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An Entrustment Matthew 25:14 – 30; Psalm 123 “In a certain village the school bell rang at 8:30 am to call the children to class. The boys and girls left their homes and toys reluctantly, creeping like snails into the school, not late but not a second early. The bell rang again at 3:30 pm releasing the children to homes and toys, to which they rushed at the very moment of the tolling of the bell. This is how it was every day with every child except one. She came early to help the teacher prepare the room and materials for the day. She stayed late to help the teacher clean the board, dust erasers, and put away materials. And during the day she sat close to the teacher, all eyes and ears for the lessons being taught. One day when noise and inattention were worse than usual, the teacher called the class to order. Pointing to the little girl in the front row, the teacher said, “Why can you not be as she is? She comes early to help, she stays late to help, and all day she is attentive and courteous.” “It isn’t fair to ask us to be as she is,” said one boy from the rear of the room. “Why?” “Because she has an advantage,” he replied. “I don’t understand. What is her advantage?” asked the puzzled teacher. “She is an orphan,” he almost whispered as he sat down.” (Fred Craddock, Craddock Series, Mike Graces and Richard F. Ward, eds. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001, p.16.) Interesting way to understand advantage?! Seems like the classmate thought the child with no parental strings, nothing to tie her to others, no attachments was more able to produce in the way the teacher desired. To follow this thought further: to be the best we possibly can be, it is to our advantage if we are not attached to something or someone else. The question then: what is tying us down? What attachments do we have that are preventing us from being the best we could be? What relationships, what strings inhibit us from being all that we might be? Another story is that of Mother Angelique Arnauld, the mother superior of a 17th century women’s religious order in France. She tried to reform what had become a very relaxed order of nuns. Asking her nuns to willingly give up all of the little luxuries with which their indulgent families had surrounded them, she warned them that the intercessory power of the cloister’s life of prayer would remain weak until all had fully complied. The reform seemed to be completed, but the power was clearly still absent. Then one afternoon one of the sisters pressed a secret garden key into the hand of Mother Angelique, and then the surge of power entered the group. (D. Steere. Dimensions of Prayer. Nashville: Upper Room Books. 1962. P. 37.) What is it that holds us back from the fullness of life, the abundance of power, the greatest possibilities that are available to us? This morning’s passage from Matthew presents this dilemma in a fairly clear and disturbing way. The parable begins with the picture of a very generous master. In fact, this is typical Jesus hyperbole — exaggeration — ridiculous so the listeners would surely perk up their ears. A master has given his servants (or stewards as I like to refer to them) 5 talents, 2 talents and 1 talent. The word ‘talent’ has been lost to us through cultural and language interpretation. For Jesus and his time it meant 38 years of wages. This period of accumulating wealth — 38 years — is about what most college graduates work full time. So, if someone earned an average of $30,000 per year for their working years, a talent would be more than $1 million. That’s what the third steward received — more than one million dollars. The second steward received more than $2 million. The first steward received more than $5 million. Now, Jesus had the attention of his listeners! Indeed, this was a VERY gracious master. We can resonate with this kind of generosity, even if we have never been the recipients of it. The ending of the story, however, turns sour, and paints the picture of a ruthless master. Frankly, most of us would find the story morally unacceptable. Just because the one steward did not multiply the gift, but, instead, chose a fear-filled and no risk option of burying the money, he was thrown into a place of darkness where “there will weeping and gnashing of teeth” — hell, for all purposes. What is Jesus trying to teach us? What was it about this third person that did not jive with faithful living? The third steward was clinging tightly to something that did not allow him the abundant living of the other two. He was so fully wrapped that he could not, as the story says, “enter the joy of the master.” He was stuck, attached, inhibited. That attachment was to his own fear. He claimed it was the fear of his master — “I knew you reaped where you did not sow, and gathered where you did not seed” — but, in reality, this one was so tied to his fear of life that he could not risk the possibility of what could happen, what would happen when the gift was used the way it was intended. What might be some of those fears?
All of these, real, live fears. But back to Jesus’ story. If we try to determine what Jesus deems important by the number of times he refers to various subjects, money would be the headliner. Money 2000 years ago and today is tied with our values: the value we place on our time; the value we place on our involvements; and the value we place in our commitments. Jesus knew that by talking about money, he would capture people’s attention and help them understand the issues of faith in terms of their deepest values and their deepest fears. We do with our money what we do with the rest of our lives. When we are wrapped in so much fear that we cannot live the abundance that God has given us, when we are tied to a fear that will not allow us to experience the joy that God wants for us, when we are shackled to a fear that will not allow us to love and risk and indulge in the great gifts that have been showered over us, then we will be thrown into the outer darkness where weeping and gnashing of teeth is the way of existence. The sadder reality, however, is that we will not know the joy of God, we will not experience the love that is intended within this abundant life, we will not share in the glory that was given when we were called into being. Yes, we will have an advantage when we are orphaned from all that ties us to a prescribed existence. Yes, we will experience the possibility and fullness of power when we give away the key to past indulgences or riches. And, yes, we will live in the light and glory of God when we release ourselves from whatever fear binds us from accepting the gift of life that is given us day after day after day. God has entrusted us with everything we need for abundance. God believes in us so much that we will be good stewards of that entrustment. May we live, may we thrive, and may we risk all that we have so we will know the joy of the one who has given us all. SW |
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