Jesus told the parable of the talents:
The one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, “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.” But his master replied, “You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.
(From the Daily Office Lectionary – Matthew 25:24-27 – July 17, 2012)
You know this story. A rich man goes away for some period of time entrusting huge amounts of wealth to his servants. To one he gives five talents, an amount of silver roughly the value of one hundred years of work of an ordinary laborer. To another two and to the third one. The first two use the money and double it. The third, timid and fearful of his employer’s reprisal should he lose it, buries it in the ground. Upon the owner’s return, he is punished for failing to invest the money.
It seems unfair that he should be punished for giving back exactly what he was given. He hasn’t wasted the property; he hasn’t squandered it or take it for his own. The rich man got back every thing he left with him.
I’ve always thought that if the servant had invested the money and lost it, there would have been no punishment. I believe that if the investment had been well thought out, even if it failed, the rich man would have shrugged it off and said, “Fair play!” This isn’t a story about rewarding success; it’s a story about rewarding risk. It’s a story which encourages us to move out of our comfort zones, take a risk, and try something. Jesus wants his followers to take risks; he certainy took plenty of them himself.
It’s been said that Christianity is an adventure of the spirit or it is not Christianity. Christians are called to eschew safety and security, and do the tasks that only Jesus’s people can do. We are called into ministries that take us out of our comfort zones and stretch us beyond the circle of relationships and practices with which we are familiar in our usual faith communities. All around us there are opportunities for extraordinary and life-changing interaction with other people, but require that we move into greater uncertainty and engage in activities in which we have a great chance of feeling discomfort, encountering resistance, or being required to make personal sacrifice.
The author Jack London once wrote:
I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark burn out in brilliant blaze than it be stifled by dry rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The proper function of man is to live, not exist.
I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.
Whatever talents we have been given, we are to use them, not bury them in the ground.
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Father Funston in the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.
In our lessons today, we have two stories about silencing the prophetic voice. First, a snippet of the not-very-familiar story of the Prophet Amos which is, frankly, cut from its context so badly that some explanation really is necessary. Second, the almost-too-familiar story of the beheading of John the Baptizer. 
The Pharisees are crawling out of the woodwork! After the vote yesterday by the Episcopal Church’s 77th General Convention to give bishop’s authority to permit a “provisional rite” for the blessing of committed same-sex relationships (it’s not a marriage rite – keep saying that!) the Twitterverse has erupted with some nasty stuff from detractors and supporters alike. We humans are always so much more likely to see and criticize what we consider the sinful foibles of others than we are those of ourselves. This is what Jesus addresses here. ~ The image of a “whited sepulchre” is so evocative. In an earlier verse, Jesus has accused the Pharisees of only washing the outside of their drinking cups. And elsewhere he reminded his disciples of the unclean mess inside every human being: “Whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer . . . Out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.” (Matt. 15:17,19-20) The tweets coming from General Convention (and from those of us observing from afar) on all sides of the many issues facing the church are certainly demonstrating the truth of this! The insides of many “whited sepulchres” are being exposed to public view. ~ I’ve been thinking about the Letter of James and how it might have been written differently if today’s communication technology had been around back in First Century Palestine . . . . Perhaps we might there have read something like this:
Disclaimer: I adore the Summary of the Law! If there was one thing in the liturgy of the Episcopal Church that just grabbed hold of me and wouldn’t let go when I first encountered it as a high school freshman, it was the Summary of the Law. And if there is one thing that disappoints me about the 1979 American prayer book, it is the removal of the Summary of the Law from the standard Sunday service of Holy Communion. So this is an admittedly biased suggestion. ~ A few days ago I responded here to the Episcopal Presiding Bishop’s proposed budget for the church’s next triennium, noting that she had created it around the Anglican Communion’s five “Marks of Mission.” That’s a good idea. My response suggested that something lacking in the five marks is any specific mention or theological reflection acknowledging that those marks are based in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. A reader took me to task noting that at least the first two imply a Christian basis, and I agreed. But the third, fourth, and fifth do not; I think the church should explicitly say how those marks contribute to the spread of the Gospel. ~ Here’s a simple suggestion for testing the ministries of the church, its structures, its programs, everything it says and does: test them against the Summary of the Law. For example, let’s say the church budgets $500,000 to promote “environmental justice”. Fine, that seems to fit the fifth mark of mission, which is “to strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth.” Next question: In what way does a program to promote “environmental justice” evince the church’s love for the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind? Or how does it encourage and enable the church’s people to do so? And if it doesn’t . . . let’s move to the second question: In what way does such a program enhance our love of neighbor as self? ~ In parishes, especially as parishes develop vision and mission statements, set goals, and adopt budgets, we are often encouraged to test our programs against our goals. Does this parish activity support the vision, mission, and primary goals of the congregation? If not, can it? And if not, can it! It seems to me the national church could test its budget and programs in the same way, not against some vision committee’s product, but against the vision and mission set by our Founder: the Summary of the Law together with the Great Commission. Unless someone can lay out a simple apologia for a budget item, making it plain how that expenditure gives witness and support to love of God or love or neighbor, or contributes to the making of disciples, that item ought to be challenged. ~ Structure the budget around the five marks of mission, good idea. But test the structures and programs in the budget against the vision and mission of the Founder: love God, love neighbor, make disciples! A summary of the budget ought to pretty well track the Summary of the Law.
