Proper 28, Year A: November 19, 2017

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Randy Greve, OHC
Proper 28 - Sunday, November 19, 2017


To hear the sermon in its fullness click here.

Br. Randy Greve

It is his fault. He knew what the master expected. He knew that one day his master would return and demand an accounting. No hole could ever be deep enough to bury his dread. He thought he could get away with it, but the day of reckoning has come – and he is found out. The master has a business to run. He has no time for idle workers. No use for the unmotivated, for anyone who is not as excited about making money as the master. Off the team, out on the street, out of sight, invisible – loser, no good, worthless… worthless. Actually, the master has had a good day. Two out three is not so bad. And those two doubled their money – 100% profit! Mr. Worthless can be replaced soon enough. The master, he has people lining up to work for him. 

He has the best business model in town – a guaranteed formula for growth. He gets his employees so energized and motivated to win, win, and win. Mr. Worthless is not good for public relations – gives the company a bad image. If the master keeps him, people will talk. Besides, the risk is too big, that is why he only got one talent in the first place. He was afraid of this happening. Forget about him. He is outside. He does not exist. Mr. Worthless will have a long time to reflect on his failure. The master did what had to be done. 

The wicked and lazy will never learn – it's how they are. Better to be on the side of the hard-working, rule-following citizens. So look on the bright side – a net profit of six talents! Time to party! We have enough capital to expand the business now, branch out into more territory, and gobble up the weak and the small - become big. The master is on the inside for good. No sadness on the inside – no pain, just joy. Yes, joy all around, joy all the time. Joy, joy, joy. But remember – it is his joy – all from him and for him. Cross him and he is just as likely to throw you out, too. He has to be careful. The competition, the undesirables, the jealous and bitter like Mr. Worthless will come at him now. He needs better security, taller walls. Yes, build a wall!  Are his slaves, I mean employees, really loyal? What if there is a spy among his ranks? 

He will find them; throw them into the darkness alongside Mr. Worthless. The revenge is sweet. The look on their faces when they are grabbed by the throat when the door slams in front of them. They dare not anger the master. Can you believe that?  Calling the master crooked!  He deserves what he got. Let him rot out there in the darkness all alone, with nothing and no one. He brought it upon himself. 

Not everything that Jesus says in the gospels is Jesus speaking as himself. At times he will use the voice of a character, as I just did in speaking as a supporter of the master in the parable. Jesus is not above a bit of hyperbole, irony, or spoof to make a point. In his original Aramaic, this figure of speech is a comparison from lesser to greater. We hear this when Jesus says things like "if you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things…"  Or the unjust judge who grants the widow's request because she keeps at him. The rhetorical sense is "if even those who are evil recognize faithfulness and reward achievement which is fading away, how much more will your heavenly Father, who loves you inside and out, give you the blessings of the kingdom which never fade away. If the wicked can throw a good party, imagine what the heavenly banquet will be like!

Sadly, most commentaries and interpreters assume that the master is Jesus and the slaves are disciples and the return is the second coming. I say "sadly" because Jesus as the master here is a serious problem. If Jesus is the master, we have to contend with him in his own voice calling the talent-burying slave "worthless". This kind of entitlement exegesis can reinforce a distorted image of God as one who rewards the successful and damns failure, which is not the gospel. 

The parable itself does not require the classic interpretation. On its face, the parable tells of a rich man who entrusts large sums of money to slaves and returns to get an accounting and who rewards or punishes based on performance. My minority reading interprets the parable as a spoof of empire. Empire in this context meaning whatever attitudes, customs, or structures of power designed to preserve the status quo of the powerful. Theologically, an empire is the opposite of the kingdom of which Jesus speaks. Spiritually, empire blinds, empire builds walls, rots the soul, hardens the heart.

Let's set the stage:  Jesus is in the temple area in Jerusalem. It is Wednesday of Holy Week. Matthew has had Jesus enter into these days with a polemic against the abusive and hypocritical religious system of many of the Pharisees and other leaders. Jesus' theme is that the judgment coming will not weigh you on your religious performance or your collusion with the occupying Romans for political status, but the judgment is about your compassion and mercy and the justice that defends and cares for the most vulnerable – precisely those kicked out of the community of the temple - in other words, the judgment is on the basis of what it means to be God's people in the first place. Jesus co-opts the rhetoric of empire, which in his immediate context is Rome and Rome's supporters, and paints the picture of a backward, mirror image nightmare kingdom in this parable. 

If the reward of empire is nothing more but the approval of a brutal and capricious master, maybe it is not as great as you thought. The Pharisees and the other leaders who have cozied up to Rome and thus have been neglecting the poor, harming their souls and betraying the command to love God, will find that the pot at the end of the rainbow is empty, they have been played, Rome will win as Rome always wins and turn on them just as quickly as it has on all those who have resisted it. When you stop producing for Rome, an end will surely come in the destruction of Jerusalem in just a few decades – wake up and get off the road to ruin. 

Jesus' intent is to take his hearers and us to the end of ourselves. In 12-step recovery, this is called "hitting bottom" when the addiction has become so destructive and its delusions so undeniable that the choice is often as stark as "will I live or die?" Jesus' mission is to make that question heard. Jesus is about the kingdom of heaven, the path of life, it is his constant theme. But in order for the kingdom of heaven to be something we can receive and desire, we have to be taken all the way to the bottom of the kingdom of empire. We have to gaze into the abyss of hopelessness in order to wake up to wanting to live. If we say "yes" to Jesus, we have to be just as emphatic about that to which we are now saying "no". His critique is "if you go all out for this life, sell your soul for money and pleasure and security what do you get in the end?"  What's the payoff?  Do you really want to be judged solely on your ability to produce?

Not until he rips the mask off the delusion of all that we think will make us happy, not until he takes us to the end of all of our programs for ultimate satisfaction on our own, can the kingdom of heaven be the answer to our hearts deepest desire and need. Although even as Christians we are people of empire more than we want to see, what we really want, deep down, is more than that. In the parable, the system is rigged to make the slaves prove their worthiness. The first two slaves do just that. They get status and power, they have their reward. Jesus, however, says your infinite worth has been a gift the whole time. 

The last slave, who at first reading seems to be the loser, is actually the hero. The worst thing you could do within a domination system is made yourself an enemy of the system. This fellow is not playing that game. He functions as Jesus himself – shining the light of truth on the tyrant's behavior, daring to say what he has done, tell him who he really is. All the talk of systems and power comes down to a person. The parable begs the question – is the one cast out into the darkness really worthless?  Do I let that label stand?

If he is a precious brother made in the image and likeness of God, then we are seeing with kingdom eyes, we are seeing a brother in whom Christ dwells. What the empire sees as the place of rejection and abandonment, as the last place God would care about, much less visit, Jesus transforms into the place where encounter and hope are born. Next Sunday, Christ the King Sunday, we will hear the charge to care for the needy. The focus will shift from what is to what could be. So the label cannot stand. We must recognize the worth of all, especially those on the outside.

The outcast becomes my ultimate concern. That he is outside is unacceptable. Empire always defines itself by who belongs outside. The master's joy is fleeting and illusory. The kingdom of heaven is made known by the lengths to which its subjects go to provide care and to invite, by who is welcomed in. The true party begins when we have the courage to stand up and say "no", when the lost sheep is found, when the wayward son returns, when the unclean are healed, when the hungry fed, when the sinful outcasts embraced, when the sick made whole, when the outer darkness is empty. Amen.