Faith Like Fanny's
Preaching
Preaching the Parables
Series IV, Cycle A
Object:
I have a little book titled, You Are What You Believe in my library. In today's world, where belief translates so easily into violence, that title says more, I think, than John Killinger had in mind when he wrote his little book by that title on the "Apostles' Creed."
"You are what you believe." That thought helped me focus this week on the meaning of Jesus' parable about the three men entrusted by their master with the responsibility of managing his money. I don't like this parable. I know Jesus told it, but I still don't like it. I don't like it because I want to empathize with the fall guy in the story. The guy who takes a fall in the end for doing what was arguably the best he could. In the end, he is dubbed "worthless" and fit for nothing but to be thrown out. Not just fired for not doing his job, but told, effectively, by his boss to go to hell -- literally.
"As for this worthless slave [said the boss] throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 25:30). For what? For playing it safe? Eugene Peterson interprets it that way in his translation of the Bible: "Get rid of this 'play-it-safe' who won't go out on a limb. Throw him out into utter darkness" (Matthew 25:30 The Message).
J. B. Phillips translates: "Throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where he can weep and wail over his stupidity."1 He's a worthless, useless, stupid, play-it-safe, who deserves to be damned for failing to be as good a portfolio manager as the other two men in the story.
I was fired once. Maybe that's why I empathize. But I got a severance package, a going away lunch, and the concern and support of colleagues who believed I was being scapegoated. (If you're curious, ask me, and I'll tell you the story sometime.)
I read Jesus' story every which way but upside down this week trying to make sense out of the master's judgment: "You wicked and lazy slave" (Matthew 25:26a). Strong words! It's possible, I suppose, that the man believed that about himself. And, perhaps, in believing that became that. If Killinger is right, and you are what you believe, maybe it was true. Maybe that's why, when the other two were proudly announcing their success, he was admitting his fear. He said, "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" (Matthew 25:24-25).
The curious thing is that until we get to the master's reaction there is no indication in the story that there was anything to be afraid of. On the contrary, the master had entrusted each of the men with a large amount of money to manage on his behalf.
Our word "talent" came into English because of the wide circulation of this story. But in this story a "talent" is not what will make you an "American Idol"; it's money. A talent was the equivalent of fifteen years of wages for a common laborer. In our terms, at $10 per hour for forty hours a week, the man who got five talents got the equivalent of $1,560,000 to manage. The man who got two, got about $600,000. The man who got one, about $300,000. The master clearly had differing assessments of each man's ability, but he trusted all three men. He had faith in each of them. He believed in them.
As each of the first two men made their financial report the master's response was the same: "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" (Matthew 25:21, 23). His joy was short-lived, however. There was no more "mister-nice-guy" when the third slave came and handed over only what he had been handed some time before; having done nothing with it.
"A parable has been defined as 'an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.' "2
C. H. Dodd wrote:
At its simplest the parable is a metaphor or a simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.3
I was "teased" this week to wonder what Jesus' point was in painting this picture of this pitiful man, and saying: "the kingdom of heaven will be like this" (Matthew 25:1).
The key is to remember it is a parable. It's not "true." But within it lies a great "truth." It never happened, but it happens all the time. A parable is a pointed way of making a point about the hearer.
You're supposed to do what I did, to be teased into identifying yourself with the protagonist. And in the process, identifying in him the truth -- about you. Parables have a way of making people who really pay attention to them uncomfortable. Parables got Jesus killed. People kept finding themselves in them and not liking what they found.
William Barclay writes:
The parables were weapons of controversy, struck off in the heat of the moment ... The parable is essentially a sword to stab men's minds awake ... It must be that one single truth the story illuminates which leaps out to meet the listener's mind.4
What leaps to mind for you in Jesus' story? That's the sermon this morning, and only you can write it, preach it, with your life.
This little story really has three audiences. The Jews to whom Jesus told it. The early church for which Matthew recorded it. And you and me.
Barclay wrote that the man who buried his talent,
... undoubtedly … stands [first] for the Scribes and Pharisees and the orthodox Jews [to whom Jesus told it]. Their one aim in life was to keep things as they were. They said themselves that all they wanted was to build a fence around the law. That is why they crucified Jesus. He came with new ideas about God, about life and about a man's duty in life; and because they would have nothing to do with new ideas they crucified him.5
Jesus challenged those who believed only in preserving the past, or their position in the present, at the expense of the future. He "stab[bed] men's minds awake,"6 with little stories. They stabbed him in his side with a spear.
