Sermon

Dunna ye think it’s aboot time?

by The Rev. Canon Susan Sommer

Angus and his longtime girlfriend Jenny were sitting on a stone wall overlooking the Scottish highlands. Jenny, eager to move their relationship to the next level, turned to her boyfriend and said, “Angus, a penny for your thoughts.”

Angus turned to Jenny and said, “I’m thinkin’ I might like to put my arm around ye’.” And so he did. And they sat again in silence until Jenny couldn’t take it any longer. “Angus,” she said, “A penny for your thoughts.”

Angus turned to Jenny again and said, “I’m thinkin’ I might like to give ye’ a wee kiss.” And so he did. And again, they sat again in silence for so long that Jenny was about ready to jump out of her skin.

 “Angus,” she said, “a penny for your thoughts.”

Angus cleared his throat and said, “Well, I must admit, my thoughts are a bit more serious this time.” Jenny held her breath, Angus again cleared his throat and said,

“Dunna ye think it’s aboot time ye paid me ma three pennies?”

It’s entirely possible that if the Evangelist Matthew had been a Scotsman, the parable we just heard would have involved pennies. As it happens, the amount of money in question today is at the other end of the monetary scale – and not just to the sensibilities of thrifty Scots. A talentum was the largest denomination of money in the Greco-Roman world. It weighed about 70 pounds and was equal to 20 years’ worth of wages. So the slave who was given two talenta received the amount of money that a person would earn in 40 years. The slave who was given 5 talenta received the amount of money that a person would earn in 100 years. This is serious cash. Two of the slaves engaged the talenta given to them and yielded a nice return. They were commended by the master. The third slave, by contrast, seriously underperformed relative to first century S&P 500 benchmarks. He buried the talentum and when the master returned after a long absence, he returned 100% of the capital to the master safe and sound. But in the words of a computer about to crash, this was a Fatal Error. The slave who radically minimized his exposure was sharply criticized by the master.

On the surface, the whole thing reminds me a bit of the last money manager meeting at the Cathedral after a very volatile 3rd quarter. And, of course, such appearances are deceiving. Jesus told this parable in the waning days of his earthly ministry. He has entered the holy city of Jerusalem and has managed to outrage the sensibilities of the religious establishment. Soon he will gather with his disciples for a last meal before his arrest and his crucifixion. Time is short, the disciples are clueless, there is a great deal at stake. And so he tells a series of 3 parables of judgment.

Here’s the thing. Judgment in this context should not be interpreted as an indictment. These parables are not the equivalent of the 3 ghosts who visit Ebeneezer Scrooge. They were not included in the gospel in order to scare us into righteous behavior. Rather, the parables of judgment served as an affirmation to Matthew’s original audience, and no less to us, that our actions matter. Seems that when we're given a commission, the one thing we don't get to do is nothing. The point of the parable is not that the first two slaves doubled their masters' money and the third one didn’t. (The money is the red herring in this parable for us dyed-in-the-wool capitalists.) The point of the parable is that the first two slaves trusted the one who first trusted them. They took seriously what they had been given and engaged it faithfully. The third slave did not.

Remember the context. Jesus’s life is drawing to a close. He soon will be arrested and put to death. Following his resurrection and his ascension, it will be left to the disciples engage the ministry Jesus had begun --  to proclaim in word and action the Good News, to heal the sick and preach the Word to the uttermost ends of the earth. The disciples will need to trust the One who trusted them with so great a treasure.

So what did Jesus give his followers? What does Jesus give his followers? The immeasurable richness of grace, of healing and forgiveness, of the kind of love that lays down life itself so that nothing, not even death itself, will ever have the power the separate us from God. That is the talentum given into our hands. And the one thing we don’t get to do with that treasure is bury it.

When we engage the treasure….when we trust the one who first trusted us, when we extend forgiveness because we know we ourselves have been forgiven, when we show mercy because we know the depth of God’s mercy to us, when we love others because we know clear down to our bones that we are deeply loved by God…then we have entered into the joy of our master! We will have worked in partnership with Christ. Because that’s what this parable is about, near as I can tell. Christ’s treasure, given into our hands, put to work in the world God has given into our care. That’s a pretty fair definition of Discipleship. Sound daunting? It doesn’t have to. After all, we do have a pretty good business plan for what to do with this treasure. It’s called the Baptismal Covenant. There are hungry people to be fed, in the Community Kitchen and throughout the world. There are people without shelter, without warm clothing. There are food pantry shelves in Kansas City to be filled. There are wounds to be healed. There is justice to be done. There is mercy to be shown. There is God’s salvific promise to be lived in a world that hungers for Good News.

Dunna ye think it’s about time?

© Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral