feathering our own nests

Most of us have accepted what we were told, that we are expected to make the most of our talents. Then we will be given more according to how responsible we have been. This story was not about natural gifts. It is about money and possessions. Talents were gold coins.

I was in a group discussing this when someone said, “I feel sorry for the guy who was only given one. He obviously did what he thought was best with it.” The room went quiet and all eyes swung to see who had spoken. The comment had set us thinking. Someone else said, “I feel sorry for him, too. Neither of the others helped or encouraged him. He was obviously afraid. Maybe he had reason to be. Maybe he was inexperienced in such things. The master showed that he didn’t have much faith in him by giving him the least. He knew the master was demanding. Perhaps the master had told him that he thought he was hopeless, as my father used to tell me.”

A third person in the group spoke up. “I don’t understand this story. My experience and understanding of God and Christ are just not like the master in this story. Jesus didn’t condemn those who had less. That’s what the world does! And to reap where you did not sow and to gather where you did not scatter seed is to rob the people who did the work in sowing and scattering.”

Another person in the group lived on a farm on the outskirts of a major city. She told of how people had helped themselves to their sheep and how orchardists in their district had trouble with people helping themselves to the fruit. She said, “I can’t see Jesus doing that to people. What if we have been wrong in assuming that the master in this story is representing God? What if the point Jesus was making is that this is the way the god of this world works?”

There was a stunned silence as we all re-read the passage. Then someone said, “This is the way the economy has been run in recent years. People are expected to work hard to make more because the more people earn, the more the government gets through taxes and the more managers get in their salary packages. The rich are getting richer and what the poor have is being taken from them. Like the master here, some people in our community think all poor people are lazy, whatever the cause of their poverty.”

This is not a story about ability. It is a story about money and the pressure to make more money. We have been guilty of trying to make it “nice” by interpreting it metaphorically. We can know this because the next part of the gospel story is about Christ judging the sheep and the goats on the grounds of how they treated the poor, fed the hungry and thirsty, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked and visited those who were sick or in prison.

Could it be that, in doing what he did, the third man was taking a stand against the system which exploited poor people? This story may have been different, even in our usual interpretation, if they had all worked together to achieve what the master wanted. Maybe the two more able servants could have offered to mentor the third.

The Global Financial troubles are a reminder to us that we are not called to feather our own nests, but to see how we can best help those with no nests. Christ continually challenges us to question assumptions as we follow his way. May you receive many blessings as you contemplate this.

Rev Julianne Parker

(for full sermon see sermons page)