It is good to be with you, friends. What a great name for a church “The Religious Society of Friends.” On top of that, an early term of derision “Quakers” is later embraced. Amazing.
Matt 25 14-30
“It is like a man about to go abroad who summoned his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to a third one, each in proportion to his ability. Then he set out on his journey. The man who had received the five talents promptly went and traded with them and made five more. The man who had received two made two more in the same way. But the man who had received one went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. Now a long time afterwards, the master of those servants came back and went through his accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents came forward bringing five more. “Sir,” he said, “you entrusted me with five talents; here are five more that I have made.” His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy servant; you have shown you are trustworthy in small things; I will trust you with greater; come and join in your master’s happiness.” Next the man with the two talents came forward. “Sir,” he said, “you entrusted me with two talents; here are two more that I have made.” His master said to him, “Well done, good and trustworthy servant; you have shown you are trustworthy in small things; I will trust you with greater; come and join in your master’s happiness.” Last came forward the man who had the single talent. “Sir,” said he, “I had heard you were a hard man, reaping where you had not sown and gathering where you had not scattered; so I was afraid, and I went off and hid your talent in the ground. Here it is; it was yours, you have it back.” But his master answered him, “You wicked and lazy servant! So you knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered? Well then, you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have got my money back with interest. So now, take the talent from him and give it to the man who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough; but anyone who has not, will be deprived even of what he has. As for this good-for-nothing servant, throw him into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.””
A similar parable appears in Luke. The setup is different and I believe it is important.
Luke 19:11
While they were listening to him speak, he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem and they thought that the kingdom of God would appear there immediately. So he said, “A nobleman went off to a distant country to obtain the kingship for himself and then to return. His fellow citizens however despised him and sent a delegation after him to announce, “We do not want this man to be our king.”
I am sure you have all heard many sermons about that parable. I searched the internet and here are some representative interpretations
Excerpt 1: Jesus tells this parable immediately before going to Jerusalem, where he is to be crowned king but soon rejected by his people. This identifies Jesus with the nobleman in the parable and the crowd shouting “Crucify him!” with the people in the parable who oppose the nobleman’s coronation. By this we know that the people have profoundly misjudged their soon-to-be king, except for the two servants who work diligently in his absence. The parable, in this context, warns us that we must decide if Jesus is indeed God’s appointed king and be prepared to abide the consequences of our decision. The darkness where there is wailing and grinding of teeth is hell.
Excerpt 2: Yet the particular talent invested in the parable is money. In modern English, this fact is obscured because the word talent has come to refer mainly to skills or abilities. But this parable concerns money. It depicts investing, not hoarding, as a godly thing to do if it accomplishes godly purposes in a godly manner.
Excerpt 3: The meaning of the parable extends far beyond financial investments. God has given each person a wide variety of gifts, and he expects us to employ those gifts in his service. It is not acceptable merely to put those gifts on a closet shelf and ignore them. Like the three servants, we do not have gifts of the same degree. The return God expects of us is commensurate with the gifts we have been given. The servant who received one talent was not condemned for failing to reach the five-talent goal; he was condemned because he did nothing with what he was given. The gifts we receive from God include skills, abilities, family connections, social positions, education, experiences, and more.
ME: I have always felt uncomfortable with those interpretations. Let’s go through it again but as a kind of play.
[Three listeners in the group are called up and act out the scene, the script for which is reprinted below at the end of the message.]
Does something make you feel uncomfortable about the interpretations?
If the master is God, then he is cruel, harsh and ruthless. The master uses fear for motivation. It is obvious that the master lives off the sweat of other men’s brows.” Would you want to work for him knowing what happens if you screw up?
Contrast the parable with Matt 11: 28-30
“‘Come to me, all you who labor and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my yoke is easy and my burden light.”
The moral of the parable is also suspect: “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.” Is that in any way good news for the poor? It directly contradicts Amos’ warning against those who add field to field. It is a verse tailor-made for prosperity gospel preachers.
Then there is the ending, “As for this good-for-nothing servant, throw him into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.” There is not one hint of mercy, forgiveness or love in that verse. Is that what God is like?
