Sermon for the Second Sunday before Advent – 15 November 2020: ZEPHANIAH 1,7,12-18. MATTHEW 25:14-30

Deacon Christine Saccali via Zoom

 

May I speak in the name of the Triune God, Father Son and Holy Spirit . Amen

These are odd Sundays, these ones before Advent and this 2020 is the strangest of years. Here we are, two weeks before Advent, the start of another church year and moving on to another lectionary gospel from Matthew. We are preparing to be prepared, getting ready to get ready and for what? because none of the normal pre Christmas secular events are happening. In fact, nothing much is happening across much of Europe, the usual hustle and bustle has quietened down much to the disquiet of many. We are in lockdown due to the second wave of COVID plaguing Europe but now the days are shorter and the dark nights are longer in this hemisphere.

 

The heartfelt pleas and groaning I am hearing is How long O Lord , how long? Not how many days till Christmas but how long from the cancer patient, the grandparent separated from loved ones, how long do we have to work from home or go without meeting for a drink or coffee outside?  How long will the rescuers take to reach me thinks the victim buried in the earthquake rubble? How long until an effective vaccine is readily available to all?

The time before and during Advent is one full of questions and waiting. All the above scenarios and our own personal situation require fortitude, resilience, the word of our age, the more biblical word endurance, in Greek υπομονη, patience, one of the seven virtues. How then can we try to use the time we have to build up these qualities in ourselves while helping others to do the same? It is time to take stock; indeed there is a turn of phrase in economics called resilience stock. Bank on that and invest in it; both parables we are looking at last week and today in our readings are about investment and preparation – good qualities to reflect and draw on during these times.

Last week we were reading and thinking about the Kingdom values and the parable of the bridesmaids and the lamps in Matthew 25. Note that none of the bridesmaids could stay awake – how much does that story remind us of Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane and the disciples dropping off?

We are nearing the end of Matthew’s gospel and Jesus is nearing Jerusalem and talking in  Kingdom terms this time of judgment and Second coming although the disciples then and now can’t grasp this. But in this case of the bridesmaids some were prepared and ready for the bridegroom whenever he turned up. The end of that parable seems harsh and all the readings for today are hard to digest but what do they speak to us now so we can attempt to wrestle with them?

 

Today we are looking at the next parable the Talents, yet another parable about a landowner and how he treats his workers or how they serve him in his absence. For Jesus’ original listeners this story would have been heard as a metaphor for the relationship between God and Israel.  We commonly associate the narrative with stewardship but the image of God as a slave master does not sit well with a God who will judge with mercy. As Episcopal priest, Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, ‘how you hear a parable has a lot to do with where you are hearing it from.’ What do you feel, say, if you are a locked up domestic worker today in lockdown?

It may well be that parables are more relevant to our situation if we interpret them for what they do than what they mean. For example, what change can they bring about in our readiness for the kingdom? What if the parable is not about an unjust God but about us here and now, in every age and how we respond to the Divine rather like the bridesmaids of the previous parable. We have choices about how we use our time, invest our talents, gifts and money as we await Jesus’ return.

Who do you identify with in the parable? Surely not the third slave who did nothing but bury the huge block of stone equivalent to about fifteen years of wages for a common labourer ? These were no measly sums and the employer obviously trusted the employees and knew them well yet how well did they know themselves and the master?

Fear is what kept the talents in the ground/off the radar and an unwillingness to take risk and I can easily identify with that. An unwillingness to squander wealth and someone else’s at that. Yet we know God is an abundant overflowing God who gives us each all we personally need and enough to provide for others from that abundance, be open handed and not serve with a tight fist or closed heart. Later in this chapter we read about how Jesus is in every beggar and prisoner everyone in need. What God gives us is to be invested in the world but not used to exploit others or for selfish gain. Maybe the third servant was the wisest after all or you may think otherwise and identify with numbers one or two or none of them.

 

The Zephaniah reading brings us up short again; Israel is accused of complacency and resting on their laurels. But before they know it they will be subject to war and foreign rule. This prophetic book deals with Gods justice for his people tempered with love.

 

This year has brought the world up short and shaken us out of our security and relative comfort. But like the people of Israel we may have become used to keeping God and the real world at a safe distance while we were free to circulate. Now we are distancing from others, friends and family and church but we have an opportunity to come closer to God and ourselves and find out what he is doing in the world and in us. This is not to say that it takes us out of our comfort zone to bare ourselves before God. Then we may feel like we are taking a great risk. That risk is one worth taking as we enter into God’s grace and his world. Apparently, there we discover there is a good kind of worthless in the economy of God.

We do not much like the uncertain times we are living through or that it has shaken us from our complacency and comfortable lives. However, I am encouraged by vocabulary I have heard even from some political  figures of unpopular and seldom heard words in the public domain and news of references to graciousness, humble and humility; the idea of servanthood rather than slavery and the talk of sacrifice for the common good. May we embrace and reflect on these values as we prepare to prepare ourselves to celebrate the feast of Christ the King next week and enter into the season of Advent. May we find courage and endurance in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Υπομονη. AMEN