, and to make us all aware of the great abundance bestowed upon us that we miss.
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Here’s a parable that shocked the hell out of the disciples of Jesus, and certainly as Matthew tells it, it shocks the early Christian Church. It is shocking enough that even most modern Biblical scholars believe that it can be attributed to Jesus himself. Bear with me. For many of us today, the parable is not nearly as terribly shocking to us, as it was in Jesus’ time and the first century. Most of us are born again capitalists, so we think we sort of know what this parable is all about, and rejoice with the servants who double their money. At the same time, however, the parable is often trivialized in terms of what it may mean in our time. Bear with me.
This parable is really very surreal. A master is going to go away for a very long time. So he generously leaves with three of this servants an extraordinary sum of money. To one he gives five talents, to another two, and to the last servant one talent, according to what he thinks their ability is. Obviously he has knowledge of this servants, and sort of what might be expected. Please keep in mind that a talent was a sum of money, and not gifted abilities of his servants. Much of the time the Christian Scriptures speak of denarii, which is a day’s wage. This passage speaks of talents. There are different estimates, but William Loader says that a talent was around 6,000 denarii, and the first gets a total of 30,000 denarii, which comes to about in today’s money some 5 million dollars! Five million dollars was more than the budgets of most large countries of that period. We’re talking big bucks, surreal amounts of money.
When the time of reckoning comes, and the master returns to collect the money he has left with his servants. It was not a gift, but rather the money was left in their care. So the first servant reports that he has doubled the money. Now we’ve got Ten Million Dollars! The master commends him, and puts him in charge of bigger things. The second servant declares he has doubled his money. Now, all totaled, the master has some Fourteen Million dollars. “Well done good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.” But the last, servant buried his one talent, and returns it to the master in the same amount that had been given to him. No interest not even from the bank. He argues that he knows the master is a harsh man, who reaping fruits that he had not sown, and gather where he had not plant; so he was afraid and hid the money in the ground.
The master becomes very angry with him. The least he could have done was put the money in the bank and collect a little interest. The slave thought he was harsh; well we’re about to see how harsh the master can be. “So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and thy will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” We find this rather startling, and indeed harsh, but in our capitalist thinking, we can understand the master’s displeasure.
However, in this period the good people were not capitalists. Peasants listening to this parable would really have been shocked. Getting ahead and moving above your station, and accumulating money was what evildoers did. The rich were always suspected of gouging and abusing the poor, and accumulating more than what they were entitled. The last servant did what he thought was expected of him. He kept the talent safe and secure for his master, and returned it accordingly. He took no risk with what was not his. He did what was expected of him self in the world. The peasants and the early church were really startled by this parable! The master was demanding the opposite. Jesus was calling for, once again, the reversal of thinking.
What’s being reversed? The parable is not about the world. It is about the Kingdom, realm, dominion of God, which is quite different from the world. God is Judge, and we do live under his judgment, but God is also bountiful in love and the giving of grace, and gift giving. If you think God is harsh and cruel, vengeful, then that’s what you’ll get out of life and the world. But this parable is about the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is surreal. The master is bestowing an incredible bounty, and inconceivable bounty upon his people in the Kingdom of God. The millions of bucks be thrown all around the place is the symbol of that very bounty.
Think of what it is that we have been given as the creatures and people of God. We have been given life itself, and an incredible sense of self-awareness and consciousness. We have been given minds to think and reason. We have kills to build and create. We can make music. Have you listened lately to the rich gifts of the masters? We have been given a universe and a world coupled with a sense of the beauty, awe, and wonder. We have been given the gift of sexuality that enable us to participate in the creative processes of God. We have been given a sense of moral rule and commandments, civility that can enables us to live in peace and harmony with one another. What’s more we have an image of the God of Love revealed in Jesus Christ who is the living expression of the God of Love, and the gift of forgiveness, and the hope of ascension and resurrection, when we have fallen, failed, or stumbled. We have been given a love through Jesus Christ that is the very outpouring of God on a cross that forgives, renews, and resurrects. I believe that this is the richness that is implied in this surreal parable where the master is throwing around enormous sums of cash for his servants to invest and with which to live.
There is that parable of the Sower, where he spreads seed indiscriminately, which would never have been done by a farmer in Jesus’ time that ends up yielding crops in an unheard of abundance. There is the parable of the two fish and the five parley loaves that in the hands of the disciples feeds a multitude. The Kingdom of God is perceived of as an inordinate amount of yeast in a loaf that will abound to be the size of a house! Jesus saw in God abundance, and he expanded it and risked and gave himself to all who would hear him an awareness of the greatness of the bounty of God, and at the same time of the risky discipleship that was called to invest in the magnificent loving abundance of God.
David Buttrick tells of a Catholic Church, that after the Vatican II conferences, which called for renewal of the church, removed an old crucifix of Jesus over the altar. It had a spear stuck in the side of the corpse with blood running down the side. In its place they put in large letters over the altar the word LOVE. After awhile those letters seemed so saccharine. Finally, they put the crucifix back over top of the word LOVE, and it all made so much more sense. Love is the pouring out, and the investing in the human condition. The Kingdom of God is that place where the inhabitants join with God, and join with Christ of pouring them selves out in the Holy Spirit of God, and join in God’s rejoicing.
Now there are always choices. We call it free will. What we can see the pain and the suffering of the world. We can see that God seems to let terrible things happen. We can perceive God as harsh, judgmental, and cruel. We fear the war that may come, the threats of terrorism. We fear cancer and the dwindling economy. We may see this as a truly harsh world controlled by a vengeful God, and become paralyzed in hopelessness and despair.
The parable changes things around; it is a wake-up call to the disciples, the poor, and the elite of Jesus’ time. Look at what God pours out on the travesty of the world, and what those who are his are called to appreciate and participate in. Take some risks, become involved in the world with God’s love and blessing. Become the agents, the conduits of his grace, the channels of his forgiveness, embracing the world of God’s with the arms of his love. Examine what you do, and who you are, as a baptized child, a man or woman, of God who has been welcomed into the Kingdom of God, and into God’s bounty. How do we as individuals and a church, spend and invest what God has given to us?
This parable of the Talents is indeed a parable of judgment. Yes, we are under the judgment of God. At the same time, we are under the incredible outpour of God’s wealth. The master goes away for a very long time. But there is coming a reckoning, and those who have served him well and appreciate his abundance of grace have absolutely nothing to fear.

ADDENDUM: God is like a Father, not a grandfather or grandmother. The latter will be inclined to spoil, but the Father, and the Mother require discipline.