Talents

by the Serbian artist  Nikola Sarić

Year A Proper 28

November 13, 2011

Matthew 25:14-30

The 400^th anniversary of the KJV was earlier this month. There is no end to the influence which that magnificent achievement has had in the English world. It was that beautiful prose that formed Lincoln in his eloquence. It was often the only book in some homes, and the hearing and reading of it contributed phrases that still pepper speech today.

Today’s reading marks an instance where the KJV Bible gave an English word. Our word “talent” comes from this parable.¹ The Greek word talanton in Jesus day was a measure of money. Originally a measure of weight, it came to be a measure of weight of gold or silver. Scholars tell us that a talent of silver was worth about 15 years of wages for a day laborer. In fact a talent was the largest monetary measure of the ancient world. It was used of the wealth of kingdoms and ancient Bill Gates or I suppose we could imagine the wealth of hedge fund investors. But because of this parable talent has come to mean also any God-given ability.

So you see the interpretation of this parable has shifted the meaning of this word.

Now some will say that this parable is really about the uncertainty of Christ’s return. All the parables in Matthew 25 tell us something about that. Some limit this parable to that because the idea of making money or having access to such wealth doesn’t seem to square with their idea Jesus’ followers were peasants and getting in too deep with large sums of money is dangerous spiritually. Jesus said, after all, that it is easier for a camel to make it through the eye of a needle than a person of means to get into the kingdom of God.

But in fact some of Jesus followers were not poor at all. Remember the expensive jar of nard poured on Jesus feet and the dinner Jesus was invited to at Zacchaeus’s home. And Matthew makes a point of including wise men with their impractical expensive gifts in the guest list for Jesus’s baby shower.

The parable is a gold mine of meanings. Let’s investigate what Jesus may be telling us today.

First, the workers got different talents. There is a difference in what we each have been given. That is true whether it is monetary or ability you are talking about. Is this a case of gross inequality? No, rather the master gives what he thinks each is able to handle. –“each according to his ability” (25:15) The master knows what they could do. The trust he gave was based on their ability. If they worked up to their ability there would have been an increase in every case. And in the end what they are judged by is what they have done with what they had. Their worth is based on the way they used the gift. On whether they worked up to their ability.

They accept what their master gives.

On our covenant renewal service for the last few years we have used words from a prayer of John Wesley.

Lord, I am no longer my own, but Yours. Put me to what You will, rank me with whom You will. Let be employed by You or laid aside for You, exalted for You or brought low by You. Let me have all things, let me have nothing, I freely and heartily yield all things to Your pleasure and disposal.

We don’t know why we were born in a free and rich country like America and not in a favela in Brazil or a refugee camp in Southern Sudan. We have not control over what we are given and we will not be judged by how much we have but by what we do with what we were given.

Second, All three of these servants are clear about the fact that what they are given is still the property of their master. Consistently through the parable the servants say “your money.” The master says “my money.” They are managing something that is on loan. It does not become theirs by their use of it.

Third, the most relevant difference between the servants is the what they do with what they were given. Both of the first two servants double what they have been entrusted. They are equal in the accomplishment because they both doubled the trust.

The third one does nothing with what he has been given.

Why do you suppose there is this contrast between the first two and the third?

For me the clue is the excuse the third one makes for not doing anything with the money he was given, “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”

I think the first two saw their master as having confidence in them. The third man saw the master as critical, setting him up for failure, ready to condemn.

The first two focused on promise, the third focused on threat.

The first two focused on hopefulness; the third man focused on fearfulness

The first two acted; the third dallied.

The third servant thought he knew his master but he was wrong. He didn’t know and so he didn’t trust and so he did nothing and lost everything.

He was a servant in name only. He never did what the Master trusted him to do.

Do you think this might apply to us? What we do says something about what we believe. And if we never dare to do something significant with what the Lord has entrusted to us, one of two things might be true– we either think that was we have is simply ours and we can do or not do whatever we please with it. That is one mistaken belief! Or we can be paralyzed by fear that we might make a mistake and God would come down hard on us.