I think the problem is interpreting the parable through the wrong lens and neglecting to do some historical research. Jesus’ audience are the oppressed, poor, farm laborers and not middle class Americans in 2023 in a capitalist economic system. The perspective and lens you see and interpret through is hugely important.. Think about it. If I grabbed a well-to-do person off the street and asked, “What do you see when you read the parable?”
Well to do person: A savvy manger that rewards you if you do well. Two of the manager’s employees are phenominal —100% returns. The 3rd is a lazy slacker. I would definitely buy stock in the manager’s company.
Grab a poor person: To get returns like that, someone is getting exploited. The manager and his employees reap where they don’t sow. Guess who is doing the real work? Us.
The last line is right on. I am working as hard as I can and am getting farther and farther behind and the rich are getting richer and richer.
Right lens and the right perspective happened in Brazil. For much of the 20th century, repressive governments, tremendous income inequality and lack of priests led to a proliferation in the 1970s of Base Christian Communities. Base Christian Communities are small grass roots Catholic communities that congregate and mobilize lay people, mainly from lower social classes, to celebrate their faith and to engage socially and politically. A group of lay people regularly comes together, most often in the number of 20–50. They often meet several times a week, led by lay leaders elected by the group. They have read the works of liberation theologians. Normally, they will read the Bible text for Sunday and dedicate much time to reflection on its meaning in their everyday situation. They have much in common with a Quaker meeting.
When I came across the Base Communities’ challenging interpretation of the parable, it started to make sense.
It IS about money. Huge amounts of money and the whole key is this: The master/king is not God. The master/king is Archelaus, the son of Herod the Great. Archelaus lived from 23BC to 18AD. Archelaus has been in Rome trying to get the kingship appointment from Caesar. A delegation of Jews appeared in Rome before Caesar Augustus to oppose the request of Archelaus. When Archelaus is appointed Tetrarch (kind of like king), and returns to Jerusalem, he arranges for 3000 of his enemies to be brought to him at the Temple where he has them slaughtered. Archelaus’s reign occurred during Jesus’s and his audiences’ lifetime. They know exactly who the master/nobleman is. The three servants are Achelaus’s stewards, henchmen, his property managers overseeing his vast land holdings. One talent is equivalent to 16 years of day’s wages. Jesus is using hyperbole. Either way he isn’t talking pocket change. How could the “servants” achieve such a return? 1. They were early, early, early, early, early investors in Microsoft? 2. They went public with their Silicon Valley, sorry, Jerusalem Valley start-up? 3. They opened up a new housing development called “Jerusalem Heights”? 4. They built a casino on Benjamin’s tribal land? 5. They headed for the Capernaum gold fields and struck it rich? NO.
So how could the master’s servants get returns that big in agrarian society? Vast numbers of the poor are like share croppers, so you tell them that the master wants a bigger cut of the harvest. You remind a landowner that he hasn’t repaid his loan he got from you to buy seed, time is up. You foreclose and seize his property. Jesus’ audience knows exactly what he is talking about because they experience it every day.
Ironically the hero of the parable is the man who buries the money. That man decided he was not going to play the game anymore. He refuses to exploit the poor. He has had enough and has the guts to directly confront the master when he says, “You reap where you have not sown and gather where you have not scattered.” The master does not deny it and the man pays for his insolence. “As for this good-for-nothing servant, throw him into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.”
In Luke’s version at the start is says, “he proceeded to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem and they thought that the kingdom of God would appear there immediately.” Jesus has been pushing against the power of Rome and the Jewish religious elite. He sides with the nobodies. He is speaking truth to power. He won’t play the game. He is constantly pushing back. He is telling his listeners that the kingdom of God they are anxiously awaiting is not going to be what they expect. Like the man who keeps the 1 talent and is thrown outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth,” Jesus pays. He is scourged and crucified.
The message theme for this month is significant Quakers. The following Quakers challenge me because they are pushing back. They won’t play the game.
