Misjudging the Master

Scripture Lessons: 1 Thessalonians 5: 1-11 and Matthew 25: 14-30 Sermon title: Misjudging the Master Preached on 11/15/2020 As you well know, Jesus often taught using parables, and a parable is what we just read. Generally speaking, a parable is one way he helps us to understand heavenly things. By using things, we already knew something about, like oil and lamps, mustard seeds, rebellious sons, or in this case, slaves, money, investments, and a master, Jesus helps us to understand something that we don’t know very much about, like God, for example. I just made the statement that we don’t know very much about God. The thing is, maybe we think we do. That’s why it went so badly with the third slave. He didn’t understand what he was to do with what he had been given, nor did he understand the one who gave it. There were three slaves. Each was given a very large sum of money. What our Bible calls a “talent” was about a year’s salary for a day laborer, only remember that these three were slaves. As slaves, they had nothing, so think about what it must have been like to hold all that money. To have had a full salary all at once would have been intoxicating to a person who expected to work a full lifetime without receiving any pay. Just think about it. Have you ever been to an old plantation turned museum? You go through the big house and maybe there’s furniture and candelabra. Maybe you see what all the master and his family would have owned: toys in the nursery, glass mirrors, and polished doorknobs. Then you go out to where the slaves’ quarters once stood. There are cabins with a dirt floor; maybe a table, a chair, and a pallet in the corner. It’s likely that an archaeologist excavated the area find what’s left by the people who lived there, only all that this archaeologist found was a button, a clay pipe, and a broken glass bottle. Can you imagine what it would feel like if all you owned in the whole wide world was a glass bottle, but then you’re given a full year’s wages, times two or even five? What do you do with all that money? What do you do with anything so huge that comes into your possession? Maybe you just hold onto it, without knowing what to do. That’s a problem, because it’s possible to ruin things by holding on to them too tightly. Consider the transition of power. We know that democracy works best when politicians remember that their primary task is to serve the people rather than get themselves re-elected, yet so many hold onto their office as though the point of having political power were maintaining it. They hold onto the talents God has given them too tightly, and so they disappoint the master. That can happen. Maybe that’s happening right now. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s Editorial board, at least a couple politicians have questioned the integrity of our recent elections without any real evidence. Are they doing our country any favors if they hold onto political power breaking our trust in the electoral process? Or thinking of the parable: does the master entrust these slaves with such huge gifts that they just hold onto what they’ve been entrusted with? No. In fact, I believe the parable teaches us that the master desires something much bigger than that. Two of the slaves risk losing what the master gave them so that what’s his flourishes and grows, which makes me think of what’s happened here in Cobb County. Maybe you say that Roy Barnes was quoted in Around Town last Wednesday in the Marietta paper. You know Roy Barnes. He’s a Methodist, but that’s OK. What struck me about what all he said last Wednesday is how he talked about how important it was for him to do what was best, not for his party, but for our county when he served as the State Senate floor, even though what he was doing was likely to cost him an election: One of the great things about Cobb County is that even when the Democrats and Republicans were changing from Democrats to Republicans, there was one thing that we had in common. If it affected Cobb County and was good for Cobb County, all of us were going to support it, whether it was Democratic or Republican. He told about building Barrett Parkway and the East-West Connector. Can you imagine if those weren’t there? Rather than take credit for these great road building projects which opened up our country to business and new residents, he said, “It was all of us working together.” But once Joe Mack Wilson, a republican, told Barnes, who is a democrat, “Now you realize what all this is doing? It’s just going to bring in more Republicans.” And Barnes responded, “Yes, that’s probably true, but Joe, we’ve got to do it. We’re going to do what’s best for Cobb County regardless.” That’s it, isn’t it? “If you’re going to grow, if you’re going to prosper,” you’ve got to do what’s best rather than just hold on to what you have, burying it where no one else can benefit from it, for sometimes fighting to maintain what you have is the best way to lose it all. There were three slaves. The one who was given five took his talents and made five more. The one who was given two took his talents and made two more. Then the one who was given one took his talent and buried it in the ground. What do you see here? Maybe you see two whom you’d like to hire as your wealth advisor. On the other hand, maybe you see that two were willing to take a risk with what wasn’t theirs while the third was cautious and conservative. Or maybe you see that two acted purely out of love for their master with little concern to whether or not they’d disappoint him while the third acted completely out of fear. Has fear ever played such a role in your life? Sometimes you fear that you might lose what you have, so you hold on too tightly. Sometimes you fear disappointing anyone, but you end up disappointing everyone. Sometimes you fear failure, so you never really try. That’s the culture in some households. That’s how some people were raised. Their mother couldn’t stand the thought of a broken plate or a cavity. I grew up in a house where mistakes were OK, and so was breaking things. In fact, if there wasn’t a flat head screwdriver handy, my Dad would grab a butter knife from the silverware drawer. If we were having guests over and needed more place settings, my Mom might send us to the sandbox to collect all the missing spoons. However, not every household is like that. In some kitchen’s children start crying as soon as a glass slips out of their hands because they know that making a mess is just cause for condemnation. The third slave assumed his master was like that, and so he explaigns: 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. What I love is how the master responds: You knew, did you. You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? You knew, that I’d punish you if you messed up? You knew that I’m harsh and ungenerous. Where did you get that idea? From the year’s wages that I gave you for no reason? What we have here in this parable is a failure to communicate, because this slave is sure that he knows the master, while being completely and horribly wrong. Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever misjudged the master? I do that all the time. Let me give you an example. You might know this, but we have the most incredible food distribution ministry. The School Board recognized our church at their meeting last week. Rev. Cassie Waits and Aimee Bush were there to be recognized and thanked. Aimee has been running a tight ship, organizing a great team of volunteers, and even driving a great big refrigeration truck that holds our milk and chicken while we give it out. The need is great. Right now, people are diving here from the Six Flags area because there are so few places who are able to distribute food during this pandemic. Every Monday, enough food for 1,500 meals is dropped off at the church from the Atlanta Food Bank. Can you imagine what 1,500 meals worth of spaghetti looks like? I’ve told you that we’ve distributed more than 200,000 lbs. of food, which is hard to quantify. The better visual is a line of cars that fills up our main parking lot, and then circles the big parking lot across the tracks. We provide several days’ worth to 250 families every Monday. We’re talking about hundreds of cars, yet one volunteer, Fran Brailsford, knows all their faces and remembers so many of their names. I was standing out there with Fran and Andria Freund. Andria has to watch traffic, so that she can send cars down Kennesaw from our North Parking lot into our main parking lot without stopping the flow of traffic. It’s quite a process, and it’s a lot of cars, so I assumed that when a neighbor who lives right by our church called to talk about the food distribution, he was calling to ask why it was taking him so long to get home from work, and if I could do anything about all these cars backing up traffic. Why would I assume that? Because when people call me, sometimes I assume they’re calling me with a problem. When the principle calls you to her office you don’t assume it’s to receive a lollypop, likewise, sometimes people call me, and if they say, “Joe, I’d like to talk with you about something,” my first impulse is to think it’s bad, only when I returned this wonderful man’s phone call he told me that he’d like to donate $7,500 to feed even more people than we are already. Why do we live in such fear? Why do we misjudge the master, when the master has already done so much for us? In a culture of fear, we must remember who are master is and what he intends for us, so I remind you of these words from our First Scripture Lesson: God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t misjudge the Master. Don’t mistake his intention for you. Don’t fail to see his hand at work in your life. Don’t ignore the sound of his voice proclaiming his undying love, for his is our God and has Destined us not for wrath but salvation. Amen.