November 16, 2008

Scripture:         Matthew 25:14-30

Sermon:           “Money Under the Mattress”

            This morning we’re going to hear from the Word of God the parable of the talents.  It’s a story that Jesus told and you’ve likely heard it one way or another.  Turn with me to the 25^th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel where we’ll read verses 14 through 30.  It’s on page 37 of the New Testament in the pew Bible.

            I want you to keep in mind a couple of things as we read together.  The first is that Matthew places this parable right in the midst of Jesus preparing his followers for the end of his life.  Luke’s gospel doesn’t tell it that way.  But, Matthew’s does.  And what we are reading is right in the middle of some anxious words about God’s ultimate judgment upon the world.  These are words spoken by a focused man who is quite aware that his own painful death is near.  So, yes, they are focused and difficult.

            The second thing is that our English word “talent” has actually evolved from this very story.  Talents to us are abilities and skills and innate gifts that a person has.  A gifted actress is talented.  A prolific artist is talented.  You are talented in several ways.  And we can rightly understand the point of this parable by reading into it the different gifts that each of us have.

            Talents for Jesus and anyone in the ancient Roman Empire were vast sums of money, however.  A single talent was equal to about 15 years worth of wages for a laborer.  So, for us, a talent might be something like $200,000.  That’s just my best estimate, anyhow.

            So, towards the end of Jesus’ earthly life, using terms of great financial sums, he told this story.  Listen to the Word of the Lord…

            “For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability.  Then he went away.  The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents.  In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents.  But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.  After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them.  Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’  His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few thing, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy or your master.’  And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’  His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’  Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.  Here you have what is yours.’  But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave!  You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter?  Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.  So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents.  For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.  As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”

            My grandmother died several years ago.  She was an interesting woman.  Frugal beyond belief.  Nanny, as we called her, never threw away anything.  And I know this because in the wake of her death we had to get her house prepared for sale.

            Now, you may have done something like this, too.  It’s an amazing journey of memories and discoveries.  It’s the refrigerator that I will never forget.  Nanny actually had two refrigerators in her little house on the south side of Atlanta.  That’s a lot of food sitting around.  And one of these refrigerators had gone what you call sour.  An incredible mess.  There was food in there from the days when Roosevelt was president…and I mean Theodore.  They were good Republicans, after all.

            We sorted through every room in the house, keeping important things and throwing away others.  We found Christmas gifts that she’d received that were still unopened in their original boxes.  She had a whole collection of those specials you can only buy on TV.  It was like a Ronco museum in her attic.  Remember Ronco?  They would sell you the greatest hits of Conway Twitty and tell you, “But, wait!  There’s more!  What would you pay if we threw in this set of steak knives?”  We found it all.  And it was probably worth a fortune at the local flea market.

            But, it all seemed to pale in comparison to the fortune of cold, hard cash that we discovered underneath her mattress.  Thousands of dollars.  I mean thousands.  Just sitting there on top of the box springs.  My mother said it was the sign of a person who lived through the Great Depression.  In those days you could lose everything if a bank went under.

            So, there was that money.  Never earned a penny of interest in all the years she stashed it there.  It kind of reminds me of the third slave in Jesus’ parable, who dug a hole in the ground and hid that wad of cash from his master.  But, I’d never call my Nanny wicked or lazy for it.

            A CBS story in June reported that something like 28 million Americans do not use banks.  And that makes for a lot of money piling up underneath mattresses and inside cookie jars and sock drawers.  The biggest reason given for this is mistrust.  Some folks do not trust banks, even if they do pay a little interest on the money deposited with them.

            What an interesting time for this story to come to us, you know?  Right here in the midst of a recession that some folks are saying is the biggest financial crisis since the dark days of the Depression.  We’re all thinking about money.  Some of us have lost a great deal of value as the stock market has plummeted by about 35%.  Some of us here have lost jobs, or are in danger of that.  Our investments aren’t doing too well.  Our retirement savings are disappearing.  Our pensions are dwindling.  Ford is cutting back on shifts and closing production for a furlough.  GE is trying to figure out what to do with its appliance factory.  And banks seem to be closing faster than we can keep track.

