Proper 28A , 2017

Proper 28A

November 19, 2017

You wicked and lazy servant.  Harsh words. Those are not words we’d imagine coming out of Jesus’ mouth. Ever. Even as he’s telling a story about what that day will be like. It’s startling isn’t it?  Except it really shouldn’t be.  At this time of the church year, we have these stark, almost harsh, readings.  Last week, the Gospel talked about the 5 foolish bridesmaids who were unprepared when the bridegroom came, and they were shut out of the wedding banquet. I do not know you, said the lord of the banquet.  Today, we have the master calling one of the servants wicked and lazy, and sending him out in to the outer darkness where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth. And as a preview for next week, we have more cheery stories from Matthew, where the son of man comes in glory, and separates the sheep from the goats, and the goats he sends to the eternal fire prepared for the devil. 

And the following week, after this trio of doom, we start Advent, with the incarnational coming of Christ.  It’s jarring, and unexpected, and seems wrong. And there’s a reason it’s set up like this. 

I struggle with this harshness.  I don’t like thinking God will ever do this.  But clearly, this run of judgment and end-time parables are designed to make absolutely sure we understand that there is a judgment, and ultimately, there is a right answer, when we meet Christ. 

A little about today’s lesson.  We’ve got the master who leaves for an extended time, and leaves three slaves in charge of money – a lot of money. It’s estimated that a talent was about 15 years’ worth of wages, so even the slave who received only one talent received a lot, with the other two slaves thirty or seventy-five years of wages.  A lot of money, to be sure.  

Two of the slaves traded, and basically doubled the master’s money.  The third slave, “knowing the master was a harsh man”, buried the money, so he could without risk, return the full amount of the money to the master. 

One obvious lesson to hear from this is that we are freely given gifts of money and skills, and that we should not bury them but rather grow them for God. So don’t bury your gifts and money. Don’t think about these “talents” as a scarce resource to be hoarded, but rather share them from a place of abundance.

So why did the third slave bury the money?  What did he do that warranted being sent away to a place with weeping and gnashing of teeth?

The first two slaves have a sense of trust and faith in their master that shows itself in their willingness to take risk with the money, without fear of reproach.  They have a sense of purposeful and abundant abandon, when sharing the “talents”. It his this faith and trust in the abundance of the master, and the resulting actions of the first two slaves that makes them “good and trustworthy”.  They are deemed good and trustworthy, because their actions clearly indicate a trust in their master. 

The third slave has a marked different impression and understanding of the master, and that perception affects how he behaves, how he stewards the talents.  He’s fearful of the master, and he definitely doesn’t trust the master, and as a result, he doesn’t grow the talents given. He hides them, protects them. But in that protection, he’s also not sharing or leveraging those talents.  His condemnation from the master, I believe, stems from his lack of trust and faith in the goodness of the master, and his resulting actions. 

I believe this story about talents is asking us to trust in God so that we can share God’s gifts, whether time, talent or treasure, with purposeful, and abundant abandon.  And I believe that the ultimate judgment we face is most frightening because of our actions, or inactions, then from God’s.  If we turn away from God’s abundant and faithful love and mercy, we willingly walk right into that outer darkness, rather than being sent there. It’s that choice we make that lands us where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. 

So back to this concept of judgment, and eschatology. That’s a great word, eschatology. It means the end times, when God’s kingdom comes, and that’s what these readings before Advent are all about, God's kingdom coming. And in Advent, we prepare for God coming into our lives in the incarnate Jesus. 

My greatest challenge with these readings, these end time stories, is that I’m pretty literal and linear. I don’t really understand, in my head, the concept of the end times, of when we meet Christ face to face again. So let me try to put it in some context that works for me, and is supported in our faith and in scripture.

This idea of the day of the Lord, or the end times, or when we meet Christ can be seen as three distinct moments. 

The first is that at some point in the future, Christ will return to Earth. In several places, scripture says the son of man will come in or on the clouds. Weekly, we say, “he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead”.  Clearly, at that time in the future, there is a sense of Christ’s presence and judgment.  Some call this the last judgment. It’s a point in time in the future, maybe something I’ll experience and maybe not. And given where I am in this living world, I can only believe or trust that this moment of meeting Christ will happen, and judgment occurs.  Because I don’t know when it will happen, I don’t know how to prepare. The reading from Thessalonians speaks to this point. “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night”.  We are encouraged to keep awake! 

The second understanding is that we will meet Christ face to face at the moment when we die. At commemorations for the dead, we pray, “For us faithful people, life is changed, not ended”.  Some call this the particular judgment.  Having recently sat with my father-in-law as he died, I absolutely believe his life was changed and not ended, and he had some sort of personal account with God, at his death.  It’s a point in time in the future, but something I’ll absolutely experience. And given where I am in this living world, I can only believe or trust that this moment of meeting Christ happens, and judgment occurs. I don’t know when that moment will occur, but I know that it will.  It’s still hard to prepare.

The final understanding is more imminent and more earthly.  We pray weekly, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven”.  And in our baptismal covenant, we commit to seek and serve Christ in all people. In this final understanding of meeting Christ and judgment, we meet Christ in others in our daily world, dozens of times each day.  This understanding of meeting Christ, I absolutely understand, and will encounter.

Just as in the final judgment at the end of time and at the time of our death, we are judged in these encounters, in our daily world. In next week’s Gospel we hear Christ say, when I was hungry you gave me food, when I was a stranger, you welcomed me.  But when did I see you hungry, or the stranger?  Just as you did it to the least of those who are my family, you did it for me. 

We meet Christ.  We are judged.   Every day.  Eschatology. 

I cannot know about what will happen when you or I die. What we’ll see, or what that judgment moment looks like. I cannot know about Christ’s eventual return to Earth. But I do know about meeting the stranger, the hungry, the poor, the prisoner. But I do know how to serve Christ every day.  I know how to help bring thy kingdom come.  To be clear, I’m not suggesting that I do it successfully all the time, but it’s not foreign, or distant, or unknown.  I do firmly believe Christ is in others, and that daily, I am called to seek and serve that holy Christ in all others.

If I live like that, with ultimate trust in God, and seeking to serve Christ every day, striving to make thy kingdom come, I have a better chance of being judged as a good and faithful servant, both today, and at the ultimate end. 

This is how I think we prepare for that judgment.  In today’s encounters, because ultimately, our life is nothing but a collection of individual days lived, people loved, and Christ served.

Amen.