Underneath it all,
this problematic story from Matthew
is about our default settings.
Think computers here.
A default setting
is what will be used automatically…
next time.
If we want whatever action
we are taking with our computer
or smart phone,
to be remembered
and become the standard
for how that action is done,
then we need to set it as the default.
That metaphor
has all kinds of uses
with this story.
For example,
we need a wide-angle lens
for viewing this story from Matthew
when our default setting
is to focus on a close-up.
But rather than pay that much attention
to the specifics of Matthew’s story,
we need to actually see it through the filter
of the wider perspective
of what is around the story itself.
(“Texts for Preaching,” Brueggemann, Cousar, Gaventa and Newsome).
Underneath it all,
this problematic story from Matthew
is about our default settings.
Think computers here.
A default setting
is what will be used automatically…
next time.
If we want whatever action
we are taking with our computer
or smart phone,
to be remembered
and become the standard
for how that action is done,
then we need to set it as the default.
That metaphor
has all kinds of uses
with this story.
For example,
we need a wide-angle lens
for viewing this story from Matthew
when our default setting
is to focus on a close-up.
But rather than pay that much attention
to the specifics of Matthew’s story,
we need to actually see it through the filter
of the wider perspective
of what is around the story itself.
(“Texts for Preaching,” Brueggemann, Cousar, Gaventa and Newsome).
If we look at just the story
all kinds of problems pop up.
For example, nowhere in this story,
nor in the Bible itself,
is the institution of slavery questioned.
Slavery in the Roman Empire,
and before it, was not racial in nature
Slaves were the spoils of war
and of economic misery.
If you were poor enough
you sold your kids,
you sold your wife,
you even sold yourself into slavery.
But it bothers me,
and maybe you felt this too,
that Jesus just assumes slavery
instead of objecting to it.
But also problematic
is that the “Master”
in this story
is supposed to be God.
And what we may have noticed
is that the “Master”
gives his slaves
an unimaginable burden.
Those talents, or silver and gold coins
in some translations, represents a vast sum.
What the Master gives the slaves
amounts to more money
than even the richest among
could ever imagine.
It equates to billions…billions of dollars in our day.
A slave would no more have known
what to do
with a billion dollars
than a baby knows what to do
with a hundred dollar bill.
It would have terrified
all three of them.
Terror, absolute terror.
But even more disconcerting
is that in the end, this story
seems to be all about reward and punishment.
Hopefully that creates dissonance
with our theological default settings.
If we take Matthew literally,
then God has an abusive parenting style
We can gather from the story
that the third slave had a default setting
that moved him toward prudence and caution,
to give them a positive value —
or fear and mistrust
as the Master judged them.
The Master does not seek
to understand or empathize with the slave,
even though it is clear
that for reasons of psychology,
family culture,
personal circumstance or all three,
the slave was limited by
fear of failure
fear of danger
fear of judgment
fear of public humiliation
fear of punishment
or fear of disapproval.
But now, in spite having to live
within such a dark silo of fear,
he has been condemned
to also live in isolation.
Where is the fairness?
Where is the mercy?
Where is the love?
My theological default
is of a God who is more gracious —
a God who loves mercy more than justice.
And so this story
kicks up a “default error code.”
This is when we need to zoom out
and filter the particulars of the story
through a wider perspective.
Before Matthew sets Jesus up to tell
this story about the Master and Three Slaves,
Jesus had just had a big argument
with the religious authorities
whom, we are told, were not people of good will.
That should sting a little
for people like me.
It turns out that those religious authorities
were feeling threatened by Jesus
and the reform movement he was instigating.
At the end of the argument,
Jesus can be heard walking away
muttering to himself.
Grumpy and aggitated
Jesus laments their rejection of his wisdom,
and mumbles a dark, oblique
prediction about the destruction of Jerusalem itself.
(Matthew 23:37ff)
“Yeah, we’ll see who has the last word here,”
he seems to say.
In this bigger story,
just before the Master-Slave parable gets told,
Jesus and his pals leave the city
and climb up the hill to the Mount of Olives
where they sit down on a spot
overlooking Jerusalem.
Jesus’ friends point to the Temple below
and ooh and ah
about how beautiful it looks.
And Jesus says,
“You see that beautiful Temple there?
I tell you, there will come a time
when there is not one stone left
piled on another stone…It’ll all be rubble.”
Shocked at the thought,
as we would be to contemplate the
demolition of 520 S. Main Street
or the Washington National Cathedral,
the disciples asked WHEN will this happen?
But instead of a direct answer,
Jesus launches into a long speech.
Like Moses at the edge of the Promise Land,
or Martin Luther King, Jr. on the eve of his death,
Jesus gives a speech
intended to prepare his disciples
for what was to come.
At the end of the speech
he tells them four parables:
each parable directs them away
from the question about
WHEN the end will it happen, and
instead, Jesus focuses them
on WHAT to practice
between now and then.
So this story about the three slaves
is one of those four stories.
As such, it is about WHAT to do
in the meantime, between
now and the crisis that is coming.
Jesus is preparing them
for how to manage the time between now
and when the crisis comes.
Of that time no one knows,
not even Jesus.
But between now and then
here are some things we need to do.
What do we need to do in the mean time?
In such times,
for many of us and our institutions,
our default setting is preservation.
How can we preserve the principal or corpus
of the treasures we have?
We have an instinct
or maybe even an ingrained training
to “preserve the principal.”
Preserving the principal
and not risking failure
is a normal response — it is our default setting.
Preserving the principal
is what we are taught to do
so that in times of crisis we have something
to lean on.
Preservation is our default mode,
and yet the slave that played it safe
is angrily condemned.
In burying
that which he was given stewardship over,
it actually lost value —
presumably because of inflation.
Stuffing the mattress with cash
actually causes it to loose value.
Only with the risk of investment
does the treasure’s potential grow.
Jesus did not know anything about computers
nor did he know anything about Wall Street
but all the elements of greed, risk, and crisis
existed in his day.
Jesus charged his friends
with taking risks
and launching out
at the very moment
everyone else around us
is cringing with fear.
Preserving the principal
may be what an endowment is supposed to do,
but it is not the mark of fidelity
for a community of faith
that says it is an agent of God’s love.
In the time between now and crisis
spiritual wellness is discovered
and displayed
by taking the risk to love more boldly,
and act more vigorously,
to grow the heart a size bigger.
Preservation doesn’t grow anything.
Only loving and loving more
can grow the heart a bigger size.
We are not in the preservation business.
We are not the custodians of historic buildings.
We are not the archivists of a particular body of ritual and worship, language or music.
But we are the stewards of the gospel
and agents of God’s love
made know through community.
Whether as individuals
trying to figure out how to move through
our current political, economic,
and environmental challenges,
or as the community of faith located at Trinity Place,
we need to remember
that our spiritual practice
between now
and whenever the crisis comes,
is to love and love more…
whatever that takes.
If our default setting is
fear,
caution,
and preservation
of the principal –
whatever the corpus of treasure
we are huddle around —
Jesus warns us to change
our default setting.
Trust yourselves, he says.
Trust God, he says.
Trust the essential abundance
and goodness of the Creation, he says.
Assume history is moving toward
a more splendid moment
even if we cannot see it yet —
even if we may not get there
for the final show, he says.
Take risks.
Invest yourself
and your treasures
and don’t bury what you’ve got,
because keeping it safe is not only a delusion
it is a losing strategy.
Love.
Love more.
Love bigger.
Take the risk to grow your heart.
That’s what I hear in zooming out
to read this story
from in it’s wider perspective.
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