God gives us what we need to prepare for joy – Matt 25:14-30, 1 Th 5:1-6

Week 33 of Ordinary Time; Holy Cross - St. Stan's.

How would you like to be given $226,200?  Or, more precisely, to be trusted with $226,200 of someone else’s money?  That’s fifteen years worth of full-time minimum wage employment.  And that’s what a talent was.  When the master we hear about in the gospel is doling out these sums of money, it’s not always clear to us what meaning they actually carry.  And that going back and doing a little economic history wasn’t just me indulging my geeky side this week, but a step in appreciating the power of the gospel.  A ‘talent’ was a unit of currency worth 15 years worth of day laborer pay.  That’s what the least trusted servant is entrusted with: $226,200, one talent.

Of course, that means that the other two servants get entrusted with $452,400 and $1,131,000 respectively, 2 talents, and 5 talents.  But that’s not what we’re meant to focus on.  In fact, the parable shows us it’s ruinous to focus on what others are entrusted with, that down that road is the way to perdition.  What we’re meant to do is come to appreciate what we’ve been entrusted with, to come to appreciate how absurdly valuable our life is, and grow in wonder, love and awe at the one who bestowed it upon us.

Our rector in the seminary would often tell us that the 11^th commandment really should have been “thou shalt not compare.”  Comparing ourselves to others brings us to a fork in the road and there’s no telling which side we end up on.  Once we begin comparing, we risk losing control and either ending up prideful or with a crippling sense of inferiority, or inadequacy.  Both of these responses inculcate fear: fearing of losing what we put our pride in, or fear of being found out, exposed as inferior.

It’s the second response that the servant we read about falls for.  He looks at the $226,200 he’s been entrusted with and sees only what it’s not: not a million, not even four hundred thousand.  $226,200 becomes measly in his eyes.  And so he responds with fear.  His image of his master becomes plagued by fear of his imagined wickedness, and he buries, he hides, he takes the fortune he’s been entrusted with, and puts his lamp under a bushel basket.  Worse than laziness, he succumbs to fearful inactivity.  He would not be able to accept Paul’s words, that we are not in darkness, but children of the light, for he has shut himself up and erected his shadowy fortress.  A lamp under a bushel basket goes out.  He accustoms himself so much to darkness, that he can’t enter the light.

And that’s tragically sad, because his master wills that all enter his own joy.  And his master has entrusted him with a fortune.  A fortune that can be used, that can be risked, because its true owner only wills joy, extravagantly extends trust, enriches us, that we might live good and faithful lives, lives that are bold to take risks and so form ourselves not for darkness, but for joy.  Because we have been entrusted with something marvelous.  Each and every one of us has gifts that could light up the world.  The light of Christ we received as gift in baptism takes different forms in different people, but to try to compare those forms is futile, worse than that.  Comparing distracts us from gazing, marveling, wondering at the great gift God has given us, and comparing hinders us in moving beyond gazing to action.

It’s true that our Master has departed; Christ is ascended.  He doesn’t walk with us in the precise same way as he walked with those first disciples; we’re awaiting his return.  But every image or story obscures as much as it reveals, and it’s just as true that Christ remains God-with-us: the promise made at Jesus’ conception, that he would be Emmanuel, God-with-us; the promise repeated by Christ himself as he sends his disciples out after his resurrection to baptize and teach – “Behold, I am with you always.”  And we encounter him, our Master present in his absence, precisely when we stop burying out treasure in fields and use our gifts or talents to reach out, to take risks, to trust in the light we’ve been given and shine it into the darkest corners of our world.  And it’s in that daring to shine that God will form us for eternal joy.

Last week after our coffee and donuts were eaten, I saw two children repeatedly run to the edge of the stage in the commons and leap off into their father’s arms.  There was no fear, there was no comparing who could jump further or higher, who was held tighter or long; there was only joy shared, and trust enough to take a leap of faith.