Homily for November 16, 2008

Homily November 16, 2008
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Before I read this parable, I want to ask you to forget any explanation of it you ever heard. Don't think about it, don't analyze it. Pay attention to your feelings and who you feel sorry for and who you like and who you don't like in the story. Okay?

[The Gospel was recited. It was the parable of the Talents.]

I asked you at the beginning to put aside any explanation you have ever heard of this parable, because when I was in grade school, the explanation my teachers gave me was, "Well, God gave us all different talents, and it doesn't matter how many talents you have. What matters is that you use them all to the best of your ability, and God will reward you."
Well, that's a nice thought, and I don't disagree with it, but that's not the meaning of the parable. Parables, by the way, are provocative stories. They don't have any single meaning. They're meant to provoke you and to stimulate your thinking, and they defy being reduced to a single explanation. And they've had many explanations down through the years.
As I read this, I thought of our current economic crisis. You'd be better off if you'd have buried your money in the ground than invested it, right? So the meaning of this parable might well change. The master might say, "Well done, clever servant. Thank you for not investing my money or putting it in an unsafe bank!" So there could be many meanings.
Matthew, as the scribe who passes on the Christian tradition, isn't really that interested in being logical or coherent or consistent. He's not a linear thinker. He's just laying out the tradition, and he's more interested in provocative stories. So let me ask you, who did your sympathies go towards in this story?
The third one. How many of you really felt sorry for the third one? As a piece of information: In the day of Jesus, burying money in the ground was a very acceptable practice.
Who did you not like in the story? The master. Is the master meant to be God? What do you think? Do you think Matthew intended us to think God is like the master? Yeah? No? Okay, [A young boy said that God was not the master in the story,] Thank you. We'll hold that. What about the two who went off and made all the money?
I remember Fr. Monk Molloy, who was president of Notre Dame, saying that he thought the greatest challenge of a Catholic university was to teach its students that they could not be good Christians and expect to get rich quick. Doesn't the parable tend to encourage that kind of behavior?
And if you get inside the story, there are conflicting views of the master. What do you think the first two servants would say about working for that master? What do you think they'd say? Life's pretty good, he's really a good boss. He encourages me to take risks, he rewards me lavishly when I take a risk. I really like working here.
What would the third say? He really is  well, I won't use the words  he really is a hard man, and you don't want to work for him.
So who's right? He doesn't disagree with that characterization, but the first two certainly wouldn't agree with it, would they? They'd say, "That's not our experience." Or maybe they'd say, "Maybe he really is a hard master, and we really lucked out." Do you see the tension and the conflict in the story? And you can't resolve it from within the story.
And then to make it more complicated, he doesn't tell them what to do when he goes away, does he? He doesn't give them any instructions at all. He leaves them to figure it out on their own. This story fits in a whole series of stories toward the end of Matthew's Gospel. Next Sunday will be a story we're all familiar with that we like, about what it means to be a faithful servant. And they don't really give an answer, they just throw out the possibilities.
If you were to step outside the story and ask, "Where is God in this story," what would you answer? He's observing. Okay. Where else might he be? On vacation with the master. By the way, in our theology we've certainly had those views of God, haven't we? God is the observer, God is on vacation.
How many of you can find some remnant within yourself of God being the master who's going to settle accounts with you, and if you haven't produced... That's in our tradition too, isn't it?
This story reminds me of so many in the Bible. It's about fear. And the one servant did nothing wrong but is being punished for not acting. But I think that so many stories are to put fear so that you do toe the line.
Certainly we have used stories that way, haven't we, to put the fear of God in you, to control you, and to make you toe the line? By the way, when you mentioned fear, one Scripture scholar has a book on the parables, and he analyzes parables according to the Greek story division of comedy and tragedy. And he says some parables are comedies and some are tragedies. In tragic stories the tragic character has a fatal flaw.
If you looked at this as a tragedy, what is the fatal flaw? Pride. Okay. Neal said it could symbolize with the televangelist thing, send in your money and you'll get more back.
Well, the guy that wrote this book on comedy and tragedy said that the fatal flaw in the third servant was fear, that he chose to define himself as a victim, and he became a victim. Certainly that can happen. However we define ourselves in relation to God and the spiritual world tends to be self fulfilling, doesn't it?
And then finally, I want to suggest an off the wall thing about where God might be. What if  I have no proof of this, it's just a surmise  what if we really are intended to identify with the third servant? And what if we are invited to see ourselves outside with the wailing and the gnashing of teeth, and that's where God will be, coming to console us in the wailing and gnashing of teeth? I would maybe think in our world today, in our harsh systems that we have, there are many people who have tried to play it safe. There are many people who have done everything they know how to do and have done their best, who find themselves outside with the wailing and grinding of teeth. And maybe that's where God will be.
God is not the master  that's not in our Jewish or Christian tradition  but God will come to us. One Scripture scholar I know says it very well: If God really does break into our world, where will you find him? On the margins, not in the center. But you will always find God out there in the boundaries.
Anyway, for whatever it's worth. And if you go home with more questions than answers, good. Continue to be provoked by the story and think that parables are not nice stories, and they're not intended to leave you feeling good.