DEAL OR NO DEAL
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Text: Matthew 25:14-30
Today is the day of the annual stewardship sermon. I doubt you need any big reminder that this is the time of year when we ask ourselves to underwrite the church budget for next year. It is interesting and, on the surface, fortuitous that the lectionary would give us the parable of the talents as the text for a stewardship sermon. Our worship resource suggests “Extravagant Opportunity” for today’s theme, but I reached deep into the annals of contemporary culture to come up with a sermon title – “Deal or No Deal.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you have never even heard of the popular television game show, “Deal or No Deal.” It’s one of those silly shows that you might watch when there is nothing else on and you’re too tired or too lazy to change the channel or, better yet, push the off button. I suppose the show could become addictive, if you weren’t careful. For those of you who have seen the show, I thought about having a collection of metal briefcases in the chancel, but I couldn’t decide whether to import 26 beautiful women to open them or just use the choir. In the end the logistics were overwhelming, so I canceled the order.
For the uninitiated, “Deal or No Deal” is hosted by a mediocre comedian who has risen to his moment of fame by asking ordinary - and not so ordinary - folk to try to guess which of 26 cases, each held by an attractive female model, holds a million dollars. Then, by process of elimination, the contestant tries to determine if their guess was correct. In a darkened booth, overlooking the show’s audience, there is a “banker” who tries to buy off the contestants by offering them lesser amounts of money. With each offer the contestant gets to push a button accepting or rejecting the banker’s offer – “Deal or No Deal.”
It’s a stretch to relate a silly TV game show to this morning’s text, but a million dollars is a lot of money and, as in the parable, the game involves people taking risks with someone else’s money. If you’re crazy enough to play the game, and it does seem to require a degree of craziness, you may find yourself a lot wealthier than if you didn’t play at all. Of course the odds are heavily against winning, but that does not deter the lively and willing contestants who take their place, now on a daily basis, before the “Deal or No Deal” button.
I said earlier that this is a good text for a stewardship, at least on the surface. In reality it is a complicated text with multiple meanings as interpreted by a wide variety of scholars. But it clearly has something to say about money, both literally and symbolically. Even one talent is a great deal of money, perhaps a million dollars. In fact the word talent, which originally was the word for a measure of weight, has become for us a term for gifts or abilities, largely because of this parable.
Among the issues with which scholars wrestle is how much of the parable as recorded in the gospel of Matthew is what Jesus actually said and what has been added by the writer of Matthew and other editors over time. To begin with, Matthew, and the church, have made this a parable about the second coming of Jesus. It is seen as an eschatological word, one that encourages the church to remain faithful, in spite of hardship, until Jesus returns in power and glory at the end of time. Remember we suggested last week that some of the harsh and punitive tone of these final parables in Matthew’s gospel may be because he was dealing with a community that was losing heart and membership as hopes for Jesus imminent return were not realized. Scholars like Crossen and Jeremias and Herzog suggest that final two verses of today’s text are from this tradition and are Matthew’s additions to the text, not part of the story Jesus actually told.
Unfortunately, this parable has also been used to make a case for earning salvation. Each character is given something, according to his ability. No one is left out. But, in this view, the gift seems to come with a familiar price tag - pressure to succeed. The story implies that if you don't "do right" you will be "thrown into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth," a pretty grim prospect, even by today's cut-throat competitive standards. But does this reading really fit with the depth of God’s grace and the breadth of God’s love? What if Jesus' point in telling this story is to ask of his hearers (and of us), "What will you do with the gifts you have been given?" "What will you do with the gifts you have been given?"
What is the real story here and, more importantly, what is its significance for us, especially as we consider stewardship? One way to look at this parable is to say that it symbolizes the extravagance with which God blesses each of us. The amounts are not equal but everyone is given something to work with, something to live on. So in a stewardship sermon, I might say look at all the wonderful ways in which we are gifted. Shouldn’t we respond to those gifts by giving back, generously, to the Giver of every gift, to the One who has entrusted us with all that we have, including our very lives? Every Sunday we sing, “We give thee but thine own, whate’er the gift may be; all that we have is thine alone, a trust, O God, from Thee.” This is eternal truth, whether or not it is the actual intent of the parable.