We have to take risks. Ann Lamott wrote, “Doubt is not the opposite of faith. The opposite of faith is certainty.”

He had ‘certainty’ that if he did anything wrong, he would be punished. And he let that certainty lead him into a fear And fear led to paralysis. “If I just tie this money in a handkerchief and bury it, that will be enough. I won’t have to do anything else. I can sit back, wait until the master returns and I won’t get in any trouble.”

“He who waits to do a great deed will never do any deed at all.” No risk, no reward. The third man played it safe and ended up losing everything. In the end, his talent went to the first man and he ended up with nothing. “Many people neglect the task that lies at hand and are content with having wished to do the impossible” (Teresa of Avila).

But here is the thing. What impresses me most is not the risk taking or failure of risk taking of the servants. I am impressed with the willingness of the master to risk such large sums of resource into the hands of servants.

Does this say something about our God?

A student in seminary had said, “Everything that God does is perfect”. Then the Candler theology professor commented, “I cannot support the contention that everything that God does is perfect. The biblical witness is not to a God who is perfect, but to a God who loves so much that God’s love overflows and takes risk.”

God loved enough to create the world and creation is not perfect. Note the presence of natural evil that surrounds us. God loved enough to create human community and human community is far from perfect. Note the presence of moral evil that surrounds us. God so loved the world that God sent Jesus that through him the world might be saved; but the life of Jesus did not go perfectly, at least not by any human standard and not all people are yet saved. God loved enough to risk. The courage to risk!²

God takes the risk because what God dreams of for us and for this world involves God’s great desire that we will add our own risks to his. God said to humans be fruitful. God said for us to steward creation.

“I knew you were a rough master– looking for return where you never invested.” But that is not the way it is. God is heavily invested in our becoming responsible, creative collaborators in making the world what it should be.

No. God “gives to all generously and ungrudgingly” (James 1:5)

God takes risks for our salvation and for the redeeming of the world. The cross is a testament to God not playing it safe.

And God wants us to join him in that.

It is not true what the third servant thought. The other two acted as if they were empowered by the master’s trust in them. They were repaid by his praise and rewarded with more responsibility.

Jesus told a parable once that if you were a servant and did what you were asked to do, what praise ought you to expect. All you had done was what it was your duty to do.

But this master does not take lightly the success of the two. He expresses delight and appreciation.

That is the picture Jesus draws of God.

Leslie Newbigin used to say there was something wrong in asking what God’s mission for the church is. God doesn’t have a mission for the church, he said. God has a church for his mission.

We exist, we are gifted, we are empowered and entrusted to participate in God’s work in the world. Bigger than the church.

God’s first assignment to humans was to be fruitful and to tend the earth. Out of that comes our commission to see justice prevail, the vulnerable protected, the young nurtured, the sinner brought home, the world repaired.

None of us has all that is needed. No church is up to the task alone. But each Christian, each family, each church and association can ask what it is that God has specially given them, and how those gifts might make a difference.

This means we have space to be creative. The master did not micro-manage. He did not give a list of specific things that had to be done with the capital he entrusted. He trusted each servant’s ability to dream and scheme, and set priorities, and weight the most effective strategies.

God may not have just one plan for how you use your gifts. Situations can change. Opportunities arise or door shut. But God trusts you.

I know how life transforming it is when you come to trust God with total commitment. But today’s gospel tells me how transforming it can be to realize God has trusted you. God waits to see what you will do with those gifts God has put in your hands.

Amen.

1M. Eugene Boring, Matthew, New Interpreters Bible Commentary vol. 8 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995) 453.

2Jill Oglesby Evans, Emory Presbyterian

 

Glad and Generous Hearts

November 11, 2012  

Year B 24th Sunday after Pentecost

Mark 12

Preachers about this time of year are casting about for a text for Stewardship drives. Here comes the lectionary conveniently with the story of the widow’s mite. Maybe they will have a sermon like “With All Your Mites”, or “Mighty Mites”, or some such cleverness. But of course this story is not just about the widow. While the widow is extolled we must not forget the critical eye Jesus cast toward religious institutions.

