And throw this useless servant into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth!" How's THAT for Good News?
How do you think we should approach this gospel passage? Do you think we should give it a "capitalistic" reading? If God allowed you to be born into the Carnegie family, you should, by the time you die, own MicroSoft, too? Does that sound like a sensible God to you?
Well, the same is true, only psychologically, if you approach it as a treatise on personality gifts instead of financial gifts. Is it metaphorically saying that if God gave you an easy sense of humor that you should be Don Rickles or Phyllis Diller by the time you die? Does that sound like a sensible God to you?
Isn't it the same thing, only spiritually, if we say that God has given us some gifts of service, and if we haven't developed them to the full extent of our ability by the time we die that we'll be cast out on the cosmic garbage heap? If you ever served as a room mother, you had better look like Mother Theresa by the time you die? Does this sound like a sensible God speaking to you?
So, how should we REALLY understand it? If we don't use it as a cosmic "guilt trip" how do we understand this Gospel passage? How often has "Heaven" been held in front of us like a carrot before a donkey, to get us motivated? Is that what Heaven is about? Motivation? How often has religion been presented to you as a "cosmic insurance policy?" Where you pay the premium here to get the benefits later? Or a "cosmic savings plan" where you deposit a good deed and a prayer here to reap the interest there? We have to ask ourselves, "Is THAT what God is about?"
I don't know about you, but I don't like those approaches. They're familiar, yes. Too familiar, almost! We've all heard them, been threatened with them. It has come to sound like "Tradition" with a capital "T!" But is it what we should understand in this text and in others like it?
I went to commentaries this week–hoping to find something different. But there wasn't anything. They all say things like, "we are coming to the end of the Church year, and the readings focus on the end of the world, and they take on an apocalyptic flavor as the demand is placed."
But what demand? Didn't Christ, himself, say, "Take my yoke upon your shoulders, for my yoke is easy, and my burden light, and you will find rest for your souls?" Didn't we hear him two weeks ago condemning some religious folk for putting heavy burdens on people's shoulders and not lifting a finger to lighten them.....to make them as "light" as "his yoke?"
I frankly admit, I don't know how this Gospel should be understood...but I have a strong feeling (and after over half a life spent studying the text you "get" these "feelings...") that a "guilt-trip" reading of the text is a poor reading.
Let me suggest something else. I don't know if it will "fly" for you, or not, but let's give it a shot. The last fellow to come before the master has this to say: "I knew you were a hard man." And there, I think, is the rub. HE DIDN'T KNOW THE MASTER AT ALL! And that was probably his trouble all along...he operated out of fear...fear he'd lose what had been given him. And his life, lived in fear, couldn't develop freely and fully. The other two, we don't know much about. The text doesn't disclose anything about them. But, I think from the grammar of the text, we can assume that they are the opposite of the fearful man who does nothing. They feel a wonderful freedom in their lives to live and love and grow. They take risks. They might lose, but they might win! And life was challenge and fun. Whereas, the poor fearful fellow missed the beauty, missed the challenge, missed the fun of existence for fear he'd botch it!
This is an interesting lesson, I think, for it tells us exactly what we learned on the first page of the Bible! We are God's children...formed from His heart! He is madly in love with us! We can trust him to laugh with us if we lose and celebrate with us when we win...but we have freedom to live before Him in justice.
The saddest thing is for a Christian to come to the end of life's journey only to realize that they didn't ever know the Master. They lived in fear of judgment, when the Master was offering lots and lots of love.
You live before a God who loves you so desperately, he'd rather DIE than give you up! You're not going to be thrown onto the trash heap of the cosmos! You don't have to worry about that. What we need to work at is becoming the loving, caring people we've been created to be!
How many of us, though, live in fear that the universe will be stingy? We act as if there will be a "run on the bank of forgiveness" tomorrow, and we hoard it! We refuse to say to our spouses, our children, our co-workers, our friends: "It's OK, don't worry about it. I forgive you." Think how often we could use the three magic words "I love you," and don't. We bury them, thinking I guess, that we'll save them for the day we REALLY need them. Today's Gospel assures us that it is in "sharing those sorts of words" that they GROW! It's in giving love that we create more. It's in forgiving one person that we increase forgiveness and tolerance on the earth.
Today's Gospel is meant, I think, to be taken ironically–like Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal." It's presenting us with a goofy view of religion and life that grows out of a goofy idea of God. But in the background chapters of Matthew's gospel are the clues for assuring us that the God before whom we stand is "emmanuel," WITH US, not against us. That God will have us with him if we love him and live freely or fear him and live partially. But, when we see all the possibility we have...and the Love that is forever with us...why in heaven's name would we want to be fearful and only live this wonderful, beautiful and terrifying existence in a partial way?
My prayer for each of us is that as we receive our spiritual strength this week at the table of the Prince of Peace and the Author of all Love that we will gain the strength we need to be extravagant with our kindness, our forgiveness, our love this week...so that kindness, forgiveness and love may eventually embrace us all. And may God bless you all. +
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