Based on Matt. 25:14-30
The Parable of the talents is a very familiar one – perhaps
one of the best known or most often repeated parables in scripture. It’s told
again in Luke 9, where it’s not just a rich man but a king who entrusts his
servants with his wealth to invest according to their judgment. If you’re like
me & you grew up in the church or you’ve been going to church a long time,
you’ve heard many a sermon on this passage encouraging their congregations to
invest their time, talent and treasure wisely in one way or another. You may
also have heard this passage in sermons around stewardship season, encouraging
you to contribute generously and invest in the stewardship of the church, so
that the good works here at St. Phillips and other churches near and far may
continue to grow and strengthen for many generations to come. And while Fr.
Wilson and I certainly do encourage you to give generously to this wonderful
church, and that is indeed part of the lesson that we can draw from this
parable, it’s not the whole story.
Now if, perhaps you are new to this parable or new to the
church, this is a fascinating story with simple but powerful imagery, if a
little bit disturbing in the end.
Here in Matthew, the
placement of this story is significant. It’s preceded as we heard last week by
the parable of the ten bridesmaids as we heard last week, which is all about
how the well-prepared bridesmaids steward their resources of oil while the
ill-prepared bridesmaids are left literally locked out when the bridegroom
(Christ himself) arrives. And then the section from Matthew 25 which follows
this is even more famous than this one, and it’s of course Jesus’s ubiquitous
statement “I was a stranger and you welcomed me… when you did it unto the least
of these you did it unto me”.
So here we find that this parable of the talents – this
lesson about how we steward and take care of the resources God gives us - is
situated among two very important lessons that teach us something about today’s
parable too. It’s not just about taking care of material resources, but it’s
intimately connected both with being prepared to meet God at the unexpected
moments of God’s arrival among us and it’s about taking care of the poorest,
neediest, most struggling and the ‘least of these’ in God’s kingdom.
Now, whenever I read this parable, the line that always gets
me, that sticks in my craw so to speak, is this line near the end of the
reading:
For to all those who
have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who
have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
Isn’t that the opposite of what God would want? Isn’t this
the same God who pledges to uplift those who have nothing and who abhors greed
and hoarding of material possessions? Isn’t this after all the same God who
just a few lines later will insist on giving to the least of these? Then
how would this God, in what seems to be an act of downright cruelty, take the
small pittance from the one who had the least to begin with and give it to the
one who had the most already and now has even more? Imagine for a moment, the
young teenage mothers from places like Ghana and Guatemala whom I have had the
privilege to serve in my ministry, or refugees from Iraq or Afghanistan, some
of whom I’ve gotten to know personally who survived some of the worst
atrocities humans can levy on one another. Think of the neediest in your own
communities the most downtrodden persons you have ever met and think of what it
must sound like to hear such a phrase:
For to all those who
have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who
have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
How in the world could that be? How could the God we love
ever say such a thing?
That was the question I always struggled with, for years and
years until I realized that it what we’re talking about here isn’t that God is
taking from the poor and giving to the rich, but that this is about what we do
with OUR TALENTS – our skills and
abilities, our knowledge and capacities with which God has blessed us.
I’m incredibly grateful to the New Living Translation which
actually draws this out much better than our own translation here. There it
says:
To those who use
well what they are given, even more will be given, and they will have an
abundance. But from those who do nothing, even what little they have
will be taken away.
So it isn’t about the rich vs the poor, the have’s vs the
have-not’s, but it’s about that we DO with whatever it is that we have. It’s
about whether we will use well
the gifts which we have been given and whether we will invest those talents –
those skills and abilities and the knowledge we have – into the work of growing
the Kingdom of God. And yet when we do not use our talents well, they wither on
the vine, and they atrophy and die. Think of those skills which you never
practice or those muscles you never engage. Think of those things which perhaps
you could do well many years ago but you haven’t tried in a long time. It’s
like fruit that goes uneaten and grows mold in a few days. Or as one who’s been
to the gym only once in the last few months, it’s like the abs and biceps I
used to have but are now long gone!
As was in the introduction, I am proud to serve a church
called Church of the Advent in Cincinnati, in a neighborhood called Walnut
Hills just a few minutes from the heart of Downtown Cincinnati. Most Sundays
we’re home to about 50 hardy and Christ-loving souls, which for me is by far
the smallest parish I’ve had the good pleasure to serve. But while Advent may
be small, we are small but mighty! While I know lots of other Cincinnati
churches of many stripes and types are busy on Sundays but sit empty much of
the week, Advent is not one of them! Almost every day of the week, our beloved
1860’s edifice is filled with God’s people, some who have very little money or
none at all and some who have much more. We’re among the most racially diverse
Episcopal churches in our city, and we have an extraordinarily committed base
of active laypeople, a majority of whom live within just a few blocks of our
church.
Our beloved parish proudly hosts Open Door Ministries – a
program going strong for 40 years which provides a food pantry 5 days a week
and hot meals 3 days a week. We host one of the city’s few church-based payee
programs, helping those suffering from addictions, disabilities or mental
illnesses to ensure that their bills are paid consistently to prevent them from
falling into homelessness. We host a monthly clothing drive in conjunction with
a local Presbyterian Church and another large food pantry each month together
with another area congregation.
Needless to say I am extremely proud of all these ministries
inside our building, but I’m at least equally proud of what we do outside of
our church in the neighborhood of Walnut Hills. Just in the last few months,
Advent has joined with other Episcopal ministries to support local Latino &
immigrant ministries, provide hurricane relief in Texas, to protest in favor of
the rights of migrants and to meet at our US Senator’s office to advocate for
fair housing policy. And Church of the Advent is a founding member of the
Walnut Hills Faith Alliance, a quickly growing group of now almost 10 local
congregations of all different denominations, working together every single
month to put on events and provide for the needs of children and families in
our community. From throwing neighborhood parties for children to celebrate
Easter, the 4th of July, Halloween and others, to providing
backpacks, hygiene products and coats for neighborhood schoolchildren, to
planning a summer reading program next year at no cost to neighborhood parents,
we are investing deeply in the children and families of our neighborhood!
Just last weekend as we hosted Diocesan convention, and
delegates were invited to attend dinner in the neighborhood, visiting local
churches and ministries around Cincinnati. We at Advent were extraordinarily
privileged to host two of your own from right here at St. Phillips, along with
a hefty contingent from Trinity Columbus as well. But we didn’t just have
dinner for us delegates, we hosted a community dinner as we do each month, open
to the poor and the needy in our neighborhood, as well as several homeless
families and children from Interfaith Hospitality Network who were spending
that week sleeping over at our church. If you don’t believe me you can ask the
delegates from St. Phillips about their experience at Advent, but I can tell
you, they got to experience a little bit of the ways we invest every day, using
our talents for the people of our community.
I’m not saying all this just to brag about my church, although
I am extremely proud of all that we do. I’m saying this to tell you one thing:
That you can do the same and even more in the name of Christ. Although this is
my first time here, I have heard for years about this wonderful congregation
and your important place in the neighborhood of Near East. I have heard about
your commitment to urban ministry and to the people of this community. And so I
hope you will join with me, dear friends, fellow Episcopalians and most
importantly lovers of Christ, in using our talents well.
AMEN
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