Moe, Larry and Curly Invest their Talents

Matthew 25:14-30 Parable of the Talents (November 19, 2017)

            So here we are this morning, just a few days before Thanksgiving. Some of you are likely running menus through your mind, for the meal you will prepare for your family, and guests later this week.

Others of us might be thinking about the travel plans still to be completed, or are running mental lists of the things you need to pack.

 If you weren’t thinking about Thanksgiving at all when you arrived at church this morning, hopefully the litany we began our gathering with this morning put you in to the mood to think, if not about menus or travel plans, about the gratitude you feel for the abundant gifts that are yours all through God’s generosity.

            As a congregation, today is also a day on which we have set aside some time after worship, first to feast together at our annual congregational meal, and then, to conduct the annual congregational meeting – an event in which we all have both the joy and the call to participate.

At our meeting, we will name and celebrate the ways in which we have been particularly blessed as a congregation this year. We will also talk about some of the ways in which God is calling us to have faith, and to use our imaginations, as the church of Jesus Christ, in God’s kingdom work in 2018.

            On this second-to-last Sunday of the church year and at a time when, in our secular world, we are led to think about the things for which we are most grateful, the assigned Gospel text, known as the Parable of the Talents, invites us to thoughts about the abundance of God and our response to the great gifts God gives us.

            So, first, what are talents? <accept answers> Right - We think of them as the special area of gifts we each have – for instance, some of us are singers or musicians, some of us, teachers, and some of us are handy with tools and are great at building things.  Others among us are scholars and some are poets and some of us are very creative in visual arts. Some of us are great in math and science, others of us are stronger in writing and history and philosophy.

Some of us have one or two areas of talent while others may seem to be good at doing just about anything we set our minds to – which, I have to say, sometimes seems totally unfair. So, we have talents –gifts we possess, gifts we share, particular areas of strength and skill, knowledge and ability. Excellent! I want you to hang on to thoughts of those talents.

             As we look at this morning’s parable, however, the first thing to know is that the kind of “talent” the gospel story refers to, isn’t what we just described. 

The Greek word that is used here, talenta, actually refers to an amount of money that would be equal to about 15 years’ worth of wages for the average person. Think about it. Even at minimum wage, 15 years’ worth of wages is a lot of money.

In our parable, as the master goes away, he entrusts what is a huge amount of wealth to these hand-picked servants. The parable doesn’t give them names, so let’s just call them Moe, Larry, and Curly.

We know that Moe, Larry and Curly were hand-picked and that the master personally knows something about each of them because the text tells us that he gave to each according to his ability. So, the talents Moe, Larry, and Curly were given were chosen specifically for them, knowing that they each had the capacity to use them wisely.

Curly was given one talent – a pretty hefty chunk of change, right? Larry, got two talents, what would be a life-time’s worth of wages; and finally, oh, my word – five talents would be an obscene amount of gold and silver, but that indeed is what the master gave to Moe.

So, the master goes away and leaves his trusted servants to their own devices. Thankfully, Moe and Larry have pretty decent imaginations…generous, joy-filled imaginations.  They know their master: what he likes, what he expects, how he works; and they have the ability to imagine what might be. When they combine their knowledge of their master with their gifts of imagination, these two servants develop an investment plan.

Perhaps they set off for Wall Street, to look at investment possibilities. Certainly they scour the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, or Investopedia. Maybe they decide to invest in tried-and-true Amazon.com, Google, or Apple stock. They picture what might be and they get right to work, risking all that they have been given, to make it happen.

But poor Curly doesn’t have much imagination. Shovel in hand, dirt on his face, Curly buries that talent deep in the earth. Refusing to even try to picture anything new, he goes for the status quo, digs a hole deep and wide, and hides his master’s money.

So, while Moe and Larry exhibit a kind of joy in receiving the master’s talents and freely use them, invest them and grow them to the pointed of doubling the value of the fortune entrusted to them, it turns out that poor Curly has been held captive by fear (according to his excuses) or by laziness (the master’s assessment).  While he didn’t lose the talents given to him, neither did he appreciate, celebrate, and use them. It seems Curly has difficulty accepting the master’s gift in the first place.

Seeing the abundant treasure as burden rather than gift, he is closed off to the master’s joy. Rather than gleefully applying the gift, even to the point of taking a risk with it and therefore allowing it to grow, he seals it off, buries it deep, and hides it away.

What the master handed over to Moe, Larry and Curly – whether one, two, or five talents – represented an abundance of wealth, clearly within the ability of each to choose well, and to use and grow.

God gives us an abundance of treasures as well, with the expectation that we, too, will responsibly use them and treat them as a wonderful gift, given for our joyful use and investment in the kingdom of God.

How do we receive and use the gifts God has given us? Do we receive them as burden or gift? Do we see them as limitations or possibilities? Might we joyfully accept and use them as the investments that God intends?