Don’t the words of the priests and elders ring false? “We don’t know.” Matthew doesn’t tell us that they did know, but I think they did, or at least had a pretty good idea. I think they knew (or had a pretty good idea) that John was indeed a prophet, that his message of baptism and repentance was “from heaven” as Jesus puts it here. ~ I don’t think there’s anything wrong with answering “I don’t know” when that is, in fact, the case. I once had a parishioner who (it seemed to me) was constantly asking, “What will happen when we die?” My answer was always, “I don’t know, Martha. I haven’t been there yet. But here’s what our faith teaches . . . .” If the priests and elders truly didn’t know, they could at least have answered in this way: “We don’t know, but this is what we think . . . .” But they didn’t even do that. ~ Jesus constantly calls the religious authorities out for hypocrisy. He plays no favorites, either. Pharisees and Sadducees, priests and scribes, elders and rabbis, Jewish authorities of every sort feel the sting of his condemnation. A lot of books and blogs on the practice of ministry say, “It’s OK to say, ‘I don’t know’.” And it is when that is truly the case; in fact, if you don’t know, it’s better to say so than rely on some hackneyed-and-probably-inappropriate cliche or to make up some BS on the spot. But Jesus here is suggesting that it’s not OK to say “I don’t know” when you do know, or you have a pretty good idea; in that case, it’s rank hypocrisy. 
Our first reading this morning is from a little book from the Apocrypha called The Book of Wisdom. At one time church tradition ascribed authorship to King Solomon, but it is now believed to have been written sometime in the first or second century before Christ by a Greek-speaking Jew of the Diaspora. It is found in the Greek-language version of Jewish scriptures, not in the Hebrew version, and is therefore not considered as canonical scripture by Jews or by Protestants. Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox do accept it, and we Anglicans take a middle course, saying that we read them “for example of life and instruction of manners; but yet [we do] not apply them to establish any doctrine.” (Articles of Religion, Art. VI, BCP 1979, pg. 868). Well, here’s an example of life, then:
The end of June and we’re reading about Jesus’ triumphal entry? OK, whatever . . . . ~ At this time of year and at this particular time in the life of the Episcopal Church (just before the General Convention), my attention is drawn to the last sentence of today’s gospel lesson, the fact that people told one another about Jesus. ~ A couple of days ago, I mentioned a 
We all know how this one goes. The owner hired more workers at various times throughout the day, finally hiring some who worked only one hour. At the end of the day, he paid all of the workers the same wage regardless of the time they worked. The earliest hired thought that was unfair and complain, to which the owner replied, basically, that he paid them what they agreed. Jesus ends with the famous aphorism, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” ~ Every time I read this passage the words that strike me most are “I will pay you whatever is right.” The definition of “right” in this circumstance, it seems to me, depends on who one is in the story, especially if it is set in our modern capitalist society. Perhaps not in Jesus’ time and place, but in our time and country with religious pluralism and economic disparity the definition of “right” is a variable thing. For the employer, a “right” wage would be that which maximizes his profit. For the supervisor in the vineyard, a “right” wage might be a perhaps larger amount sufficient to keep the workers happy and working. For the worker, a “right” wage would be enough to support his or her family with some for saving and a little left over for discretionary spending. For the government, a “right” wage would be at least enough to keep a worker off the public dole and to allow the worker to pay sufficient taxes to fund necessary public services. What is “right” is a hard thing to know. ~ In fact, I can’t imagine a modern worker accepting an employment contract that simply said, “Worker will be paid what is right”! Can you? Most employment agreements need to include a set starting wage in dollars-per-hour and a description of non-salary benefits including health insurance, pension or profit-sharing plan, vacation allowed, and so forth. Whatever is “right” needs to be carefully laid out. ~ Why should that be? Why isn’t there at least some universal notion of “rightness”? Shouldn’t there be some normative standard for the moral treatment and compensation of employees? Shouldn’t workers be able to trust their bosses to do what is “right” for them? I think there should be . . . but the truth is that human nature is “fallen”, that humans (both workers and employers) are greedy, that (as I’ve said) “right” is not always obvious. That’s why we have laws. That’s why we have regulations. That’s why government in a world where corporations are multi-national or trans-national or global (or whatever term you want to use for “great big and humungous”) cannot be “small”. Government needs to be big enough to lay down rules for how “whatever is right” can be determined in a pluriform society. ~ And the church and her members need to be “big enough” to speak up for what is “right” when others in our society – whether individuals, or big corporations, or the government – would do what is “not right”. If something is “not right”, speak up and say so! Be the first to do so, not the last.