As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

The widow is contrasted with some other worshipers. Scribes, professors of law, professional religious scholars. Jesus warned his disciples not to imitate them. They dressed to impress. They dressed up for the role of religious leader. (I saw a photo of a seminary president [Al Mohler] with his corporate CEO tie and suit and thought “What are you trying to say, dressing like that?” But then the issue isn’t the gold tie. There are other costumes that send the message– “preacher” or “cool preacher” or “traditional pastor”)

They project an image of being religious and that is exactly what they want you to think, and maybe the way they think of themselves, but under those appearances is the hard reality that they are people who take advantage of hard-up folk and paper it over with flowery prayers.

S. Kierkegaard sneered at the state-paid clergy, which he said derived social and financial gain from the Gospel: “In the splendid cathedral, the high, well-born, highly honored, and worthy Geheime-General-Ober-Hof-Preacher, the chosen darling of the important people, steps before a select circle of the select, and movingly sermonizes on a text chosen by himself, namely, ‘God has chosen the lowly and despised of the earth’—and no one laughs”¹

So while we look at what we should be; we keep one eye on what we should strive not to be.

Jesus is watching the Passover crowds pour through the Temple precincts. He sees, as all do, the parade of self-important people. But Jesus isn’t impressed by the glitz and glamor. What catches his eye is a little widow woman weaving through the crowd to the offering box. With no fanfare two coins slip from her hand. You could not hear them when they hit inside.

Two “ha’pennies.” There will always be a smallest coin. But the USA got rid of half-pennies in 1857.² In 1989 a bill was introduced to get rid of the penny and have all transactions rounded off to the nickel. It did not pass. But as of 2007 it cost 2.7 cents to make a penny and there have been times when the raw material in a penny was worth more than the face value.

So we might have to adjust this story for inflation. The point was this: the widow had two of these smallest of coins and whereas she could have kept one, she put them both in the offering box.

Jesus says “She gave all she had.”

Now why would she do that? After all she was a widow. Which meant the only reason she had a penny to start with is someone had shown her charity. Widows in those days didn’t get a Social Security check. When Ruth came to Israel with Naomi, neither had an income. They were coming on hope , dependent on the kindness of kinfolk or the charity of the pious. All they had was willingness to work hard (gleaning), sharing what they had with each other, and faith that God have mercy. Again and again we read in scriptures of God’s concern and care for vulnerable in society, summed up by “widows and orphans.”³

The aristocrats were, it is true, putting in handsome sums into the offering. But Jesus notes they never really felt it. Whatever they gave they had plenty left. Their generosity was always out of surplus and left them as comfortable as they were before. But the widow gave all she had.

The rich young ruler was challenged by Jesus to sell his holdings and give the proceeds to the poor. He couldn’t imagine doing that because he had “much possessions.” He couldn’t give all he had.

The strange thing is sometimes having more makes it harder to give. A quarter of respondents in a new national study said they tithed 10 percent of their income to charity. But when their donations were checked against income figures, only 3 percent of the group gave more than 5 percent to charity….[Science of Generosity Survey and the 2010 General Social Survey ] In one indication of the gap between perception and reality, 10 percent of the respondents to the generosity survey reported tithing 10 percent of their income to charity although their records showed they gave $200 or less.⁴

Today our country will observe Veteran’s Day, as we have since WWI. A lot has changed since WWII. Veterans of armed conflict put their life on the line in the conduct of wars. But whereas the sacrifice in those wars were general, “Just one-half of one percent of Americans served in uniform at any given time during the past decade — the longest period of sustained conflict in the country’s history” (American Forces Press Service Report) “Our work is appreciated, of that I am certain, but I fear (civilians) do not comprehend the full weight of the burden we carry or the price we pay when we return from battle.” (Retired Admiral Mike Mullen). ⁵ And while soldiers gave their all, we have yet to be asked to pay for the wars we sent them to. If you want to talk about debt problem talk about how we were chicken to ask Americans to sacrifice for this interminable war.

