THE JOY OF THE MASTER

The Rev. J. Donald Waring
Grace Church in New York
The Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
November 13, 2011

He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.” (Matthew 25:24-25)

Today I’m going to begin with a story that purports to be true, even though I’ve heard several different versions of it. Nevertheless, the gist usually goes something like this: A young man had worked hard in college and was about to graduate at the top of his class. His father was a wealthy business tycoon who was a good man, but had often been away during his son’s growing years. True to many of his generation, he was sparing with affection and emotionally reserved. But he had always provided for his family, and he let it be known that he wanted to reward his son upon graduation. What the son wanted more than anything was a new car that he’d seen in a dealership showroom. His father could easily afford it, and he could certainly use it to begin the new life and first job that awaited him. The son began dropping hints that the car would be just the thing to reward his stellar academic career.

Following the graduation ceremony, the father called the son into his library at home. There he presented the new graduate with a beautifully wrapped gift box. The young man opened the box, and discovered inside a fine leather-bound Bible. Waves of disappointment and anger crushed him. This was no car. This was no great gift given his father’s resources. “A Bible?” he shouted. “A Bible is all you can bring yourself to give me?” With that he slammed the partially opened gift on the desk and stormed out of the house, vowing to begin his new life without asking or hoping for anything from his father ever again.

Just a few days later the young man received an urgent message where he was staying. It was from his mother. His father had suffered a massive heart attack and died. Would he come? Of course he did, and during a quiet moment he came upon the Bible, still in its box, still on his father’s desk. This time he opened it, and found inside a note from his father saying how proud he was to have such a fine son, and how much he loved him, even though he didn’t always say so in person. Attached to the note was a car key with a tag on it from the dealer who displayed the car the son had wanted. On the tag the father had written the words Paid in full. Whether true or not, the story illustrates what can be the devastating effects of our failure to recognize and trust love.

Jesus told a parable that makes a similar point. The Parable of the Talents is one of the better known stories of Jesus, even though a case could be made that it’s one of the least understood. The parable is about a certain master who was going away on an extended journey. In the days of Jesus travel was so slow and so risky that anyone embarking on a trip of any length would at best be gone for quite some time, and at worst be gone forever. Therefore, it was customary for people of means to appoint trusted servants and friends as stewards, or caretakers, over their belongings. The master in today’s parable did just that before departing: to one servant he gave five units of money called a talent, to another two talents, to another one talent. As you know, the first two servants took the talents and emulated what they had seen their master doing. They bought and sold in the marketplace. They did business with society, and attached their lives to all sorts and conditions of people through their dealings. As a result, when the master returned, they had each doubled the amount entrusted to them. The master commended each of these servants, saying, “Well done, good and faithful servants. You have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.”

On the other hand, the third servant who received one talent did no business with it at all. Instead he simply buried it in the ground, and upon the master’s return he said, “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid. Here you have what is yours.” Of course, the master was furious with the third servant, calling him wicked and slothful and wrong in his assumptions. What is more, before throwing the third servant into the outer darkness, he took the one talent he had and gave it to the servant who now had ten, saying, “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance.”  The rich will get richer, the master seems to be saying. And here we stumble. We object. This master, who comes off as absentee, arbitrary, and needlessly harsh, gives God a bad reputation. We assume the parable is about stewardship, and that God wants us all to be industrious, successful Christians who know how to wheal and deal and turn a profit with what he has loaned us. Those who do reap rewards upon rewards. Those who don’t lose even the little they have, and get shown the door. These days you will find encampments of people in most major cities objecting to these very economics that the parable seems to be commending. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, even in the kingdom of heaven.

Obviously, I think the parable has a different message. In fact, I don’t think the parable is about money and economics and stewardship at all. We get completely wrong ideas about God when we try to interpret the parable through those lenses. I think the parable is first and foremost about the love, the goodness, and the lavish generosity of God, and how people tend to respond. You may wonder: what is the talent that the master left with his servants? A talent was an enormous sum of money, more than fifteen years wages of a laborer. So the modern day equivalent, based on an hourly wage of ten dollars, would be this: to the first servant the master entrusted $1,560,000, to the second he entrusted $624,000, and to the third he entrusted $312,000. The master in the parable was lavishly generous with all three of the servants. Imagine if someone were to give you more than a quarter of a million dollars to invest! So let’s dispense with any notion that the poor third servant only received one tiny little talent. Nonsense: one tiny little talent was, in fact, a fortune. In like manner, God gives of his fortune to us. God shares the joy of existence. None of us ever had to be, but we are, and are aware of it. We live, and God is the giver. We breathe the air. We think, love, create, laugh, cry, play, and hope. The parable challenges us to realize how much God has given, merely by virtue of our being alive. This is the love of God that we take for granted, or fail to recognize at all.

