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Sermon - November 16th, 2008
Stewardship: Taking Risks
Rev. Gwen Drake
Scripture: Matthew 25:14-30
Once upon a time there was a man who bought a brand new Alpha Romeo. He was so proud of his purchase. He wanted to observe this event in a special way and celebrate it. So he went to a Catholic priest and asked, “Father, would you bless my new Alpha Romeo?” “Certainly,” the priest said, “But what in the world is an Alpha Romeo.” “Never mind,” said the man. “You wouldn’t understand.” Then he went to a United Methodist Church and asked the senior pastor, a clergy woman, “Reverend Mother, would you bless my Alpha Romeo?” She replied, “I’m not your reverend mother, but of course, I will. Now what kind of dog is that?” The man was getting a little discouraged. He saw another church down the block, a Unitarian Church. He walked in, found the minister and asked, “I just bought a new Alpha Romeo. Would you bless it?” The Unitarian minister jumped up and exclaimed, “Fantastic! Can I have a ride! Oh, wait, uh, what’s a blessing?”
I heard that story from a Unitarian, by the way.
We are in the midst of our Stewardship Campaign, we are approaching Thanksgiving, we are hearing every day on the news how bad the economy is, and perhaps you are starting to hear from people you know who have lost their job or received some kind of direct hit because of the economic mess the world is in. And I have proclaimed from the pulpit what better time for the church to respond with hope, with assurance, with the reminder of how blessed we are because our faith is in God, not in our economy. And of course, you believe me, right. Or, you are wondering what my definition of a blessing? It is something that enriches and enhances our life. Blessings are what we are thankful for. Some of you remember that old gospel song that says: “Count your blessings, name them one by one; count your many blessings, see what God has done.” It’s the season of counting our blessings. I know that is more difficult for some than others. I know there are some who watch the stock market daily, hourly. That’s one reason why I’m up here telling you, we all need to count our blessings.
Today’s parable appears to be one of those parables that is easy to figure out and interpret. A man who is going on a journey entrusted all that he had to his servants. To the first he gave 5 talents, the second 2, and the third, only one talent. Now if you have a Bible with footnotes, you would read that the servant with only 1 talent was not hurting at all. One talent was worth 15 years of wages at the minimum. One talent was huge. Five talents would be like winning the lottery, a dream come true, a super-duper blessing. Well, it could be a blessing, or it could be a nightmare as it seemed to turn out to be for the servant who was given one talent. The master gave them his wealth and before they could ask his advice on how to invest it, he was gone.
Servants one and two had great results. However, the third servant took his fortune and panicked. “I was afraid, I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you can have what is yours. Take it back. I don’t want it.”
The master cut the third one talent servant no slack in this parable, not at all: no credit for not losing a cent, for not going out and investing in a sliding stock market, not going to a casino and losing the talent and his shirt. He didn’t lose everything through wasteful living like that one son we know in another parable. He simply put it in a safe place until the master returned. And believe me, in these times, sounds like a good idea to me.
What did the master do when he returned? Did he throw a party like the father in the parable of the prodigal son? No. He called servant number three wicked and lazy and said, “Since you knew that I reaped where I have not sowed and gathered where I have not scattered, than you ought to have invested my money with the bankers. Then I would have received what was mine plus interest. Take the talent and give it to the others. For to all those who have more, more will be given, and they will have abundance, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless servant, throw him to the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Good grief, isn’t that a little harsh. Aren’t you left wondering if this is a fitting text for a Sunday morning sermon? To those who have, they will receive more? And to those who have not, even the little they have will be taken away. Sounds like today’s economy to me. The rich will get richer or bailed out and the poorer will become destitute.
Now, one of the problems I have had with this parable is that I automatically equate the master, the landowner, with God. So, I have been seeing the first two servants as the heroes of the parable. And the third one, well, as the master said, wicked and lazy. And we Americans are very comfortable with this understanding because it plays right into our Protestant work ethic and our American dream that if you just work hard enough you will make it to the top or, simply, work and you will be rewarded.
I have heard of churches using this interpretation, giving people $100 to go out and do what the first two servants in the parable did…as a biblically based fund raiser for the church. Personally, I’ve never had the courage to make that suggestion to the Finance Committee.
I’m hear today to tell you that this parable just might have a different interpretation. I have preached several times on this parable telling my congregation to, well, “Use it or lose it.” The master is God, entrusts us with everything, and for those who do well, more will be given and for those who do nothing—all will be taken away.
This Sunday, I looked at a couple of New Testament scholars, Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh for help because the traditional interpretation, is, will, not nice. God is ruthless if God is the Master, who only cares about making a profit if the parable is about money. If the parable is about our talents instead of money, well, the treatment of the third slave still has me confused; although I have justified it in past sermons as the personal agony one goes through when they never find their purpose, the niche, their mission in life.
So I consulted Malina and Rohrbaugh, because they challenge us to read the parable with the eyes of a Middle East peasant. They have studied Middle East peasant life, their culture, beliefs, way of life. Richard Rohrbaugh lived with the Middle East peasants for a few years. One thing they both say, is that little has changed in their culture and values in the past two thousand years.
The parable is about a very wealthy master with a great household of slaves including the three he appointed as stewards of his wealth. His assets could be roughly translated into 2.5 million dollars today. The master entrusted his top three slaves with his immense wealth. The first two slaves doubled their master’s investment. Now, Malina and Rohrbaugh say that the crowd listening to Jesus consisted mostly of peasants who worked the land. These peasants would have heard about the success of the first two slaves and know this was a dishonorable result, less than exemplary. Anyone who was trying to accumulate such wealth put the rest of them in peril, it upset the balance. Peasants knew instantly that this parable was about the greediness of the rich who gained their wealth through extortion and frauded, on the backs of working people, like the ones listening to the parable. What they heard was that the first two slaves went out did the master’s highly profitable dirty work very well. When they returned, the master told both of them, “Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master.” And if this was a melodrama, someone would walk in front of the audience at this point with a sign that said “Boo—hissss.”