A second audience for this story is indicated by Matthew in his recording of it in his gospel. Scholars agree it was Matthew who gives the story its biblical context as a descriptor for the kingdom of heaven. Matthew's mission was to speak the truth to a church that had to learn to live with the already but not yet. With the promise of Jesus to be with them and the apparent absence of Jesus from them.
In that absence, that interim time before Jesus' return, Matthew tells them how to live. He told them to live like the man who had five talents, and the man who had two, making something of yourself, using God's gifts -- believing in yourself because God believes in you. Don't live like the man who, in refusing risk, refused the faith his master had in him and risked his own life. The man who in burying his talent buried himself.
In the early church, Christians practiced their faith at great risk to themselves and those they loved. This parable, which in Matthew's view casts Jesus as the master, ascended to heaven, from which he is yet to return, to demand an accounting, sounded a warning to early Christians not to slack off and just hold on and wait. But as an old hymn I grew up singing says, I can hear Matthew saying:
We'll work till Jesus comes
And we'll be gathered home.7
The moral of the tale, according to Matthew, is make use of the gifts God has given you to serve him, until you see him coming and it is finally on earth as it is in heaven.
And then there's you and me. We're an audience for this story, too. What does the parable say to you? Let me suggest that at least it should hold you accountable -- me, too -- for those sins of omission we confessed earlier. Those things we didn't do. The man with one talent didn't do anything wrong. He just didn't do anything. And that was wrong.
We prayed:
Merciful God,
We confess that we have sinned against you
In thought, word and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
Often as not, it's the sin of not doing that undoes us. It isn't the awful things we've done, but the good things not done, that do us in.8
Barclay makes several points that are particularly relevant to you and me. First, Barclay writes, we have different gifts. The parable underscores that. God knows that. The man who did nothing wasn't asked to do everything. He was asked to do what, in the master's estimation, he could do: manage one talent. Says Barclay,
We are all born with different abilities and the test is how we use the abilities we have ... The whole duty of life is not to envy someone else his skill but to make the best of our own ... The ultimate aim in life must be to say in all sincerity, "I have done my best."9
Second, "This parable condemns the man who will not try." I'm convinced that if the man had tried and failed -- lost the talent -- the master's response to him would have been as it was for the others: "Enter into the joy of your master." The sin was not not succeeding, but not trying.
Barclay observes:
... Very likely the unworthy servant felt that it was not worth trying. He had only one talent and it did not seem worthwhile trying to use it. But the world is not composed of geniuses. For the most part it is composed of ordinary people doing ordinary jobs, but these ordinary jobs must be done if the world is to go on and God's plans worked out. It has been said with great wisdom, "God does not want extraordinary people who do extraordinary things nearly so much as he wants ordinary people who do ordinary things extraordinarily well" … The world depends on the man with the one talent.10
And finally, Barclay again, "This parable lays it down that what we do not use we are bound in the end to lose."11
That's certainly true of our "talents" in the biblical sense -- our money. No one yet has managed to do other than leave it behind in the end. Someone once said, what you get is a living, what you give is a life. "Use it or lose it." Sixteenth-century English composer, Thomas Ravenscroft, is remembered best not for his music but for his insight which appears in varying forms. Ravenscroft said, "What I gave I have; what I spent I had; what I left I lost by not giving it."12
And that's true in every aspect of life, from sports, to relationships to faith. If you don't practice, don't expect to play well. If you don't relate, relationships die. If you don't remain faithful, your faith will go to hell.
Fanny Bell did well, I think, with all those. Fanny, who died this past week at 98, was a member of my Ohio congregation. Fanny was a Scot. She never forgave me for not playing golf. Fanny practiced golf. Fanny won golf tournaments. Fanny played until she couldn't see the ball! In her mid nineties Fanny was still at church every week helping put the weekly church newsletter together for mailing. It was a time when she and her friends talked and laughed and ate donuts -- and also did some work that needed doing.
Every year, Fanny went to Arizona to visit her daughter "for the last time." I lost count of how many times she did that. Fanny's "onions" were legendary at church potlucks, and her Scottish shortbread was a Christmas gift to be savored. Fanny gave friendship and got friends in return. Fanny's faith was as deep as any I've ever seen. I don't mean we always agreed on every point of Christian doctrine. We didn't, but she lived what she believed. She was faithful to her God to the end. Into her nineties Fanny would share her faith with children at church programs, teaching and touching lives as she could. She shared her faith with me.
Fanny's gone now. I said good-bye to her a few years ago at her funeral. There was little Fanny left undone and a lot she left behind for those who knew her. For me Fanny was the proof of it. You are what you believe. Believe that God believes in you!
