November 19, 2023

Pentecost 25

Lectionary 33

Epiphany, Winnipeg

Matthew 25:14-30

There’s mercy on the screen up here or there at home. Words of mercy, or words for mercy, words like mercy. Sometimes we just need to see and hear a lot of words of mercy or kindness or grace. Watch the news, look around, look inside. We need to be reminded….that there’s mercy.

In this story of masters on trips and slaves with money to manage, there is not much mercy at all. It’s a troubling story and if you hear the story and you wonder why the master gets so mad at the end you won’t be the first person to wonder that. The slave who ends up being called worthless and is thrown into the outer darkness has been entrusted with one talent of his master’s money. One talent is equal to fifteen years’ pay for a labourer, so in today’s Canadian terms that would be about five hundred thousand dollars. So the master gives his slaves his money to manage, then goes away on a long trip. When he comes back he asks his slaves to account for the money he gave them. And this last one says, “I knew you had a short temper, so I protected your money. Here’s your five hundred thousand bucks.” And the master says, “You could have given me more if you’d put it in the bank. You could have earned me interest! Get out of my sight.” Then that servant, the one who has the least, gets thrown out, and whatever little he has is given to the one who already had the most.

This is not a story of mercy, and it’s not a story about how God deals with us. God’s last word for us is always a word of mercy, a word of grace, a taste of the forgiveness we heard at the beginning – “In Jesus’ name, your sins are forgiven”- and a large helping of the peace we hear at the end – “The Lord bless you and keep you and look at you with eyes of mercy and give you peace.” The story of our faith is a story of God’s mercy, given for those who need it the most.

So then what’s with this story Jesus tells? Well, remember this: The stories Jesus tells – we call them parables - are tricky things. They don’t teach a simple religious lesson or tell us how to have better morals. Parables are more like the GPS that sends you into the wrong neighbourhood. You wanted to get over there, but they sent you here instead, and now you end up seeing something you’ve never seen before. And the parable calls that unexpected neighbourhood the Reign of Heaven, that comes near right here and right now. Parables send out little bits of meaning and images here and there and one time you’ll see one thing and the next time you see something else. And all those pieces don’t all just fit into a neat package. Last week, this week, and next week, Jesus tells one long three-part parable that includes a groom, wise bridesmaids and foolish ones, lamps and oil and darkness and being awake and asleep and the door to the hall and markets and merchants and a master and slaves and uncountable thousands of dollars and banks and holes in the ground and a throne and the Son of Man and sheep and goats and the hungry and the naked and prisoners and foreigners and Christ and punishment and eternal life. And those can’t all be packed into a simple thing that’s clear and has no surprises.

So at Bible Study on Monday I presented my grand theory of how last week and this week and next week all fit together. It was brilliant and I will stand by the things I thought and said. But by Wednesday I wasn’t so sure that I’d gotten it all figured out. Not because I’m wishy-washy, but because the GPS bumped me into a neighhbourhood I hadn’t expected.

Here’s what happened on Wednesday, and it’s really quite simple. A writer named Matt Skinner, who teaches New Testament at Luther Seminary in Minneapolis/St. Paul, suggested that the story today is not about the money that these servants received. It’s about the mercy they were given and the mercy we are given. The parable is about what we do with the mercy that is given to us by the bagful. Before I heard that small little idea, I was looking at the parable, holding it in my hand and examining it and figuring it out. But when I heard that piece about mercy, I found myself right there in the parable. I wasn’t the master, I wasn’t the one who received the five bags of mercy or the two bags but the one bag of mercy, which is still an awful lot of mercy. And I realized then that what I’ve done so often is I’ve taken that that mercy that is entrusted to me, and buried it in the ground where I can’t see it.

Now that doesn’t mean that I think I’m just mean and awful. It just means that I see an old pattern in my life: I can hear again and again about being forgiven or about being loved, about receiving all kinds of mercy from God, or from anyone, but then in no time at all I’m weighing myself down with guilt or reminding myself of all the ways that I’m actually not so loveable. It’s like I receive the mercy, five hundred thousand bucks worth right here in my hands, and then I turn around, put all that good news in a hole in the ground, stand up, and look into my empty hands and the mercy has disappeared again.

Don’t raise your hands, but is anyone else here like that?

I’m not fishing for compliments, by the way, and I’m not looking to be cheered up. I’m having a pretty good day. But it’s all got me thinking. The servant who hid the mercy and ended up with nothing more to show always comes across as the loser or the one who just did the wrong thing. But let’s go easy on that one servant who received the one talent, the one bag of mercy. He hid it and it seemed like he had no mercy left, for himself or maybe even for anyone. That in itself is a kind of living out in the cold of the night.

And the other two? Well, the master never told them what to do with all that mercy that was given to them. It just seems that they went out and took risks with it, and risks are risky: in the money world an investment could go wrong, a business plan could go backwards, even the best managers might make all kinds of mistakes with what they’ve been given. Or if this is really all about mercy and not money, they could show mercy to someone who doesn’t return it, or give forgiveness that may or may not be received, or they might love someone who doesn’t seem so loveable. But at least the mercy or forgiveness or love are out there, in circulation; and who knows what might happen with love or mercy or forgiveness or generosity when they are scattered out into the world? And we don’t need to be reminded of all the ways that the world just needs more mercy, more kindness, more grace, more generosity.

Today the parable is reminding me, and I invite you to give it a thought, of something like this: Don’t bury the mercy you’re given. Don’t tuck it away or put it in a hole, because the mercy of God, or the love of a friend, or even the forgiveness of someone who’s not really a friend but who forgives you anyway…all these gifts are given to us to see, and to enjoy, and to wallow around in. If someone puts a bag of mercy in your hand, open it up. If you see a bag of mercy in the news, maybe in an almost hidden story of an Israeli and a Palestinian caring for each other – those stories are out there – or just a story of kindness between people – just pick up the mercy and see what it does to you. If God puts a bag of mercy in your hand, open it up, let it spill out, keep it where you can see it, where you can see it and hear it and be reminded again, we can all be reminded again, that we are loved and forgiven just like God says we are when that mercy is placed in our hands.

The parable also reminds us that we’re free to take risks with the mercy we are given. We can spread it around. Knit mitts for the Urban, forgive and let go of an old grudge, hear the pain on both sides of a conflict. We can resist the urge to be judg-ey even if we’re pretty sure we’re right, we can give generously even if we might get nothing in return, we can show mercy or kindness or compassion for the pure and simple purpose of showing mercy or kindness or compassion. Next week we’ll hear Jesus say, “Whatever you do to one of the least of these people around you, the ones who the world shows no mercy, you do to me.” The mercy we are given gets spread around to anyone in here or out there who might receive so little mercy but instead just gets hurt or fear. We scatter it around and keep it out there where the world can see it and hear it and feel it and taste it.

And there’s this: Remember, please remember, God is not one who casts out the ones who just can’t see the mercy any more because it’s been hidden in the ground. God is more like the one who doesn’t go away on a long journey but who settles in right here and says, “Here’s a bagful of mercy. Take it and see what happens. Spread it around; it’ll never run out!” God takes the risk of recklessly handing out mercy in the world. On a cross we see how God pays the price for taking that risk. Then outside an empty tomb we see that the mercy never stops, and there’s always more mercy for you and for me and for us all.