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| Vincent van Gogh, Lying Cow (1883) |
Preached at Church of the Incarnation, Dallas. Readings here. Listen to a recording here, which differs somewhat from the text below, because the latter benefits from suggestions from my rector which I incorporated into subsequent services.
"Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that, by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever." (Collect for Proper 28)
Ruminants. That’s what today’s collect calls us to be with the Bible. Ruminants. You know, animals who chew their cuds, like cows and sheep and camels.
Have you ever seen a cow chewing its cud? I grew up on a dairy farm in Pennsylvania, and so I have a pretty clear picture in my mind of a cow chewing its cud, savoring it patiently, with eyes half-closed, perhaps even drooling.
Today’s collect always makes me think of a cow chewing its cud, when it asks for the grace to “hear [the Holy Scriptures], read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.” The collect calls us to ruminate on Scripture, to chew it over and over in order to receive its nourishment—and to taste its sweetness.
Bernard of Clairvaux said of the words of the Bible, “Enjoying their sweetness, I chew them over and over, my internal organs are replenished, my insides fattened up, and all my bones break out in praise.” [1] But some parts of Scripture need more chewing than others to draw out their sweetness. Some parts are like milk and honey: they taste sweet right away and go down easily. Other parts, though, are more like liver: they’re less appetizing and you’ve really got to chew on them for a while and they require some extra digestion.
Take today’s Gospel lesson for instance. I don’t know about you, but when I first hear this story it sticks in my craw. Especially the ending: “For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away” (Mt. 25:29).
It just doesn’t seem fair! Those who have will get even more?! And those who have not, will lose even what they have?! Where is the justice in that? Taken as a general statement, isn’t this just a description of the injustice and inequity of this world?
And why is the master so hard on the third servant, the one who got one talent? I can understand why the master is thrilled with the first two servants, the ones who got five talents and two talents: they doubled his investment after all! I’d be pretty pleased, too, if I was the master! Wouldn’t you? But why is he so hard on the third servant? The third servant didn’t do anything wrong! He didn’t lose his master’s money through carelessness or spend it greedily on himself or otherwise waste it. No, he kept it safe, hidden in the ground. When there’s no FDIC insurance and when bankers were seen as pretty crooked characters, money is safer in the ground than in the bank. Wasn’t the third servant just being prudent? Fiscally conservative? So why does the master get so upset with him?
And what of the business ventures of the first two servants? What sort of risky and ethically dubious deals did they do to get such a fantastic rate of return? What if they’d lost their master’s property in a business speculation that turned sour? What would the master thought of them then?
Clearly we need to chew on these words of Scripture some more. Roll it around in our mouths. Figure out what it is we are tasting.
Let’s start by recalling the context. Remember that the parable of the talents is one of a series of parables Jesus tells his disciples. They want to know when God is going to set everything right to fulfill all his promises to his people. When the day of the Lord will arrive.
Jesus tells them, in effect, “Don’t worry about when; there’s no knowing when. That day will come suddenly, and you’ll know when it’s here. So live expectantly in the meantime. Wait patiently and hopefully. Live now as if the day of the Lord has already come; live now as you will when God’s reign is made manifest.”
And he tells four stories to drive home the point: The first about two servants who have been left in charge of their master’s household while he’s away. One servant was wise and diligently did the work he was given to do, just as if the master was at home. But the other servant took advantage of his master’s absence and abused the authority he’d been given and “beat his fellow servants, and ate and drank with the drunken” (Mt. 24:49). The second story is about the wise and foolish bridesmaids waiting for the groom—we heard about that last week. Our story is the third one.
And the fourth is the one about the Son of Man coming in his glory, separating the sheep and the goats, judging the nations based on how they treated “the least of these.”
Here’s the point: these stories are for teaching Jesus’ disciples how to wait for the day of the Lord. How to watch for the Lord to come in the fullness of his kingdom; how to live between the times, in the time of our pilgrimage when we walk by faith not by sight.
