A reading of the holy gospel according to Luke. Jesus proceeded to tell a parable because he was near to Jerusalem and because they supposed that the kingdom of god was to appear immediately. Jesus therefore said, a nobleman went into a far country to receive kingly power and then return. Calling 10 of his servants, he gave them each 10. This is an English translation.
I mean, it's an English for English speaking people. We're Americans. He gave them 10 and said to them, trade with these till I return. But his citizens hated him and sent an embassy after him saying, we do not want this man to reign over us. When he returned, having received the kingly power, he commanded these servants to whom he had given the money to be called to him that he might know what they had gained by trading using his money.
The first man came in and saying, Lord, your pound has made £10 more. And the lord said to him, well done, good servant. Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over 10 cities. Then the second man came in saying, Lord, your pound has made five pounds. And the lord said to him, and you are to be over five cities.
Then another man came in saying, lord, here is your pound, which I kept laid away in a napkin for I was afraid of you because you are a severe man. You take up what you did not lay down, and you reap what you did not sow. The lord said to him, I will condemn you out of your own mouth, you wicked servant. You knew that I was a severe man, taking up what I did not lay down and reaping what I did not sow. Why then did you not put my money into a bank, and at my return, I should have collected at least the interest?
And he said to those who were standing by, take the pound away from him and give it to the man with 10. And they said to him, lord, he has 10. Now this is our Lord speaking. I tell you that to everyone who has will more be given. But from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.
But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them before me. And when Jesus had said this, he went on ahead going up to Jerusalem. And this is the word of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen.
Well, this parable is not an easy one. It has problems. Especially, there's no problem with the treatment of the first two servants. It's a parable, remember. It's supposed to be a tool of teaching.
And just what is the point of this? You have these three men, servants, employees, slaves, who we don't know exactly. These words in Greek are ambiguous. They each were given given some money. The notice, as far as the text goes, they weren't told what to do with it.
One of them uses the money and reaps a profit which he then gives to to the owner, to the master, and he is rewarded 10 times. The second one also uses the money and makes a profit. He is rewarded fivefold. But the man who took the money and buried it so it wouldn't be stolen and therefore didn't use it at all, didn't or didn't put it to any use at all for his master, notice what happens. What he has is taken from him from him and given to those who had.
And furthermore, he's punished for it. This seems downright unfair as far as the text goes. Now, I'm not saying it is, I'm only saying that's an impression you can easily get in something like that parable about the the workers going into the vineyard and the man who gets who worked the whole day from sun up to sunset, who bore all the heat and the brunt and the labor and the sweat of the day, he gets exactly the same amount, according to that parable, as the man who got in there just before sunset. The AF of L CIO wouldn't approve of that kind of thing at all, you know. Now what do you make of this?
There's one thing I think is perfectly clear. As I say, a parable is meant to teach. It is not meant to be taken up in every tiny little point and made into an elephant. Some people, if they if they look at a a spider's toe under a microscope, they come out with an elephant's foot. A parable is meant to teach, and our lord was a good teacher.
And when you use an example that isn't pointed, you're better off not using that example. Anyone who's taught knows this. A poor example is worse than no example. So that our our lord has a point here. And what he's telling us is this, you are the servants of the lord.
Use what is given to you. And if you don't use it, you're going to pay a penalty. That's perfectly clear. In other words, you don't say, Oh, well, no, I didn't use it. So at least you'd at least I didn't lose anything.
Well, if you didn't use it, you did lose something. I have in mind a marvelous example of this. Helen Keller. At at at the age of 19, she lost her sight totally and she lost her hearing totally, and of course, she was a mute, she was dumb. And through a great marvelous concatenation of circumstances and without any doubt due to the absolute total dedication of a young woman named Annie Sullivan who became Mrs.
Macy, that she was able she came to be able to communicate, to write, to read, and to a certain extent even to talk. Now she was asked one day what the greatest affliction was. Was it dumbness? Was it blindness? Was it deafness?
She answered none of them. The man who was asking her said, well, then what is the greatest? And she said, boneheadedness. Now here's what I want to point out. She never considered herself afflicted.
Someone said, Don't you they said, Look, you you're deprived of three of your most important faculties. And she said, yes, but I have two. As far as I've been able to to see in this biography that I've been reading of her and of her great teacher, Annie Sullivan, She never had them she never had any bitterness about her deprivations. She had nothing but joy in what she had, and she used them. I no one can explain all everything about this this woman, Helen Keller.
But the point is she had a conviction of a of having a message, of having a vocation, of having a work to do in this this world. From an early age, she had that. Where where did she get it? To do what she could with what she had, with what she had. And in the beginning, when Annie Sullivan went down into that little Georgia crossroad town, this little girl of six or seven was totally cut off from the world except through the sense of touch, and had been from the age of 19.
Now how how did they get through? How did they get through, as some said, that steel cell? How did they work it out that finally that this woman, Helen Keller, managed to go to Radcliffe College, the Annex of Harvard, and competing with the rest of those young women in about the in the early part of the twentieth century. How did she manage to get a degree in competition with those with their five senses? She did it.
She did it. And she became, in this country, a very important figure, an international figure. How did she do it? Well, whatever else, I'm not giving any simple solution to this, but it was not a it wasn't some kind of a marvelous miracle where all she did was to sit back and wait for things to happen. Well, things did happen.
Believe me, I'm not eliminating that. But she she grasped opportunities and whatever it was that drove her, she was in she was on fire. I'm not exaggerating this. She was on fire with this conviction. She must use what she has and she could use it.
She was not afflicted if she could escape boneheadedness. So here's the our this as I have said many times, some of our lord's messages are severe. They are downright severe. And let's face it. And here's an instance of it.
If you don't use what has god given to you, you're going to pay a penalty for not using it. You can't say, lord, you gave it to me and I haven't abused it. I have kept it just as you gave it to me. He said, get away. What you have, you're going to lose off with your head.
This is severe stuff. Do we think about it? Do we think about it? Or do we lose so much of our time, empty our efforts, weaken, destroy ourselves by dreaming of what we could do. If only we had this, if only I had that, if only I were there, if only this hadn't happened, if only Wednesday was Thursday or next year or next month or something.
See, you we've got to learn to seize the present, to take ourselves as we are, to use what we have and to use it with god's help. Notice, don't throw that out. Do not exclude that. That you do what you can with what you have, and then you say, god, it's up to you now. I've done my part.
I can do no more unless you help me, unless you help me. And so this parable, it's take it to heart and don't and don't tie yourself into an unreal world. Look at your own real. Where you are today in 11/19/1980, this day, what do you do with it, with what you have to make yourself not just a better citizen, not just a better human being? Who cares?
That's plain human humanitarianism or something else. We're not called to that. We're called to something infinitely superior. We are called to be sons and daughters of Jesus Christ. That's quite a legacy.
In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.