The characters in Matthew’s version of Jesus’ story are interesting. The master is immensely wealthy; the slaves were not really what we think of when we think of slavery; they were a class of powerful and influential household retainers. It would not have been unusual for the head of such a wealthy household to be gone for long periods of time. According to Bill Herzog, the head of the household would “travel abroad in hopes of increasing his investments, initiating new business schemes, building patron-client relationships, currying favor with imperial overlords, or perhaps representing his city in some official capacity” (William Herzog, Parables as Subversive Speech quoted in Seasons of the Spirit, Congregational Life, Pentecost 2, 2008, p. 95.) It sounds a lot like a contemporary entrepreneur or a modern master of globalization - say Bill Gates. The master in our story would have to have trustworthy and able assistants to watch over the household assets in his absence. The three servants of the parable were not randomly selected from the crowd. It is plausible that, when the master divides up the resources, he entrusts shares to each as much according to his power and influence as to his ability. Clearly they have the power to run his estate in his absence.
Two of these servants are solidly in the master’s service. They understand what their master is up to, how the world operates and what he expects of them. They get to work immediately building on the capital entrusted to them. This common view serves a rather capitalist perspective - the gifts are considered to be capital, which the recipients are expected to put to work or invest to yield more money for themselves, as well as for the One who provides the capital in the first place.
But what’s with the one-talent man? What’s his problem? Why does he not get with the program? Well, the truth may be that it is only after the fact that he realizes he is not with the program. He thinks conservatively and, yes, fearfully, that he had better protect the master’s money at all costs. In fact, what he does by burying the money for safekeeping was a common and respected practice for those who first heard Jesus tell the tale. Burial was the best way to protect a valuable resource from theft and liability. It was only in his confrontation with the returning master that the one-talent man realized his mistake; by then it was too late. Even that with which he’d been entrusted was taken away from him. And that’s where Jesus’ story ends.
There are several other ways to look at this parable for our purposes. In one, Jesus is continuing his sharp critique of the religious leaders and their practice in his community. It is the Sadducees, Scribes and Pharisees who are represented by the one-talent servant. From this perspective, the point Jesus is trying to make is that the wonder and grace, the joy and fulfillment of the reign of God is breaking out right in front of them and they are not getting it. They don’t see the extravagant opportunity and dangerous possibility that Jesus is presenting to them. Ironically, it is more common folk, with little power or wealth by worldly standards, who are hearing the Word and seeing the possibilities, who are responding in faith and hope, who are leaving all they have to follow Jesus for the promises of the richness of God’s realm. In the end, it is those who understand the benefits of working for the kingdom of God who will hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant…” Those who don’t get with God’s program are like the one-talent servant; life leaves them behind as a consequence of their own short-sightedness. It’s not that God wants to leave them, or anyone, out of the feast; they, in their stubborn refusal to see and to risk, self-select out of the party. In the end, even the ancient law and tradition that they hang on to so intently, that they bury in fear of its living and lively possibilities, will prove more than they can handle and will die in the ground without seeing the joyful light of day. The punishment given out to the so-called wicked servant may really be the inevitable self-fulfilling result of his own fearful stance toward life and its gifts.
Audre Lorde, the passionate and prophetic African American lesbian poet and essayist, writes about this fearful stance: "We can sit in our corners mute forever while our sisters [and brothers] and our selves are wasted, while our children are distorted and destroyed, while our earth is poisoned; we can sit in our safe corners mute as bottles, and we will still be no less afraid." Or, she says, "We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same ways we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us” (Audre Lorde, “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action” in Sister Outsider.) Is this really the sad story of the one-talent servant paralyzed by anxiety and fear? “Take a chance,” Jesus says. “Take a chance on me; take a chance on life; take a chance on faith and hope, peace and justice, love and life. Yes, there may hard work and pain, suffering and loss, but there will also be the blessing of ‘well done… enter into the joy of God’s feast.”
Jim Hopkins offers one more perspective on our text that might serve a stewardship sermon. He says, "It is a needful thing to use well that which is given us. It is a needful thing to at least risk using the gift of love...it is very sad when one does not share love for fear that her love is too small, for fear that his love is inadequate from the start. Love demands some risk, for risk is fertile ground for love's growth." The one-talent servant is guilty of not recognizing the love inherent in the master's gift. Though it is important to make the most of one's gifts through hard work and investment of one's self, love, by its very nature, needs to be spread around. This is the work of the church to which we’ve been called and which needs our support – body, mind, soul, strength and pocketbook.
It reminds me of Malvina Reynolds little song, "Magic Penny" – “Love is something if you give it away. You end up having more. It's just like a magic penny. Hold it tight and you won't have any. Lend it, spend it, and you'll have so many they'll roll all over the floor. Love is something if you give it away. You end up having more." Our future requires recognizing the limitations and possibilities of the gifts of our common creation while accepting and spreading the love of the One in whose image we are created. Will we take the risk? Can we be all that we can we be? Can we be even more than we imagine? Is there a community here that we love enough to care for and to share with the whole wide world? This is our chance to choose…deal or no deal?