Then along came the third slave who has done nothing with the talent entrusted to him. Not only did he do nothing with the talent, he brought it to his master and said, “You take it. I want nothing to do with it!” And the person with the sign would walk in front of the audience inciting them to cheer! And the peasants would cheer instantly!
Malina and Rohrbaugh are asking: Is it not possible that this non-cooperating third slave might in fact be the hero of this parable? The first two slaves are not being welcomed into heavenly bliss. They are being further enslaved into the web of their master’s greed and exploitation. It is the third slave who tells it like it is and is freed. His words are, “I knew knew you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not saw and gathering where you did not scatter seek; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.” This is peasant truth and peasant humor at it’s best because those who work the land know that all true wealth comes from God, the source of rain, sunshine, seed, and soil. When the third slave planted the silver talent in the soil, it produced nothing at all. And the third sign in the melodrama, carried in front of the crowd would have said “applause.” The third slave spoke the truth and the peasants loved it. The truth was that the master profited from the backbreaking labor of those Jesus was talking to. You cannot grow money the natural way like seed, you can’t plant money, money doesn’t grow on trees. This parable is about the clash between two worldviews: the traditional agricultural values vs. the elite way of exchanging things for profit. The third slave refused to participate in this exploitation. The third slave took the Master’s money out of circulation, where it could not be used to dispossess another family farmer.
So, what happened to the third slave? He was labeled as evil and lazy and made an example. The master threw him out and said, “To those who have, more will be given—but for those who have not even what they have will be take away.” This was a clear statement of how the world that was controlled by wealthy householder worked. The third slave was banished to the outer darkness where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth. I thought this meant he was through into hell, hell of his own making because he was not obedient to his master. But the scholars say, if it was hell, it was hell on earth experience by those rejected by the dominant culture, out on the mean streets outside the great households. Outcast and free, I might say. And we Americans can relate to that. The third slave refused to be part of a dishonest, exploitive system. He lost everything and gained everything. He lost his life and found his life. There is so much in the Bible, in mythology, in our literature about the heroes of a culture who rise up out of nothing, Heroes who are not formed by our culture but are clear interpreters of it. Heroes who help us to wake up to the truth. I can think of a few: Jesus, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Ghandi, Nelson Mandela. These truth-tellers have challenged the wealthy householder’s system at great personal cost. They have been “whistle blowers.” Dr. Robert Linthicum says in his commentary on this parable, “The third slave has gone over to the other side! … He’s the hero because he had seen the evil both of what he was expected to do and the evil of the enterprise in which he had been involved…”
Jesus talks about money a lot. But you know what, he never takes an offering. He doesn’t do a stewardship campaign. He talks about money in terms of the condition of our heart. He asks, “Where is your heart?”
Let me go back to the Beatitudes, to chapter 6:19-20 in Matthew where Jesus says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasure in heaven where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” And then in vs. 24, “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”
What I put my money into creates a passion, an interest. Where my treasure is, where my money is, there is my heart, my love. I love my daughters, Abbe and Emma, more than life itself. I’d give anything for their happiness, their joy, their success in life. I’ve given a lot. Where my treasure is, there is my heart. I also have another expensive love. I have a 7 year old quarter horse named Ben. It takes at least $300 a month to support my horse. And I justify it because I love horses, he’s my therapist and my spiritual guide, and well, honestly, I feel more whole with a horse in my life. I give up a lot of other stuff to have a horse. Where my treasure is, where my money is, there is my heart, my love.
Also, 25 years ago, I gave my whole life to God when I decided answer the call to the ministry. And I have trusted this call and God and the Bishop and his cabinet to place me where I can do the most good. My life became a life of purpose even in times when I felt more like Moses who protested, “Why me, Lord?” Where my treasure is, there is my heart, my love.
When God calls us to give, to do all the good we can, it is not about the church. Our church will survive without your giving. If some of you are going through a difficult time, then God will provide for the church another way. Although if every one of you decide not to give, it will take one enormous miracle. This stewardship campaign is not about the survival of the church, or meeting our apportionments. Yes, we have a goal of 100 pledges and an operating budget of $285,000. Goals are good. We need something to work toward. However, God calls you and me to give because giving is about you and me. It’s about doing the most good with my money. It’s about where my treasure is, because Jesus says, that is where my heart is. Jesus says I can’t love both money and God. One of John Wesley’s 3 rules for Methodist is to do all the good we can. Wesley also told us three things about money, the 3rd being, give all you can. The Bible says ten percent. The Bible doesn’t go into detail about how to figure that out. There’s not a lot in the Bible about tithing. There’s more about giving and money and it’s always linked to the state of your heart, not the state of the church.
That’s why I prefer to look at the 3rd slave in the Parable of the Talents as the hero, as the one who followed his heart to Jesus. He turned his heart and soul and life away from wealth and security in fear and trembling, at great risk and great cost--to be free, to break free from the slavery of wealth, the hold that the love of money had on him. Jesus told this parable very near the end of his life and right before his story of the Last Judgement where he says, “just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me,” a parable I will be talking about next Sunday. Jesus told about the Last Judgment right before he became that third slave who was chastised for not giving in to the wealthy and powerful at great cost. He gave his whole life because his treasure was with us and for us. He believed in us, the people. And where his treasure was, there was his heart, his passion, and his life. Where your treasure, there is your heart as well. Where is your treasure? Amen.