In the parable, the master gives to each servant according to his ability. I hear the love and goodness of God in this phrase as well. These days we are led to believe that not only can we have it all, but that we can and should have it all at once – and something is wrong with ourselves or the system if we don’t. But the master knows that each of his servants has differing abilities and experience levels to manage resources, so he gives generously to each, but to each what he thinks is right. I once read that the essence of sin is trying to be either more or less than God intends for us to be. Those who try to be more than they are usually get the most notice. Adam and Eve tried to be like God. Certain reality TV stars try to be like gods even though they have no talents. But Jesus seems equally, if not more concerned with people who shrink into a lesser self than God would intend for them, failing to appreciate that one talent can become two, and two can become four. It grieves the heart of God when we bury our talents and spiritual gifts, and choose instead to sit on the sidelines. God wants us to enter into joy, not hide in the shadows.

The love and the goodness of God are also evident in the parable in that the master goes away. Yes, it is ultimately a loving thing for the master to go away, to withdraw. The French philosopher and Christian mystic Simone Weil is famously quoted as saying: Creation was the moment when God ceased to be everything so that we could become something. The master wants the servants to become something. But the only way they can enter into his joy is if he gives them the space and the freedom to do so. The joy of parents is to watch their children grow and mature. But parents also know that they have to withdraw if children are to increase in wisdom and stature. Parents must allow children to fail, to fall, to pick themselves up and try again for growth to occur. Parents have to withdraw, but not forever. A loving parent steps back in, as does the master in the parable. He returns. So too did God in Christ. St. Paul would write, He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?

So it is that I take the Parable of the Talents to be about the love and goodness of God. The parable invites us into the life orientation of the first two servants. They do what they do because they trust the goodness of the master. In twenty-two years of parish ministry, I’ve been blessed again and again by the likes of the first two servants. In every parish I’ve served it’s been my privilege to work with some of the most amazing, creative, and generous people you would ever want to know. They work industriously with whatever they have, trusting in the goodness of God. Conversely, I’ve also met the third servant. The third servant in the parable does what he does because of a different life orientation – one full of fear and suspicion. Third servants claim special knowledge. They know that a vast conspiracy is afoot to take away their church, their school, their nation. Even God is out to bamboozle them. Consequently, they live in a hell of their own choosing. The hardness of God becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and they stand forever outside the joy of their master. It doesn’t have to be so. It’s never too late to turn and begin trusting that God is for us, not against us.

Entering into the joy of the master can look like this. Next door at the rectory we have a 17 ½ year old black cat named Alphie. Alphie was actually mine before I met Stacie. A maintenance man at the first church I served was trying to give away a litter of tiny kittens, so I took two. Alphie came along with her sister Omega (yes, Alpha and Omega). They settled in and began to rule the place, but then others began to arrive. First came Stacie, then two baby boys, soon to be toddlers who loved to squeal and chase the cats and pull their tails. Then Omega fell ill an died, and Alphie grieved, no doubt about it. Then we moved to New York City, and about that time Alphie decided that enough was enough. She became the quintessential scaredy-cat. She buried herself in a warm, dark corner of the rectory basement, and came out only after dark. Had her bowl not been in the kitchen, the boys would have forgotten we had her at all. Stacie and I would often marvel at how much love she missed by allowing fear to rule her life.

Lately we’ve been watching an unexpected, wonderful transformation take place. A few months ago it was 9-year old Luke who began frequently descending to Alphie’s hiding place, to take some food to her, to speak softly to her, to try and coax her out into the light of day. He would sit at the top of the basement steps and call to her. He was persistent, and his persistence cast out her fear. Only recently, Alphie seems to have decided that the voice at the top of the stairs is for her, not against her. Now she brings her frail frame to join us in the kitchen whenever we are there. It’s a sight to behold when her little black head appears at the top of the steps, and she comes creaking into the kitchen to rub against our legs. The hour is late for her; 17 ½ years for a cat is like 90 for a human. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. As for cats, I know of one at least who didn’t get the memo. She has entered into the joy of her masters, and we rejoice to behold her appearing.

As for people, Jesus seems to hold out hope. He hopes that even the third servants of the world will turn and realize that God is for them, not against them. God is persistent through the goodness and love made known to us in creation, through the calling of Israel to be his people, through his word spoken by the prophets, and above all, through Jesus Christ our Lord. He invites us always to begin living life fully and bravely, trusting in the goodness of God, so that he can say to us the words we all long to hear: Well done, good and faithful servants. You have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.

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Some thoughts influence by John Claypool in Stories Jesus Still Tells, McCracken Press, 1993.