Our first reading this morning is from the Book of Job, which in the Jewish organization of Scripture is part of the Ketuvim or “Writings” and is considered one of the Sifrei Emet or “Books of Truth”, which is really quite interesting since it is generally acknowledged to be a work of fiction. It tells the story of Iyyobh (“Job”), who is described as a righteous man and who becomes the subject of a wager between a character called “Satan” and another character called “God”. I put it that way to underscore that this text is not relating to us any historical facts about God, or Satan, or a man named Job; it is, rather, telling a story in which characters representing God, Satan, and human beings in general help us to understand something about reality.
Job wants answers about justice but God goes into a rant about the creation: the sea, the stars, the sky, the earth, the whole shebang! As the speech goes on for several chapters, God will talk about all the wild animals, even the ostrich, who is incredibly foolishness but very very speedy. What are we to make of this? Job wants fairness; he wants what’s right! And God’s answer is, “Hey! Look at that ostrich I made! It’s stupid but, wow, is it fast!” What’s the point?
Okay . . . . This makes me very uncomfortable on a Saturday morning! Jesus says this after condemning divorce and saying it would be better not to marry. The description of “eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” is usually understood as a metaphorical statement of dominical authorization of clerical celibacy. I mean, really, can self-castration be anything other than a metaphor for voluntarily abstaining from marriage, family life, and sex? ~ Jesus’ description of the first two sorts of eunuchs is squarely within Jewish tradition. The Hebrew word usually translated “eunuch” (saris) describes two categories of sexually impotent persons: those born impotent and those subsequently rendered so. In Deuteronomy and Leviticus, men who are sexually impotent as a result of birth or of accident are denied certain rights and obligations and considered to be of inferior social status. Jesus, thus, uses of the word “eunuch” twice in a literal sense familiar to Jewish tradition, would he have suddenly changed gears and use it in a metaphorical sense meaning something quite different? This would not be typical of his style. ~ So who are those in the third category? I find it troubling that Jesus speaks in the present tense, referring not to some conditional future but to men living at his time: “there are eunuchs who have made themselves . . . .” Who are they? In Jesus’ society, deliberate castration was repulsive to all social instincts, contrary to the Law, or associated the idolatry of foreign religions. So one must ask: To what phenomenon could Jesus possibly have been referring? ~ Here’s the kicker . . . we don’t have any way of knowing. Jesus might have been familiar with the castrati priests of pagan cults, maybe that’s the reference. He was surely familiar with the ascetic Jewish sects such as the Essenes, maybe that’s the reference. There’s been a suggestion that because of his own celibacy (and that of his followers) that “eunuch” was tossed as them as a taunting jeer, maybe this is a response to that. There’s little, if any, biblical support for any of these suppositions, so it’s a toss-up! ~ My point is this: I don’t know what Jesus is talking about, but whatever it is it makes me squirm very uncomfortably! And guess what? That’s true of a lot of Scripture; there are a lot of things in the Bible that I don’t understand and that make me squirm. I read recently that any exegetical hermeneutic should include “a clear sense of the impossibility of closure.” This is one of those times when “closure” about the scriptures is simply not possible.
