Preached on the Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A, November 19, 2023, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington by Laurel Tallent.
Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18
Psalm 90:1-8
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30
The Three Servants, by Kazakhstan Artist Nelly Bube
Today we are tasked by our Collect read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest instructions from two community leaders on catastrophe, a distraught song calling out for comfort, an emotionally charged parable that is difficult to separate from its illustrations of slavery and finance. The parable also happens to feature my family: The Five Talents. I won’t be trying to pull too much meaning out of that.
Zephaniah, Paul and Jesus are instructing their communities on how to be, work, maintain their unity, and ultimately… survive in a time of turmoil. Jesus and Paul, and less directly Zephaniah, urge the people they love to be ready, to be careful and to deftly navigate the systems that constrain their survival. “Our survival - your survival - is imperative, it is my deepest hope. This is what you must do'' they say.
How must they survive? In part through vigilance, nimble action, wise use of resources and preparation. The apathetic, those who say “God will do neither good nor harm” in Zephaniah are dire threats to the community. The “sleepers” in Thessalonians, community members in Christ who refuse to engage in the watchfulness that Paul urges them to take up, are also a threat to the safety of their community.
I don’t think the elders providing this instruction relished giving their loved ones these bitter and unyielding codes of conduct. I assume there is tenderness undergirding the steely directives. We hear that affection and tenderness most clearly to the Thessalonians, “For you, beloved…” Paul addresses them.
Jesus’ recommendations are more abstract, to my ears at least. Jesus uses a framework of a master and slaves, money, investment and interest that is so, so easy to take literally. But with context, we can save Jesus from being dubbed a “finance bro”:
The parable of the Five Talents is his penultimate parable before the plot to kill him is put into place. Being in Jerusalem, surrounded by powerful and hostile leaders, he may have decided to utilize the language of power to communicate a subversive message; for his followers to continue their work with attention to the long-term.
This message itself is challenging, even if we untangle it from its metaphor. It is tempting to limit the parable to something along the lines of: “only be generous if it will pay out later”. Instead, we could choose to hold the story loosely, and listen for the loving desperation of Jesus saying “survive with your wits. survive by understanding your situation, survive with your savvy and ability to act within the systems available”
So what are we called to, when we hear these passages? Zepheniah, Jesus, Paul, their historical contexts and the loved ones they were trying to protect passed on generations ago, but we continue to revisit their warnings year over year, whether or not we are experiencing similar existential threats.
When I hear these passages I feel a call to pick up these survival tools again and use them. Due to my current time, place and privilege, I am in no immediate personal danger, but my days are laced with reminders that others - people I love, people like me and unlike me, people I do not know but am called to love - are suffering, are threatened, are experiencing untenable living conditions. I suspect that many of you can relate to this both as fellow humans and as a collective called to ministry, action and justice.
We are certainly not alone. I am reminded of the community organizers dedicated to justice, access and equity. Their preparedness, ability to leverage what power they have and their nimble action remind me of today’s readings. I think of social workers and - even more so - those who navigate welfare and social services on their own. Their savvy within broken and discriminatory systems reminds me of these readings.
The authors of this advice surely knew that being vigilant, unsleeping, prepared and street-smart is not a humane way to live eternally - it is a means to an end. This is why social workers and organizers are admonished by their modern-day elders in many, many workshops and seminars to know when their rest will come, and where it will come from. Although the realities of actually accomplishing this are complicated, especially for those who must simply carry on because of the existential threats they face.
If we take up the tools of survival for our own cause or anothers’, what happens when we do not - or can not - rest? In my experience, it can turn life into an unforgiving, unending watch as those sleeping around us become a nagging source of disdain. How dare they sleep when I am unable to put down my vigilance? Don’t they care about our ministry? Don’t they watch the news? We become unforgiving of ourselves and others, not allowing for the slightest slip. This is a hard place, it’s a place where there is no space for learning, growth, re-consideration or mistakes. There is only the watch.
When we do not rest, or are unable to, God themselves is irritating - their eternality stands in sharp contrast with our short time to accomplish so much. As the Psalm cries out, God seemingly swats away our lives saying return to the earth; the cycle of life will begin again without your efforts. How is it then that the Psalm begins with “In every age, Oh Lord, you have been our refuge?”
Psalm 90 takes us through a journey, from that grand statement of trust and solace in God, to irritation with God, to lashing out at God, to reasoning with God, finally ending with resolve: Teach us to number our days so we can apply our hearts to wisdom. In my short tenure in social services, I found comfort in this hymn. Its emotional arch was a more eloquent, poignant reflection of my own feelings. Singing and contemplating the Psalm reminded me that my work, my watch, was finite, and that it was not a solo endeavor; God’s eternal work of restoration will continue with or without me, I will not finish it all. Not as an individual, not as a single generation, not even as a single community over many generations. I’ll admit that from here it seems logical to jump to nihilism. I would rather wrestle with the mystery of Psalm 90 and take morbid comfort in the fact that my lifetime of work will be a human lifetime amount of work on an eternal project.
Our second source of comfort is in each other. Our calling includes the comfort of reminding each other of our lives in Christ together. We can provide mutual reminders that those “sleeping around us” as Paul dubs those who do not participate - share in that life. Yes, we will be called and call each other to watch, and to be vigilant, nimble and savvy. We must also rest and seek refuge. Deciding when it is time for which is the work of our community over the span of many lifetimes.
May we continue to encourage each other, as we are already doing.