33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Introduction: Fear
“Sir, I buried the talents you gave me.
I was afraid. So…I dug a hole and covered them with dirt.
I was afraid.
I was afraid of you.”
Fear.
It’s part of life and sometimes, we talk about it.
For instance, we talk about fear of the unknown.
But the fear in today’s gospel is not about the unknown…
it’s about what is known-all-too-well.
Note, the servant at the end of the passage knew full-well,
what he feared and why he feared it:
“Sir, I knew you were a hard man,
harvesting where you did not plant,
and gathering where you did not scatter…
So, out of fear I dug a hole and buried your (stolen) money.”
The word “stolen” is not in the passage,
but if you add that word to the sentence
it drives home the point that the servant is making:
he is afraidand he hasevery right to be afraid…
because he is dealing with criminal.
“So, you knew that I harvested where I did not plant….”
Last Section of Passage = Most Important Section
Now, I realize that most of the time, when we read this passage,
we focus on the first section of the passage.
We hear the word “talent,”
we hear the word “invest”
and conclude that this gospel passage
is nothing more than a spiritual motivational talk
to invest personal talents
and make the most of them.
This fast-and-easy, surface-level interpretation is one message,
but it is not the only one.
As Americans, we live in a capitalistic society.
so we easily relate to the word “investment.”
Master, I invested your five talents and have made five more!”
We hear this line and think:
retirement fund;
mutual fund;
401-K.
But we need to interpret the passage
in light of the times in which it was written.
That means that the word “talents” refers to a monetary unit.
That word doesnot refer to personal traits, gifts or abilities.
Jesus’ time, you see, was not like ours.
We live in a materialistic culture.
That means that our society is based on the accumulation of stuff.
The Bible, on the other hand, was written in a culture based on honor.
In Jesus’ time and place, people craved honor
more than money and wealth.
Furthermore, they lived in a zero-sum economy.
They believed that wealth and possessions were in limited supply.
In other words, if one person gained wealth,
it was usually at the expense of someone else.
And to gain wealth
at the expense of the poorin an honor-based society,
was an extremely shameful way to live.
So, then, who does the master in this parable represent?
He certainly doesn’t represent the God of Heaven.
Rather, he represents the power of oppression and exploitation,
the false god of this world
who advocates stealing from the poor to make yourself rich.
The Christian Code of Honor
Given this backdrop, it’s clear that, in this parable,
Jesus is lettinghis followers know
exactly what they can expect from the world….
When you chose to live by Jesus Christ’s code of honor,
prepare to be challenged;
prepare yourself to get kicked in the teeth!
The world despises and sneers at His code of honor:
the code summed up in his words that tells us to
“Sell what you have, give the proceeds to the poor,
then come, follow Me.”
The code of honor that says:
“What does it profit one to gain the whole world,
but lose one’s soul?”
The code of honor that says,
“Those who seek to save their life will lose it.
But those who lose their life for my sake, will save it.”
With this in mind,
the focus of the story clearly shifts from capital gains
and investment strategy
to the reaction of the servant at the end of the story…
the servant who reacted in fear.
Hard-wired for Fear
Most of you know that I train horses in my spare time.
One of the hardest things about training a young horse,
is getting it to overcome its fears.
Horses, you see, are “hard-wired” to respond to fear.
The least amount of unexpected movement,
will cause a young horse to bolt.
The reason?
It is due to the size and construction of the retina in their eyes.
Their retinas are HUGE.
They are huge for a reason.
The size of their retinas enlarges and distorts the image
of what they see, making it appear twice the size itactually is
and, if that thing is in motion,
making it appear to be moving twice as fast as it actually is.
This means that
a plastic bag blowing in ditch alongside a road
is a blurry image,
the size of a bobcat
and moving extremely fast!
Horses have no claws or teeth to defend themselves,
so this defense mechanism gives advance warning to the horse
to escape what might be a predator.
This means that the best defense is to run for their lives.
Which is exactly what they do!
Only when horses have run 20 to 30 feet away,
will they typically turn around and take a good look
at what startled them.
It is only at that distance
that their eyes are able to focus clearly.
They are “hard-wired” to fear.
And so are we.
We experience fear on a regular basis.
But, unlike the horse, our best defense if not to run.
This, I believe, is at the heart of today’s message in today’s gospel.
Basic Training
Let me give you an example of what this passage is telling us.
Some of you know a retired priest of this diocese,
Fr. John Dalton.
As a young man, was sent to fight the war in Viet Nam.
Today, he walks with a limp
due the large amount of shrapnel he took in the hip.
I once asked him,
“John, when you were under fire, were you afraid?”
“Yes,” he said. “We are absolutely afraid.”
Then he added:
“But we did what we needed to do.”
He told me that, despite the fear that gripped their gut,
their training took precedence over their fear.
You got that?
Their training was stronger, more powerful than their fear.
For us Christians, the same holds true.
And, for us, every day is training camp.
Every day, like soldiers, we need to be putting ourselves
through drills and a regime of spiritual exercises.
These exercises include:
Daily prayer.
The Word of God.
The Sacraments of the Church.
Regular use of the Sacrament of Confession.
Sunday Mass.
This spiritual bootcamp
is how we move past our fears and closer to God.
You closer you move toward God…the further you move away from fear.
“Have no Fear”
As you all know, that the one verse in the Bible
that is repeated more than any other verse isn’t:
LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD.
It isn’t:
LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.
The one phrase that shows up in the Bible more than any other phrase is:
DO NOT FEAR
“Though I walk in the valley of darkness, I will not fear,
for you are at me side with your rod and your staff to protect me.”
“Mary, do not be afraid.”
“Joseph, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.”
“You are my fortress, O Lord,
My rock of safety. Of whom should I be afraid?”
“Do not be afraid…”
Again and again in the Word of God:
“Do not be afraid.”
Is this not the same message in today’s gospel?
Do not be like the servant who buckled at the knees,
says the Lord.
He reacted like a young horse, not a soldier.
Like a colt terrified of aplastic bag blowing in a ditch
that servant didn’t realize that the mean, ol’ king
was nothing but a
bag of hot air.
Christ, the Trainer
Thank God that, in Christ, we have a good trainer…
a trainer who understands that we are hard-wired
to be fearful and afraid
and that we tend to bolt as soon as we feel threatened.
Therefore, today, he is putting through some paces…
to drive home the point that we are soldiers…his soldiers.
He is telling us, gently, but firmly:
Don’t let the world steal your honor.
Don’t let the world dictate your morals.
Don’t let the world tell you that money is more important than character.
Don’t let the world convince you that pleasure is more noble than self-sacrifice.
Don’t let the tyrant in today’s reading mislead you.
We have another King.
And we live by another set of rules.
With the Christ as our King,
we have no one to fear.
With Christ as our King,
we have nothing to fear,
nothing at all to fear.