Light and Life: Not Threat or Condemnation

Proper 28A

Matthew 25:14-30

 

I can still remember the sermon on today’s parable from a chapel service at my Episcopal prep school so many years ago. The preacher explained that we had been showered with gifts by parents, teachers, and even by God. And now God, in return, expected a great deal from us in our adult lives. I can still remember the feeling of 100-pound weights falling on my skinny shoulders as he continued: God expects talented young people to grow up to be leaders, he lectured us. We must become the movers and shakers in the community, important and influential people. The implication that rang in my ears that day was that, without extraordinary accomplishments, I would stand before God as the third slave in our parable—lazy and worthless. Later, as an adult, stewardship sermons only reinforced my despair. I would often hear from the pulpit that it is a terrible sin to waste the gifts that God has given to you. If you have received much from God, then you are expected to give back even more. As the years went on, I felt my unrealized talents multiply, and I shivered, surely bound for that outer darkness.

If my younger self had heard our first reading from the prophet Zephaniah, I can only imagine what a mess I would have been. Luckily, mainline preachers don’t often touch this one with a ten-foot pole! The prophet’s words are harsh. But I have good news for us today. Zephaniah is not “predicting the future,” and Jesus’ parable of the talents is not an allegory. Bear with me as we take a look at these two texts together:

First, for Zephaniah. His words are not—and were never meant to be—a prediction of the future. They are not literal. I don’t care what the televangelists say. The prophet is using loudly emphatic words of poetry--poetry that is meant to stir the people of Israel from the injustice that is going to lead to their destruction as a people. Prophets are not fortune-tellers. They are preachers with one eye on society and one eye on God. Their job is to speak words that will get us to change when we are destroying ourselves, when we are ruining our relationship with God. Their job is to root out injustice and stir us out of complacency. Their job is to wake us up, whatever it takes.

Think of Zephaniah as a parent, afraid that his children are doing something that is truly going to harm them. When your toddler was determined to chew through every electric cord in the house, you might have hollered loudly at him, right?  When your teen stayed out all night, you just might have told her she was grounded for the rest of her life. When we are afraid for someone we love, we exaggerate with our language in response to their actions. We are so desperate for them to listen to our wisdom that reasonable language is no longer enough.

Apparently, milder words have not worked on the people of Israel, and so Zephaniah is pulling out all of the stops in the poetic vision that we hear today. Fierce language is not pleasant to hear. But sometimes change requires a bit of heat before it can kick in. Zephaniah is more about divine urgency than divine wrath.

And now for Matthew:

Jesus’ parables are more like Zephaniah’s prophecy than we might imagine at first. They are meant to turn us inside out and shake us up! Parables are also like poetry. They show us truth in a slanted way. They are stories of normal, everyday things, but they have elements that mess with our logic. In a parable, the weirdness of the story is supposed to shake up the way you see things, so that you can see God’s hidden Kingdom inside the everyday world.

Also, like the “Day of the Lord” in Zephaniah, today’s parable is “eschatological.” It is seeped in thought about the end times. This particular section of Matthew’s Gospel is full of Jesus’ words about his return to earth. Like all talk about the end times, our parable includes words about God’s judgement. Jesus, like Zephaniah, is trying to talk in such a way that the hard of hearing will hear. He wants to help us not to waste time as we wait for God’s Way to be fully revealed on earth.

If we interpret our parable as an allegory, with a strict correspondence between characters in the story and our reality, then we’re going to misunderstand, like I did as a teenager. The absentee landlord does not correspond directly to God.  God isn’t greedy, fickle, and harsh. God isn’t quick to punish for mistakes and disloyalty. God is “slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”  That landlord is terrible. The slaves are right to fear him. Jesus just wants to show us where our fear can lead us. Fear leads us to bury what is meant to be shared.

 In the same way, the talents are not symbols of our personal God-given gifts. If we see the talents as attributes like friendliness, musical talent, or brains, then we are creating a nice little lesson about sharing and leadership. Instead, Jesus is using the story to help us understand something important about our role in God’s Kingdom. In the story, a talent has nothing to do with our English usage. It is a simply a first-century weight of measure. A talent of gold or silver was heavy. It weighed about 50-75 pounds. That slave who got 5 talents of treasure would have received about 375 pounds of it! How would he even move 375 pounds of precious metal? Clearly, the landowner has entrusted those slaves with a ridiculously huge gift.  

It’s also important to realize that burying money was the accepted financial practice in Jesus’ day. Historians tell us that the first-century rabbis taught that the best way to guard money for someone was to bury it. If buried money were somehow lost, then the one who had buried it was not even liable for the loss, for he had done the prudent thing with it. (1)The third slave, then, is just being careful with what he has been given! Who among us here today would not likely have done the same?

Our parable helps us realize that gifts from God are strange things. Have you ever noticed how we’re not ever supposed to hoard them? It’s like the manna that God gave to the ancient Israelites when they were starving: If they tried to put the extra pieces in jars to keep until the next day, the food became nasty and inedible. Even though God rained down the manna upon them like crazy, they weren’t allowed to save any for later, for “just in case.” God expected them to trust that God would always send whatever they need. God’s gifts seem to have to flow into us and back out again. God’s gifts are like light shining on us. If you bury light, or as Jesus said, cover it up with a bushel basket, then it is gone. You have to let it shine if you want it to light up the room.

What is this enormous gift that we are given? One that has to be shared, no matter what? Perhaps it is the Light of Christ itself, the unfathomable gift we receive at our baptisms? It is a gift too large to comprehend, a gift that cannot be buried in the ground, a gift of love and grace and forgiveness that is made for passing from hand to hand like the candle flame on Christmas Eve. The Light of Christ must continue to shine, even in a dark, fear-filled world.

         Today’s lessons are neither wrathful threat nor condemnation. They are a frantic wake-up call from a God who loves us. “I will bring justice,” God promises us in Zephaniah. “I hear the cries of the oppressed. Have no doubt that I will respond.” But as we wait for that day, Jesus tells us in our parable, God needs us to share the Light. Urgently. Courageously. In wild and crazy and unexpected ways.

Where have we buried Christ’s Light and freedom in our souls, I wonder? Under a rock of fear or shame? Under a need to conform to what society tells us is important? Under the kind of burdens that pile up so gradually that we don’t even know how heavy they have become? As individuals, and as a parish, this is perhaps a season to reflect on what we might have buried in the ground. Let’s sweep away the dirt, letting the sunny rays of God’s validation and love shine upon it. That spark that makes us all fully alive—we need to let it grow and multiply and escape our careful, worried control. Our scripture speaks with urgency. Do you have a wild idea for sharing our divine spark in these dark times? The world—and Jesus—are waiting.

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 (1) Bernard Scott, Hear then the Parable, 227.