STORY: There was a man who once made a covenant with a former pastor to tithe ten percent of their income every year. They were both young and neither of them had much money. But things changed. The layman tithed one thousand dollars the year he earned ten thousand, ten thousand dollars the year he earned one-hundred thousand, and one- hundred thousand dollars the year he earned one million. But the year he earned six million dollars he just could not bring himself to write out that check for six-hundred thousand dollars to the Church. He telephoned the minister, long since having moved to another church, and asked to see him. Walking into the pastor’s office the man begged to be let out of the covenant, saying, “This tithing business has to stop. It was fine when my tithe was one thousand dollars, but I just cannot afford six-hundred thousand dollars. You’ve got to do something, Reverend!” The pastor knelt on the floor and prayed silently for a long time. Eventually the man said, “What are you doing? Are you praying that God will let me out of the covenant to tithe?” “No,” said the minister. “I am praying for God to reduce your income back to the level where one thousand dollars will be your tithe!”

Sometimes the more we have to give, the more we hold back.

SPURGEON was once invited by a wealthy man to come down and preach in a country church in order to help them raise funds to pay a debt. The man told Spurgeon he was free to use his country house, his town house, or his seaside home. Spurgeon wrote back and declined coming and said, ‘Sell one of your homes and pay the debt yourself’.

John Wesley, in a sermon, “The Right Use of Money” suggests, “All the instructions which are necessary for this may be reduced to three plain rules.”

• “Gain all you can by honest industry. Use all possible diligence in your calling.”

• “save all you can.”spend nothing “to gratify the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eye, or the pride of life,”

• The third rule is to “give all you can.”First, Wesley states, your duty is to provide for your household “whatever nature moderately requires for preserving the body in health and strength.” After that obligation is met, then you “do good to them that are of the household of faith.” Then, “if, when this is done, there be an overplus still, as you have opportunity, do good unto all men.”

Make Money, don’t throw it away, be generous.

A church that was in decline decided to go out in style. They put every resource they had left into ministering to people around them. The result was when the church became focused on giving instead of survival, it got a new lease on life spiritually.

Several years ago, a Kenyan woman joined our church. Her name was Lydia. She told me that she loved our congregation, but she really missed certain aspects of her home church, especially parts of the worship service. I asked her what she missed the most, and she told me something I’ve never forgotten. She said, “I miss the offering. In Kenya, we would sometimes dance down the aisles during the offering. We didn’t have much to give, but what we did have we gave with much joy. What a privilege to give back to God!” she said. ⁶

A retired preacher was cleaning out the dresser when he found 5 eggs and $1K.

•He asked his wife and she said she saved 1 egg for every bad sermon.

•5 eggs in all those years. Not bad. But what’s the money for?

•Every time I got a dozen eggs, I sold them.

There was a time when women did not enjoy as much independence as they do today. Farm women would often sell butter and eggs for extra money that would be stashed away for an emergency. The pennies they’d receive each week from the extra eggs they would gather and sell. With such scraps of resources as these women in America financed Christian missions around the world.

Why did she give?

She had learned the joy of giving. The other week I heard Social Psychologist Timothy Wilson of UVA refer to research one of his grad students, Elizabeth W. Dunn, did. The article she co-authored with Wilson and Daniel T. Gilbert was published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology with the provocative title: “If Money Doesn’t Make You Happy, Then You Probably Aren’t Spending It Right.”

A few years ago, Dunn did an experiment in which researchers fanned out across the University of British Columbia campus and handed students a $5 or $20 bill. The students were randomly assigned to spend the cash on themselves or others by the end of the day.

In the evening, those who had been told to spend on others reported feeling happier — even if they spent only $5 — than those assigned to buy for themselves.

