Tag: parable

Sunday 15th November 2020

Simon’s Reflection for the 24th Sunday after Pentecost

I heard a lovely story last week about a teacher. One of my Godsons, has recently begun attending a special school which he really enjoys. Now, he has a thing about hedgehogs and he really likes hedgehogs for some reason. Well, one day recently, the teacher said to him: “I know you don’t like English so we’re not going to do English today.” “We’re going to find out about hedgehogs and then we’re going to write a letter to explain to people why we need to look after hedgehogs and what they need at this time of year! My Godson was really excited and wrote down all that he found out about hedgehogs. At the end of the day when his mum came to collect him, he said to her really excitedly, “Mum we didn’t do English today, look I’ve written all this letter about hedgehogs!”

What a talented teacher! It’s good to see people using their talents well. I’m sure at the moment we are all deeply, deeply grateful for the talents of medical researchers who have made possible the success of the latest vaccines for Covid. Where would we be if they hadn’t developed their talents? On a more prosaic level, I believe one or two people have enjoyed the talents of the Scottish football team this week and of course of their manager!

In English, the word “talent” to describe someone’s gifting or ability comes from the gospel parable for today. In Jesus’ time the word “talent” did not mean “ability.”  It described a measure of weight used particularly of a large sum of money but because in the story the master gives these sums of money to his servants “according to their ability” the word “talent” came to be used to mean ability.

So, often, the parable is interpreted as just a story with a moral; like Aesop’s story of the hare and the tortoise. The moral usually attributed to the parable of the talents is that we should all make the most of our abilities. This is true, and thank goodness for the people who do, but there is probably more to understanding the parable than this.

Probably closer to the meaning of the story is that there is something in it about the way that Christian’s should behave with the gospel that has been entrusted to them. The story appears in Matthew’s gospel just before Jesus is about to go to the cross. There is a challenge in it to those who have been entrusted with the treasures of the faith but have not used them to God’s glory. What have they done with their special calling to spread the light of God to the world?. Have they spread that light or buried it? At the end of time, when the Lord returns unexpectedly, what will we have done with the good news that has been entrusted to us as the church?

Like the servant in the story, or the Thessalonians Paul was writing to, we do not know when the master is coming back. One danger for us is that we might live as though we are not expecting him at all. We might live in a world of false security; as if all that mattered were the things of this world and not the things of God’s future.

We have some insight from this year as to the fragility of the things of this world that may make us want to check that we are anchored in the security that is real. Another danger is not be ready for God and the only way to be ready for something which is happening but you don’t know when is to always be ready, like a pregnant woman with her bag packed ready for the hospital though she knows not the day.

The call is to live in such a way that we hope for God rather than dreading God. Paul tells the Thessalonians to put on the armour of faith, hope and love and to remember that God’s will for us and his love for us is shown in Jesus.

Of course, one of the ways that we can live in greater readiness for God and be lights to the world as Jesus said we were (Matthew 5. 13- 16) is by using our talents for the glory of God. That way, we will help to share the gospel and not bury it. I read once a suggestion that Christian ministry is what happens when we use our talents for the glory of God. We respond to God’s call and join in with what God is doing in the world. That’s what we’re meant to do and that is what the church as the people of God is together meant to do.

If we are Christians, we are all ministers. We all have something to offer and we are all needed. Our churches can only flourish and be communities that spread the good news rather than bury it, if we’re all ready to use our abilities for God’s glory and to build up the church – not just to maintain the building – but to build a community of people which can be a light in the world; “a city built on a hill.”

Perhaps some of you may be able to consider offering your talents to your church community by serving on the vestry as we approach our coming AGMs. There are plenty of other ways to help of course too and we are blessed by the many ways we support each other. We can all do something; praying for each other, practising stewardship of our time, attention and resources reaching out to those who are isolated, serving our community.

Above all, we can all work together to be a church that takes risks for God and builds up a community of people nurturing one another in faith and being moved to serve the world out of our deepening discovery of who God is to us. Amen.

Simon’s Reflection for Sunday 13th September

In an imperfect world we need to be ready to forgive and we need to be ready to receive forgiveness. Both things can sometimes be hard. It can sometimes be hard to give forgiveness and to give it completely. It can also sometimes be hard to receive forgiveness and to accept that we are forgiven. Jesus tells us in all these issues to take as our reference point the forgiving nature of God.

Peter asks Jesus how often he must be ready to forgive someone who is sorry. He no doubt thinks his offer is generous… seven times he offers. Jesus’ answer is basically that he should not limit his forgiveness. The passage which our translation has as seventy seven times could also be translated “seventy times seven times” so the point is times without number.

Jesus’s point is that we are in receipt time and time again of the mercy of God. Would we want to place a limit on God’s mercy towards us. If we have received mercy and depend upon God’s mercy we must be merciful too. The poet, George Herbert, put the point of today’s parable succinctly:

 “He who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself.”

Jesus’ parable illustrates the teaching from the Lord’s Prayer: forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. The king in the story forgives an enormous debt. Just to give you an idea of that ten thousand talents would be about the equivalent of 100,000 days wages or 274 years of wages. A debt which could not be repaid. The unjust servant in turn will not forgive his fellow the equivalent of 100 days wages. That is a significant sum but nothing compared to the forgiveness that he has received.

The forgiven servant’s lack of forgiveness for his fellow is shameful and has terrible consequences for him.  A refusal to forgive can have hard consequences for us too.

In Great Expectations by Charles Dickens the grotesque character, Miss Haversham, is a lady wasted by time who wears a faded yellowing wedding dress, holding on to the grudge against the man who jilted her at the altar many years before. She lives in a bubble of grudge which leads her to behave cruelly to those around her.

Holding on to an injustice can eat at us and make us bitter; a sense of grievance can be a powerful and overbearing thing even if it is a justified sense of grievance.

But should we always forgive? Peter’s question in today’s gospel is about forgiving someone who is repentant. What about forgiving the unrepentant? What about forgiving abusers or people who have destroyed our lives? People who have done us enormous wrong? To say to someone who has been badly abused by someone, someone who is unrepentant perhaps, “you must forgive” could be rather like compounding the abuse and saying to the person: “you are a bad person because you cannot forgive.”

I’m not suggesting though that we should only forgive the repentant. It certainly helps if someone is repentant but thankfully Jesus did not limit his forgiveness to the repentant. He said from the cross: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” If we love much we can forgive much and not just for our own sakes but we can rise above the wrong that someone else has done and still see them as someone to understand and even love.

Our Old Testament reading today is interesting. Joseph’s brothers say “sorry” but their motivation does not seem to be sorrow but a desire to save their own skins. It reminds me of the story of the prodigal son in St Luke’s gospel. The Son when he comes to his senses does not seem at first to be motivated by sorrow but by self-preservation. He knows he will be better off in his father’s house. (Luke 15.17-18).

You could imagine Joseph saying: “well you’re not really sorry are you? You just want to save your own skins!” He doesn’t though. His reference point is not what his brothers have done, it is what God has done. After all, no-one “deserves” forgiveness as such. If it was deserved, it wouldn’t be forgiveness. Forgiveness is always a gift. But if we remember that we have received much, we should be prepared to give much.

And perhaps the idea of referring things to God may even be able to help in the extreme cases where people struggle with the pain of great wrongs, unrepented. If there are situations where we cannot forgive, perhaps we can still find ways to “Let go and let God” and try to work through the pain of the wrong-doing and leave judgement to God.

Amen.