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“Whistle Blowers”
Matthew 25:14-30
A Sermon preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley
We have come to the final in a
series on the subversive parables of Jesus.
Throughout this series, we have looked at the parables of Jesus as more
than simply morality tales that give us smug answers to life’s perplexing
questions. We have sought them out so we
can best try to model Jesus’ behavior in the world, thereby being more faithful
to the core of the Gospel message.
American Baptist theologian and biblical scholar, Bill Herzog wonders
aloud “What if the parables of Jesus were neither theological nor moral
stories, but political and economic ones?
What if the concern of the parables was not the reign of God but the
reigning systems of oppression that dominated
It’s Herzog’s thesis that in order
to explain Jesus’ execution by Rome as an insurrectionist (that’s what
crucifixion was reserved for), then he must have done something a whole lot
more threatening than tell a few allegorical tales about getting along with one
another. As Herzog puts it, “If he had
been the kind of teacher popularly portrayed in the North American church, a
master of the inner life, teaching the importance of spirituality and a private
relationship with God, he would have been supported by the Romans a part of
their rural pacification program”(Herzog, 1994:27).
But we know that Jesus was a subversive. God needed to be smuggled in to serve as a
subversive wake-up call to a sin-sick world.
And those of us who are fortunate enough to have the scales removed from
our eyes can see the way to a new tomorrow.
That's why Jesus came and that’s why we seek to understand his subversiveness: so we can learn perhaps how to be a bit
subversive ourselves.
The parable of the talents is the
parable to tackle today. We often hear
about this during stewardship campaigns.
It’s the perfect capitalist parable.
Blessed are the investors for they will gain greatly, but woe to you who
shun banks, stuff a mattress with your money and don’t invest—for you will lose
out in the long-run. The fact that the
scripture uses the word talents, is also fodder for many a sermon on the use of
spiritual gifts. If you don’t use it,
you’ll lose it. If you don’t use your
talents for God’s work, then you are really missing out. It makes for good sermons that have the right
balance of hyperbole, supposed laziness and utter familiarity to get the masses
involved, invested or at least guilt-tripped.
But what if Jesus was just a bit
more subversive than that?
The parable of the talents appears
in both Matthew and in Luke with some pretty major differences. In Luke, the parable is about pounds and
seems to focus a whole lot more on the would-be king who entrusts his pounds
with servants. For brevity and clarity’s
sake, we’ll focus on Matthew’s version this morning.
A man going on a journey entrusts
his property to certain servants. The
property is in the form of talents. Now,
a talent was up to 15 year’s wages for a peasant. These were no ordinary servants. These were upper-level managers—like
contestants on the Apprentice. The man or
master gave one contestant five talents, another two and another one according
to their power or status, meaning, the one with the most talents was the one
with the most power. The Donald Trump
character didn’t tell the people what to do with the talents. He just “entrusted” them with the
talents.
Maybe he was trying to win favor with some people.
Maybe he was being indicted and needed to launder his money.
Maybe he was trying to hide his assets.
Maybe he was trying to test the apprentice contestants to see who would
make the greatest return on the investment.
We don’t know.
We do know that the first two did the predictable thing.
They “traded” and got more talents (at least double). Now, trading talents was not something that
happened the way we trade stocks these days.
No, trading talents meant acquiring land from people. It meant calling in people’s debts. It meant foreclosing on land. It meant increasing the power of farmland
from the peasants to the rich landowner.
No one ever questions this practice in stewardship sermons on the
parable of the talents, but there it is.
After the master comes back from his “journey”, he sees how his
investments have been doing. The first
two say that they have doubled their talents.
They may well have done a lot more than that, but “double” is what they
reported to the man. The master
rewarded them by putting them in charge of divisions within his empire.
It’s the third person who messes everything up. The third person buries his one talent in the
ground: I can’t help but think of a graveyard metaphor. The master derides him for his laziness and his lack of
ingenuity. The master tells him that he
should have invested the money in the bank and earned some interest for the
man. Because of his laziness, his talent
is given to the richest of the servants and he is sent out into the utter darkness
where there is weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. The stewardship sermon says, don’t squander
your gifts, but use them to God’s glory, otherwise, you’ll burn in hell. Pass the offering plate and the peace of the
Lord be with you.
But I have always gotten hung up on this conclusion. And it is because the third person seems to
me to be the most noble of them all.
It’s all in the explanation for the burying of the treasure.
The third servant says, “Master, I knew you were a harsh man, reaping
where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed. I was afraid and I went and hid your talent
in the ground. Here, have what is
yours.”
