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St. George's Episcopal Church Roseburg, Oregon The Twenty-Sixth Sunday After Pentecost, Proper 28A 13 November 2005 Go To St. George's Home Page

Judges 4:1-7
Psalm 123:1-4
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30
The Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 74 th General Convention of the ECUSA

“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ (Matthew 25:14-30)

Talanta Anyone?
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop, Rector

     In Matthew’s Gospel, the biographical information pertaining to Jesus is very good. Matthew’s tells us there were exactly forty-two generations from Abraham to Jesus. He tells us a lot of details about Jesus’ birth. Things like his mother being a virgin, and the subsequent hurried trip to Egypt to avoid the genocide of King Herod. But Jesus’ resume was a little sparse in the “education and training” category.

     When his father, Joseph returned to Israel from Egypt, he settled the family in Nazareth. There is no account in Matthew’s Gospel of Jesus’ training or education. We can infer that he knew the scriptures by his sparring with the Pharisees and Scribes, but we do not know how he became learned. Luke’s Gospel provides a little more information.

     Luke gives us another account of Jesus’ genealogy, and also tells us that Jesus spent some time when he was twelve years-old “sitting among the teachers” in the Temple “asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understand and his answers” (Lk 2:46-47). But nowhere is there any record of Jesus’ graduation from Shalom Israel Middle School or Jerusalem High. But again, Luke tells us that Jesus must have been schooled in Rabbinical studies in that when he went to the synagogue in Nazareth, he was handed a scroll and apparently quickly found a particular passage from the prophet Isaiah (Lk 4:17-21). The scrolls he would have used did not have headings for books, chapters, or verse numbers. He had to know the material in order to quickly find what he was looking for.

     But the one thing all of the gospel accounts agree upon is that Jesus had a grasp of one of the most effective teaching tools available at the time: parables. Clarence Jordan once said that parables were like the “Trojan horse. You let it in and Bam! – they gotcha.”[1]

     Sometimes the “gotcha” part is clear. It rings with a kind of truth that we all get; our heads bob in unison. “Yeah, I know just what he means.”

     But that’s not the case today.

     In today’s story, there is a very rich CEO – about as wealthy as Bill Gates. He decided to take a world cruise. He summons his most faithful assistants. They’ve heard he’s leaving and he’s going to be for a long time.

     As they come in, he motions them to line up in front of his big desk. He then presses the intercom and asks for the wheel barrows to be brought in. “Wheel barrows?” they think.

     In comes the first row of wheelbarrows carrying about $1,500,000 of cash.[2] That’s a lot of cash. But the “talents” Jesus referred to were talanta (Greek). A single talanton of silver weighed in the neighborhood of 50 or 75 pounds, worth about 6,000 denarii. That is more than I will earn in the next 25 years of my ministry or more than 20 of those flasks of pure nard used by Mary to anoint the feet of Jesus.[3]

     The CEO says to the assistant, “Take care of this for me while I’m gone.” “But what do you want me to do with it?” But the CEO doesn’t answer.

     The second assistant gets his wheel barrow parade, and it represents $600,000. Again the instructions are to take care of it.

     Finally the third assistant receives his wheel barrows of $300,000. “Take care of this for me,” the CEO says.

     Speechless, they look around at the room full of wheelbarrows with stacks and stacks of cash (sounds like a pretty pleasant sight, doesn’t it?). Adrenaline pumps through their veins. They look at each other and begin to strategize. What are the implications of their assignments? What will he do when he comes back? How do we get this cash into the elevator and out of the building? What do we do?

     Time passes. Months then years. Finally the CEO returns. Having modernized things around the company, the first assistant whips out his PDA and shows the CEO the latest download from the First Bank of Talanta. :Sir, here is your money, and an additional $1,500,000 that I earned with it.” “Well done!” the CEO exclaims. “I’m going to give you even more!”

     The second assistant stepped forward and reported that she had doubled the $600,000 she had been given. “Great job! I’ll give you even more!”

     The third assistant came up and said, “Sir, I don’t have any tally sheet to show you. I put the $300,000 in a vault in my basement at home, and I have guarded it day and night. But today, I brought it with me,” and he points to the wheel barrows behind him. “Here, you can have back what is yours.”

     Now here comes the zinger of the parable. The CEO is furious. “You worthless assistant! You knew I was tough! I built this company with my sweat and my brains! I demanded hard work of myself, and I demand it of my employees! Now let me show you how though I can be! You should have at least put my money in the bank or bought a CD with it. You could have earned a couple of percentage points. But, nooo, you put it in the basement. Take that money and give it to the one with the $3 million. Then clean out your desk, and be gone by noon. You’re finished! And when you leave, go out of the building by way of the dark basement. We don’t want people seeing you here.”