Afterword
After I preached this sermon one of my members sent me an email that said in part:
Your sermon last week ... struck a chord. It reminded me of one of my favorite poems from my childhood ... my sister had to memorize the entire poem for a choral speaking group at our church. At the time I was too young to join, but I went with her to the rehearsals and ended up learning bits and pieces of the things they rehearsed. I have always loved this poem because they are truly words to live by. It is a gentle reminder that it is the cumulative effect of daily kindnesses that enriches our lives and that of those around us. Grace, joy and a positive attitude are catching!
The poem goes as follows:
It isn't the thing you do, dear,
It's the thing you leave undone
That gives you a bit of a heartache
At setting of the sun.
The tender word forgotten,
The letter you did not write,
The flowers you did not send, dear,
Are your haunting ghosts at night.
The stone you might have lifted
Out of a brother's way;
The bit of heartsome counsel
You were hurried too much to say;
The loving touch of the hand, dear,
The gentle, winning tone
Which you had no time nor thought for
With troubles enough of your own.
Those little acts of kindness
So easily out of mind,
Those chances to be angels
Which we poor mortals find --
They come in night and silence,
Each sad, reproachful wraith,
When hope is faint and flagging,
And a chill has fallen on faith.
For life is all too short, dear,
And sorrow is all too great,
To suffer our slow compassion
That tarries until too late:
And it isn't the thing you do, dear,
It's the thing you leave undone
Which gives you a bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun.
-- Margaret Sangster 1838-1912[13]
____________
1. J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1964), p. 57. Used by permission. This is a Macmillan Inc. title, now under the control of Simon & Schuster, www.simonsays.com,Yessenia. Santos@simonandschuster.com, Permissions Department.
2. William Barclay, The Parables of Jesus (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1970), p. 12.
3. C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), p. 5.
4. Op cit, Barclay, p. 16.
5. Ibid, 169.
6. Ibid, 16.
7. Elizabeth Kay Mills, "O Land Of Rest, For Thee I Sigh!"
8. After this sermon was preached a member of my congregation sent me a copy of a poem called "The Sin of Omission," by Margaret E. Sangster. It is reprinted on pages 105-106.
9. Op cit, William Barclay, pp. 171-172.
10. Ibid, p. 172.
11. Ibid.
12. www.brainyquote.com.
13. Margaret E. Sangster, "The Sin of Omission," The Home Book of Verse: American and English 1580-1920, ed. Burton Egbert Stevenson, 5th edn. (New York: Henry Holt, 1922), pp. 2926-2927.
"You are what you believe." That thought helped me focus this week on the meaning of Jesus' parable about the three men entrusted by their master with the responsibility of managing his money. I don't like this parable. I know Jesus told it, but I still don't like it. I don't like it because I want to empathize with the fall guy in the story. The guy who takes a fall in the end for doing what was arguably the best he could. In the end, he is dubbed "worthless" and fit for nothing but to be thrown out. Not just fired for not doing his job, but told, effectively, by his boss to go to hell -- literally.
"As for this worthless slave [said the boss] throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 25:30). For what? For playing it safe? Eugene Peterson interprets it that way in his translation of the Bible: "Get rid of this 'play-it-safe' who won't go out on a limb. Throw him out into utter darkness" (Matthew 25:30 The Message).
J. B. Phillips translates: "Throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where he can weep and wail over his stupidity."1 He's a worthless, useless, stupid, play-it-safe, who deserves to be damned for failing to be as good a portfolio manager as the other two men in the story.
I was fired once. Maybe that's why I empathize. But I got a severance package, a going away lunch, and the concern and support of colleagues who believed I was being scapegoated. (If you're curious, ask me, and I'll tell you the story sometime.)
I read Jesus' story every which way but upside down this week trying to make sense out of the master's judgment: "You wicked and lazy slave" (Matthew 25:26a). Strong words! It's possible, I suppose, that the man believed that about himself. And, perhaps, in believing that became that. If Killinger is right, and you are what you believe, maybe it was true. Maybe that's why, when the other two were proudly announcing their success, he was admitting his fear. He said, "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" (Matthew 25:24-25).
The curious thing is that until we get to the master's reaction there is no indication in the story that there was anything to be afraid of. On the contrary, the master had entrusted each of the men with a large amount of money to manage on his behalf.
Our word "talent" came into English because of the wide circulation of this story. But in this story a "talent" is not what will make you an "American Idol"; it's money. A talent was the equivalent of fifteen years of wages for a common laborer. In our terms, at $10 per hour for forty hours a week, the man who got five talents got the equivalent of $1,560,000 to manage. The man who got two, got about $600,000. The man who got one, about $300,000. The master clearly had differing assessments of each man's ability, but he trusted all three men. He had faith in each of them. He believed in them.
