MT 25: 14-30 

Matthew in the Margins …24th S. After Pentecost…Revised 2017 

The sums involved in today’s story are huge. Beyond the dreams of Jesus’ hearers & most of us, too. Like all good teachers, & Jesus is the best, He wants us to work out for ourselves what this story’s all about - just like the rest of His tales. A useful way to think of & explore parables is to discern them as being about the Kingdom, the Rule, of God. About how God’s Authority is respected & His Rule applied ‘on earth as it is in heaven’. Let’s not go down the path of a ‘stewardship’ sermon; not in a monetary sense, anyhow! What we might call ‘Kingdom Stewardship’ takes us back to the fundamental nature of our human relationship with God. Every day of our lives needs to be a Stewardship Day in which we audit how well we’re using YHWH’s provision of life & love for us & make any modifications that show up as necessary.

It’s easy to lose our way in this process. We once had a neighbour selling up & moving lamenting he’d once buried a stash of money in his backyard, but now can’t find it! (He never did!) Is that what we sometimes do with the life God’s entrusted to us? Trust lies at the heart of this story; but for that kind of trust to work, it has to be a two-way love affair. What does God have to show for His trust in us? (Why not ask, also, What do we have to show for our trust in God?) Let’s not bury our hearts in our backyard sand & not be able to find them when we really need to dig them up!

The greatest gift God gives us is God-self; made inescapably & confrontingly human in the person of Jesus. Who spends His life, & indeed his death, loving & serving. As he still does by His Spirit. Does our spiritual audit reveal us walking in Jesus’ steps that far?

Many of us are good enough at managing physical assets of one kind or another. But how good are we at managing our spiritual assets? Whatever earthly interest we may have earned during our lifetime, the only interest that will count on ‘That Day’ is the spiritual interest on the love God’s invested in us & we in others.