Last week I said that we were in the end times. We are in the end times of the long, green Season after Pentecost. Jesus is also in the end times of his life as our gospel reading takes place during Holy Week. It’s during these end times when he gives us a series of Advent parables – parables that focus on preparing for the coming of the Messiah. Last week it was the ten women waiting for the bridegroom. This week it’s a rich man going away on a journey and leaving his property under the care of three slaves. To one he gives five talents, to another he gives two, and to the third he gives one.
After a long time, the rich man returns to find the slaves who had been given five and two talents had doubled their amount, while the slave who had been given one talent buried it in the ground, giving that one talent back to the rich man. And once again we have a story from Jesus that ends with someone being locked or cast out of the presence of the Messiah.
Despite the obvious allusions to money (one talent was equal to something like 20 years of wages), this story is not about money. Neither is this story about financial prosperity, or that God will richly bless you with wealth if you just put forth a little effort. This story could be about using what we have been given for the spread of the kingdom; and there have been plenty of commentaries and sermons about that, so I won’t bore you with another one.
Part of my job as a preacher is to engage Scripture in new ways that help you see these stories in new, different, and hopefully relevant ways. As I was thinking about how I might possibly present this old story in a new way, I asked myself, “What do you see?”
What do I see? I see generosity. I see abundance. I see trust. I also see fear. I see scarcity. And I see a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I see generosity. In the story, the rich man simply gave his servants anywhere between 20 and 100 years of wages, never telling them what to do with it. He never said he expected any kind of return on it. From his wealth, he simply gave it away.
From this we know that God is generous with his love. God showers us with his love. God will never withhold his love. God will never use his love to blackmail us (i.e., if you loved me, you would …). This doesn’t mean we will never experience hardship or pain. It also doesn’t mean that if God loves you, you will be blessed with riches, as the false and deceitful purveyors of the prosperity gospel like to preach. Instead, it simply and wonderfully means that God loves you. Period. It also means that God loves those whom you are not so sure about, because God is generous in loving. May we also be generous.
As a side note: This isn’t an economic parable, but just think what society would look like if people were as generous with their wealth as the rich man in the parable, or as generous as God is with his love.
I see abundance. How often do we look at what we have – money, time, skills, whatever – and think, “I don’t have enough.” We are constantly seeing the world through a lens of scarcity, worried that we will not have enough or have less. It’s like that saying: Equal rights for others does not mean less rights for you – it’s not pie. If it weren’t for a theology of abundance, you wouldn’t have created the food pantry. Two of the three slaves saw their gift through the eyes of abundance, and then did great things. May we see abundantly.
I see trust. The rich man turned over a vast amount of wealth and trusted his slaves to care for his estate. The slaves could have taken the money and ran, but they didn’t. In the same way, God has trusted us with the care of his estate. I could argue that we haven’t done a very good job of caring for his creation, but I still think God trusts us to do the right thing. May we trust more.
I also see fear. Look at the first part of the gospel. A rich man is going on a long journey and entrusted his property to three slaves. To one he gave 100 years of wages, to another 40 years of wages, and to a third 20 years of wages. And then he went away. From the beginning we see the rich man is abundantly generous and trusting. And yet . . .
And yet, the third slave was fearful of the man. He explains why, but there is nothing in the story that would lead us to this conclusion. His fear is unfounded. His fear might be based on hearsay. His fear may come from listening to others without getting to know the man himself. And isn’t this how some people see God – as someone who they only know through the limited stories of others and as someone of whom to be afraid? If people are afraid of God, we are doing it wrong.
I see scarcity. I touched on this above, but whereas the first two slaves worked from abundance, the third worked from scarcity, only seeing what he didn’t have or couldn’t achieve. His view of scarcity maintained the status quo, never risking, never changing, never growing. An old football official once said, “The only difference between a rut and a grave is how deep it is and how long you’re in it.” Viewing things through the lens of scarcity will bury you as surely as the third slave buried his talent.
I see a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those who view God as vengeful, mean, murderous, spiteful, etc. will certainly encounter that God. Those who preach that kind of god can expect to find that kind of god. For to all those who have no sense of generous and abundant love, even what little love they exhibit will be taken away from them and they will be cast into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth because their evil and wicked ways drove people away from God.
This parable is about a lot of things, but today it’s about the difference between living into generosity, abundance, and trust, versus that of living in fear and scarcity.
May we learn to live in the generous abundance of God’s love in such a way that we will increase those entering the kingdom. And from that hard work, may we enter into the joy of the Lord.
Amen.
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