As each of the first two men made their financial report the master's response was the same: "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" (Matthew 25:21, 23). His joy was short-lived, however. There was no more "mister-nice-guy" when the third slave came and handed over only what he had been handed some time before; having done nothing with it.
"A parable has been defined as 'an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.' "2
C. H. Dodd wrote:
At its simplest the parable is a metaphor or a simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leaving the mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought.3
I was "teased" this week to wonder what Jesus' point was in painting this picture of this pitiful man, and saying: "the kingdom of heaven will be like this" (Matthew 25:1).
The key is to remember it is a parable. It's not "true." But within it lies a great "truth." It never happened, but it happens all the time. A parable is a pointed way of making a point about the hearer.
You're supposed to do what I did, to be teased into identifying yourself with the protagonist. And in the process, identifying in him the truth -- about you. Parables have a way of making people who really pay attention to them uncomfortable. Parables got Jesus killed. People kept finding themselves in them and not liking what they found.
William Barclay writes:
The parables were weapons of controversy, struck off in the heat of the moment ... The parable is essentially a sword to stab men's minds awake ... It must be that one single truth the story illuminates which leaps out to meet the listener's mind.4
What leaps to mind for you in Jesus' story? That's the sermon this morning, and only you can write it, preach it, with your life.
This little story really has three audiences. The Jews to whom Jesus told it. The early church for which Matthew recorded it. And you and me.
Barclay wrote that the man who buried his talent,
... undoubtedly … stands [first] for the Scribes and Pharisees and the orthodox Jews [to whom Jesus told it]. Their one aim in life was to keep things as they were. They said themselves that all they wanted was to build a fence around the law. That is why they crucified Jesus. He came with new ideas about God, about life and about a man's duty in life; and because they would have nothing to do with new ideas they crucified him.5
Jesus challenged those who believed only in preserving the past, or their position in the present, at the expense of the future. He "stab[bed] men's minds awake,"6 with little stories. They stabbed him in his side with a spear.
A second audience for this story is indicated by Matthew in his recording of it in his gospel. Scholars agree it was Matthew who gives the story its biblical context as a descriptor for the kingdom of heaven. Matthew's mission was to speak the truth to a church that had to learn to live with the already but not yet. With the promise of Jesus to be with them and the apparent absence of Jesus from them.
In that absence, that interim time before Jesus' return, Matthew tells them how to live. He told them to live like the man who had five talents, and the man who had two, making something of yourself, using God's gifts -- believing in yourself because God believes in you. Don't live like the man who, in refusing risk, refused the faith his master had in him and risked his own life. The man who in burying his talent buried himself.
In the early church, Christians practiced their faith at great risk to themselves and those they loved. This parable, which in Matthew's view casts Jesus as the master, ascended to heaven, from which he is yet to return, to demand an accounting, sounded a warning to early Christians not to slack off and just hold on and wait. But as an old hymn I grew up singing says, I can hear Matthew saying:
We'll work till Jesus comes
And we'll be gathered home.7
The moral of the tale, according to Matthew, is make use of the gifts God has given you to serve him, until you see him coming and it is finally on earth as it is in heaven.
And then there's you and me. We're an audience for this story, too. What does the parable say to you? Let me suggest that at least it should hold you accountable -- me, too -- for those sins of omission we confessed earlier. Those things we didn't do. The man with one talent didn't do anything wrong. He just didn't do anything. And that was wrong.
We prayed:
Merciful God,
We confess that we have sinned against you
In thought, word and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
Often as not, it's the sin of not doing that undoes us. It isn't the awful things we've done, but the good things not done, that do us in.8
Barclay makes several points that are particularly relevant to you and me. First, Barclay writes, we have different gifts. The parable underscores that. God knows that. The man who did nothing wasn't asked to do everything. He was asked to do what, in the master's estimation, he could do: manage one talent. Says Barclay,
We are all born with different abilities and the test is how we use the abilities we have ... The whole duty of life is not to envy someone else his skill but to make the best of our own ... The ultimate aim in life must be to say in all sincerity, "I have done my best."9
Second, "This parable condemns the man who will not try." I'm convinced that if the man had tried and failed -- lost the talent -- the master's response to him would have been as it was for the others: "Enter into the joy of your master." The sin was not not succeeding, but not trying.