Home, families, love, and grace, have all been given into our hands by our beloved Master. Individually and as a community, God has provided us with abundant gifts, including these other talents – the ones we named earlier, to grow God’s kingdom, to make straight the path for Jesus’ return, to bear into the world all of the goodness and generosity of our God, realizing that these talents were never ours to begin with. Rather, they are the gifts of God, to be joyfully treasured, used and grown, and returned to God.

What are you going to do with these gifts of God’s that God is letting you use for a little while? As a community we invest and grow the gifts God has placed on our table when:

·         The hungry are fed, and the homeless are accompanied and housed: look around us, for example, at just a small sampling of the food provided through our continual efforts to share our talents with the hungry.

·         The Kingdom breaks through in materials collected for youth service projects, quilts constructed, as well as our support for the ELCA’s advocacy on behalf of the most vulnerable in our world.

·         God’s will is being done: when forgiveness is extended to loved ones, and when prayers are lifted for others.

·         Generosity abounds as God’s kingdom breaks through in gifts of time and talent shared with lonely seniors of limited income and families struggling to make ends meet, who will receive Thanksgiving meals and Christmas gifts through the generosity of Grace Lutheran Church.

These glimpses of the Kingdom fuel our imagination for what the Kingdom of heaven will be like. And when we can imagine what might be, what will be, we are empowered to use our talents and work now to make this promised future a reality.

The difference between the servants of our parable wasn’t in what they received—it didn’t matter whether they were given five talents or two talents or one talent—what mattered was how they imagined what God might do in, with, and through the gifts they had been given.

The real risk in the story of God’s gift of talents given for our use and investment is the risk that God takes. God knows his servants well; he knows what they can do. 

So, he laid down his possessions, his whole living; he died, as it were, for all of them by giving up control over his life. Will the servants of the Lord squander their gifts? Will we hide them? Will we play it safe, or will we trust that when we use and stretch and invest our talents for the sake of the kingdom of God, God will bless our efforts and make use of them as God sees fit?

God indeed gives generously to us and shares abundantly with us. All that God gives us is ours to use, share and grow wisely, and that is what our gospel lesson this morning talks about - both the abundance of God and our responsibility to respond faithfully to the blessings, talents, and trust that God places in us.

            On this day, as we give God thanks and praise for the abundance of God’s provision for us, for our families, our church and our world, may we, with imagination and joy, come to the table to be fed and nurtured, so that we might be strengthened to share our talents in the world, for the sake of the kingdom of God.  Amen.

Expectations be Damned

Christ the King Sunday 2016

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God the Father and from Jesus Christ our ever-living King. Amen.

            I haven’t written our family Christmas letter yet, nor even thought much about the Christmas cards we still send out each year. But Thanksgiving is coming this week. And that means that Christmas is coming, my friends! Have I gotten your attention yet? And I know without a doubt that at our house we will begin to receive Christmas cards on the day after Thanksgiving, or perhaps the day after that.

I predict that the first Christmas card to arrive as always, will be from a good friend who lives in South Carolina. Ginny is an artist, and over the years hers has always been the first to arrive. The cards we have received from her have evolved from hand-made works to commercially reproduced pieces of hers, usually detailing a scene from the story of Jesus’ birth.

Other cards we receive will include the ones beautifully illustrated with doves proclaiming peace on earth, and cute wild animals preparing to either cavort with snowmen or celebrate the newborn king. There will be peaceful snowy scenes of country churches shining with glittered snow and warmly lighted windows. We might receive a few greetings from Charlie Brown and the Peanuts or from other contemporary Christmas revelers. There will be cards that weigh in toward the more “politically correct” Happy Holidays greetings and those that stubbornly declare that Christ is the reason for the season.

We will receive plenty of cards bearing the traditional fairy-tale scenes of the nativity, with a gorgeous Mary and sweetly smiling and very cleaned-up newborn Jesus.

Then we will receive cards that boldly declare what Christians have always claimed about the divinity of the Christ-child, the Messiah, using descriptions from the Hebrew Scriptures about the expected nature and characteristics of the long-awaited anointed one. You see, these cards and the expectations they express contain the titles we wish to apply to the one we call our king.

It is these expectations that I would like to talk about today, on this Christ the King Sunday.

What were these expectations, and did Jesus fulfill them? The most familiar claims about the nature of the messiah come from Isaiah 9:2-7. This well-known oracle, made even more familiar through the works of Handel’s Messiah, performed by choirs the world over, reflect our expectations for a divine king: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

This oracle, while well-known and claimed by Christians as a reference to Christ, did not actually anticipate or predict the person of Jesus. Written in the eighth century BCE, it was likely used to announce or celebrate the birth of a new royal prince in Jerusalem, perhaps Hezekiah, or even the coronation of the new king: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of peace.

