Sunday Homily - November 15th, 2020 - Disrupting Routines

The Parable of the Talents stained glass 

Twenty-Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Zephaniah 1:7,12-18

Psalm 90:1-12

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Matthew 25:14-30

I.

The fall season is indeed lengthening,

 the leaves are blanketing the ground,

  and the gentle decent of darkness and night

   has begun to gently stretch and encroach upon

    our daylight hours,

     like it usually does during this season.

This could be seen in the natural cycles of nature outside,

 but it is usually more alarmingly put in our faces

  by Daylight Saving Time

   that arbitrarily messes with our established rhythms of the day.

If I sound frustrated,

 well, it is because one sort of person

  that doesn't understand the time change very well

   nor is happy to adjust their routine without first declaring their uncompromising disagreement

    is the lovely one-year-old whose nap times are completely blown out of whack.

And, therefore, the parents are also somewhat blown out of whack at the same time.

 God bless you parents, grandparents, and foster parents out there!

  Daylight Saving Time is not the holiest of times in this sense!

But something that Daylight Saving Time shows us

 very clearly, in more cases than not,

  is that we have a deeply established routine

   as it comes to our daily rhythm of time.

The completely arbitrary shifting of an hour

 in both fall and spring

  destabilizes our established routines in such a way

   that it can actually be very disturbing on a basic level,

    such as my one-year-old likes to remind us of

     whenever it happens and naptime has been postponed a slight bit too long.

There is a reason why we have rhythm and routine,

 a way to organize our observance of the daylight hours,

  a way of working effectively and efficiently,

   and perhaps more importantly,

    a way to lessen and round off the sharp stresses

     that come with not knowing what we are doing next. 

But disruption of routine,

 while it is uncomfortable on a very deep level, 

  can also be a good thing.

For you who have had to adjust your diet in order to be more healthy,

 disrupting the routine of doing unhealthy things,

  such as eating too much or not getting enough exercise,

   is actually a healthy disruption.

    It is a disruption that doesn't make you very happy at first,

     but, again, it is in fact a necessary disruption to your established routine.

Even something as simple as learning something new,

 a new piece of knowledge or experience of something in a new way 

  that causes you to reevaluate what you had thought before,

   is a deeply unsettling experience.

    And yet, it is sometimes the case when that new thing is allowed to pressure

     or interrogate your understanding,

      it may sometimes turn out that that new things you learned

       leads to a healthy disruption of the ways in which we are conditioned to think,

       or how we routinely live our lives.

Which is why,

 the closer we get to Christ the King Sunday,

  which is next Sunday by the way,

   the more we have a theme of disruption of the regular

    with the inbreaking of the holy,

     the breaking in of the Kingdom of Heaven

      ushered in by Christ Himself.

But, it is helpful as well

 to also allow ourselves to hear the words of Jesus,

  the parables of Christ,

   in a more nuanced fashion

    than perhaps we are so used to

     in the routine hearing of this parable we heard this morning:

      the parable of the talents. 

II.

Because,

 perhaps despite what you might normally expect,

  there are a lot of ways to read a parable.

   In fact, that's the whole point of parables: 

    they have layers of meaning that are meant to play with your imagination.

But this parable that Jesus tells us today

 is, in my opinion, one of those rare parables

  that conveys two different deeply important biblical truths.

   The catch is that the parable has to be read

    in two distinct ways

     to get at those truths.

The first truth is in the more traditional reading of the parable.

The incredibly wealthy man in the parable

 leaves investments with his servants

  and entrusts them with this unfathomable amount of money

   to grow his investments while he travels out of country.

The one with the most money makes twice as much.

 The one with the second-most money does the same.

  But the one given the least amount of money

   does the safest but also the most financially useless thing you can do with the money

    which is to go a bury it.

And of course, the rich man comes back

 and rewards the good and faithful servants

  for using what they were given wisely.

   But for the other servant,

    who criticizes the rich man,

     that servant is cast into outer darkness.

What can be brought out of this traditional reading

 is the truth that the rich man, who symbolizes God,

  entrusts us with gifts according to our abilities.

   And that those gifts are to be used in a useful fashion,

    to bring about the increase of God's treasure in heaven,

     such as the spiritual gifts of love, joy, peace, patience, and the like

      as referenced in Paul's letter to the Galatians.

However, to not exercise the free gifts given of God,

 and to bury them in the dirt,

  is unbecoming of a grateful servant of God,

   and rather is unbecoming of God's rich grace given.

The truth is that we have been given gifts and are entrusted with using them

 for the good of the Church and the world,

  the building up of each other in faith.

   And indeed, this is a good truth to reflect upon.

But there is a second truth that is present,

 and it has to do with a very different reading of the parable

  that is, in fact, no less biblically sound that the first reading.

   And it all hinges on the latter half of the story

   and the reasoning that the servant with one talent gives

    for why they buried the money.

Notice with me the specific charges that the servant

 brings against the wealthy man:

  

"Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours."

But even more importantly, listen closely to this wealthy man's response:

 

"You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents."

Now, a couple of really important notes:

First of all, 

 this wealthy man did not refute 

  nor even try to contest the charge

   of taking what was not his.