So the parable of the talents has to do with the significance of how we live now between the times, with the fact that we are accountable to God. What we do matters, because our Lord will come to judge the quick and the dead, and, as he says, “then he will repay every man for what he has done” (Mt. 16:27).
But what sort of Lord do we await? It’s the same nagging question about justice again. Is the God to whom we are accountable like the master the third servant feared? He said, “Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid” (Mt. 15:24–25). Is our Lord, our Master, a hard man? Hard to please? Severe? Harsh? Unjustly demanding?
Well, no! Let’s look again at the story, and I think we’ll see that the master isn’t as harsh as the third servant thought him to be: The master calls his three servants and entrusts them with his property; to one he gives five talents, to another two, and to another one, each according to his ability. Do you know how much money a talent is? I didn’t either, but I looked it up, and it turns out that one talent is a lot of money! One talent was more than a laborer could expect to earn in 15 years! So two talents is more than someone could expect to earn over the whole course of their career, and five talents would have been beyond a servant’s wildest dreams!
The master is generous: he gives even the least talented of his servants an extravagant sum. And think of the trust he placed in his servants by leaving this immense fortune in their care. And look again at what he says to first two servants: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.” Not only does he reward them for their faithful service, but he invites them to share in his joy. He welcomes them into his happiness. He wants their company.
Our Master, our Lord, gives us even more generous gifts and welcomes us to share in his joy. Our Lord gives us even our life. Everything we are and have is a gift from him. And God gives his people what they need to live in anticipation of joy and beatitude we will share with him his kingdom. As Sam Wells says, “God has given his people everything they need to worship him, to be his friends, and to eat with him. […] [H]e gives his people more than enough. He overwhelms them by the abundance of his gifts.” [2]
You see, the third servant misunderstood both the character of his master and the nature of the gift. Remember what he says to the master, “I knew you to be a hard man...so I was afraid.” He was afraid. He focused so much on his master’s demands that he overlooked his generosity. He couldn’t imagine that his master might invite him to share his joy at his return; he could only imagine the account books. He was concerned only with not doing anything wrong, with keeping safe what he had been given. But in trying to secure it, he loses it.
Aren’t we often like this servant? Unable to imagine a God who desires our happiness. Only able to imagine life as a zero-sum game. Only able to think that what God gives can be used up and lost. Afraid to take Jesus at his word when he says, “Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (16:25). We want to keep our life. We want a safe investment. We don’t want to risk the vulnerability of love.
But, as C.S. Lewis says, “To love at all is to be vulnerable.” “Love anything,” he says, “and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket…it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” [3]
“Whoever would save his life will lose it,” Jesus says, “and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Mt. 16:25)
God the Giver gifts us the gift of love. And love is not diminished by being given away. Think of how a candle burns just as brightly after another candle has been lit from its flame. That’s what love is like. God is light and love, and gives us himself in Christ Jesus. And Jesus, the true light who shines in the darkness, gives the community of his disciples to be the light of the world.
“Let your light so shine before men,” he says, “that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:16).
Our Master has risked everything for us, and gives us what we need to risk giving ourselves in love. He pours out his Holy Spirit into our hearts, so that we can risk the vulnerability of love, because we know that nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ. He gives us what we need to learn to love our enemies and speak the truth and practice peace. Through his word and sacraments he nourishes us to do these good works he has given us to do— feeding the hungry and thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, visiting those in prison.
St. John of the Cross said, “Where there is no love, put love, and you will find love.” [4] When we risk love, we find that love is its own reward. For “God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. And there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 Jn. 4:16b, 18).
And now I think we can taste at last the sweetness of Jesus’ words, when he says, “To everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance” (Mt. 25:29). Risk love, and you will find love. Love, and you will have an abundance of love.
[1] Quoted in Ivan Illich, In the Vineyard of the Text, pp. 56–7.
[2] Samuel Wells, God’s Companions, p. 17.
[3] C.S. Lewis, Four Loves.
[4] Quoted in Dorothy Day, "The Scandal of the Works of Mercy," in By Little and By Little, the Selected Writings of Dorothy Day.
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