Zephaniah 1: 7. 12-18 Psalm 123
1 Thess. 5: 1-11 Matthew 25: 14-30
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Have you ever noticed that when two people tell the story of an event…you get, well two different stories. This is true across the board. Ask two brothers how it happened that the lamp is lying in twelve broken pieces on the floor and you’ll get two different versions. Ask two adult siblings to recall an event from their childhood and you will most certainly hear two very different versions of the same story. Ask two people coming out of a movie to explain the plot of the movie, and even then, their stories will differ. A part of the reason for this is that we all see things through our own mindset. We view an event or a story through the filters of our priorities, our experiences, our histories. For example, if you were to ask two different people to tell you what Gone With the Wind is About, one might say it’s a love story and another might say it’s a historical drama from the Civil War. They saw the same movie, but their individual understandings of the emphasis differs.
This is also true for the writers of the Gospels. Each one tells the story of the life of Jesus. By definition, the Gospels are the story of the good news of Jesus the Christ. The writers, then, had to be eyewitnesses to Jesus’ ministry. So, we have four accounts, in canonical order, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (but, confirmation students…who wrote the first Gospel? Mark!). And we have entirely unique viewpoints of many of the same events. Each writer has a particular way of looking at Jesus’ ministry and a unique way of interpreting it.
Each writer also chooses to tell particular stories, not all of the stories of Jesus’ life are found in each of the Gospels, for example only Luke has an infancy account. And Luke is the only other Gospel that contains the story we read in today’s reading from Matthew.
For the writer of Matthew, there were unique ways of describing Jesus’ ministry. The gospel of Matthew is very concerned with Jesus fulfilling the prophecy of a coming Messiah, born of the house of David. Mark and Luke also mention this, but Matthew adds nine additional proof text, or texts from the Hebrew Scriptures, to uphold his understanding of this as critically important to who Jesus is. Matthew also spent a great deal of time toward the end of the book talking about and describing the end of this age. And of course, as writers of this time did, the words Matthew uses are put in the mouth of Jesus.
In today’s reading from Matthew, then, we have this story of the master who entrusts his slaves with talents. Talents were silver coins, very large, weighing between 57 and 75 pounds, not something one could carry in one’s pocket. One talent was worth roughly fifteen years wages.
When we hear this story with twenty first century ears, we applaud the first two servants for the way they took what their master had given them, five talents, worth 75 years worth of wages, and two talents, worth thirty years of wages, and doubled what the master had given them, through shrewd investing.
Now, I must tell you, I want the first two brothers to be in charge of my money. I’d like for them to manage my pension. I’d like for them to handle the accounts of the church, please, additional funds would allow us to serve additional people. Those two servants might even make good city managers or bank presidents or investment bankers.
But this is 2011 and the story that Jesus tells he tells to an audience that did not have to allegorize it to understand it. For Jesus’ audience, who were the disciples, and for those who originally heard this story in Matthew’s Gospel, it was exactly what it seemed to be. It is a story of a wealthy household, headed by a ruthless and harsh man. One of the problems with making this an allegory is that it turns God into a ruthless and harsh God. That was not the message Jesus told of God.
In order to read this story well, then, we must hear it with the ears of a first century audience, not a twenty first century audience.
This calls for us to do a bit of detective work. We need to know what was valued in antiquity and what was not. Theologian and professor of religious studies, Richard Rohrbaugh notes that in Jesus’ time, the highest legal interest rate was about 12 percent. Anything higher than that was considered dishonorable and excessive, even dishonest. You see, on the streets where Jesus walked and in the homes and communities where Jesus taught, what was valued was not self advancement. What was valued was stability and care for one another. Jesus’ teachings affirm this widely held way of life. Care for others: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick. This was what was valuable and faithful living. And while it may seem completely odd to us, burying one’s investments was a common practice at the time.
The Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) is full of warnings against storing surplus, against usury and profiteering, and against excessive investing. Yet these are precisely the things that we value today. When I was looking into changing banks, I wanted a bank that would pay the highest rate of interest possible. Ads for investment firms promise the highest possible return on investments. Over twenty centuries the way we understand faithful use of money has changed completely. Growing our investment is no longer considered questionable practice, instead we consider it shrewd money management. Many Biblical commentators over the past several decades have looked at this passage through this lens, applauding what the world called the faithfulness of the first two servants and calling the third servant lazy and unimaginative.
How is it possible for us, here today, to hear this story through the lens of the first century and apply it to our lives and our faith journeys in the twenty first century?
When I hear this story in November 2011, I am reminded that the third servant did not back away from naming the unjust actions of the master. ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; 25so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ He named the sin of the person who had power over him. This is no small task. Across the world, the nation, the state, the neighborhood, there are powerful people, harsh people, abusing the trust of those they see as under them. It is unjust and abusive. And it is these people that we are called to care for. This week I heard that the Seattle City Council, who currently provides NO FUNDING for emergency housing for the homeless, has been visited by the women and children of Mary’s Place, telling their stories, during the Council meetings. This week the City Council did not only provide the requested $40,000, but voted to provide $440,000. Friends in Christ, even when it is difficult, our call is to name injustice and to serve and care for those who are being oppressed. We do this in many ways in and through the ministries of this place. Just as the third servant named the unjust ways of his master, we proclaim the ways of righteousness and justice when we serve others in Jesus’ name.
We are called to a just and proper use of what we have been given. And a part of that is that we support the way that lives are changed through the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it is lived out in this place. I could tell you about the budget, but I’ll leave that up to Dave and the Council, to Norman and the Stewardship Team. What I will tell you about are the incredible ways that lives are changed through your support of the ministries of this place. We see it on Sunday as we come and worship and pray and fellowship. But the sheer numbers of ways that we reach out into the world are an incredible testament to our ability to use our gifts, use our skills and yes, use our money, wisely in service to God. This is also the lesson of Jesus’ story. That what we have been given has not been given to us by a harsh Master who reaps where he did not sow and gathers where he did not scatter. What we have been given and entrusted with is given to us by a Master who is also our Creator, who loves us, and who is the one who has sown a garden called our neighbors, called our communities, our nation, and our world, and the one who has called us to tend and care for it. How will we respond?
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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