            This story that Jesus told, if we take it at face value, seems to be speaking directly to all of us as we really do want to know what is best for our money.  Seems like digging a hole or stuffing it under the mattress makes sense.  Doesn’t it?  That’s what fear will do.  It’ll make you consider what’s safe for yourself instead of what’s possible.  Safe rather than possible.

            Do you want to play it safe?  Or do you want to see what’s possible?

            That’s what Jesus’ story is really about.

            It’s a little hard to picture given the words Jesus used.  But, he sets it up like a business with various employees.  We hear the word slave and think of dispossessed Africans relocated to the American South and beaten into submission.  That’s not exactly how Jesus is using the word.  And you’ll see that many English translations of this story actually use the word “servant” instead of “slave”.  It would be more like an employee than an owned slave.

            This very wealthy man went away for a time, you see.  And in his absence, he trusted his employees to keep the business running.  And some of these folks had already demonstrated their value to the company.  They were hard-working, invested in the success.  They cared if the company did well or not and took pride in it.  So, the CEO left them in charge of large sums of money according to their abilities.  That’s what the story says.  They had already proven themselves capable.

            But, then there was this other employee.  Maybe you’ve worked with him before.  Maybe you’ve hired him before.  Maybe you are him.  You know who I’m talking about because he’s not so invested in things.  The paycheck is about all that concerns him.  It’s just work.

            And what happens?  Two of these hired hands were just chomping at the bit to show what they could do.  They couldn’t wait to demonstrate what was possible.  And they went out and took risks with the money entrusted to them.  Each of them doubled the investment made in them.

            The third guy, however…The third guy took all of that cash and stuffed it under the mattress.  Do you know what he said was the reason?  He feared the old man and he did not trust that his employer would reward him.

            Wicked and lazy.  Wicked and lazy is how the boss described him.  If he wasn’t going to work while this guy was away from the office, he could have at least put the money in the bank for a few percentage points of interest.  Instead he did nothing.  He didn’t dream of what was possible.  He only thought of what might be safe.

            Turns out it was the most unsafe thing he could’ve done.  The head man returned from his trip and looked right at him in his best Donald Trump:  “You’re fired.”

            Now, Jesus starts this whole story out with these words:  “It is as if…”  It is as “if”.  So, chances are that he’s not telling us a story about three employees in some ancient Middle Eastern company.  Chances are he’s talking about you and me here in the church.

            There’s a preacher down in Georgia that talks about the first church he ever served in Tennessee.  When he got there, the chairman of the board told him about a $100 fund that the church keeps in order to assist folks who are having a hard time.  The chairman said, “You just aren’t allowed to use it for anybody who’s a drunk, a convict, on welfare, shacking’ up, or living otherwise immorally.  This money is for people who’ve just fallen on bad times.”

            That preacher said some forty years later, “Far as I know, they’ve still got that $100.”

            What’s possible?  What’s safe?

            I served at a church whose building was one of these ancient things.  Big, steep steps to get in.  Steps everywhere.  Stairs as steep as ladders.  And we had a board meeting to talk about it because there wasn’t any way a person with a handicap could ever get around that place.  We asked an architect to draw up some plans for a couple of ramps and maybe an elevator.  We were all set to vote on starting a capital campaign when a voice from the back of the room said, “Now, just wait a minute.  We’re about to spend all of this money on ramps and an elevator for folks in wheelchairs.  We don’t even have any people in wheelchairs.”

            You know something?  He was right.  We didn’t have any folks in wheelchairs.

            I overheard an elder of another church complaining to the preacher.  She said, “All these new folks just want to come in here and change everything.  If they want fancy new music, if they want a nursery, if they want this that and the other, they can just go to one of those churches that has all of that.  Quit trying to change us.”

            I think Jesus knew the church could get that way.  And it doesn’t sound like it was what he had in mind.  That’s all like digging a hole in the ground and hiding what the master has entrusted to you.  It’s like keeping your money under the mattress.  It wants to be safe and sure doesn’t dream about what’s possible.

            How about you?

Rev. David James Brown

Park Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)