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The Very Hardest Parables - Matthew 25:14-30
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
Now, if you are joining us for the first time or for the first time in a bit, we are in the middle of a series that we have called the very hardest parables, Jesus on judgment. And don't judge us too quickly over that because we are not all about fire and brimstone here. Actually, don't think that's what Jesus is all about either. That said, Jesus does pull out hard words from time to time. And so this is a series where we have a chance to face into the music as it were.
Speaker 1:Now the truth is, I think this is actually been a pretty fun series as we've gone through these to pull the parables that we often skip past or leave undiscussed. And so some of the stories may not be suitable for bedtime reading at your children. That is a good exercise still nonetheless for us to read. And so we have read the parable of the wicked tenants, the parable of the unprepared guest, the parable of the bad servant, and then last week was the story of the foolish guests. And as I said, these parables wake work to unravel, to understand, and then metabolize in healthy ways.
Speaker 1:So last week, we read about these 10 guests, these 10 virgins who are invited to a wedding party. Five of them plan ahead and bring extra oil for their lamps. Five of them bring just what they think they will need until the party will start. But when the bridegroom shows up late, the foolish virgins have no oil in their lamps, and so they run off to buy some more and they end up missing the party. Now, a simple surface reading of that parable would be, see, you need to plan ahead.
Speaker 1:You need to work hard. You need to keep some oil left in reserve to get in. The twist in the story, however, and this is key when you read a parable, look for the twist. Because that's what parables are all about, the surprising reversal of expectations. But the twist in last week's parable is once you realize that it is all of the guests, the wise, and the foolish, they all fall asleep.
Speaker 1:Everyone misses the bridegroom's arrival in the story. And since you realize that this is not a parable about how well we do, or how we can impress God, or how we can figure out his timing for ourselves, disciples ask, how can we figure it out? And Jesus says, you can't. Everyone falls asleep. And so once you realize that, the parable takes on a very different character.
Speaker 1:Because now, the wise guests are not the ones who figured it out and stayed watchful, the ones who were ready for God. Now the wise guests are the ones who plan for their own foolishness. Jesus seems to say, yes, you need to plan. But the only thing you can ever really plan for is the fact that you will fall asleep and you will misread the signs, the fact that you will only get into the party because of the grace of God. That's what the wise virgins in the story do.
Speaker 1:They don't trust their ability to know how or when or why the bridegroom will arrive. They trust simply that he will arrive. And so that's what the judgment in the story is about. Jesus is not judging our ability to figure it out and be ready. You can't.
Speaker 1:He is judging the idea that we could be ready. Wisdom is knowing we will fall asleep and trusting in nothing but the hope that God will wake us up when he gets here. Now, this week we are staying in Matthew 25, and we are going to pick up right where we left off last week in verse 14. However, there are some really interesting things going on in this parable. And so we are going to need to take a look at a parallel passage in Luke chapter 19 to help us make sense of what we read.
Speaker 1:But before we get into all that, let's pray to set ourselves up. God of infinite grace, would you remind us today that the test of our lives is not our ability to figure you out and place you on our calendars, to delineate your timing or your choices or even your posture toward us. But instead, to simply learn what it means to trust. To give ourselves over to not knowing exactly when you will arrive. And yet trusting fully and completely in the core of our being that you will.
Speaker 1:If we can learn to count that kind of foolishness as wisdom, and if we can grasp that falling or planning to fall on your grace is our only hope, if we could let go of our attempts to control or box in or manipulate you into our timing, but instead embrace the journey of faith for what it really is. A confusing doubt filled mess of humanity invited toward the divine, then we may we find that your grace is enough regardless. And so when we are foolish, and perhaps even more when we are wise, would we learn what it means to trust only in you? God, if we have fallen asleep and we have become disconnected from the path that you put us on, then would you be present to shake us and wake us and inspire us to begin moving towards you all over again. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray.
