Parable of the Talents: looking for God's presence
Matthew 35: 14-30; 1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11
Advent Sunday is just two weeks away. Soon, if it hasn’t happened to you already, someone will ask you “are you ready for Christmas?”. Try not to panic.
Being ready might mean buying presents, sending cards, thinking about food, preparing for guests; or it might mean wondering how we’re going to get through all the tinsel and jollity around us, without feeling lonely and sad. But those sorts of being ready seem to depend entirely on us.
Advent, traditionally, is a way of getting ready – not just by counting down the days on a calendar – but by spending some time thinking about how our hearts and minds can be ready to celebrate God with us in Jesus Christ. And the good news is that it is not entirely dependent on us – much of our getting ready to welcome the presence of God into our world involves being attuned to the ways in which God is already present.
Those who chose the lectionary readings are helping us to prepare, even before Advent starts, with some very puzzling parables in Matthew’s gospel.
Last week we looked at the parable of the wise and foolish girls, needing oil in their lamps as they wait for the bridegroom.
On Remembrance Sunday, we used the parable to help us think about how we can wait and be ready for peace to come.
This week we have the parable of the talents – which we’ll look at it a moment. And next week we will be hearing the story of the last judgement and the separation of the people like sheep and goats.
These could seem like gloomy parables about the end of life and the coming of fiery judgment, but I think all these parables can be ways of helping us get ready for Advent, to ‘get our eye in’ if you like, for signs of God’s presence with us, ahead of our celebrations on December 25th.
“Getting your eye in” is something that sports people talk about: practicing at, for example, putting a golf ball until you get used to the distance and the conditions. But we might all have experienced ‘getting our eye in’ in other ways.
For example, in the yacht club in Dale one summer they had a huge glass jar, in which they asked people to place ‘sea glass’ collected from the beach. At first the shore seemed to be covered in just sand, pebbles, shells and weed.. but after a while as you looked you started to see the occasional piece of sea glass, and as you ‘got your eye in’ you saw more and more. Once you knew what you were looking for, concentrated, and kept at it, you started to notice what previously you had overlooked.
This is true for something hard to spot like sea glass and I think it’s true for signs of God with us, too.
So what can the parable of the talents show us or help us think about when we’re looking for God’s presence?
We probably know the story well, and at some point in our lives- because the word used for an amount of silver is ‘talent’ – we will have been told that this story teaches us that we had better used the talents God has given us, and not leave them mouldering away, because God will judge us for how well we use what he has given us.
But.. do we really believe that God will judge us harshly for being unsure of ourselves, or shy, or frightened of getting it wrong? Isn’t that sort of reading of the story just likely to make us more frightened of getting it wrong?
In any case, the third slave – the one who buries the talent – doesn’t have much to say about how he felt about his task of caring for the talent.
He has much more to say about the master – and what he says surely doesn’t match with thinking about the master in the story as being like God, at all..
‘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.’
Perhaps we are used to the idea that in any parable the King or the Master is God – but surely not here. If we’re looking for signs of God’s presence in this story we’d better look elsewhere. The master doesn’t deny that he is harsh and unscrupulous and unkind – in fact he is just that in the way he treats the third slave.
So what are we meant to think about the parable ? and where do we see God at work?
There is a way of reading and hearing the story which makes this third slave the hero.
The first two slaves don’t question their master and his unscrupulous dealings. In fact, they join him in making money – doubling the money he gives them in ways that may be just as unkind as the ways he makes money himself – and the master is pleased with their efforts.
But the third slave stands up to his master, refuses to have anything to do with his money – certainly doesn’t make more money for this unkind man, and when the master returns, despite his fear, the third slave tells him exactly what he thinks of him.
He gets the sack for what he says and what he’s done – but he has acted with integrity in the face of dodgy business practice.
Surely we see God at work here, when someone stands up for what is right, against injustice..
And might we also see God at work fighting against unkindness, promoting honesty, proclaiming the values of the kingdom…
Can we get our eye in to notice these things, as Advent begins and prepares us for Christmas? When we know how to look, we might see people who are working to bring goodness to others, speaking out against what is wrong, sharing hope and peace.
The good news is that God is already with us – we don’t have to wait until December 25th.
And there’s even more good news - we’re not in this alone: spotting signs of God with us is a task for the whole church.
In Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, he is dealing with the question of the presence of God, for the early church. They know Jesus has been on earth, with his disciples, and that he died and was raised.
Many of the disciples saw the risen Christ, and then he ascended back into heaven.
Jesus’ teaching made it clear that one day he would return in a new way, to bring God’s kingdom in all its fulness at the end of time.
But when was that going to happen? And in the meantime, how might people know the living presence of Christ? Where is God right now?
Paul makes it clear that no-one knows when the end of time will come; but he also points out that the followers of Christ are children of light and children of the day. They know what Jesus, the light of the world, was like in his earthly life, and so they know what they are looking for in finding signs of his presence with them.
Paul, who was living in lands occupied by Roman soldiers, uses a military metaphor, describing the Thessalonian Christians like soldiers on guard duty “let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation”.
If he was talking about ‘getting our eye in” to see God with them Paul might have said something like ‘let us be watchful, examining closely through a magnifying glass, and using all our powers and instruments of detection’.
Well, his metaphor may be catchier than mine!
But the last thing Paul says in this portion of his letter applies just as much to us “Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.”
When we’re looking for God with us through Advent we are not engaged in a lone task.
The whole Christian Church throughout the world is preparing to celebrate the coming of Jesus at Bethlehem. And all Christians are preparing themselves to see and welcome God at work in our world.
This bread and wine on the table is here to help us celebrate Jesus Christ with us here and now – by remembering and celebrating together we are a sign to one another and we are encouraged to be a sign to the world that God is with us.
This Advent, this Christmas, I pray we will be inspired to see signs of God with us – and even to be signs of God’s presence in the world, as we live as children of light.
In the name of Jesus Christ,
Amen.
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