Encourage each other, build each other up, wake up, and live in the light of God

Proper 28 A; November 13, 2011

Judges 4:1-7; Psalm 123; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Matthew 25:14-30

Times are bad.

Times are bad in ancient Israel, the Book of Judges tells us. The people are living in the Promised Land, delivered there by Moses and Joshua, brought there by God, but not living up to their side of the promise. They can’t get it together. Enemies are attacking. Leaders falter and fail. The people live in hardship and difficulty.

 

Times are bad these days, too, even for us living in our own nation blessed with abundant resources – our own “Promised Land.” In this global economy we fear that bad decisions in Greece and Italy will damage us, too. People are losing jobs, or are under-employed, or find themselves working more hours for less pay. Student loan debt is astronomical, accompanied by doubts that recent graduates will ever have those full-time, fulfilling careers that their parents imagined for them back in kindergarten days. Whose fault is all this mess? Alas, we can’t seem to get any consensus on that. Today’s psalm sounds like a chant – or is it a scream? -- from the Occupy Wall Street movement:

Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy, *
for we have had more than enough of contempt,
Too much of the scorn of the indolent rich, *
and of the derision of the proud.

Paul does not have to remind the people in Thessalonica that times are bad. “You do not need to have anything written to you,” he writes. The people in Thessalonica know the precariousness of existence, how they delude themselves that they live in peace and security, when the all-too-real fear is of sudden destruction, of a thief in the night, of no escape. The people of Thessalonica know that the world they live in is dark indeed.

 

So what do we make of this parable from the 25th chapter of Matthew? This strange and difficult parable where God seems to be playing the part of a cruel and capricious tyrant, seemingly as unforgiving of poor financial management as any banker coming down hard on someone who cannot pay her mortgage?

As we try to make sense of this complicated and weird story, let us remember that the gospels, although accounts of the life of Jesus, were written down by people some time after Jesus’ death and resurrection. They were written down by people living in the joy and knowledge and reality of Easter – they are people of the resurrection, for sure. But they were living in bad times. The community who put together the Gospel of Matthew were city dwellers, probably from Antioch, a densely populated city, full of poor people; a cosmopolitan and diverse city, full of people from across the known world of the Roman Empire – people of different cultures and languages, people crowded into a city where there is not enough good housing, nor enough good work to keep food on the table. The way the world works does NOT work for them. The economic and social rules ensure that they will be – always – losers. Why, then, do they still believe in Jesus? In the resurrection? In the Good News? Why do the people Paul writes to in Thessalonica, whom he rightly describes as knowing they have darkness all around them, believe him when he calls them children of the light, children of the day, people who are encouraged and hopeful and alert?

The Bible – which our opening prayer instructs us to hear, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest -- is written by and for people for whom times are as bad as can be imagined; why, then, are they people of hope?

The Bible is written by and for people who know that if they play the game by the rules the world sets down, they will lose, big time. That’s what this strange parable is about. The slaves do the bidding of the master; they are to invest his money and make a profit. Some of the slaves are better investors than others; one is extraordinarily prudent, and buries the money, keeping it just safe enough to return it to the master in tact. This cautious slave even has the courage to confront the master, to call out this cruel system for the harsh and fear-mongering system it is. Yet the prudent slave, the one we think did safe thing with the master’s money, the one who took no risks and lost nothing, is called worthless and thrown into the outer darkness. What did the prudent slave forget? What did the prudent slave do wrong?

The prudent slave believed the world. The prudent slave believed he had to hide the money, to hoard it in darkness. The prudent slave believed there was no risk worth taking with something as valuable as the master’s money, that the best he could do was come out even. The prudent slave followed the world’s assumptions of scarcity and fear. The prudent slave didn’t get the memo that God was the God of abundance, wild, profligate and overflowing abundance.

 

Sometimes I wonder if we do not understand the urgency of the 25th chapter of Matthew -- if we think we’ve gotten ahead because we’ve played by all the rules -- if we think we live comfortable lives because we’re lucky -- if we cannot hear the crisis in other people’s voices, or see the worry in other people’s eyes – sometimes I wonder if living lives of moderate comfort means that we will not “get” the resurrection. That we will think that all Advent is about is getting ready for Christmas, for the birth of a beloved baby.

Advent is about getting ourselves ready for a new way of living, a way of living that is not characterized by prudence, or fear, or worry, or one-upsmanship. Even St. Paul, living on the edge of the end of time, reminds us: It’s never too late -- to encourage each other, to build each other up, to wake up, and live in the light of God.