Talents

Talents Nov. 19, 2017

 

Our scripture readings for the next few weeks are about the end times when the world as we know it will cease and Christians believe the Lord will come in glory to judge the living and the dead. In that last day - whether it be the last day of the world as we know it, or our own last day -  the voice of God proclaims his vindication . On some level we all seek vindication. We love to be able to say “I told you so.” But as we grow in God’s spirit we learn that it is God who will say, “I told you so.”  And we will, in truth, say, “Yes, you did.”  In that last day we will not plead our own good works, we will plead not our own merits, but we will plead Jesus Christ.  That is the truth of the Christian faith, both Catholic and Reformation - not us but Christ.

Zephaniah proclaimed God’s message 600 years before Christ. In his day as in ours some were complacent and said in their hearts, “The Lord will not do good, nor will he do harm.”  We are always tempted to live as practical atheists, without reference to God in what we say, think, and do.  We are as tempted as were the people to whom Zephaniah preached to put our trust in our wealth. But as the prophet reminds us, “Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them.”

Zephaniah lived in a time of political turmoil. Judah was an Assyrian client state on the border of an increasingly powerful Egypt. Assyria had exiled the people of Israel and besieged Jerusalem just 55 years before Zephaniah wrote.  For the people who remained in Judah destruction was a living memory. We have recently seen in Houston and in Puerto Rico that God sends rain on the just and the unjust, that both rich and poor can be flooded out and we suffer together.

Most of us are fortunate. We have worked hard and used the talents God has given us. We will go home to a warm house. We’ll have plenty of food for Thanksgiving and for the week. When we get sick we will be able to pay for medical advice and treatment and drugs. We may not have all we want, but generally we have much of what we need.

Jesus’ parable of the talents encourages us to make the best of what we have. A talent was a measure of weight. Talents of gold and silver were worth many years’ income. We are not told how long the owner was away, but it was long enough for the talents that were put to use to double. In a time before paper money, inflation, and the Federal Reserve, even the servant who buried the money could have made the interest. A modern savings account would have lost value. But the servant who buried the talent suffered from bad theology.   He understood the master as “a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid,” When people encounter God, their normal first reaction is fear, but from Abraham in Genesis 15 to Moses in Exodus 3 to the Blessed Virgin Mary in St. Luke 1, God’s first word to us is, “Fear not!”

The commentaries tell us Luther drew the distinction between servile fear and filial fear. Servile fear is the fear of consequences. A mild example is how I watch my speed on Rt. 221 from Marion – 55, 50, 45, 35, sometimes reasonable, sometimes not, but I don’t want a ticket, and I don’t want to be delayed on the way.  Filial fear is the respect we have for those in spiritual or parental authority. I help with Rotary Youth Exchange, bringing 10^th and 11^th grade students from Europe, Latin America, and southeast Asia to study for a year here and sending American students abroad. We drill them in the 5D’s – forbidden behaviors – Don’t Drink, Drug, Drive, Date Exclusively, and Don’t Do Anything Dumb Your Mother Wouldn’t Approve Of – filial fear.

The one talent servant had servile fear of the master, and that fear paralyzed him. God’s love in Jesus Christ sets us free from servile rear.  And the mutual love and respect among the persons of God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – is both an example of the love and respect we are to have for God and for one another, and also the power of the Holy Spirit working I us to make that love and respect possible.   

St. Paul reminds us that the end is near. He draws an analogy with pregnancy. We who have children know something of those last few weeks of discomfort. Our granddaughters, for medical reasons, were delivered by Cesarean section. Our daughter Sarah knew the day and the hour. In St. Paul’s time, and for much of human history, mothers and fathers knew only approximately when the time of labor was to begin.

In the meantime we are called to live in preparation -  awake and sober, as people who belong to the day, in faith and love, with the hope of salvation, encouraging one another and building up one another – as St. Paul says, “as indeed you are doing.”   

When the world as we know it comes to an end and the Lord comes in glory to judge God will say, “I told you so.”  And we will plead not our own merits, but we will plead Jesus Christ. Amen.