Sermon for Proper 28, Year A.

The text is Matthew 25:14-30.

Our gospel this morning is Jesus’ parable of the talents. It’s a tricky passage because we easily miss several of the subtle cultural cues when we try to read this ancient Middle Eastern document through modern North American eyes. So, instead of beginning this homily with a witty anecdote, I’d like to dive right into the text and retell the story in a more modern setting that gives us a better sense of the emotional vibe that Jesus is going for in this parable.

Imagine with me, if you will, that you are the main character in a gangster movie. I’m talking about movies like The Godfather, Scarface, and The Sopranos. For the younger people here, who probably haven’t seen those movies, I’d like you to imagine the scenes with Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.

In this movie, you play the role of a working-class immigrant who sold the family farm in Sicily and began a new life in America. Once here, you fell on hard times and found yourself deep in debt to a local mobster. In order to work off this debt, you are now in the employ of this mafia boss. The problem is that, while you are working off your debt, you have to keep borrowing more money to pay the bills. Therefore, you are stuck in a vicious cycle of never-ending debt that will keep you enslaved to this wealthy mobster for the rest of your life.

Late one evening, you get a call from the boss to meet him in a back alley at midnight. Once you get there, the boss’ limousine pulls up. His consigliere gets out, with a toothpick in his mouth and a fedora pulled down over his eyes.

He opens the back door of the limousine and says, “Get in.”

Obeying, you sit down to find yourself face-to-face with your mafia boss. If you’re imagining the old gangster movies, this guy is the Marlon Brando character; if you’re imagining Star Wars, this guy is Jabba the Hutt. He’s rich, powerful, and very corrupt. If you get on his bad side, he’s the kind of guy who could make you disappear, never to be heard from again. In short: this is not a guy you want to mess around with.

He says to you, “Today’s your lucky day, kid. Some shady deals went bad, so I gotta get outta town and lay low for awhile. I’m leaving you in charge of the business while I’m gone and entrusting you with this.”

He picks up a briefcase and opens it. Inside, the briefcase is filled to the brim with neatly bound stacks of hundred dollar bills. This is more money than you’ve ever seen in your life. It would take you more than twenty years, not including your basic living expenses, to earn this much money.

The boss continues, “I’m holding you personally responsible for every penny in this briefcase. If it’s not here when I get back, I’m gonna send the boys around to bust your kneecaps!”

At this point, you have a difficult decision to make. You can’t refuse the money because the boss has decided you will be responsible for it, whether you want it or not. If you use it to run the boss’ loan shark business, and all goes well, you’ll be able to move up in the organization and might even make enough to someday pay off your debts to the boss. If it doesn’t go well, and you lose the money, you’ll find yourself on the bad side of a very dangerous person. The stakes are extremely high.

As a smart person, you decide you’re not taking any chances with this guy’s money, so you take the briefcase down to the bank, rent a safety deposit box, and leave the briefcase there until the boss gets back. You might not make any money but, by playing it safe, at least you know you won’t lose any either. It seems like the best option, given the circumstances.

I’m retelling the story in this way to create some empathy for the third enslaved person in Jesus’ parable. To the original hearers of this parable, it would have sounded and felt very much like a gangster movie. More than that, they might very well know real-life people to whom this had happened. They would not have blamed the third enslaved person one bit for playing it safe and burying the talent. The stakes were unbelievably high.

The question is this: Why does Jesus tell this story as a symbol for how we are going to build the kind of world we want to live in?

Jesus is being intentionally provocative. To his original listeners, this story would have sounded like the exact opposite of the compassion and justice that Jesus had demonstrated and taught about during his earthly ministry. Why then is he telling this story now? That’s the question his listeners would have been asking.

To answer this question, we need to look at the context in which Jesus originally told this parable.

The parable of the talents appears in the last section of Jesus’ final sermon in Matthew’s gospel. This sermon begins in chapter 23, with Jesus calling out the hypocrisy of religious leaders in his culture. It continues with the second section in chapter 24, where Jesus describes, in very apocalyptic terms, how the old social order (i.e. “the way we’ve always done things”) is no longer sustainable and doomed to eventual failure. In this final section, chapter 25, Jesus tells three parables about how we are going to build a new social order to replace the old failed system. Last week, we read the parable of the bridesmaids, which is about being prepared to welcome the new social reality when it comes. Next week, we will hear the parable of the sheep and the goats, which gets into specifics about what this new community will look like. In this new social reality, which Jesus calls “the kingdom of heaven”, the hungry and thirsty will be fed, the naked will be clothed, and the sick and imprisoned will be cared for. This week, we are reading the parable of the talents, which is about taking risks and making the most of what we’ve been given.

Too often in life, we humans sell ourselves short. We mistake our feelings of insecurity for the truth about who we really are. When we look in the mirror, we see ourselves as weak when, in reality, we are strong. We see ourselves as stupid when, in reality, we are smart. We see ourselves as ugly when, in reality, we are beautiful. Many of us develop these inferiority complexes as coping mechanisms for dealing with fear in an uncertain world.

The problem comes when these psychological programs for safety lead us to degrade ourselves to the point where we reject the treasure we’ve been given in ourselves, instead of using those gifts to build the kind of world we want to live in. Like the frightened character in Jesus’ parable, we bury our talent and comfort ourselves with the belief that we can’t fail if we don’t try. To think like this, according to Jesus, is to have already failed.

As human beings, we cannot refuse the reality of our changing circumstances, nor can we refuse the divine treasure that is in us. If we choose to ignore either of these realities, we will only succeed in excluding ourselves from the new world that God is creating through us.

In 13.8 billion years of cosmic history, there has never before existed a person like you. If we are to believe what Scripture teaches, that each unique person is made in the divine image, then you reflect the glory of God in a way that has never been seen before, and never will be again.

Every aspect of who you are, from your ethnicity to your gender identity, to your sexual orientation, to your disabilities, to your upbringing, to your education, to your skills, to your experiences, even to your traumas and your mistakes, all of these are tools that God has given you for the building of a better world.

Jesus called this better “the kingdom of heaven” and it has nothing to do with the afterlife. (If you don’t believe me, just pay attention later in this liturgy, when we say the Lord’s prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”) The kingdom of heaven is Jesus’ vision of the way this world should be, could be, and will be, in God’s time. It is a world where the power of love overcomes the love of power, where the hungry and thirsty are fed, the naked are clothed, and the sick and imprisoned are cared for.

This kingdom of heaven, Jesus’ vision for the world, is the greatest of all the treasures that God has given us. Some of that treasure has been entrusted to you. What is it? Think about your life, and all the unique things that make you who you are. How might you take those specific gifts and use them for the building up of the kingdom of heaven on earth? That’s your homework assignment for this week.

There’s only one rule: You’re not allowed to say, “Nothing,” or, “I’m nobody special.” The plain fact is that, in all of history, there has never before existed anyone like you. You are the unique product of several billion years of evolutionary success and divine creativity. That’s a fact.

(NOTE: Even if you could somehow prove that you aren’t at all special, that fact alone would make you special, because I’ve never met anyone who isn’t special before.)

Don’t bury your talent; dig it up. I want you to take that treasure within you and use it to make a better world than the one we live in today. I want you to hold it high, for all to see, and I want you to sing with me:

This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine!