A Sermon for November 15, 2020
Peace.
Tom
Matthew 25:14-30
“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability.
Then he went away.
The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents.
In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents.
But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.
After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.
Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’
His master said to him, ‘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.’
And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’
His master said to him, ‘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.’
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.’
But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.
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 they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
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Throughout many centuries,
today’s parable of the punishing slaveholder and the salves
has been read (often times)
with the understanding that God, in the story, is portrayed by the character of the slaveholder.
And we
then
(this interpretation goes on)
Are to be seen as the slaveholder’s faithful (or perhaps quite afraid and therefore trembling) slaves,
and either as investing or as burying the gifts that we have been given.
In such a reading,
We are (in a way) forced by the interpreter of the parable
(the preacher or the teacher or whomever)
to imagine a slaveholdher-God who loves suffering and punishes relentlessly
those of us who are often immobilized with fear
by the very thought of that relentless punishment itself...
In such an interpretation, we are forced to imagine an evil God, delighting in dungeons, and sending our helpless friends and family into the “outer darkness,” where teeth grind and screams echo into eternities.
+++
When I am forced to imagine this way (God as angry slaveholding god), my body reacts.
My solar plexus [right here] reverberates and the bottom of neck tightens up.
And I feel sick.
At the same time, my chest around my heart tightens,
and I feel some tension in my upper back.
In other words, when imagining such an image of God,
or: when imagining God this way,
my body is unhappy.
Like when I eat a kind of food that I really dislike and it the makes me sort of gag by its horrible taste,
so imbing this image of God causes an involuntary reaction.
My body won’t not accept it as nourishing and delicious and good.
+++
Certainly this is not the God who inhabits our hearts, who elicits in us hymns of joy and praise.
Is it?
+++
I don’t think so.
Everything I know and everything I value from the parts of our tradition that I love,
affirms that God is not a slave driver--contrary to those who may have found joy in painting God this way.
On the contrary, time and again in the scriptures,
God is a God who sets God’s people free,
empowering Moses and Miriam
and empowering all of the prophets
to confront slave-drivers
in Egypt,
and among their own people,
and even in their own homes.
God empowers these all to demand with love and conviction
to the angry slaveholders of the world:
“Let my people go!”
+++
So, is God to be found in this story?
And, if this is the case, what on earth was Jesus talking about?
+++
It may be important to note that Jesus tells this parable (that is: he gave this speech to his followers) in the very last couple of days of his life.
The end was near when he spoke them--literally. He would soon be buried.
You see, at this point in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus had already entered Jerusalem, riding a donkey and her colt.
He had already turned over the tables of the money changers and those who exploited the poor in the temple.
He had even already been speaking of his own death for quite a while now.
But, for the disciples, this reality was (it seems) finally sinking in.
+++
Here, in the Gospel,
It is a couple of days after Palm Sunday,
and a couple of days before Good Friday.
The rulers of the land, invested in the status-quo, are still outraged by the procession of praise that Jesus had received few days earlier.
The event itself amplified their scrutiny of him, although his message about God’s Reign of Love coupled with his charitable acts, feeding the hungry and healing the sick, had already placed him on a Roman government watchlist.
You see, Jesus’ actions disrupted the Roman myth
that the leaders of Rome seemed actually
both to believe
and to work really hard to propagate:
“If there is hunger and poverty,” they taught, “Well, then that’s just the way it is…”
“It must be the will of the gods,” they taught.
“Some are born with three talents, and some with two.”
“Some never learn to invest.”
“Some never decide to pull themselves up.”
And so somehow they deserve it when their last talents are taken away.
In a similar manner, it seems, Jesus’ religious opponents,
though they claimed as their heritage the great prophets old,
and celebrated them according on their holy days,
had come to desire law and order more than
healing and new life.
Even on the Sabbath, they were more invested in the world as it is that in
that which still might yet still become.
And so they, robbed of hope, conspired with the rulers against him.
+++
All of this in the week that Jesus told this parable.
All in this in the last week before Jesus’ death.
+++
“For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.”
These are the haunting climactic words of the parable.
And, as we read it today, I think
that it should be clear to us that the words are not meant to describe
the Reign of God’s love,
as many parables do.
Not at all.
Rather, these particular words seem to obviously describe the world as it is. Society. Everyday relationships and roles: In Jesus’ day and in our own.
These are not words about the Not-Quite-Yet,
but rather, about the Right Now.
And,
If God is to be found in this parable,
It is not in the image of the slaveholder,
but rather in the servant who fears and names the truth,
and so resists.
That is, as in the rest of the Gospel,
God (in Christ--"in the form of a slave…") is the one who speaks up and out against that awful and abusive man!
God buries the means of exploitation in the ground, putting them to rest,
exchanging unjust wealth for the hope of a world
where slaves and masters are abolished,
and exploitation is no more.
This is where we find Jesus, God in the Flesh -
in the Gospel, in the last week of his life,
and here, embodied also in this parable, turning over tables,
and yet
paying the price.
+++
For, as in the parable
Jesus is the one who would soon be arrested and tortured and crucified (banished to golgotha, outside of town, where there are no lamps to light the way--banished to a place of suffering and gnashing of teeth).
For proclaiming a different Way, a different world:
God’s Reign of Love,
Jesus is seemingly pushed out of Caesar’s Reign
and exiled from the Reign of Rome forever.
And so on the hill, he cries: It is finished.
+++
It’s true:
the parable (contained here in the Gospel) ends with the one who resists being banished and punished by the powers who oppress and enslave.
And Yet, the Gospel itself ends with the one who was banished
not succumbing to their way of Death,
but rising up from their tombs, overcoming their graves,
and, in turn, gathering and charging and empowering his people
to go to the ends of the earth:
to feed every mouth,
to lift up all who are lowly,
and (in a world of angry slaveholders and powerful powers),
to stand with the oppressed,
to love with the lowly,
to side with the crucified,
to release every captive
and to break every chain.
May we receive their call anew, today.
Amen.
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