33rd Sunday Year A - Homily 3

Homily 3 - 2011

It’s a tantalising story that Jesus tells us today.  It’s a parable.  He’s out to tease us, inviting us to wonder what on earth he is on about.

It helps us if we remember how Jesus started off his public ministry: The Kingdom of God is close at hand.  Repent, and believe the Good News.  In inviting us to repent, Jesus was effectively saying something like: Stand on your head.  Turn yourself inside out.  See life differently, radically differently, [and find out that it’s Good News!].  Learn to come alive.

Parables provide a chance for “the penny to drop”.  The “obvious” meaning will probably not be Jesus’ meaning.  The obvious meaning usually takes us nowhere, leaves us bored.  An obvious meaning drawn from today’s story is often: Use your talents.  Try harder.  Be  a good boy.  Be a good girl.  That’s OK for boys and girls, but hardly for maturing adults in a complex world.  That’s not the way to life.  The path to true maturity is more of a paradox.

Let’s look more closely at today’s story.  Who is the main character in the story?  We can discount the first two slaves.  They are there for dramatic effect - to highlight what’s coming.  That leaves the third slave and the master. On which of these do we put the spotlight?  It’s a toss-up.  I would opt for the third slave.

If that is the case, what might be the point of the story?  In contrast to the first two, the third slave was hesitant - scared; he played safe.  But, in his case, “playing safe” did not pay off.  Might that be Jesus’ point?  - that playing safe, trying to keep some control in this chaotic, unfair, unpredictable world is not the way to life to the full?  Certainly, elsewhere, Jesus had insisted that those who want to save their lives would lose them.  It is those prepared to lose their lives who find life.

It’s paradox.  It doesn’t sound right.  But Jesus says - Yes!  Death is the way to life!  Our literal  death is simply the transition to a life whose intensity and richness are beyond our capacity even to imagine.  In Jesus’ own case, death was the prelude to resurrection.  And that is the pattern for all life to the full.   Those of you who have taken the risk know that it is true.  The alternative: Play safe.  Keep things under control and predictable.  Meet society’s expectations.  Be a good boy, a good girl…. It’s safe, but it is not what Jesus meant by “life to the full”.

True human growth is a factor of maturing in wisdom and love.  Learning to love means surrendering control, sitting lightly with expectations, allowing ourselves and allowing the other to be and to become ourselves.  Why don’t we readily do so?  It’s because we are scared, scared of losing something – perhaps our identity, perhaps our comfort – God knows what.  For us to grow, the Ego must die to allow the true Self to emerge.  And that’s a risk.  So we often hold back.

Falling in love with God, learning to trust God [and forgetting about trying to build up some spiritual bank-account – just to be sure], always feels a risk.  Facing the risk takes an act of faith.  To the extent that we manage it, we discover what life really is about.  To the extent that we hold back, fearful, life remains perhaps bearable … but hardly exciting, hardly worth “writing home about”.   We may even find our so-called life is not much better than darkness, and weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Here we are this morning, remembering, and celebrating, that Jesus’ death led to resurrection.  We’re here to let ourselves be drawn into that mystery of “life through death”.  We’re still learning - learning from each other, learning from life.  And the Spirit of Jesus is here, always encouraging and strengthening us.