Talents

When I got married in 1965 I needed a job. With my brand new BA degree in French and Economics and plans to start graduate school in 3 months I was almost unemployable. My father-in-law had connections and he got me hired on at the Second National Bank of New Haven. My job was in loan collections. I was to work from 4:00 to 9:00 PM calling people on the phone and demanding overdue payment.

I had done this work before. My grandfather had connections too and he had gotten me a summer job at the First National Bank of Boston four years earlier where I returned each summer during college. Did I say, First National Bank of Boston? At that time it was larger than all of the other banks in New England put together. It was a big deal and although I was a very, very small cog in the machine, if you have to work in a bank you might as well work for the biggest and best. No wonder I thought the Second National Bank of Anywhere was, well, pretty small beer.

I showed up for work and reminded way too many people of my First National Bank pedigree. After about 6 weeks my supervisor came to me and said they didn’t need me anymore. In the words of our Gospel for today I got cast out into outer darkness, and believe me, there was gnashing of teeth.

I had a lot in common with the third slave in this morning’s gospel reading. We have all met this fellow at one time or another. These people’s problems are always someone else’s fault. When they take the lazy or frightened or dull-witted way out they blame their employer for making the job too hard, for failing to train them, for not incentivizing them enough with benefits and perks. It goes on and on.

One of our favorite things to say to foreigners here in the south is “We don’t need any of you people coming down here to tell us how to do stuff.” Yup, we don’t. Second National Banks don’t need to be reminded they are not First National Banks.

Like the slave in the story I was afraid. I was afraid I wouldn’t measure up. I was afraid I would not be able to hold my head up as my wife worked and I studied. I was afraid people would find out that the best I could do was bury money in the ground. You hear that, a fellow working for a bank who wants to put money in the ground instead of at interest. I was afraid that people would find out I was as inadequate as I felt most of the time. Yes, I had a lot in common with the third slave.

I also shared with the third slave an inability to read who was in charge. The slave, anxious to reduce the consequences of his poor stewardship went on the offensive. “I knew you were greedy and mean and that you grind the faces of the poor” he said to his boss. Aside from the impolitic, can we say, impolite message, it is also wrong. In fact, the boss had given large amounts of his own money to the slaves to be steward over while he was away. Rather than being stingy and mean the master was uncommonly generous. He was also no fool. He did a best practice employee assessment and figured out that employee numbers one and two would probably operate in good faith and make a decent return. He gave them huge responsibility. When the boss looked at #3 he assessed him as lazy, blaming, frightened, and irresponsible. As a result he didn’t give him nearly as much to do as the others. He had low expectations which turned out to be justified.

This is a parable so the outsized consequences can probably be tallied up to poetic exaggeration. For my part, the folks at Second National recognized they had a mouthy know-nothing they could do without. Our God does not fire us; he does not abandon us when we call him bad names; she does allow us to reap what we sow however. Anyone who thinks God throws us away doesn’t know God very well.

The Talmud speaks of a tradition which allows an employee to bury treasure in the ground. This practice absolves the burier of responsibility for the principal. If you are scared enough you bury the money lest you choose the wrong bank to put the money in. This parable is about the cost of paralyzing fear in our spiritual practice.

Holy Cross has a lot in common with our parable. As you heard a couple of weeks ago about 90% of the gifts this parish church receives come from people who promise God they are going to make a return on God’s investment in us. About 10% of the gifts come from people who don’t pledge. These folk may be too frightened to make that commitment and cast themselves out of the company of the committed.

The spiritual benefit of praying about what portion of our stewardship we are going to return to the Master is that we get to learn two things: One: Our prayer helps us know who the Master really is and two: It helps us come to terms with our own fears. It helps us find out who we are. The Second National Bank of New Haven helped me a lot.

Instead of thinking of God as a harsh master who gets mad when the interest rate is too low on his investments, I prefer the image of God as the Hound of Heaven. Our God is a great big slurpy bloodhound with blood-shot eyes racing low to the ground from place to place making sure that none of his beloved children are lost, stolen or strayed. When he finds one that might be off-course God slobbers her with moist kisses and bugles and bays triumphantly at the moon in her delight in another successful hunt. This is our God giving us her 100% of all we have. Our task is to know our fear; to know when we are afraid to be generous for fear that we will miss out on something else.

Today, as you put your consecrated promise to God into the plate at the end of the liturgy, if you listen carefully, you might hear the whuffle-whuffle of the Hound of Heaven tugging at you to bring you in closer than ever.

So I ask you: “Does this sound like Good News to you?