Sunday, 19 November 2023: Zephaniah 1:7, 12–18, 1 Thessalonians 5:1–11 & Matthew 25:14–30
When he was Archbishop, Rowan Williams spent a day at Canary Wharf meeting with CEOs in the midst of the financial crisis of 2008. In that context he observed that there had been a preoccupation with maximising profit without building trust or relationships and without taking time, as he put it, ‘for enterprises to come to fruition’.
He observed that: ‘that double problem; lack of relationship and the telescoping of the time taken had produced the unreal, destructive world of speculation which has so wrecked the lives of so many, including many of the most needy and vulnerable in our society and across the world.’
His observations lead us into thinking about the parable that Jesus tells to some of his closest disciples as recounted by Matthew. But perhaps, as the scholar Amy Jill Levine suggests, we might consider what parables do rather than what they mean.
Jesus tells us stories which stretch our imaginations and invite us think more deeply about God’s ways with the world and our place in it.
On the one hand, it might be possible to hear this parable as a comment on good and bad economics. Two servants trade with what they’ve been given - accepting the trust placed in them to build relationships and to take risks over time.
The other servant buries what he’s been given - he’s fearful rather than trusting; he conserves what he has, but in isolation and secrecy. Part of his response is driven by how he imagines his master - he alone describes him as harsh rather than generous.
There are limits with an economic line of imagining in this parable: the risk of seeking God working through those with money, assets, abilities, strengths; those who can take the risk of a gamble, who can count the cost of loss, who have the security to dare experimentation and growth.
A talent wasn’t cash used day by day, but more akin to gold bullion: wealth and security which amounted to 20 year’s of a labourer’s wage. Twenty times the London Living Wage would be over half a million.
But what is the master really giving his servants? Running through the gospels is the promise that God gives us something more precious than a lottery win - that is love. This is a love which creates, restores and sustains us. Such love is an invitation to relationship; a love that casts our fear; that creates trust. It changes us and our life. If we let it.
And perhaps that is the crux of the matter: if we’ve been given this extraordinary gift what happens if we bury it?
Imagine that physical act of taking what is most precious and digging deep into the earth, placing it there; then spadeful by spadeful shovelling the soil over it until it disappears from sight. And then walking away. Leaving it hidden in an unknown and unmarked place. No one else knows about it.
Buried.
Love.
But strangely that is what happens to God’s love poured out in Jesus.
The love flowing from God’s very self choosing to dwell with us, risking everything for us.
At this point in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus has taught about the kingdom of God - through the lens of the beatitudes, attitudes of blessing in the pursuit of peace and mercy. He has brought healing and wholeness to young and old, influential and marginalised.
He has told his disciples that he must suffer and die; and has sent them out in pairs to share the good news of repentance and forgiveness. He crosses thresholds and breaks boundaries. He has fed multitudes on the hillside, debated with those in authority, cast traders out of the temple and told stories.
Stories about the nature of God’s grace and mercy; stories about a kingdom which is begins like the smallest of seeds growing into a tree offering sanctuary for birds; stories which stretch imaginations and reveal new ways of being.
And now, as the plot against him thickens, and fear and betrayal fill the air, he tells another story about the risk and cost and abundance of this love.
For in his body this gift of Godself will be lowered from the cross to the grave; entombed in the earth, and hidden.
And some will think that that is the end. But like the buried grain, a green blade rises and life is seen again.
We are entrusted with this gift of life and love - so that it can multiply in relationship, with trust and generosity and sacrifice and forgiveness.
This is the seed of a new and transformed humanity: yes, it can also feel like hard work; but the alternative is worse, we risk losing everything.
As Jesus says elsewhere, if you hang on to life, you will lose it; if you let go of it, you gain everything.
To give love away overtime and in relationships might be a struggle we’d prefer to avoid or bury; but to invest in it is to share in the Spirit led work of humanising the world around us.
Challenging those who limit dignity and blessing, or who dismiss falling through the net of our fragile social fabric as a "life-style choice”. Strengthening households, friendships and families; playing our part in changing systems; offering what we have to bring glimmers of comfort, inspiration, purpose; taking time for our enterprises in justice and kindness to come to fruition.
To build relationships where conflict can be transformed, joys are shared, burdens are carried, hope is renewed.
To love as God has loved us: faithfully, even in small things.
That means being alert, keeping awake as Paul reminds the Thessalonians: because we, like them, never know when the day of the Lord will come with dazzling brightness.
In this waiting, we don’t fearfully bury the gift given to us. Instead we are to go about our lives expecting to see Jesus in the familiar and in the unexpected places.
In this waiting, we are to keep alert: responding the cries and the longings, the suffering and the stuff that brings joy.
We are called to this even more so when the world is in distress: the words of Zephaniah paint a picture of anguish, ruin, devastation, gloom and anger; of places laid waste, generations lost, homes abandoned and material resources plundered.
This is the outer darkness of mistrust, fear and love buried so deep tears no no end.
Yet, somehow we are to encourage one another. When all seems lost, we are to build each other up; to keep the rumour, the possibility, the hope of a new humanity alive.
To refuse to bury love with fear. To do the handwork of giving life and love away instead. No wonder Paul resorts to the language of breastplate and helmet for a spiritual struggle played out in acts of kindness, solidarity, advocacy and service.
Live in faith, hope and love, he says: trusting that salvation will be revealed, that time when God will be all in all, all our hungers met, brokenness forgiven, creation restored; trusting that in that moment of judgment we’ll be surprised by those who’ve been Christ for us; those in whom Christ as been revealed to us; and those who’ve served Christ with us.
In worrying less about what today’s parable means, we can trust that it does something in us: reminding us that as we give away in love, fear subsides; that in going to the margins, salvation breaks in.
Our trust in the one who lives, dies and lives again is renewed as we share in blessing and bread. Gathering around our Lord’s table, we say everyone has a place here, even when we disagree; but as Bishop Sarah reminded Synod last week, to gather around this table also takes us to the edge; we continue to invite others to eat with us. She said: 'if that means that I need to sit outside with the powerless, the marginalised, the lost, then that is where I will sit and I am certain that I will encounter Christ there.'
© Julie Gittoes 2023
