by Joan Fanshawe
(Based on Matt 25:14-30; I Thess 5:1-11)
Every year at this time, based on our liturgical year on the church calendar, the theme of our worship and teaching focuses on the Kingdom of Heaven and the anticipation of the return of the Lord. Today we have heard another parable from Matthew’s Gospel in which Jesus tells this story to his disciples to prepare them for the days ahead when their faith will be tested. Last week there was a warning to be prepared. This week, maybe faithfulness.
In a time of waiting what does faithfulness look like? Reading Matthew’s gospel this year has led us along a path showing that true faithfulness is found in imitating Jesus’s ministry and teaching. Jesus proclaims the coming of God’s kingdom by feeding the hungry, curing the sick, blessing the meek and serving the least important in society. For Matthew, all those who would be Jesus followers are to share the Good News of the Kingdom to all the world, by going about this work that Jesus has called them to do.
Those who are faithful may hear their Master say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
So, back with the story we have just heard – my job is to try and link what Matthew is saying to his congregation of Christian Jews in a time of increasing persecution – and make that message relevant to us hearing it in a very different world today.
This ‘parable of the talents’, as it is widely known, where the man going away calls in his slaves and entrusts a small fortune to the three in differing amounts, is possibly the most misconstrued parable of all parables. Or at least the most differently interpreted: just ask me how many commentaries I have read these past weeks! And how many preachers chose to preach on one of the other Scriptures down for today.
Something I’ve learned along the way is that our word ‘talent’ comes directly from the Greek word used in this parable – in Jesus’s day it meant a certain very hefty weight of gold or silver, but by the Middle Ages the meaning shifting to mean a natural ability, quite likely derived from this parable. A re-interpretation of the parable may have emerged then.
This version implies God is the master who endows and rewards the clever use of talents, then casts out the fearful and so called worthless one to a fate worse than death. The version is quite familiar to me and often associated with church stewardship campaigns; but now I’m having trouble putting that persona on God. Can this be the God who Jesus called “Abba”, who blesses the meek, the peacemakers, the merciful?
How does this match your own heartfelt image of God in today’s world?
Something to ponder this week.
I have another take on this parable – a story told by a Lutheran pastor in Wisconsin that really appealed to me:
God Takes a Vacation
Once there were three churches. They were modest churches that were formed by modest people living in modest communities. Each of these modest churches had modest councils who were made up of modestly faithful men and women who oversaw the modest ministries like the modest Sunday School, the modest music program, and the modest property surrounding the modest church.
One Sunday, the modest pastors of these modest churches stood up to preach modest sermons. No one knew it, but the Holy Spirit, who is anything but modest, had been imprisoned in the beautiful but modest hand-tooled, leather-covered, gilt-edged Bibles. When the modest pastors opened the modest Bibles that Sunday, the Holy Spirit was set free. The Spirit entered into these three modest pastors, and then these three modest pastors said something quite immodest:
“God loves you!” they shouted to the modest people sitting in the pews. And every modest person jumped. “God loves you so much that while you have been living your modest lives, sleeping in your modest homes, God extravagantly filled your hearts and minds with love. God did this because, after five thousand years, God is tired of hearing all the complaining and grumbling and discontent about the work that he is doing. So, God has decided to take a vacation and has left you in charge of his kingdom!
“Don’t panic! God has arranged for the Holy Spirit to continue to inspire and support you in these coming days, so that you can learn to use the amazing gift of love he has given you for the life and ministry of his world.
“So, I come to you today telling you that you now have all of the faith and love that you need to thrive. What do you think of that?”
Then, the modest pastors immodestly sat down. Each one looked a little confused or dazed, not quite sure of what had just happened.
In the first church, people started talking to their neighbours quietly and then more loudly as they prepared to leave worship that day. Someone stood up and said, “I think we need to talk about our faith in God’s kingdom of love and consider how we are best able to share it.”
And they did. They discovered that their greatest gift of love was a gift of generosity. They decided to give God’s kingdom away. And so, they gathered everything they had and prepared to give it away — they even mortgaged the modest church building and the modest property.
But then, challenged to find the best way to give God’s kingdom away, they went out into the community, and they met people at the bus stops and in the cafés. They asked them what they needed because … they were giving God’s kingdom away. They built playground equipment in the parks and gave their time away cleaning up the messy parts of town. They gave food away at pot-lucks, and they opened their building as a shelter for people who were abused and forgotten. Each week they gathered together and encouraged each other about how they could give more of God’s kingdom away to the modest community in which they lived.
~ ~ ~ ~
In the second church, people started talking to their neighbours quietly and then more loudly as they prepared to leave worship that day. Someone stood up and said, “I think we need to think about what we have just heard and each come back with an idea for how we should respond to the message.”
The following week they gathered in small groups and discussed some of their ideas. They discovered that each idea involved singing. They were a little surprised to discover that they loved singing so much. So, they decided that they needed to do something about making sure that anyone who loved music and who loved to sing should feel welcome in their church. They told their church council to find a way to help them get more people who liked to sing.
And so, they advertised in the papers, and they talked with their friends. They organised musical performances of stories from the Bible. They invited people to come and share their musical gifts, and encouraged people to just come and enjoy the music and the stories – and they sang hymns and songs and celebrated life.
~ ~ ~ ~
In the third church, people started talking to their neighbours quietly and then more loudly as they prepared to leave worship that day. Someone stood up and sarcastically said, “Well, that was something.”
Embarrassed, and fearful, other people in the congregation modestly looked down at the floor, then at one another, and went home. During the following week people met each other in stores and shops. They called each other on the phone. They talked about how shocking the Sunday message had been.
One person was overheard to say, “I’m really not sure that the message was from God at all. I think that the pastor should be ashamed for trying to rev us up like that. We need to call the church council to do something about it. The sermons need to be the way they’ve always been. God gave me this modest life, and I like my modest life in my modest home in our modest community. Who does the pastor think she is? What she is proposing could upset our community.”
~ ~ ~ ~
On vacation, God talked with people at the bus stops and ate in cafés – where the people from the first church were gathered. God was there at the playground; he laughed most of all at the thought of trying to give the kingdom away.
God sang with the people gathered to share music in harmony with one another in the second church. Indeed, God had a great time, singing the old songs and the new, and they drank wine together and shared their life stories.
But in the third church God quietly walked among them in sadness because they could not find a way to use the amazing gift of love found in his Kingdom, come to earth. In their fear and their self-consciousness, they felt lost, like they were cast into the outer darkness. They ground their teeth and fearfully looked at the sinful world around them and withdrew further and further until they finally just disappeared.
Friends – as Paul wrote to the people in Thessalonica, let us continue to “encourage one another and build each other up … as indeed you are doing”.
Joan
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