Speaker 1:Amen. Alright. Last week, we left off in Matthew 25 with a parable that ended in verse 13. And so let's begin today by reading from Matthew 25 starting in verse 14, where we read, again, it will be like a man going on a journey. Now, right here, already, right off the bat, we have to pay attention to something.
Speaker 1:Because in most of Jesus' parables, he will start by saying something like the kingdom of God is like. That's how he starts his parables. That's how he started last week. At that time, the kingdom of God will be like. That's what we read.
Speaker 1:And that's important because it helps us to understand what Jesus is talking about. Usually, it's the kingdom. Here, there is some question. And it comes because Jesus doesn't explicitly tell us what this story is about. He doesn't say it's about the kingdom.
Speaker 1:He uses the phrase in Greek. That means something like, for just as, or as the NIV has translated it, again. That's pretty good. Because this phrase is meant to connect this story to what has come before. The thing is, is a very loose general connection.
Speaker 1:And so the question that we need to ask as we look into the story is, is the connection that Jesus is making to his imagination of the kingdom of God in the previous parable? Or is the connection that he is making to the question that the disciples asked at the start of the scene, when will we know how will we recognize the end of the age? Is this a story about the kingdom or is this story about the end of the age? And most of the time, I am going to suggest that your answer will be related to your economics. So let's read the parable, and then we will take a look at some of the background in order to pull it all together.
Speaker 1:Again, it will be like a man going on a journey who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave of five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also the one with two bags of gold gained two more.
Speaker 1:But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground, and hid his master's money. After a long time, the master of those servants returned and he settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. Master, he said, you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.
Speaker 1:His master replied, well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many. Come and share your master's happiness. The man with two bags of gold also came, master, he said.
Speaker 1:You entrusted me with two bags of gold. See, I have gained two more. His master replied, well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many.
Speaker 1:Come share your master's happiness. Finally, the man who had received one bag of gold came. Master, he said, I knew that you are a hard man. Harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid.
Speaker 1:And I went and I hid your gold in the ground. See here is what belongs to you. Now, for a moment, set aside everything you have been conditioned to think about this parable and read that again. I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting what you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. Question.
Speaker 1:Does that sound like the God that Jesus tends to describe? Does that sound like the God who causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, who sends the rain on the righteous and the unrighteous? Does that sound like the God who scatters seed on the path and the rocky soil, and the shallow soil, and the good soil all? He who has ears, let him hear because that does not sound like God to me. And so I am going to suggest that one of two things is happening in the story.
Speaker 1:Either Jesus is not describing God at all, or Jesus is describing what it's like when you don't understand God. Yet, if we keep reading, we read. That his master replied, you wicked lazy servant. So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and I gather where I have not scattered seed. Well then, you should have at least put my money on deposit with the bankers.
Speaker 1:So that when I returned, I would have received it back with interest. So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has 10 bags. For whoever has will be given more and that they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken away from them. Throw this worthless servant outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Speaker 1:Matthew 25 verses 14 to 30. Now, however you wanna dress it up, that is a tough parable. With some pretty significantly hard edges to it. And so once again, we are going to have to do some work ahead of us to make sense of it. And we need to start with a discussion of talents.
Speaker 1:Because if you have been around church for any length of time, you word you probably associate with this parable is talents. This is the parable of the talents. And if you read this in the King James or in the ESV, that is the word they are going to use. Now, I think that the NIV has done the right thing here by changing the Greek talenton to bags of gold. Because talenton in Greek are not talents in English.
Speaker 1:So these are not your ability to juggle flaming bowling balls or play awesome air guitar. I'm sure you can, but that's not what it's about. Anyone remember way back when David Letterman was still a thing? He used to have a segment on a show called stupid human tricks. Instead of having dogs on to shake a paw, he would have people who could do silly things like reach behind their back and give themselves a wedgie, and we all thought that was entertaining television.
