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The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that, by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 28)
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The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
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Scripture citation(s): Matthew 25:14-30
A Sermon by
Fr. Daniels
on
Matthew 25:14-30
✛
The Right Use of Talents
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We call today’s reading from the Gospel of Matthew “the parable of the talents,” which is confusing for us since, nowadays, if someone has talent, that does not necessarily mean that they have money, and if they have money, that does not necessarily mean they have talent, since there is no accounting for taste. But the parable today is about something roughly equivalent to what we would call money: the talent, which represents some particular amount of wealth.
As Jesus tells the parable, a man, who must have been fairly rich, was leaving to go into “a far country.” He sensibly gathered his staff and made them stewards of his resources while he was gone. One gets five talents to take care of; another gets two talents; the third receives a single talent to be in charge of. They are apportioned to each one, Jesus says, “according to his … ability.”
It was a shrewd move on the rich man’s part. Sure enough, the one who had received five talents went off and made five talents more; the second doubled his two talents in the marketplace as well.
But the person who had only received one talent, since he was known to be the less able of the three, confirmed the master’s disinclination toward him. He went and dug a hole and put the talent in there—the agrarian equivalent of putting money under the mattress. The master returns, and at this point in the story, Jesus begins referring to him as “the lord.” The first servant reports on his success; the lord congratulates him. The second reports on his success. He made less money overall, but had the same rate of return—that is, 100%. “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” the lord says to both of them. They were faithful in small things, so the lord will make them to rule over many things. “Enter thou into the joy of thy lord,” he says.
But the third servant, who had only been given a single talent to keep track of, he comes to the master and says that he has dug a hole in the ground and kept the money there. He had been afraid, and his fear kept him from engaging in the kind of productive work that could have resulted in great success for his lord. Given an opportunity, in other words, the third servant squandered it.
The lord punishes him for this laziness. If you knew I was a hard man, he says, and if you were afraid, then you should have at least put my money in with the bankers, where it could have earned some interest. But he didn’t. “Cast … the unprofitable servant into outer darkness,” the lord says, where “there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The parables and teachings that are in these two chapters of Matthew (25 and 26) are all about the need for the Jesus followers to have endurance. A hard rain is going to fall on them and the dark clouds are gathering already. Some of those same disciples who are there listening to Jesus will themselves be killed because of their faith. There is terrible danger ahead. But they are disciples, entrusted with the Gospel message that contains the words of eternal life. They must endure. They cannot take this gospel and bury it in the ground; it is too important. Endure in your ministry, brothers and sisters: when the final day comes, and the crucified and risen Jesus returns, those who have endured will hear the precious words, “Enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” Enter thou into the kingdom of heaven.
I admit, though, that when I hear this parable, and listen to the description of the master, I cannot help but think, “What a jerk!”
Let’s review, shall we? For the sake of argument, let’s say that the third servant’s account of the master is true. There is no reason to believe it is not true; nobody in the parable takes issue with it. Even the master himself seems to agree.
So what do we know then about the master? Well, we know that he has given his servants good reason to be afraid of him, perhaps even physically intimidated; it seems that the master has the power of life and death over his subjects. We know that the master goes into fields that he has not planted, and takes the crops that are there; in other words, he literally reaps the benefits of other people’s work. We also know that he would have preferred that the third servant put his money with the bankers, where, he says, “I should have received mine own with usury”—that is, interest. Usury, however, was prohibited by Jewish law because it was seen as exploiting the poor. So whether or not the master was Jewish, he was clearly amenable to engaging in something that the Jews thought unethical. And, finally, we know that if you are unprofitable to this master, then you get thrown into the outer darkness. We know that profit is what this master cares about, profit above all else, profit at any cost. Being compassionate? Doesn’t matter. Playing by the rules? Doesn’t matter. Behaving ethically? Does not matter. So again, I say: what a jerk.
If that description of the master is true, then what do we know about the three servants? Well, we know that two of them, at least, are on board with his program. Whether they are on board because they are simpatico with the master or if they only do what he says because they are also afraid of him, the end result is the same: they do what he says; they are successful at it; and they are rewarded for it.
But the third servant. We know this about him, at least: he has decided that he is not going to play anymore. He implicitly says to the lord: you want to threaten your employees? Go right ahead. You want to steal other people’s crops? Be my guest. You want to engage in usury? Fine. But, the servant says, you will do it without me, because I am not playing anymore. You are a jerk, you steal stuff, and you exploit the needy, so I am not playing your game, by your rules, anymore. And if I get cast into the outer darkness, then so be it. The parables and teaching that are in these two chapters of Matthew are all about the need for the Jesus followers to have endurance. Because in spite of all of the innumerable benefits of the self-offering of Jesus Christ, the world would not receive the disciples’ message with universal acclaim. Instead, the masters of the world would reward the sycophants, the worshippers of money, and the selfish. The apostles that went around preaching about mercy and peace, repentance and forgiveness, the love and grace of God: Jesus may be giving them fair warning here that they should expect to be thrown into the outer darkness by the rulers of the world. After all, Jesus would not play the master’s game either, and it ended in his death. The apostles should not expect anything else. It could be that in the third servant of this parable we see a person who has a different lord than the one who called himself the lord. If we were going to put it in Gospel terms, we might say that his master was Jesus Christ, the incarnate son of God. The master in the story has his own authority, as far as it goes. But it does not go all the way. By painting the master in the story in such a light, one of the things this Gospel could be doing is affirming that there is one Lord, Jesus of Nazareth; there is one lord, crucified and risen; there is only one lord, despite claims to the contrary made by the powerful men of the world in every generation. And the lord of heaven and earth is a suffering servant; he is the god who sacrifices himself; he is the king who serves his subjects. He is the rich man who gives away everything he has, even his own life. He also travels to the far country; not to receive honors, but to bring the wayward home. He is the one that, for no reason except love for his people, will go even to that outer darkness, even to that place where there is no joy, but only weeping and gnashing of teeth. And, by going there, he shows that there is no place that is beyond the reach of God’s saving embrace. Jesus can be there, too; he can be there with you and with me. Endure, Jesus says to the apostles. Endure in the face of adversity, just as Christ himself has, and the true lord will be with you always, even to the end of this age.