Sept. 22, 2022 USA: Eight climate activists were arrested at the Malvern headquarters of Vanguard, one of the largest mutual fund investment firms. Members of the Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) and Extinction Rebellion Philly say Vanguard should be using more of its economic muscle to actively disinvest in companies contributing to global warming, including Big Oil producers like Exxon and Chevron.
January 30, 2020: Scotland. At Bangor WA, Hood Canal, there is a Trident Submarine base. There are up to 8 Trident subs. Each sub carries 8 missiles and each missile carries 5 warheads. Each warhead is around 8 times as destructive as the bomb that flattened Hiroshima. The math is 8x5x8x8 =2,560 Hiroshima bombs. There is a similar submarine base in Scotland. Sixty-seven year old Sylvia Boyles and eighty-one year old Georgina Smith, both Quakers, were arrested at a Trident-nuclear-warhead loading jetty. The women commented, “One missile can kill the same number of people as Jews murdered during the Holocaust. We need to be on the right side of history and oppose these weapons of mass destruction. In a world where there is so much hunger and poverty, to misuse resources on nuclear weapons is a crime in itself.”
Present day Reno: Kyle and Katy Chandler live on a half-acre urban homestead. They practice simple living as a way to resist war taxes, climate change and other injustices. Although they identify as non-religious, their practice of simple living has often been intertwined with and encouraged by a local Quaker meeting. Kyle and Katy say, “We found the Quakers very inspiring, historically, with their direct connection with God, their values of simplicity, and the history of being a peace church.”
I picked those people for a reason. They are our contemporaries, relatively unknown, not famous. They are just like us. Some of them have families, some are old, some are young etc.
They can’t be easily dismissed. Nor can Dorothy Day, a radical journalist who founded the Catholic Worker Movement in 1933, a lay movement in the United States and Canada, emphasizing personal reform, radical agrarianism, absolute pacifism, and the personal practice of the principles in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. When she was proposed for sainthood, she said, “Don’t call me a saint, I don’t want to be dismissed that easily.” (She would make a good Quaker . . )
I am no biblical scholar. Goodness sakes I am a math/science teacher. Maybe the traditional interpretations of the parable are correct. I believe that the interpretation I just discussed is the correct one, but I don’t like it. I don’t like what it is asking of me. I know that our system is corrupt, but it is working quite well for me, thank you very much. Why make any waves? Why upset my comfortable situation? Somebody else can work to change the injustices and pay the price. I want to enjoy my semi-retirement, go fishing and visit my grandchildren.
As a follower of Christ I should be yeast, but I fear that I am just another part of the dough, content to shuffle along, not much different than the majority of my Christian peers who are not that much different from everybody else.
Query:
Is that what it is all about? Is that what it is all for? Is that it? Is that why we were created?
This message was given to Spokane Friends by John Kinney during Sunday morning worhip service on January 29, 2023.
Script for skit:
Me: “5 Talenter, how did you do?”
5 Talenter “Sir, you entrusted me with five talents; here are five more that I have made.”
Me: “Well done, good and trustworthy servant; you have shown you are trustworthy in small things; I will trust you with greater; come and join in your master’s happiness.”
Me: “2 Talenter, how did you do?”
2 Talenter “Sir, you entrusted me with 2 talents; here are 2 more that I have made.”
Me: “Well done, good and trustworthy servant; you have shown you are trustworthy in small things; I will trust you with greater; come and join in your master’s happiness.”
Me: “1 Talenter, how did you do?”
1 talenter ” “Sir, I had heard you were a hard man, reaping where you had not sown and gathering where you had not scattered; so I was afraid, and I went off and hid your talent in the ground. Here it is; it was yours, you have it back.”
Me: “You wicked and lazy servant! So you knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered? Well then, you should have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have got my money back with interest. So now, take the talent from him and give it to the man who has the ten talents.
Me: Know this-For to everyone who has will be given more, and he will have more than enough; but anyone who has not, will be deprived even of what he has.
As for this good-for-nothing servant, throw him into the darkness outside, where there will be weeping and grinding of teeth.”
Spokane Friends Meeting 