Gospel: Matthew 25:14-30
1st Reading: Zephaniah
1:7, 12-18
2nd
Reading: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
A great debate erupted among the
pastors at text study this week. It was
quite exciting. We were pretty evenly
split. Was this a Gospel reading in
which the Master represents God or not?
Today, I’m going to give you both sides of the story, because I think
both have value.
The one, we’ve heard many times
and it bears repeating. Some say this
parable is about how God gives us so many gifts and talents. Please note here that a talent is a
ridiculous amount of money. We’ll call
it a million dollars. People receive
different amounts and kinds of talents.
Some use them to increase the Kingdom of God. Other people are afraid of doing it wrong and
bury it and miss out on getting to do God’s work. The message here is this: Use the incredible gifts God gives you to
increase God’s Kingdom.
Here’s the other way of looking
at the parable. In the time and place
this was written, it was widely held that one could not increase one’s wealth
without taking it from someone else. So
the first two slaves would be taking from someone else to increase their
investment so much and hurting that person or people. They would likely target someone with little
power, and taking someone from a miserable situation to one of dire
straits. It was against the law to
charge interest, taking advantage of people’s need, and yet the people did it. There was a common practice of buying out
poor farms and making indentured servants of the previous owners and squeezing
them so they couldn’t even feed their own families. It was common not to pay a living wage. It was common to tamper with scales, so you
wouldn’t be giving someone as much product as they bought. It was common to pay workers different
amounts to divide them. Certainly, all
over the Bible are warnings against treating the poor in this way. So this may be a tale about a mobster Master
and his cronies, who is cheating people. The first two slaves go along with it. The last one refuses to participate in an
economy that hurts people and takes advantage of vulnerable people and speaks
truth to power, telling off the Master.
The message here is this: Resist evil.
Don’t participate in an unjust system.
I don’t think these two
interpretations cancel each other out. We
have a lot of blessings, a lot of talents.
We have a lot of gifts from God, an abundance. And God wants us to use them well. We are not to be complacent, as it says in
the Zephaniah reading for this morning.
We are not to rest on our dregs, which is literally leaving the wine in
the barrel too long so that it gets a funny taste to it. Don’t just let it sit there. Do something with what you’ve been given.
But also, don’t think that God
doesn’t care what you do with it. God
cares greatly, which is why we have this diatribe in Zephaniah. God is very angry in this reading!
In Kindergarten, the kids are learning about emotions and corresponding
colors, like the colors of fire danger.
Blue is sad. Green is calm or joyful.
Yellow is starting to get upset.
And red is exploding anger. The
kids learn the physical reactions of each emotion, like when your face gets
flushed, or muscles tense when we’re upset.
And they learn strategies for calming themselves or moving through the
emotions, like taking a deep breath or taking a moment to yourself.
So here is God, in the red zone, blowing God’s top, unleashing all this
anger. The reason God is mad is that
people are abusing the poor. This is
God’s judgment against dehumanization.
God is angry because God’s children are injuring each other, and
especially that the stronger is beating up on the weaker. The more powerful are taking advantage of the
poor and making them poorer. God has
strong feelings about this kind of behavior.
God has tried to reason with the people, encouraging them to share and
protect each other. God has given
warnings when people started to go astray.
And now God has had it. That’s
enough!
God is angry, in the red zone.
This behavior must stop! People
need to hear how angry God is when we hurt each other. The powerful need to hear God’s judgment
against what they’re doing, so they stop and choose another way. And the poor need to hear God cares about
them, to be encouraged and hopeful. And just
like Kindergarteners don’t stay in the red zone forever, God doesn’t stay in
the red zone forever. Zephaniah isn’t a
very long book, and by the end of it, there is a chance for reconciliation, a chance
for restoration, to begin a new behavior, to live by God’s values of love, to
care for the weak and poor.
So now it is a matter of using what we have been given to love and serve
God and our neighbor according to one interpretation of the reading and avoid
participating in the systems of evil according to another. It isn’t always an easy line to walk. Almost everything we do has the potential to
benefit the evil and corrupt systems of this world. How do we avoid being so afraid of doing the
wrong thing that we are paralyzed? How
do we boldly use our gifts to serve God?
If we aren’t to participate in the death-dealing, evil economy of this
world, what is the kind of economy that God is supporting? God’s economy is based on abundance, not
scarcity. For God there is always
enough, in fact, more than enough. There
is enough food for everyone, enough shelter and clothing for everyone. There is enough time for everyone to get
their work in, as well as time to rest.
And there is enough community for everyone, a support system for those
who don’t have anybody else. In God’s
economy we don’t have more than we need.
We have just enough, and we share with those who don’t have enough.
The greatest power in God’s economy is not money, but love, and love
never runs out. The more we share love,
the more there is of it. Love is
something that everyone has access to, rich or poor, young or old. Love is a power that can change everything,
by connecting everything.
And love is the power that is behind our work for justice. When we love the poor and all who are
hurting, as God does, we confront those who are hurting God’s little ones, and
challenge them to try another way, the Kingdom way. We speak up, even when we are risking our own
security, when we might be persecuted or imprisoned for speaking up, when we
might be thrown into the outer darkness of society and our family and friends
avoid us.
This is what Jesus did for us. He
had great riches, many gifts from God, but he didn’t hide them and he didn’t just
use them to benefit himself. He used
those gifts to speak out on behalf of the poor and rejected, widows and
orphans, and against all the societal norms that put up barriers to these
people having access to life. He spoke
up, at great risk to himself, and he paid with his life. But still he worked within God’s economy,
offering abundant life to all who would follow his way, and bringing God’s
Kingdom near to confront the powers of this world. This is what Jesus did for us and this is
what Jesus does through us!
Another thought about this reading, and that is that these slaves
probably don’t represent individuals, but congregations or communities. As a community, we can get so busy focused on
ourselves and our fears that we forget to use our gifts or speak out on behalf
of the poor. We bury our treasure. We bury our voices. However, God brings the Kingdom either with
or without us. What an opportunity to
participate in something hopeful and life-giving.
This is one more link between the stories, risk-taking. In the first interpretation, the ones who
increase their talents take great risks to increase their master’s wealth. They could easily loose it all, but they
don’t let that fear stop them, and they are commended by their master. In the second interpretation, the last slave
takes a great risk by speaking up and telling the truth. He risks his own safety when he tells it like
it is, and he pays the price. We too
sometimes pay the price for standing up for what is right, but that is a risk
God asks us to take, in order to shape this world more into God’s Kingdom.
I believe that God is asking us as a church to take some risks, to let go
of our fears and take bold steps toward God’s Kingdom, steps that help us make
connections within our own congregation and with our neighbors. That’s why your council members are reaching
out to you to have a relational meeting.
Connecting is risky, but it is also Kingdom building. Connecting bears fruit after a while, the
fruit of strong community and the ability to speak up together so that no one
is risking alone. Please take a risk and
accept an invitation, or extend an invitation to relate to another person
within the congregation or in the neighborhood.
God promises to be there helping us to see and tell the truth and bear
the fruit of the Kingdom.
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