Speaker 1:Right? Some of you are thinking about it right now, wondering if you could. Please do not try that until you get home in the safety of your own bedroom. But, anyway, that's not what talents are in this story. In fact, it is not even your ability to sing or crochet or do well in business.
Speaker 1:Talent on were not talents. They were a measure of money. Specifically, weight, roughly thirty six kilos. And 36 kilos oh, my clicker's dead here. 36 kilos amounted to 6,000 denarii, which was about six thousand days wage or roughly sixteen years of work for an average person.
Speaker 1:Now that's what the NIV translates into a bag of gold in English. They figure that sixteen years of your life is worth one bag of gold. You may or may not take issue with that. But the point here is this is a story about economics. Yes.
Speaker 1:It's a parable, but it is not a parable about how you use your talents. This is a parable about how you use your money. And for those of us who have grown up in a capitalist system, we tend to assume that using money to make money is automatically a good thing. And that's not to say that it's not. Whatever you think about the ills of capitalism, and there are many, it is also absolutely undeniably true that capitalism has been one of the most powerful forces for good in the history of human society.
Speaker 1:Despite what you hear on the news today, by every verifiable objective measure per capita, less people die today in poverty or hunger than at any point in human history. Per capita, less people die today violent deaths than at any time in human history. Per capita, less people, less children die of preventable unnecessary causes than at any point in the human story. Now we still have a lot of work to do as a species. Species.
Speaker 1:But the truth is, as awful as greed can be and as destructive as income inequality has become in parts of the world, capitalism and the opportunities it provides have been absolutely an incredibly major part of that positive trajectory. In fact, one of the most effective ways that we can exchange extreme poverty in the world is simply to ensure that the bottom 10% get up onto the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Once people have access to economic tools, they are incredibly good at changing their own circumstances. Capitalism affords that to all kinds of people. But the problem is, because we tend to instinctively think in capitalist terms, we tend to assume capitalist examples are always positive.
Speaker 1:He turned five bags into 10 bags. Obviously, he's the hero of the story. Right? I mean, the master calls him a good and faithful servant after after all. However, if this master is a hard man who harvests what he has not sown and gathers where he has not scattered seed, we have to ask if this is the type of master we really want praise from.
Speaker 1:Remember, Jesus does not say this is a parable about the kingdom. He never intimates that this man is a stand in for God. All he says is that this parable flows on from the earlier question about how we will recognize the end of the age. Now, I do think it is very possible to read the story and say that if you don't understand God, and if you don't invest yourself in his kingdom, then God may seem harsh and vindictive. Perhaps this is a parable about how God's judgment feels when you don't understand him.
Speaker 1:Last week, we read a parable about 10 virgins. And when the foolish virgins run late to the party, they arrive and the door has already been shut. And the bridegroom replies, truly I did not know you. Well, I don't think there's anything in that parable to suggest that the bridegroom didn't want to know those guests. I mean, after all, he invited them to his party.
Speaker 1:He expected them to be at his table with him. So it seems to be something more like, truly I did not know you because you did not know me. That you never gave me the chance to know you. You didn't take the time to get to know me. And we have already seen that theme in this series.
Speaker 1:If you don't get God, if you don't embrace his ways, then even his grace can seem heavy. And so oftentimes, I think it is true that our experience of God is dependent on our willingness to work with him. I mean, after all, it is the master in this parable who freely gives out bags of gold to start. Start. And that sounds like God.
Speaker 1:To whom much has been given, much will be expected. That's Jesus from Luke twelve forty eight. That is a good lesson for us, especially here in the West with resources and voice and influence. And if that's what we take from the story, then that's great. But I wonder if there is another possibility.
Speaker 1:You see, one of the things that we know about the author of Matthew is that he likes to take stories and parables, and he likes to collect them together. So where in Mark and Luke, Jesus tends to tell parables in specific context or situations. In Matthew, those same parables have often been collected together into larger sermons like we see in chapter twenty four and twenty five. Now, that's not doing violence to the text. It's just how the various authors choose to present their material.