     Yeowzza! That stings! That sounds like a bad news story of judgment and condemnation. So what was so bad about holding the $300,000? At least he didn’t lose money! Why is the master so furious? What did Jesus mean?

     This parable is all about the kingdom of God (verse 25:1). Jesus is describing something almost inconceivable to his listeners. Remember most of Jesus’ listeners are poor people. Jesus says the kingdom of God will be like [blank] and then he fills in that blank with a story. In this story the kingdom is like what? It is like more money than you can imagine! Think of Jesus hearers imagining in their heads what they would do with one talent of silver, let alone two or five. A Mediterranean laborer wouldn’t have any more idea how to invest five talanta than a homeless person would know about investing $75 million. Jesus used an absolutely huge hyperbole to symbolize the breadth and wealth of the Kingdom.

     And at the beginning of the parable there is a key word that tells us something about stewardship of this kingdom. He says, “It is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them”.

     The talanta were not a gift, but property. Now this is something all listeners can understand, whether they are first century Jews, or twenty-first century Episcopalians. Property is an extension of the property owner and it needs to be managed in accordance with the principles of the property owner. Bushes need to be pruned, fences repaired, walls painted, vines trimmed, and grapes harvested. There is work to be done. Jesus is talking about God’s property, and that property is being entrusted to God’s people. And with that conveyance of property comes responsibility to manage it with at least the same kind of care that the property owner would give. The CEO in this story is a tough one: He reaps where he does not sow, and he gathers where he did not scatter.

     I imagine the listeners of this story when it was first told, nodding until the verse when the third slave buried his talanton in the ground. Then their mouths dropped open in astonishment. They knew that the slave was in trouble, because they knew he didn’t get it. He shirked his responsibility to the property owner. He chose to do nothing.

     Whether we look at the Kingdom as a thing or as spiritual blessing, the parable teaches us the same lesson: With the granting of the Kingdom, or the bestowing of grace, we have a responsibility to manage and care for what we have received. There is a certain risk involved: we accept the responsibility or we don’t.

     Things would never be the same for any of these three servants. The first two will be incredibly wealthy. The third who was cast out might even die on the streets.

     Churches – including St. George’s – are like these servants. The world out there is changing. This is not 1950 or 1975. It is a different mission field. We have to learn – and we are learning – how to manage our church to better the Kingdom of God right here in Roseburg. We understand that we have to take risks. Churches that bury their gifts and do not expand their ministries will die. Churches that multiply their ministries – like we have done here – will be given greater opportunities to grow. About a year ago our Sunday attendance was up 17% over what is was the year before. Today, it is up 33% over what it was last year. That’s growth, and it is something to be proud of.

     One thing about risk is that we don’t know how things will turn out. Meeting someone and developing a relationship with them is a risk. Sometimes the relationship grows, sometimes it stagnates, and sometimes it withers. But the relationship we establish with each other and with our community will grow as long as we are willing to take risks and invest time and effort in the process. At St. George’s let’s keep looking around to find our gifts and the opportunities God has placed before us in our little part of the Kingdom.

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Judges 4:1-7

The Israelites again did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, after Ehud died. So the LORD sold them into the hand ofKing Jabin of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor; the commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-ha-goiim. Then the Israelites cried out to the LORD for help; for he had nine hundred chariots of iron, and had oppressed the Israelites cruelly twenty years. At that time Deborah, a prophetess, wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel. She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the Israelites came up to her for judgment. She sent and summoned Barak son of Abinoam from Kedesh in Naphtali, and said to him, “The LORD, the God of Israel, commands you, ‘Go, take position at Mount Tabor, bringing ten thousand from the tribe of Naphtali and the tribe of Zebulun. I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin’s army, to meet you by the Wadi Kishon with his chariots and his troops; and I will give him into your hand.’”

Psalm 123:1-4

1 To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!

2 As the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
as the eyes of a maid
to the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes look to the LORD our God,
until he has mercy upon us.

3 Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.

4 Our soul has had more than its fill
of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud.

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and there will be no escape! But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.

Matthew 25:14-30

“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

The Collect of the Day

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

[1] James Howell. “Trojan Horse.” The Christian Century. 122(22): 19, November 1, 2005.
[2] Rebecca H. Grothe, Executive Director. “Opening the Gift of Risk.” The Clergy Journal.81(8):48, 2005.
[3] A talent was equivalent to 15 years’ wages of a laborer (NRSV).

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Copyright © 2005, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
10 November 2005

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