Barclay observes:
... Very likely the unworthy servant felt that it was not worth trying. He had only one talent and it did not seem worthwhile trying to use it. But the world is not composed of geniuses. For the most part it is composed of ordinary people doing ordinary jobs, but these ordinary jobs must be done if the world is to go on and God's plans worked out. It has been said with great wisdom, "God does not want extraordinary people who do extraordinary things nearly so much as he wants ordinary people who do ordinary things extraordinarily well" … The world depends on the man with the one talent.10
And finally, Barclay again, "This parable lays it down that what we do not use we are bound in the end to lose."11
That's certainly true of our "talents" in the biblical sense -- our money. No one yet has managed to do other than leave it behind in the end. Someone once said, what you get is a living, what you give is a life. "Use it or lose it." Sixteenth-century English composer, Thomas Ravenscroft, is remembered best not for his music but for his insight which appears in varying forms. Ravenscroft said, "What I gave I have; what I spent I had; what I left I lost by not giving it."12
And that's true in every aspect of life, from sports, to relationships to faith. If you don't practice, don't expect to play well. If you don't relate, relationships die. If you don't remain faithful, your faith will go to hell.
Fanny Bell did well, I think, with all those. Fanny, who died this past week at 98, was a member of my Ohio congregation. Fanny was a Scot. She never forgave me for not playing golf. Fanny practiced golf. Fanny won golf tournaments. Fanny played until she couldn't see the ball! In her mid nineties Fanny was still at church every week helping put the weekly church newsletter together for mailing. It was a time when she and her friends talked and laughed and ate donuts -- and also did some work that needed doing.
Every year, Fanny went to Arizona to visit her daughter "for the last time." I lost count of how many times she did that. Fanny's "onions" were legendary at church potlucks, and her Scottish shortbread was a Christmas gift to be savored. Fanny gave friendship and got friends in return. Fanny's faith was as deep as any I've ever seen. I don't mean we always agreed on every point of Christian doctrine. We didn't, but she lived what she believed. She was faithful to her God to the end. Into her nineties Fanny would share her faith with children at church programs, teaching and touching lives as she could. She shared her faith with me.
Fanny's gone now. I said good-bye to her a few years ago at her funeral. There was little Fanny left undone and a lot she left behind for those who knew her. For me Fanny was the proof of it. You are what you believe. Believe that God believes in you!
Afterword
After I preached this sermon one of my members sent me an email that said in part:
Your sermon last week ... struck a chord. It reminded me of one of my favorite poems from my childhood ... my sister had to memorize the entire poem for a choral speaking group at our church. At the time I was too young to join, but I went with her to the rehearsals and ended up learning bits and pieces of the things they rehearsed. I have always loved this poem because they are truly words to live by. It is a gentle reminder that it is the cumulative effect of daily kindnesses that enriches our lives and that of those around us. Grace, joy and a positive attitude are catching!
The poem goes as follows:
It isn't the thing you do, dear,
It's the thing you leave undone
That gives you a bit of a heartache
At setting of the sun.
The tender word forgotten,
The letter you did not write,
The flowers you did not send, dear,
Are your haunting ghosts at night.
The stone you might have lifted
Out of a brother's way;
The bit of heartsome counsel
You were hurried too much to say;
The loving touch of the hand, dear,
The gentle, winning tone
Which you had no time nor thought for
With troubles enough of your own.
Those little acts of kindness
So easily out of mind,
Those chances to be angels
Which we poor mortals find --
They come in night and silence,
Each sad, reproachful wraith,
When hope is faint and flagging,
And a chill has fallen on faith.
For life is all too short, dear,
And sorrow is all too great,
To suffer our slow compassion
That tarries until too late:
And it isn't the thing you do, dear,
It's the thing you leave undone
Which gives you a bit of heartache
At the setting of the sun.
-- Margaret Sangster 1838-1912[13]
____________
1. J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1964), p. 57. Used by permission. This is a Macmillan Inc. title, now under the control of Simon & Schuster, www.simonsays.com,Yessenia. Santos@simonandschuster.com, Permissions Department.
2. William Barclay, The Parables of Jesus (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1970), p. 12.
3. C. H. Dodd, The Parables of the Kingdom (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), p. 5.
4. Op cit, Barclay, p. 16.
5. Ibid, 169.
6. Ibid, 16.
7. Elizabeth Kay Mills, "O Land Of Rest, For Thee I Sigh!"
8. After this sermon was preached a member of my congregation sent me a copy of a poem called "The Sin of Omission," by Margaret E. Sangster. It is reprinted on pages 105-106.
9. Op cit, William Barclay, pp. 171-172.
10. Ibid, p. 172.
11. Ibid.
12. www.brainyquote.com.
13. Margaret E. Sangster, "The Sin of Omission," The Home Book of Verse: American and English 1580-1920, ed. Burton Egbert Stevenson, 5th edn. (New York: Henry Holt, 1922), pp. 2926-2927.
