Do we use our gifts wisely?

Sunday 33A 19^th November 2023

[Matthew 25:14-30]

On television, “Linda” told how she had been cheated out of thousands of dollars, but admitted she had been unwise in spending her limited resources. She had bought an expensive smartphone and a washing machine, but when she had difficulty paying for them, she allowed the retail company to take small fortnightly payments from her Centrelink pension. After a time, “Linda” was horrified to find that the interest deducted by the retailers meant that in the end she paid more than double the original price.

This week’s parable from Matthew’s gospel is also about the unwise use of money. The story tells how the three trustees showed different levels of competence in managing the silver talents that their master had loaned them to trade with. It is an interesting footnote that because of this bible story, the word “talent”, which once meant a bar of silver, has come to mean a person’s ability or skill.

Matthew dramatic story does not have room to mention the many complexities involved in the way we use money in real life. Unlike the gospel’s three investors, “Linda” was not the only one making choices about her money. She was seriously impacted by the way other people were exercising their talents. Dishonest people were using the institution of Centrelink, and their own skills, to strip her of her limited funds.

Although they are necessary, institutions often enable the people in them to do great harm. Only recently, Centrelink agents had been caught out – following orders from government ministers – demanding that pensioners repay money that they did not owe. These “robodebts” were calculated using a computer algorithm that assumed the pensioners were still earning income that they were no longer earning. The “robodebts” caused enormous harm to vulnerable people, pushing many into despair. A few killed themselves.

Every one of us enjoys amazing gifts: we exist in this beautiful world and are equipped various talents: we can move about, talk, think, love, and create music or art. Parents use the gift of love to enhance the lives of the children they have given life to. We all improve our world by using our gifts to teach or heal, to trade or entertain, but if we misuse our skills we can do much harm. If we are part of a large institution like Centrelink, the army, the church or any profit-making organisation we can forget that the clients we are dealing with are not just numbers, but are people who deserve our compassion.

Matthew’s gospel story is one of a series of parables that are not just lessons in ethics, but tell us that we will give account of ourselves at a personal meeting with the One who is the source of our gifts. The other stories tell of the wicked tenants who schemed to acquire the owner’s vineyard; of the stewards who deal kindly with the servants under his command, and the other who did not; of the prudent and imprudent maidens waiting for the bridegroom. These stories nudge us to reflect on how we use our gifts, in the context of our eventual meeting with the CosmicChrist, who once walked among us as the Human One, Jesus of Nazareth.

These warning stories are ultimately about our relationship with Christ, who is not a selfish, demanding CEO billionaire, but is the God who is intimately within us as we struggle to use our gifts well. For our gifts have been given to us for a purpose: that, in the company of those whom we have helped and served, we will eventually hear: “come and join in your Master’s happiness”. (Matthew 25:23) “inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:35)

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Does God pay just wages?

Sunday 25A 24.9.2023

[Matthew 20:1-16]

Jobless workers during the Great Depression

Our scripture discussion group was trying to understand this parable. One member – a factory worker – angrily declared: “this is unjust!” Many people reach the same conclusion, at least on first reading. It hardly seems fair to pay workers the same wages, when some have laboured for about twelve hours, and latecomers for only one.

We can understand the anger. In the story, the workers who had been hired early and worked all day felt the same. Even back in Jesus’ time there was tension and conflict over working conditions, among workers themselves and between workers and the property owners who employed them.

Workers in Australia and in many other countries won fair treatment from their employers only after long struggles. During strikes they often endured violence at picket lines, even from government forces; and their families often went hungry. The conflicts were worst during times like the Great Depression (see picture).

The vineyard owner in Jesus’ parable has immensely more wealth and power than the labourers he employs. These workers own nothing and must wait every day in the marketplace hoping to be hired. In other parts of the gospels, Jesus criticises wealthy people of this kind. He challenged them to give away their wealth (Matthew 19:21, 16:25-26); and called them “fool” for thinking they can live at ease on crops that labourers have harvested for them, forgetting that life is short and that they “cannot take it with them”. (Luke 12:16-21, 16:19-31).

The struggle between labour and capital is the setting for this parable, but like all parables, it is about God. Parables usually contain a shocking detail, to make us think more deeply about how God deals with us. When the vineyard owner pays the latecomers a full day’s wage, he is being compassionate: they will at least be able to feed their families today. Was Jesus challenging his Jewish hearers, showing them that although they were God’s “chosen people”, God welcomes and equally rewards people from every other nation? In the Christian community for which Matthew wrote, was there jealousy between those who had faithfully followed the Jewish Law, and those who had come from Pagan backgrounds? Do we feel just a bit jealous that people who have done geat wrong might later turn to God, and eventually enjoy Eternal Life like everyone else?

The problem with all such jealous complaints is that when we make them we are being extremely short-sighted. We imagine that God treats us in the same ways that we treat each other. Is God a paymaster who rewards our labours and punishes our failures? Or is God more like an artist who – where once there was nothing – after an immensely long process of evolution created us in this beautiful world, among countless other species?

Did we in any way earn our place on this small planet amid a trillion galaxies, enjoying the gift of consciousness by which we can discover and share truth and love? No matter how many hours we might work, could we ever deserve the promise, which the gospels guarantee, of eternal life within God, who is Infinite Love?

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