Talents, time and tickets

Sermon Notes, Proper 28, Nov. 15, 2020 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. Matt. 25: 29 I admit these words of Jesus puzzled me for a long time. How can someone who has lost everything still have something left to be taken away? The parable of the talents comes to us on the Sunday we return our pledges for 2021 and it is so tempting to read this parable as a message favoring giving back to the Lord what he has given us and what we have made of those gifts. That would be a convenient reading, supported by the example Jesus gives of the three servants, but not the one Matthew had in mind when he placed this parable at the conclusion of Jesus' parables about the end times. Or more precisely, how to be prepared for the end times. That's also how the editors of our lectionary read it when they placed this reading as the last before Christ the King Sunday and our entry into Advent. This parable continues and ends Jesus' teaching on the coming of the Kingdom of God. So lets set aside whatever good and constructive thing we could be saying about stewardship And giving, and look at this parable through the lens of kingdom entrance. The master calls his servants to his side and entrusts them with his property. (Allow me a parenthetical comment here about the word 'talent." Our English understanding of the term comes from this parable, not the other way around. In the original Greek a talent was a weighed amount of currency. It had in indefinite monetary value but had nothing to do with gifts or abilities, as it has today.) We might better define "Talents" as tickets to the kingdom. And immediately we come against another obstacle to our understanding. Are there better tickets, say a kingdom orchestra section, balcony, aisle seats, represented by the different number of talents? There may well be a hierarchy to heaven but that isn't what this parable is about either. The talents meted out to the servants are the measure of grace needed for their circumstances. Jesus makes no distinction that the five-talent servant is better than the one talent servant. Each is blessed with God's favor in accordance with their needs. Think of Paul's comment that God's grace is sufficient for our needs. The kingdom of heaven then is like this master who offers places in his kingdom to his servants long before the doors officially open. It's guaranteed, with exceptions. A year ago I purchased four concert tickets for a performance at the Mt. Baker. The concert was scheduled for June. Then COVID hit and it was postponed. We are now long passed the postponed date and I still have the tickets but the concert has yet been rescheduled. I have a guaranteed seat, but the exception is there may not ever be a concert. The master has guaranteed a seat in the kingdom for each of his servants, but the exception is they need to redeem their ticket by the life they lead while he's away. We should pause right here and wonder what kind of a master would do this. Wouldn't it be more prudent for him to retain control and award his servants on his return? Yes that would be more prudent. But this master is not like that. He wants his servants to be about his business while he's away. So he pays them first. Pays it forward in today's idiom. He expects them to do the work he would do if he hadn't gone away. The two with five and two talents each somehow double their value. They do this because they understand the master to be a certain type of individual. He is unbelievably generous as they have already seen themselves. But he also is demanding. There will be an accounting. Their response to him is to mirror his character in their own dealings. They exactly double what he gave them. They return it to their master just as they were given at the beginning. And they receive his blessing. Not so the third servant. Let's say for him that at least he too understands the character of his master. "'Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed." He is "hard" in the sense that he is driven, compulsive, and unpredictable. But he's also hard to understand. He's like God was to Job. His power and authority are everywhere evident, but there no rhyme or reason, at least from a human viewpoint, to his actions. But here's where the servant's response differs from Job's. The servant fears God and hides from him. Job feared God and sought him out. The third servant fears for his life, betrays the master's trust in him, and incurs the master's wrath. His judgement day is exactly as he feared it would be. Jesus then says that even what he has will be taken from him. If we restrict his "having" to what the master gave to him, he already has nothing. It's all taken from him and given to the one who now has ten, count 'em 11, talents. So it's not wealth or things, or even talents in today's understanding of the word. What is finally taken from him is the master's confidence in him. The master's faith that enabled him to be trusted with his one talent in the first place. Stripped of this last vestige of value, not his own but conferred on him by the master, he is worthless. What a bitter, sad place to be. Jesus says this is what it is like when you stand outside the kingdom of heaven. The parable is over. He is now speaking to those around him, particularly the pharisees and Herodians who are plotting his death. Jesus says to them that the one thing they thought they had in abundance, the favor of God, they don't have at all. They had it, but now they don't. They had it by the gift of God's favor upon the children of Abraham but they lost it in their own life times. And it does not have to be that way. That is not the Master's plan. He is a generous giver who only wants to give more, never less. His favor toward his children, his unmerited grace, extends to all. And it's just the start. He wants to give even more. A gift needs both a giver and a receiver. The gift is the kingdom of heaven. The giver is God. But the gift is not given. Something is broken in the receiver. Time to stop and reflect. It could be a time for repentance also. Is there something in my life that is blocking me from connecting with the gift of eternal life God has reserved in my name? It may be a fear of God that is blocking my love of him. If so, then I need to realize that perfect love casts out fear. That God's love for me will reshape my fear into awe and my dread into worship. It may be that I have not relinquished to God the time and space in my life he asks for in order to get to know him. I'm too preoccupied, too busy, too self-satisfied to engage with God right now. If so, then remember that time is itself in God's hand. He waits on you far longer and with far more concern than you realize in your self-absorption. But he is also Lord of time, and He will be the one who determines when his time of waiting on you is over. It may be that you think you are in relationship with God, but its not the God of the Bible. So often we hear these days of people who have "trouble" with God. They express it in words like this, "I could never believe in a God who allows sickness, death, war pestilence and pandemic to happen." "My God loves everyone but your Christian God picks and chooses who he loves." "My God would never ask me to change the way I am. He loves me just the way I am. Your Christian God is never satisfied with me." God does not conform to their idea of who God should be, so they create a god that fits them. The problem is that their god has nothing to offer them. He doesn't have the ticket to the kingdom set aside for them. He can't promise what he can't deliiver. The True God of True God is not so simple. He is a God of guarantees, and a God of conditions. Like the master in the parable he knows no bounds. He makes his own rules. His favor, his grace is scattered like seed upon the deserving and the underserving. He lavishes affection upon those least expecting it and least deserving of it. But he also holds those accountable who receive his grace to share it just as they receive it from him. It's a participatory kingdom. What ultimately causes the master's gift to become the servant's death sentence is his unwillingness to participate in the kingdom offered to him. In the end all he has is the master's favor and now even that is taken away. So we come to the end of ordinary time and we approach another advent. Another gift is being prepared for us and for the world. Sharing that gift hasn't been made any easier by the passing of time. If anything, the world is more resistant now. More cynical. Angrier. More fearful. But it's not up to us to soften the world. That's the master's work. Our task is to participate as the grateful recipients of God's great gift of love, his son our Lord Jesus Christ. To love others as he loves us. If we just love as we are loved, we will have used our talent wisely and we will hear spoken over us, "Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master." In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.