Speaker 1:And we have already talked in this series about how no doubt Jesus told these same parables many times in many different situations. As some of you have heard some of my stories one too many times. You're like, alright. We get it. Your dog is great and your kid is cute.
Speaker 1:Enough with the Instagram, Jeremy. Fine. Truthfully, I am very conscious about not telling too many stories about my son. I think that he already thinks that he owns this entire place, and I don't need to feed that. He already does clearly own everything in our house.
Speaker 1:I've learned that living with a two year old is like having a tiny version of Donald Trump in your house. Like, mine, mine, mine. Also, you're fired. I'll do that myself. I get that a lot too.
Speaker 1:But for Mark, the priority is collecting these stories. In Luke and in Mark, the priority is to situate these stories. And so even if we assume that Matthew is recording a second time that Jesus told this parable, this time as he is sitting with his closest friends and his disciples, we can still assume that they would recognize this parable from the first time that he told it. And it would bring that context to mind. And for that, we have to turn to Luke chapter 19.
Speaker 1:Now there's some really interesting context here that I think can help us perhaps understand what is going on in Jesus' mind. And so if we learn turn to Luke chapter 19 verse one, this is what we read. Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector, and he was wealthy.
Speaker 1:He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short, he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and he climbed a sycamore fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and he said to him, Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today. So he came down at once and he welcomed him gladly.
Speaker 1:All the people saw this and they began to mutter, he has gone to be the guest of a sinner. Now, the reason they are concerned about this is because Zacchaeus is a tax collector. At the time, tax collectors were not particularly well regulated. They would have large discretion over deciding what somebody owed to the Roman state, and they would also have some discretion over charging basically a user fee. This was added to the bill, and it became the wage and the source of wealth for the tax collectors.
Speaker 1:In fact, at the time of Jesus in Judea, Rome had realized that having Roman officials come to collect the taxes from an occupied Jewish territory was politically problematic. And so what they did was they actually allowed Jews to bid on and purchase the right to collect taxes for Rome. These were called Teloni. Zacchaeus is named in this parable actually as an architelones. So essentially, he oversees a group of these Teloni.
Speaker 1:But you can see how this system was exploited. Rome says, we require 10 from this region. And you say, okay. Well, I will pay you 12 talents for the right to collect those taxes. And then you go out and you collect whatever you can from the people, whatever is left over remaining, this is your wage.
Speaker 1:It was an entrepreneurial taxation system in the worst way possible. That's why nobody likes Zacchaeus. They see him as a traitor to his people for working alongside Rome. They see him as a crook for the way that he exploits the vulnerable among them. But Zacchaeus stood up and he said to the Lord, look Lord, here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor.
Speaker 1:And if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount. This is a shocking admission of guilt, and it is a surprising declaration of recompense. And Jesus said to him, today salvation has come to this house because this man too is a son of Abraham. For the son of man came to seek and to save the lost. Now here's the key.
Speaker 1:The very next thing we read in verse 11 is that while they were listening to this, he went on to tell them parable. And that parable is the same parable that we read from earlier in Matthew 25. Now knowing what we now know about Zacchaeus, that he is very literally an Archae Telones whose job is to oversee telonae. That he bids on taxation contracts, and he oversees collectors whose job it is then to return that with as much as possible. That has to do something to how you hear Jesus' story.
Speaker 1:In fact, in Luke's version in the parable that starts in verse 12, it is the same parable. But in Luke, Jesus goes out of his way to say that these people do not want this hard man in charge of them. Jesus says, his subjects hated him. And they sent a delegation after him to say, we do not want this man to be our king. But he was made king anyway and he returned home.
Speaker 1:So he sent for the servants to whom he had given the money in order to find out what they had gained with it. And from here, the parable unfolds the same way that it did in Matthew. But imagine this scene for a moment. Jesus is walking with his disciples, and the crowd has gathered, They are pushing in to see the Christ. To hear his words and to learn about this kingdom of God that has and is arriving with him.
