Treasures in the Dark II
Today’s scripture from Matthew occurs in the final week of Jesus’ life. He is in Jerusalem and has faced rising tension from the Pharisees trying to have him arrested. He spends these final days talking about the kingdom to come. Listen now for God’s word from Matthew 25:14-30
14 “Again, here is what the kingdom of heaven will be like. A man was going on a journey. He sent for his slaves and put them in charge of his money. 15 He gave five bags of gold to one. He gave two bags to another. And he gave one bag to the third. The man gave each slave the amount of money he knew the slave could take care of. Then he went on his journey. 16 The slave who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work. He earned five bags more. 17 The one with the two bags of gold earned two more. 18 But the man who had received one bag went and dug a hole in the ground. He hid his master’s money in it.
19 “After a long time the master of those slaves returned. He wanted to collect all the money they had earned. 20 The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you trusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have earned five more.’
21 “His master replied, ‘You have done well, good and faithful slave! You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
22 “The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you trusted me with two bags of gold. See, I have earned two more.’
23 “His master replied, ‘You have done well, good and faithful slave! You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
24 “Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man. You harvest where you have not planted. You gather crops where you have not scattered seed. 25 So I was afraid. I went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’
26 “His master replied, ‘You evil, lazy slave! So you knew that I harvest where I have not planted? You knew that I gather crops where I have not scattered seed? 27 Well then, you should have put my money in the bank. When I returned, I would have received it back with interest.’
28 “Then his master commanded the other slaves, ‘Take the bag of gold from him. Give it to the one who has ten bags. 29 Everyone who has will be given more. They will have more than enough. And what about anyone who doesn’t have? Even what they have will be taken away from them. 30 Throw that worthless slave outside. There in the darkness, people will weep and grind their teeth.’
How do you respond to anxiety?– fight, flee, freeze.
My response tends to be risk averse - more like the timid mouse. On a vacation several years ago, my family kayaked on the coast of Kuaui. Assured that we weren’t going out of the bay, I slowly got used to the rhythm of the waves and began to navigate my boat. Luckily we were well past the shark nursing grounds before our guide felt moved to tell us about that! The amazing beauty surrounded us as we ventured down an offshoot – up a river into the tropics. My eyes could barely soak it all in – the many shades of lush green wilds around us. The sounds of nature gently moving us to stop our chatter and listen as the birds spoke. The amazing smells of vibrant flowers melded with the salty tang of the waters we floated upon. At our destination, we dragged the boats ashore and hiked along an old abandoned roadway. We ended at a hidden oasis with a crashing waterfall. As we peeled off layers to our swimsuits, we ventured into frigid waters off the natural spring. The native guide seemed to be a part of the landscape fitting into the rugged terrain and knowing the dangers and gifts of nature all around. He gave us the option of climbing up the rock cliff to jump through the falls into nature’s pool. I quickly shook my head, thinking – NO WAY! - and manned the camera as my family scaled the rock wall and jumped together. And then, I thought – this chance will never come again. What exactly am I afraid of? What am I missing because I am scared? Annoying the guide who thought we were almost ready to move on, I rushed through the bitter, icy water to be the last to slowly inch my way up jagged rocks and along the narrow slick ledge - and grinning like a true idiot – smiled with my kids behind the beautiful rushing waterfall – relishing the moment. And jumped.
Fear is a common theme in the bible – humans across the ages have experienced this emotion. The servant who buries his talent is hugely afraid of what the master will do when he returns. Instead of considering options and making a choice that might make the master happy, the slave is driven by fear. Fear is THE most frequently appearing topics in the Bible. ‘Fear Not’ appears in some form in the Bible a little over 365 times. Repeated themes and words in the Bible warrant our attention. Much as this parable might seem to brush aside the third slaves fear, God understands human fear. What might this parable be saying to us?
Today’s parable has been interpreted in many different ways, but the main one is how to use our resources wisely for God. You know I won’t let you off that easily, especially with a Matthew parable - if you consider it further, that doesn’t line up with the parable without a bit of a stretch. Would God really be the vengeful landlord who multiplied the fortunes of those who were willing to extort the weak? A literal translation of interest from investments is actually usury and would have been illegal from the perspective of Jewish law. What happened to the first shall be last and the last shall be first? What happened to encouraging us to love our neighbor and to give all that we have? That seems to fly in the face of today’s parable. Another line of interpretation says that Jesus is the third slave and that the representation is what humans would mess up if it were up to us and our ideas building the kingdom. The rich get richer and the poor go by the wayside with corrupt, power-hungry systems.
Or, as with the oil in the lamps last week, maybe we are interpreting ‘talents’ incorrectly. Could the talents represent grace, hope, faith? Following one of those paths too closely makes me start to wonder things like why one slave gets more grace and question how this can so seem to contradict the early teaching of Jesus in the beatitudes.
A historic interpretation reminds us that in Judaism, there is no concept of individual but that the parable instead applies to the whole. The third slave is Israel that has not recognized Jesus as the messiah, has not spread God’s love and hope in waiting for the messiah but will now miss out on the joy. When we struggle with parables, the interpretations flow forth. They just keep coming - you could find more.
Rather than upsetting all my colleagues in ministry by getting too deep into picking apart a parable that is used so often as a good stewardship support, let’s look at what else it holds for us. As a business student and with a father who made a living in the investment industry, the investment side of this story is just seems common sense to me. We are to use our talents and money wisely. But this would have been a crazy big amount of money. One talent would have been 20 years’ wages – 6000 denarii where one is a day’s pay.
