"The 'Chance' Behind Every "Change'" Pentecost 25A

Saint Matthew 25:14–30

Change is hard, says the stunningly naive pastor to a congregation who calls a pastor about once every biblical generation or so.  

Change doesn’t come easy when you go 83 years between the installation of Dr. Kretzmann, through Pastor Abrahamson’s, not one but two interim pastors, to where we are on this glorious day.  Change is coming and while there is an air of excitement there is also more than a little anticipation around this place as to what exactly that change will mean, what it will be like, how it will affect us not only as individuals but as a community of faith that we dearly love.  

Change requires more that a little courage.  

You can read all the clergy profiles that come your way and practice the fine art   of discernment until you are blue in the face but it takes courage to turn away from the status quo and move into a new day.

I am reminded of what the late Dr. Lewis Smedes said in the book Genesis: A Living Conversation, about what Sarah’s father might have said when he heard that his son-in-law Abraham had received a call from the LORD to go to some unknown, far-flung land that would eventually be shown to him.  Dr. Smedes imagined Sarah’s dad saying to her, “‘I know you shouldn’t have married that nut.’”1

Psychologists tell us that our brains like being in control.  And no matter how exciting the new opportunity is “change still means moving from the known to the unknown, and [no matter how much discerning you have done] that creates uncertainty and fear. Sometimes that fear is unfounded [as all of us hope and pray it is] sometimes it is not.”2\

Jesus told a story once about the uncertainty and fear to his disciples would experience between his life, death, resurrection, and ascension and his promised return.  We are still living in that time.  Facing a changing world where sometimes things are hard.

Body

This story has lost some of its punch “because of a most unfortunate translation of the Greek talanta. 

A “talent” isn’t a special ability I have, my passion in life or this little light of mine, and it certainly isn’t a mere $100. Jesus wasn’t saying, “Use what is in you, invest what you have for the kingdom.” He was talking about a coin that was the largest denomination of currency in the first-world system. We should translate talanta as “a huge bucket full of solid gold” or “a bank CEO megabonus” or “winning the Ohio Lottery.” Only the muscular could even pick up a talanton, which might weigh 50 or 75 pounds. Each was worth around 6,000 denarii.

This amount would stagger any recipient and send him into utterly uncharted territory.3

 So, to the first slave the man gives control of about one hundred years of wages. The second slave gets the equivalent of forty years’ wages, and the last slave about a year’s worth. So, in the end this isn’t just like leaving the neighborhood kid in charge of the plants and cat food. These are vast sums of money, and with them comes vast responsibility and authority. Jesus says the man entrusts the slaves with it. One translation says he “handed over” his property to them, which means it is implied they are supposed to do something with it. In fact, it sounds like they are supposed to do with the man’s property whatever he would have done with it while he’s away.4

The first two slaves did very well.  They invested wisely and made their master a little dough. In fact, they doubled the guys money! And he rewards them by inviting them to become, in effect, partners.  And who wouldn’t want these two guys as partners?  They believed that, no matter what, there was a bull market out their somewhere and, if there was, they were going to find it.

The third guy has let his fear of losing win the day.  He digs a hole and buries the money.  His fear is based on a total misconception of his master. For whatever reason he thought his master was harsh, unscrupulous, although it’s hard to know why a man who left slaves in charge of so much could ever be thought of as harsh. The master is generous and giving, willing to take enormous risks. And so, if the slaves are to follow the master’s lead, they, too, should be willing to risk.5

 His fear has paralyzed him to the point that he couldn’t even bring himself to bring the money to the bank, buy a CD and at least earn a little interest.  He takes the safest route and comes up more than empty all because he fundamentally misjudged his master.

The master Jesus tells us about it just the opposite.  He invests in the lives of his servants so that they can enter into his joy.  The only thing that held one back is fear of failure, the fear of losing what he had been given and labelled a loser.

Sudden, unexpected, and wonderful change came into his life, and he became so afraid of those changes that he took what he had been given and buried it in the backyard.

Everybody who thinks Jesus is talking about money here will get bogged down at the master’s harsh response.  If this is just about a guy who has been given and huge sum of money and didn’t know what to do with it we will have missed the point.  The punch line of the parable may become only “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer but, in the meantime, in between time, ain’t we got fun.”

Jesus’ huge use of hyperbole has led me to believe that the talenta we have been given is not individual talents and it is certainly not about money it is about something far greater.  This whole business, in fact the whole business of our faith, is about Jesus and his message.  This is about the Gospel.  

That is the biggest and best gift we have been given and it takes more than the 75 of the strongest people at the health club to move it around. It takes all of us!

That is a huge responsibility that can be frightening but is also something that just can’t be left to the professionals, the masters with Masters of Divinity.  It takes all of us.

Now that can be hard.  

What once was accepted, what once was the norm, may now leave your neighbours wondering why your getting a little more dressed up than usual on a Sunday morning to go off to a place called church.  Chances are very low that they will challenge your choice but chances are very high that they will ignore it.  Its just not the thing to do anymore.  But those of us who do it know where the treasure is.

Friends and neighbours might wonder why to people  need twenty-four cans of soup, sixteen loves of bread, and more sandwich fixings than you could possibly eat as they watch you load up your car at Costco.  They may raise their eyebrows even further when they find out its not for you but for the hungry and the homeless and that buying all that stuff and giving it away allows you to enter into the joy of serving Jesus.

People may wonder why the church you go to has bourn the extra burden of having a school for 140 years.  “There are schools all over the place.  Schools you pay for with your tax dollars!  Why burden yourself with another one?” they might say.  And the answer is that at this school, our school, there is an opportunity for the children to meet the treasure that is Jesus.

I could go on and on because there are countless ways that we can put the treasure of the Gospel we have been given to good use and discover that it is what sustains us through all the changes of life.

Before we discern whether the change we are about to make is pleasing to him it might be good, very good, for us to come forward and be gifted by the treasure that is Jesus again that we might rise and then live into the changes of life facing them as Jesus did, bravely, and with confidence that amid all the changing years of life, Jesus, our priceless treasure, will be with us.

Come forth and forward. Led by Jesus let us live everyday as servants “that say loud and clear, with each breath that what is given by [Jesus] is greater and more generous than we could ever imagine…that say with each day that what is given by [Christ] can never be truly lost, but only goes on to more extraordinary adventures.”

Through all the changes of life, some fearful, some glorious, the promise is that Jesus is with us and for that we say, thanks be to God.

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1. Bill D. Moyers, “‘Call and Promise,’” in Genesis: A Living Conversation (New York, NY: Broadway Books, 2002). p. 163

2.     Unattributed, “Emotions in Change: Leadership Success,” Emotions in change | Leadership Success, May 29, 2022, https://www.leadershipsuccess.co/change-management/emotions-in-change.

3. James C Howell, “What Are ‘Talents’? (Matthew 25:14-30),” The Christian Century, November 1, 2005, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2005-11/trojan-horse?code=cJ9T6A8ThE5EFLZwDLoe&utm_source=Christian%2BCentury%2BNewsletter&utm_campaign=444370135b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_SCP_2023-11-13&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-31c915c0b7-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

4. Philip Martin, “‘Parable of the Talents,’” A Sermon for Every Sunday, November 15, 2020, https://www.asermonforeverysunday.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Phillip-Martin-Parable-of-the-Talents-1.pdf.

5. Ibid