As in any transition in national rule or leadership from the beginning of kingly rule to present-day elections, there was great anticipation and hope for the well-being, peace and prosperity of a nation. Isaiah 9:2-7 anticipates such a change in fortune, a coming of “great light,” to dispel the “darkness” of the imperial exploitation and oppression known by the people of Judah under the governance of the empire of Assyria. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Early Christians transferred this focus on hope, power, might, victory over tyranny, and the coming of promised peace, to Jesus.  They saw verse 6 as containing exactly the kind of characteristics they needed from the Messiah, who they now identify as Jesus Christ, the Son of God: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

In the readings of the scriptures this morning, however, we see a dichotomy form between expectations and reality.

The very first reading we heard reflects the ancient Near East metaphor of king as shepherd – and the promise that the Lord would provide a leader who would restore the justice and righteousness that have been all-but-destroyed by a series of bad kings and rulers who have scattered the flock of the Lord, sending many off into exile, and preventing the remnant from fulfilling their destiny as God’s people. There is a promise here of coming reconciliation, justice, righteousness and peace: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

The reading from Paul to the Colossians raises up characteristics of Christ, who is Lord over all. The images are powerful: reflecting the glory of God, the firstborn of all creation through whom all things came into being, powerful enough to defeat even the death, the one through whom God fully dwells in, with, and among us, reconciling us forever to God.

Once again we see absolute conviction in one who is a wonderful counselor, fully divine, everlasting creator and savior, reconciler to and for all nations. On this Christ the King Sunday as we read these scriptures, we too apply these characteristics to Jesus. These two readings are consistent with our expectations. They fulfill for us our ideal for the kind of king we want, even today: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

But – there always seems to be a “but”, doesn’t there? Then comes this morning’s gospel reading, the one seemingly belonging to Good Friday.  That’s when we expect to hear about Christ on the cross. Not on a Sunday when we proclaim his kingship and majesty.

We quickly go from images like this [Christmas cards] to this [paintings from the Stations of the Cross]. Something isn’t quite right. Something doesn’t fit. There is a huge contrast between the reading of Colossians or the prophecy of Jeremiah and this gospel.

Jeremiah assures us of a righteous Lord who will heal the brokenness of the nation.

This Gospel, however, is what we need to hear. While together these readings create a kind of balance, still, the vulnerability of Christ on the cross troubles us. Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace? How can Jesus be those things for us while hanging, powerless, from the cross? How can Jesus, hanging from the cross, vulnerable, his body broken and humiliated, be for us a King?

We live in a world where people claim for themselves greatness while demonstrating through their actions true poverty of character and justice. We claim that we are the most powerful and virtuous nation in the world, yet we read each day about the angry and desperate acts of so many who feel victimized, rejected, discriminated against, or threatened because of the color of their skin, their ethnicity, their sexual orientation, disability, their gender, age, or religion.

We as Christians frequently claim our own righteousness, and superiority, while at the same time forgetting Christ’s mandate to advocate for and love the weak, the marginalized, the prisoner, the poor, the hungry, and the vulnerable. We make ourselves judge and jury over our neighbors while we ourselves have trouble even seeing past that very large log in our eye.

Such paradox.

Today, however, we celebrate Christ the King who shows us the way to true greatness, who demonstrates his greatness in suffering and in great vulnerability. From the cross, Jesus demonstrates extraordinary power as he embraces our humanity through his suffering, and offers full reconciliation for all sinners. On the cross, Jesus is the fullest expression of human powerlessness while at the same time claims the divine power to forgive sin and bring hope and reconciliation to the powerless.

The power that Christ claims is not for himself. The first criminal derides him:  “save yourself” is a challenge to act in accordance with the world’s expectations – our expectations; it is a challenge to exercise the kind of power every political authority knows best and claims for himself or herself.

The good news for us is that Jesus refuses. The only power Jesus exercises in Luke’s crucifixion account is to forgive sin and invite sinners like the criminals beside him, sinners like us, to embrace the hope and new life of God’s reign. While fully identifying with all those so easily rejected by the world, Jesus embodies the life, hope, and reconciliation desired by God, to bring the whole world into the relationship God desires for all of creation, as only Jesus, the divine King can do.

With his reign, Jesus brings about an entirely different way of being in relationship with one another and with God. It is a way of being that reveals complete vulnerability that breaks down barriers and gives life to those who are suffering and in pain.

Once again, Jesus proves to be not the kind of king we want but the kind of king we need. One born in the most humble of circumstances and settings, not in a glowing, air-brushed beautiful Christmas nativity scene; one not wielding the sword but instead hammering the sword into an instrument to bring food for the hungry; one not embraced by the masses but betrayed into the hands of tempters and torturers; one not sitting upon any earthly throne, but hanging from a cross.

Jesus is the kind of king we need, not feasting to excess while his people languish, but one who feeds us with his own body, given for us, and his own blood, shed for us, for the forgiveness of our sins, and for the promise of resurrected life with him for all of eternity.

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace at the last – our hope, our joy, and the lifeblood of the world.