November 19, 2017 – Matthew 25:14-30
Matthew 25:14-30
The Third Slave
Lectionary 33A – November 19, 2017
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
The master in the story has a LOT of money. Like, a lot!
A single talent would take a common labourer 15 years to earn!
Basically the master gives three slaves a whack of money to see if they can invest it profitablty.
So often we hear this Gospel story and think that the master is a stand in for Jesus,
and that Jesus tells this story to encourage us to invest our “talents” in his kingdom.
The moral of the story is that we better . . . or else!
Or else we will be thrown into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Or at least – because we know Jesus loves hyperbole – Jesus is telling us to take
what we do with our gifts very very seriously!
Well, okay: this is how the story has usually been interpreted over the last 2000 years.
I should know because that is exactly how I interpreted it the last time I preached on this
six years ago!
Hahahaha!
It was a really good sermon, mind you, perfect for a stewardship emphasis.
But I am no longer sure that is what Jesus wants us to take away from this particular story.
A lot has changed since I preached that last sermon.
Our world has changed.
Increasing acts of violence worldwide have prompted increasing cynicism and despair.
Digital media of various kinds have only intensified the availability of bad news.
And so, I think, our collective fear as a society has increased.
I would say that fear is largely responsible for our neighbours in the USA voting in
its current administration.
At times of stress, our natural instinct is to close up – and either fight or flee.
Either fight, or tighten up our boarders and lock up our doors, and look after ourselves.
Certainly the economic climate has contributed to this as well as people have become
fearful of the effects of the last recession: the stagnation of middle class wages and the fiscal downturn.
At times of stress, the tendency is to put our faith in those who appear strong,
who we think can help us, who tempt us to make decisions based solely on what is
best for us so that we can make ourselves great again.
Well, as we have come to see, this is very divisive.
It does not have the common good at heart.
It appeals to our darker instincts like greed and selfishness.
It fuels a desire for more and more while sidelining those things that are best and
most noble about being human: the celebration of diversity and care for the vulnerable.
As Christians, I would say it is so so important to remember that
Jesus lived in a very similar climate.
He lived in violent and precarious times.
He lived in a country that was occupied by the Roman Empire,
an empire based on military might.
They ruled through fear and intimidation and violence.
And here’s the thing: they needed local people to help them rule.
So they enlisted local people who adopted their unscrupulous methods to help them.
Local tax collectors – like our friend Zacchaeus – were told they could work on commission.
Anything they collected more than their quota they could keep for themselves.
So they worked as unscrupulously as they could, fueled by greed and from a fear that
if they didn’t do as the Romans wanted,
they could end up as poorly off as their neighbours.
The same went for locally appointed rulers.
The result was a society divided, where the rich got richer, greed and selfishness ruled the day,
the common good of all people was forgotten, and the vulnerable were left to
fend for themselves.
Essentially: there were those who played the game and were rewarded.
And then there were those who refused to play the game and were punished.
It is in this climate that Jesus tells his story this morning.
Far from being a picture of what it looks like when God is reigning,
I think this is a picture of what it looks like when Caesar is reigning.
I mean really: how could the master be Jesus? Or the God who Jesus fully reveals to us?
The master is harsh.
The master is unscrupulous:
he has accumulated his own vast wealth by benefitting from others’ labour:
he has reaped where he has not sown and gathered where he has not scattered.
Does that sound like Jesus?
And does Jesus motivate through fear? Ever? Through fear of punishing?
through fear of throwing people into outer darkness where there is
weeping and gnashing of teeth?
Does Jesus ever call anyone “worthless”?
That is just not Jesus’ way.
But it is the way of an unjust empire as he and so many experienced it.
Jesus and many others saw local people coopted into this system and recruited by it.
Jesus saw many who adopted the values and methods of an unjust empire.
And his whole ministry, I would say, can be seen as a protest against it.
And as offering an alternative vision.
Far from promoting yet another system based on fear,
far from simply substituting fear of God for fear of Caesar,
far from encouraging exploitation of neighbour like the master in the story,
Jesus promotes a system based on love.
Love of God. And Love of Neighbour.
We heard this just a few weeks ago.
He sought to found a community where these things were actualized and made real.
Where people loved God and God’s heart of mercy for all people.
And where people genuinely loved their neighbours – the people in the pew next to them and
the people outside their doors in the streets.
A community where the common good of all people is sought and
where the gifts of all people are celebrated.
A community where hospitality and care for the vulnerable are prime values.
A community in which no one, ever – EVER! – is called worthless.
A community in which every single person has worth.
Because we know – we know! – that every single person is a beloved child of God.
Because we are saved by grace,
and not by how much we accumulate by whatever means are necessary.
In the story the first two slaves play the game and are willing participants in the master’s scheme.
But the third slave – the third slave refuses to play the game.
The third slave has a sense that the master’s methods are not seemly.
The third slave refuses to participate in the master’s unscrupulous schemes.
The third slave even criticizes the master to his face.
And ultimately the third slave pays a price for it.
Now who does the third slave sound like?
The third slave sounds like Jesus.
Next week, on Christ the King Sunday, Jesus will show us what his reign really looks like.
And what kind of master he really is.
And what he expects from us.
Until then, what can we say?
We are at First Lutheran Church trying our best to offer our city an alternative vision of
what we are to be about as human beings.
We are doing our best to follow the example of the third slave.
We are doing our best to prioritize the common good of all people, and hospitality,
and the dignity and worth of every single human being –
you can see it at our Food Banks every single week and our Community Meals.
It’s not that Jesus is not advocating good stewardship and investing all that you have and
all that you are in a ministry and vision such as ours.
It’s just that Jesus is warning us not to sign on to a vision that is based on fear and that
appeals to our sense of insecurity and selfishness and greed.
Jesus is inviting us to invest ourselves and our time and our talents and our possessions in
God’s reign, not Caesar’s.
Jesus invested his whole life in it.
This morning we will have a chance to participate in Jesus’s reign again as we
share with one another God’s peace and God’s bread and God’s wine.
As we welcome all to our worship and all to Jesus’s table.
A table where all is shared, where all are celebrated, where all have dignity and worth.
Where none are turned away.
Where the third slave is risen and rules.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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