The emotional rewards of social spending can even be detected on MRI brain scans.⁷ This and other studies are measuring that it really is more blessed to give than receive.

A pastor in Oregon tells of sitting at the bedside of a 90-year-old widow whose entire pension and social security each month went directly to the nursing home that cared for her. She got complete care there, and so on the surface she had no need for any income. But she was apologizing for the fact that she could not longer give to the church. The pastor gently told her that she mustn’t worry about it, that she had given so much for so many years and at this point in her life no one could expect her to do any more. Besides, the church was doing just fine. He wanted to help her feel better, but she became very agitated. She shook her finger in his face and rebuked him: “Young man, you listen to me. I am not talking about the church’s need for money. I’m talking about my need to give. I should not be deprived of the opportunity to give!”⁸

We are made in the image of a generous God and it gives us joy to be able to give. The widow gave because she had been given. In fact everything she had was a gift of someone’s generosity, and finally a gift from God. So she was bold enough to trust God’s continued supply of her need.

Is it really different for us? Finally none of what we have is really ours to keep. It is something we received and someday none of it will be ours– whether we give it or leave it when we die. How much you have doesn’t really have so much importance in the Kingdom of Heaven. You can be blessed with millions or struggle to make ends meet with a disability check. The issue is not what you have but,

1. Did you earn it without cheating and by applying yourself?

2. Did you use it wisely and simply in providing for your family’s need?

3. Were you generous?

Proverbs 31 describes a wise woman . She worked hard., provided for the necessities of her family, employed servants in meaningful work, opened her hands to the poor. Therefore her children and her spouse rise up and call her “Blessed.”

Our lives are really all about giving. History depends on each generation giving all it has, life, knowledge, skills, memory, to a new generation, over and over in endless chain.

History depends on each generation giving life to children, spending time and money and energy protecting, educating , repairing, nurturing, building, planting, and preaching– pouring our lives and encouragement and direction.

So that when life is over, one of the best outcomes is to be able to say to God, ”Thank you for this life. I was able to give it all away.  I was able to use it all up for others.”

There is a phrase in Acts 2 that describes the winsome attractiveness of the early church.

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

“Glad and generous hearts.”

Somehow I think those two words still go together. The gladness of generosity, the generosity of the joyful.

May God make us ever fit that description.

AMEN.

1Joakim Garff, Soren Kierkegaard; A Biography, translated by Bruce H. Kirmmse (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005, p. 773).

2When the United States discontinued the half-cent coin in 1857, it had a 2010-equivalent buying power of 11 cents.[14] After 1857, the new smallest coin was the cent, which had a 2010-equivalent buying power of 23 cents. The nickel fell below that value in 1974; the dime (at 10 cents) fell below that value in 1980;[13] the quarter (at 25 cents) fell below that value in 2007.[14] (Wikipedia)

3Ex. 22:22 Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child.

Deu 10:18 He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loves the stranger, in giving him food and raiment.

Isa 1:17 Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

Jer 7:6 [If] ye oppress not the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow,

Zec 7:10 And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor;

4http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-briggs/the-flesh-is-weak-churchgoers-give-far-less-than-they-think_b_1846516.html. “In analyzing data from two churches in the Northern Indiana Congregation Study, researchers Brandon Vaidyanathan and Snell found some respondents claimed to be tithers or high givers when church-reported figures showed that was not the case.”

5Phillip Heinze : Living the Lectionary

6“What God Values in Stewardship”, Day 1, November 8, 2009, Rev. Dr. Scott Weimer

7“Spend Your Way to Happiness?” By Katherine Kam, WebMD.. “In a University of Oregon study, people were given a chance to donate money to a food bank. Others were forced to give to the food bank through a tax-like transfer. Volunteering the money activated brain areas typically associated with receiving rewards, but so did the mandatory giving.”