The third servant had a lot of guts and like the child who said “the
emperor has no clothes on”, he told the truth about
the master. He said, “you are a harsh
man,” meaning you are mean and nasty and that people are afraid of you, so no
one wants to tell you the truth. We
often make the mistake of thinking God is like the master. But does this sound like God to you? Are we so intimidated by God or God-figures
that we can’t tell the truth?
He then says, “you reap where you do not sow
and gather where you do not plant,” meaning “you are a thief. You are harvesting someone else’s crop. You let them pay the money for the seed and
tend the crops and then you come in, and take the fruit of their labors.” That’s what happens when the others trade their
talents. They take land and crops from
the farmers—crops they didn’t plant.
It’s like exercising imminent domain and saying that my needs are more
important than your needs. It’s like
cutting taxes on the rich now so that our poor children and grandchildren will
be left with the bill for our greed.
“I was afraid”, says the man.
But he doesn’t say that he was afraid of the master. He was afraid of what?
Of the others who might trump up charges against him?
Of the secret police who like their system the way it is thank you very
much and did not like a whistle-blower?
Or maybe he was afraid of God?
Betty Shaw pointed out in Bible study last
week that we cannot understand this parable without the next portion of
scripture. Later on in the 25th chapter, we have the
story of the great judgment. When it
comes time for our reckoning the great judgment does not have to do with
whether we said the right words or not.
It doesn’t have to do with whether we took Jesus Christ as our personal
savior.
It doesn’t have to do with the amount of money we give.
It doesn’t have to do with how we voted in the last election or which
constitutional amendments we support or reject.
It has to do with our attitude and action on behalf of the poor, the
hungry the naked and the imprisoned.
Jesus tells of the separation of the sheep and the goats and says to the
sheep, “Come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the
world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me
something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you
gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you
visited me.” Then the righteous sheep
answered, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick
or in prison? Jesus said, “Whenever you
have done it unto the least of these you have done it unto me.”
Likewise, he punished the goats for not doing what the sheep did. The goats asked when they had seen him
thirsty or hungry or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison. Jesus said, “whenever
you did not do it for one of the least of these you did not do it unto me.”
Maybe the whistle blower was really afraid of God, not the intimidating
thieving master.
Maybe the whistle blower told the truth that no one else dared to
say.
Maybe the whistle-blower, like Jesus, was willing to stick his neck out
and call into question the system of favoritism and thievery that we all
somehow take for granted.
Maybe Jesus is telling us to be a bit more like the
whistle-blower.
And maybe that’s the kind of “investing” that we really need to do in
this day and age: this kind of investing in brave truth-telling; this kind of
investing in God’s priorities.
So think of where your investments are right now.
I’m not talking so much about your retirement accounts or lack
thereof.
I am talking about the things that are the most important to you.
Where are your investments of time?
your investments of passion?
your investments of energy?
your investments of life-blood?
Are these in line with your deepest values?
If not, then maybe Jesus is helping you to blow the whistle on those
very values that stand in the way of your being living as a whole child of God
seeking redemption.
Being the child of God that God calls you to be, with the subversive
Jesus as your guide and companion, could be the greatest gift you receive and
the greatest gift you give to this sin-sick world.
I thank God for Jesus and his subversive self who helps us get into all
sorts of trouble with the powers that be.
And I give thanks that Jesus keeps pointing out to us how we can be yet
even more subversive as the days, weeks and years advance.
Across the centuries, Jesus has inspired subversive whistle-blowers who
are willing to stand up and tell the truth.
I think of Martin and Coretta King who stood
up and said that we ought to be better as a nation than one that economically,
socially, religiously and politically prejudges people based upon their skin
color, their religion, their orientation, their gender their status. I am looking forward to hearing their son,
Martin Luther King III speak at Coffman Union tomorrow evening.
Just this week, a group of 30 young whistle-blowers who are seeking to
show their greatest Christian values to a world and a people in need, inspired
by the subversive message of Jesus, are embarking on a trip to 18 colleges and
Universities that have policies barring full rights to LGBT students. Jake Reitan and these
others are being commissioned at Westminster Presbyterian Church this Thursday
night with Don Samuels preaching and music by One Voice Mixed Chorus, and
Robbie Robertson and the Twin Cities Community Gospel Chorus. Inspired by the Freedom Rides of the 60’s
they are calling their ride the Equality Ride.
Sisters and brothers,
Consider your values.
Consider your investments.
Consider our tendency to go along with
the status quo.
Then consider that we follow one who
was the ultimate whistle-blower.
The one who says, “follow me” and “I
will not leave you comfortless;” The one who promises, “I will travel with you
on the highways and byways of this life until we all reach the Promised Land
where God smiles down on all of her children, longing to say, “Well done, good
and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master.”
Amen
Citations: Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as
Pedagogue of the Oppressed, by William R. Herzog II. Westminster/John Knox Press 1994