Proper 28
Amos 5:18-24; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Matthew 25:1-13
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I.
I spent a good portion of this week either in the hospital or convalescing from something called diverticulitis, a painful irritation, and, in my case, an infection of the lower gut.
Therefore, I offer my apologies for a sermon that is more off-the-cuff.
II.
Today’s Gospel reading from Matthew builds on last week’s. Last week, it was the parable of the foolish and wise maidens. This week, it is the parable of the talents.
Both parables can be read as a description of the state of the Church at the time of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
In other words, Jesus is telling us the condition in which He expects to find the Church at the end of the ages.
Some of us, like the wise maidens and the two servants who doubled the value of the talents that their master gave them, will be found worthy of entering the banquet and their master’s joy.
Others, like the foolish maidens and the one servant who buried his talent, will face judgment.
The punishment as foretold will be severe. In the case of the foolish maidens, Jesus will deny ever knowing them. In the case of this servant, he will be cast out into “the outer darkness” — a place where “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
In other words, a place of eternal regret.
The message is clear: use the time of this short mortal life to prepare for your eternal life.
Today’s parable makes it plain that we will either spend our eternal lives in joy or in sorrow.
That thought alone is enough for me to put down my iPhone for a minute and pick up my Bible.
The time is now for us to get to know the Lord and His ways. Once we die, we will no longer have that opportunity.
Moreover, we do not know how long we have left. All we know is that we have this moment.
Paul warns us in his letter today from 1 Thessalonians 5:2 that:
“The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”
It was so for me this past week. The pain in my abdomen came in the middle of the night. By the morning, I was watching an IV drip into me.
III.
This is my last Sunday preaching to you from this pulpit.
Like most of the texts I’ve preached on, this reading is a heavy dose of law and grace.
The law is that you really must do something with this life God has given you. You will be held accountable for all the things done and left undone.
The grace is that for all of your efforts, it is God who gives the increase and He will cover all your losses.
That’s where faith comes in. The first two servants have faith that God will multiply their efforts. The last servant doubts anything good can come of this talent his master has given him.
He says:
“Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.”
Imagine such words, such ungratefulness, from the lips of a dying man! But, at least it is an acknowledgement that his life came from God. In our godless age, few even realize or recognize even that much.
Life — all life — comes from God.
IV.
Let me now, for the last time as your pastor, preach the good word of the gospel to you.
Paul writes in 1 Thess. 5:9:
“For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.”
I preached to you many times on the joy and comfort that is found in that word destined.
God has chosen us. We did not choose Him.
The proof is in the very talents of your lives. It is said that a talent was worth 20 years’ wages. Therefore, our lives are of great value, and they are given to us freely — none of us chose to be born — as a gift.
We are to spend those lives in God’s service.
But sin and the devil oppose us.
They make us doubt God’s goodness. Doubt does not come from God. Doubt is unbelief and unbelief is sin.
If you do not fully understand your faith, you are in good company. But if you willfully doubt your faith, you are the servant who has buried his talent.
Nevertheless, Christ died for us. That means He died to defeat the devil, the doubt he sows, and the sin which destroys our lives.
The good news is that it is still not too late for any of you who may have buried your talents to dig them back up and put them to good use in the Lord’s service.
V.
Now, for my final words of application and exhortation.
First, read your Bibles. In an age where everything is now faked or framed to one degree or another, the Bible remains true. It is not fake, and it is the God-inspired frame for understanding everything about the world God created.
Second, “Do not love the world or the things in the world.”1 I thought when I first came here that I might find it difficult to preach the joys of the life of the world to come to a people who have much to enjoy in this life.
But all this is passing away. That is why Jesus and Paul say the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night. All of this will be stolen from you, including the very breath you breathe.
Avail yourselves while you still can of the treasure that cannot be stolen.2
Third, teach the next generation to be Christian. In the past, the Church has been persecuted, as it was under the Roman emperors. It has been wiped off the map, as it was in North Africa during the Muslim conquest, but this may be the first generation where the Church dies because Christian parents did not rear their children in the knowledge and love of the Lord.
Where are the children? Parents, you have been given not just your own talents but the talents of your children.
Do not bury them.
Let us pray:
O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
Preached on November 19, 2023 at St. Peter’s Lithgow, Millbrook, New York.
1 John 2:15.
Matt. 6:19.
Invest Your Talents