Speaker 1:And Zacchaeus, a traitor to his people and a known tax collector, a crook and a fraud, a man who wakes makes his wealth by exploiting others. Encounters Jesus and he says, I am done with that life that I have lived. I will give to the poor where I have cheated. I will make things right. And while they are listening, Jesus looks him in the eye he says, do you know what you are saying?
Speaker 1:Because what I hear you say sounds beautiful. And I have come to seek and to save the lost Zacchaeus. I am here for you. But it will be like a man going on a journey who called entrusted his wealth to you. Zacchaeus, you know this story.
Speaker 1:And you know how this story story ends. You know exactly what you would do if this was one of your employees. And you know what your boss will say if you return to him only with what is fair and equitable. If you come back with just what belongs to him, you know what he will say. Zacchaeus, is being welcomed into the kingdom of God worth being thrown out of your current master's house?
Speaker 1:See, that's what this parable is about. It is not a bizarre hypothetical. It is Jesus confronting Zacchaeus with what his promise will actually cost him if he follows through on it. And it's that encounter on the road to Jerusalem that Jesus now brings to mind for his disciples in Matthew 25 when they say, how will we know that the end of the age has arrived? You wanna know what it will look like?
Speaker 1:You want to know the sign that the kingdom is near? It will be when you are willing to pay the cost to do what is right. That how you will know that the kingdom has arrived. Perhaps, we could say it this way. Are you ready to lose the life that you have in order to gain the one that I have for you?
Speaker 1:Matthew ten thirty nine, Matthew sixteen twenty five, Luke seventeen thirty three. You see the judgment in this parable is not about whether you have done enough. You haven't. The judgment in this parable is not about whether God's investment in you has paid off. It is not why he loves you.
Speaker 1:And so if you have carried this weight with you, have I done enough? Have I turned my five talents into 10? Have I turned two into four? Have I done enough for God to be pleased? Then would you let go of that this day?
Speaker 1:Because yes, there is responsibility in the kingdom. And to whom much has been given, much will be expected. That is still on the table. But you will never earn your place at the table. That's just not how the kingdom works.
Speaker 1:See, this is not a parable about whether you have done enough. Enough. It is a parable about what you are willing to lose. And the irony is that if we could only get that, then we would gain everything. Now, I have to close and I have to pray because we are out of time today.
Speaker 1:But this week, in the next seven days, would you reflect on the spaces in your life where doing what is right may cost you something dear? Perhaps it is your place in your current master's house. Or perhaps it is your position, influence, wealth. But may you find this week not only the courage to follow through, but the joy that comes from properly hearing God's judgment in our lives. Because it is invitation into the life that he has prepared for us.
Speaker 1:Let's pray. God, help us to take a story that is not an abstract thought, but is a very concrete, pointed conversation that you have with Zacchaeus. That challenges him to take and weigh the cost of the promises that he's making, and to translate that into our lives. Because there are all kinds of ways that we do what is easy, we do what makes sense, we do what comes along with the job that we have. But we know that somewhere deep in the core of our being it is wrong, or it is exploitive.
Speaker 1:It diminishes the people around us in some way. And God, would we have the courage to say no to those situations? Even if it costs us being tossed out into the darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. Even if we have to mourn what we have lost. Because we have our eyes on something bigger and more beautiful, more expansive and more welcoming.
Speaker 1:This invitation into your kingdom. God, would we be the kinds of people who exist not just in a theological bubble of abstract thoughts, but instead who take our faith and our trust in you, and live that out with our economics, with our relationships, with our wealth, and with our careers. We want somehow to point everything that we are towards the slow building creation of your kingdom. And we thank you for the opportunity to participate in this construction. In the strong name of the risen Christ, pray.
Speaker 1:Amen. Alright. We have one more hard parable before we hit, Holy Week. We will end here as we always do with this however. Love God, love people, tell the story.