8Sermon on Mark 12:38-44, by Richard O. Johnson

 

From the Pulpit

Meditating on the Eighth Commandment

Meditating on the Eighth Commandment

Martin Luther thought that by the time you finish unpacking the ten commandments, you have a complete guide to the life God would have us lead. There is a lot to mull over in each. The first four tell us how to respect God; the last six concern how to respect the rights of others.

Consider “Thou shalt not steal.” (Exodus 20:15)

At one level, the command is easy enough for a child to grasp, and for many it is the first command that they remember.

My parents have a now faded photograph of me as a three year old, gingerly opening up my hand to reveal a marshmallow chick I had treasured so long after Easter that it had begun to grow quite crusty. I am showing its tender details to a cousin my age who was visiting that Sunday afternoon. What they did not get on film, but which I distinctly remember, is how that rambunctious cousin grabbed it out of my hand and snapped it into her mouth with a smile of satisfaction. I was dumbfounded by the injustice.

We never have to coach children in ownership. “Mine!” comes naturally and early. And the first problem of justice revolves around the boundary between mine and not mine.

Some social theorists have dreamed of a utopia where all humans would have all things in common. This command is grounded in the more realistic recognition that having is a simply part of being human. We are bodies and require things, desire things–food and shelter and means for living. We express ourselves through the things we have. The prohibition against stealing presumes the right to own and thus the right to extend our presence into the material world.

Ownership is basic to freedom as well. Fareed Zakaria is only one of the more recent to make the argument that liberty is not dependent on the total wealth of a nation, but on how widely spread the ownership is. It is not enough that basic needs are met. Only when a wide range of people are creating wealth and experiencing the enjoyment of the fruits of their labor are initiative and independent thinking fostered. Liberty presumes independence that is insured when ownership is fostered and protected.

But Scripture does not give warrant for the mistake of collapsing all freedom into the freedom to own. And it gives no encouragement to treating private ownership rights as absolute

Modern capitalist and communist theories can both trace themselves back to John Locke’s theory that labor is the source of ownership. Each of us, he wrote, owns our own selves, our minds and bodies and labor. Locke argued that what we own beyond ourselves is accomplished by “mixing” our labor and effort to unclaimed material available. For instance, tilling a piece of wilderness made that land the private property of the frontiersman who expended labor in cutting and clearing, tilling, planting and harvesting. Labor is the original deed of ownership. Things get more complicated if everything from DNA to national forests becomes privately owned.

Scripture starts with a different account of the origin and nature of property, and so a broader understanding of “thou shalt not steal” which in many ways is at odds with modern perspectives. In the Biblical understanding the world is first and finally God’s, entrusted to humanity in common for our enjoyment, use and conservation. We are the stewards, the tenants, sojourners. The lease is temporary for each of us, and revocable for any nation as a whole.

Consequently the boundaries of ownership between people are fluid and fuzzy.

For example, God expects those who own farms (read means of production) to leave the margins of their fields at harvest for the poor to glean. It is an injunction not to maximize private profit at the expense of the unemployed.

To see a person in great need and refuse to help is to steal.

To abuse the land I occupy during my life in such a way that I leave it polluted or depleted is to steal. It may be mine now but those coming after me have a stake in it as well.

To profit by false advertising or withholding information, is stealing even if we post a sign “Let the buyer beware!”

There is a Biblical limit on how much I can take from someone in my debt.

Or consider the Jubilee redistribution. In the Sabbath of Sabbath years, the fiftieth year, all the land was to revert back to the original equal distribution among families. Thus no family in Israel could gain a permanent monopoly. No family could forever lose for the next generation the chance to start over.

“Thou shalt not steal” not only protect ownership it undercuts any absolute ownership claims.

Paul, writing in Ephesians, tells thieves to give up stealing and get honest jobs so that they will be able to those in needs. This passage gives a clue to the positive meaning of the command.

The opposite of taking from others what is theirs is being able to give to others what is mine. In the end the command not to steal in not just about the right to keep private property; it is about answering the opportunities to caring for the least of these.

“I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live…” (Deuteronomy 30:15)