    

In fact, his response is similar to that of a complicated businessman

 who has had one of his employees

  find out that he had been lining his pockets

   with illegal revenue.

    "Ah, so you knew, did you, that I reap where I don't sow

      and gather where I didn't scatter?"

But, secondly, notice the suggestion

 that the wealthy man makes to this servant:

  "...you ought to have invested my money with the bankers,

   and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest."

This suggestion is hugely problematic for this wealthy man to make

 because this suggestion is potentially a violation 

  of an explicit command in the Law of Moses:

   "Do not charge a fellow Israelite interest, 

    whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest." (Deut. 23:19)

  

[note from the preacher: the presence or absence of the sin of usury (charging interest) is contested by interpreters in this passage. However, one must make interpretive decisions as to whom one believes to be more supported by the evidence. 

While it is true that in the Law of Moses, Israelites were permitted to charge interest to non-Israelites, both 1) Jesus's immediate audience and 2) the incredible amount of money given even in 1 talent that may have been accumulated by illegal means, and 3) the context of the wealthy man leaving his servants in the country in which he resides while he himself goes out, these three points suggest that the bankers in which this wealthy man had a relationship would have exercised a real possibility of breaking the commandment about interest in Deut. 23:19)]

 

Not only is this wealthy man not contesting 

 that his wealth may have certainly come from illegal sources,

  but he is also suggesting that this servant invest with bankers

   that would have been breaking the commandments of the Law!

In other words, when Jesus tells this parable,

 Jesus's character of the wealthy man in this story 

  might not in fact be a stand in for God.

Instead, Jesus's parable can equally carry the second truth

 that we as followers of Jesus

  will be faced with making incredibly difficult decisions in our lives

   that involve the direct naming and turning away

    from participating or committing evil,

     even if that naming and revealing of evil

      costs us our financial stability,

       our jobs,

        or even our very lives. 

In this second reading of the parable,

 the third servant is in fact the righteous servant

  that has chosen to follow the will of God in the Law

   rather than be a participant in evil

    in which "those who have much, more will be given them"

     while "those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away."

This second truth is the bare-faced and uncomfortable truth

 that we might, at various points in time,

  actually be called to disrupt the routine of evil.

   And disrupting that routine

    is not something that evil really likes to have done to it,

     and likewise, we may have to pay the price

      for the sake of the Love of God

       and the Love of our neighbor.

In this second reading,

 the wealthy man is in fact a corrupt man,

  in which his servants continually grow his wealth by crooked means.

   The servants are in fact those who have been given the choice

    to continue to grow the wealthy man's power

     while they themselves are given gifts for their services,

      or to make the choice of the third servant 

       who alone challenges the evil dealings of illegal revenue 

        and oppression of the poor.

       

And yet this righteous third servant

 is in fact the one who pays the price.

III.

So, you might be wondering in your minds,

 "Well, these readings are so different,

  which one is the one that is correct?

   Which reading is how we should read this parable?"

Well, the simple answer that I want to suggest is this: 

 both are how we should read this parable. 

You see, the point of parable

 especially the parables of Jesus that aren't immediately explained by Jesus Himself

  are actually meant to have multiple layers to them.

Parables are meant to have multiple meanings

 and even have a multi-faceted way of being employed.

And one of the reasons that this particular parable is so special

 is that both of the truths within the readings of this parable in its biblical context

  are, in fact, Jesus saying two equally true things

   and yet doing it in two very ways.

It is indeed true 

 that God has given gifts to us,

  the servants of God

   for the good of the development and sustaining and building up

    of the Church,

     in deep service of God and neighbor,

      and we are most certainly not called to disdain or bury the gifts given

       because our gifts are given for the sake of the other,

        and not for us to hoard for ourselves.

And it is equally true

 that we are called to confront and hold up a mirror

  to those powers in the world

   that actively go against the Word of God

    even if that means you do it alone

     and even if that means that you literally lose everything.

      Because a stronger theme in the Gospels is that if anyone desires to follow Jesus,

       we must deny ourselves,

        take up our literal death to our selves,

         and follow Him, 

          and to become utterly disruptive to the easy routines in the world

           that bend their function to evil 

            and not in service to God.

Both of these truths are contained this parable.

  And the truths are indeed borne out

   and lived out most explicitly

    in Jesus's own sacrifice on the cross

     unyielding to the corruption of the Ruler of this world

      and rising again on the third day

       in fulfillment of God's ultimate victory 

        over sin, death, the Devil, and hell.

Tied intimately to both of these truths

 is what we are called to do in response to them.

We are meant to channel the gifts we are given

 for the glory of God,

  the love of our neighbor

   and for the common good.

Likewise, we are meant to stand against evil when we see it,

 even if that evil may seem to have a terrifying amount of power over you,

  because Jesus also calls us not to fear those who may kill the body

   but then after that can do nothing to you,

    because you who are in Christ will be raised up again

     and no power of the world can ever change that truth.

Go, friends,

 in the name of Christ

  who utterly disrupts our routines for our own good.

And never be afraid to use your gifts for the sake of the other,

 and to challenge evil in the name of Christ whenever you must.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.