So, I hope that, if I were to give you this sum of money, you are a little fearful and cautious of what to do with it for me. Brokers and investment advisers aside, it probably makes the rest of us a little queasy to be in charge of that much money for someone else – like investing in futures or commodities with someone else’s entire retirement or education savings– I can feel the knot building in the bottom of my stomach - fearful of safeguarding their life’s savings.
Fear is something we are familiar with and each of my paths lead me back to that paralysis felt by the third slave. Anne Lamott describes each of our struggles well. She describes the fights each of us face daily as the elephants that we are dancing with. And she says that rather than being constantly afraid we get up and keep dancing. And one day, that elephant will be tired, it will give up.
What Matthew’s parable is really about is how do we create the Kingdom of God in our midst today. It is a call to awareness – seeing God in the unexpected places and not letting the least among us be shut out, abused and ignored. How do we overcome the fear or feeling of insignificance? Of powerlessness – to get about the business of creating the kingdom. Don’t be controlled by fear.
That seems easier said than done these days. We aren’t in a place today where the fears are of waterfalls or even always external things. Our fears today seem larger. What we can control has reduced and unseen forces impacting us have seemed to loom large. Our anxiety quickly overwhelms us as we think of the risk of earning a living, going to a restaurant, coming to worship together, voting, or taking the next breath. The darkness seems to be menacing and all pervasive – not at all a palette for God but comes at us carrying all of the imagery and nuance of evil, injustice and wrong.
Remember the sabbath imagery from last week. God commands us to observe the sabbath – resting and setting aside work in favor of taking joy in relationship with one another and with God. A sabbath that can be the bride of God, the darkness that we welcome anew that begins everything. God is in the darkness too, if we pause to see, if we set aside our preconceived notions and break free of our fear. Look again to the traditions of our Jewish brothers and sisters. The Havdalah ceremony marks the end of shabbat and begins each week. They look for three stars in the sky, recite blessings over wine and spices – rejoicing in their senses. Some even try to prolong the last bit of the sabbath time holding it a bit longer, waiting after the stars have appeared.
This is our faith too – part of it we don’t see as often. Equating dark with fear and separating that as something not of God. Listen to the words from Isaiah 45:
Thus says the Lord to his anointed…. 2I will go before you and level the mountains, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron, 3I will give you the treasures of darkness and riches hidden in secret places, so that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name….5I am the Lord…. 7I form light and create darkness..
David Lose ponders with this parable if it isn’t a case of getting what we imagine, a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we imagine a God who punishes those who don’t follow rules, we create a legalistic religion. If we see a punishing God, we will see that in the world around us, yet Lose says, if we see a loving God of abundant grace, we will see that too. I think this carries over into the Kingdom of Heaven.
If we see it as a traditional kingdom, we erroneously look for traditional powers, rulers and reward systems. We accept the platitudes of sharing the light and forget that God can’t be bound by our limitations. God imagines and brings us a kingdom beyond what we can create – a kingdom all encompassing with beauty to be seen in least suspected places.
What you see is what you get – a darkness stifling, shutting down, like evil smoke choking the life out of us – or a vast canvas of God opening up time to pause, time to appreciate grace and see, truly see the abundance of blessings given to us, creatures so tiny and miniscule in the grand scheme that God loves us, even and especially us.
A kingdom with comfort to be found even or especially where not looked for – many of you have heard a different travel story of overcoming fear:
Music director Lane went scuba diving earlier this month. Not just your average dive though – he was working on the certification for dive master to become an instructor. The week presented many challenges with a few days of cancellations and larger than normal waves due to the remnants of hurricane weather. However, one of the dives stands out to him more than the others. He and a partner jumped off into the waters, and the challenge was to share one oxygen tank and breathing apparatus. As they sank, it seemed to be going well until their feet hit the bottom of the cove they were diving in. The bottom was covered in dark mossy, black silt. As their fins touched down, the silt lifted up quickly blocking out all vision – surrounding them in darkness.
He found his partner and doing everything by touch shared the air with him then it was his turn without the air. Panic began to set in as the need for a breath grew. His partner would not let him alone in the darkness, working by touch he reached out a hand to Lane’s shoulder. Slowing him down, helping him realize the darkness was not abandonment, not death. Holding him calmly with a reassuring touch – he was there.
God’s kingdom comes bit by bit when we allow it to break into our now in ways and places not looked for. Faith and Leadership is publication out of Duke University that I get each week – they acknowledged that things are really, really, really hard right now, but they wondered if God is showing us again how to thrive. In stress and fear isn’t this another reformation moment? Who are we becoming? What are we growing God’s kingdom in our fear? They encourage us to reorient ourselves to be curious as a way of loving the world and being in love with what God is doing.
Chaplain Olin Williams of Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma reminds us that darkness comes from God and even when the fear feels ingrained, part of our nature – a very reflex for self-preservation – rather than run, we remember God speaks to us in the darkness. Olin says, “It is in the darkness of our lives that we find a close and intimate relationship with God…. God is waiting for you to come to Him and find refuge.”
According to Psalm 18, God parted the heavens and came down: and darkness was under his feet.… He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the sky.”
When we feel like gnashing our teeth in fear of outer darkness or lonely and abandoned in inner darkness of separation from God – pause, unclench your fists, center your body, take a deep breath in, let go of your fear. Each and every one of us are a beloved child of God, turn instinct on its ear and feel God’ hand on your shoulder, whispering in your ear – I am here with you always, yes even here. Remember - NOTHING, nothing can separate us from God – a God that is the very darkness holding us, slowing us down in a vast shalom – even shutting us outside in the dark so we see God’s creative wonder. So we turn to God’s ways and not our ways and welcome God in with faith, hope and love. Trust that God is by our side – Fear Not. Amen.
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