“The Joy of the Master” Matt. 25.14-30 Pent. 24A, Nov. ‘20

 

1.                Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word this 24^th Sunday after Pentecost is taken from Matt. 25.14-30, and is entitled, “The Joy of the Master,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                The tragedy of this parable isn’t the failure to serve. It’s the failure to truly know your Savior. When you first read this parable, it sounds like a teaching about stewardship. We have two sets of servants: Faithful and unfaithful. The faithful servants use the gifts they’ve been given and are welcomed by their master. The unfaithful servant hides his gift and is condemned. The parable seems to say, “Work faithfully with what God has given you… or else.”

3.                In a world where many people see the Church as an oppressive, money-grabbing institution, this parable only confirms their misconception: God is a demanding master and you had better obey… or else. For these people, the Church is a place that uses its power to get. It uses God’s judgment to inspire guilt and fear among people in order to get their money, their time, their brainwashed minds, and their unquestioning service. As a parishioner from one of my previous parishes once told me, “Pastor, I already have enough guilt in my life. I don’t need the church to add any more.”

4.                But, the ministry of Jesus, reveals a different kind of God. God didn’t come to get. He came to give. In His ministry, Jesus proclaimed and enacted the year of the Lord’s favor. He cleansed lepers, healed the sick, cast out demons, and raised the dead. God didn’t come to get. He came to give. Jesus said in Matthew 20:28,” ²⁸…the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

5.                Unfortunately, the religious leaders of the day used their power… to get Jesus. Jesus died at the hands of a corrupt and abusive religious system. But, when God raised Jesus from the dead, He revealed the true nature of His rule: To bring forgiveness, life, and salvation to a fallen world. The Church is the dwelling place of that God. He’s a God who gives. It’s not an institution that uses power to get from people, rather it’s the place where God gives to His people who then give to others in self-sacrificial love.

6.                If you read the parable more closely, you will see this vision of God and His Kingdom. First, notice how Jesus is less interested in stewardship and more interested in the relationship people have with their God. The error of the unfaithful servant isn’t that he didn’t use his money. It’s that he believed a lie about God. At the close of the parable, the unfaithful servant confesses his understanding of God. He says, “I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed” (verse 24). Can you hear his misconception? Instead of a God who gives, he believes in a god who demands and takes. The third servant didn’t regard serving his master as a privilege and derived no joy from it. He described the master as “hard,” showing that his view of their relationship was distorted from its beginning. Whenever we see our God as a tyrant that demands to be satisfied rather than a Father who desires our love, we fall into the sinful error of this servant. The tragedy of this parable isn’t the failure to serve. It’s the failure to truly know your Savior. Because a servant didn’t know his master, he died in his own lie.

7.                Second, who is this master Jesus desires us to know? At the beginning of the parable, Jesus shows us a master who is personal and generous. The master is personal in how he gives to his servants. He calls each servant in and speaks to each one individually. In addition, the master knows each servant’s skills & abilities. He gives, “To each according to his ability” (verse 15). Not only is the master personal in how he gives, he is also personal in what he gives. The master gives them of, “…his property” (verse 14). This gift is gracious and generous. Years of wages are offered in an amazing act of grace and trust. This parable, then, opens with a generous, personal, gracious master who calls, knows, equips, and commissions his servants.

8.                Skills or abilities decline after prolonged periods of disuse. Financial wealth must also be invested wisely and put to work lest it depreciate. There’s truth to the expression “use it or lose it.” The talents described in today’s parable are sums of money rather than particular skills and abilities, but the principle still applies. Our heavenly Father desires that His resources be engaged for use, not shelved, hidden, or wasted. As opposed to the parable of the minas in Luke 19, where all the servants are given responsibility for an equal amount of money, here the three servants are entrusted with varying quantities. Although one must be careful not to miss the central thought of a parable for the details, God’s Holy Spirit reminds us that every person is uniquely gifted by Him. That is His design and desire. No two of us are exactly alike.

9.                While God’s gifts may be given differently, the satisfaction that comes from using them in His service is not. It is uniform in its completeness and fills every servant’s life, whether he holds a position of prominence or performs a task that few desire and fewer still notice. Neither the five-talent nor the two-talent servant returned to the master with any complaints. They didn’t bring along an agent to negotiate a profit-sharing agreement or claim a percentage of the gain for themselves. Their total focus was on serving their Master faithfully. They were invited to “enter into the joy of your master,” but joy had already been a benefit of their service. But, now, their joy would be greater.

10.             This is the God Jesus came to reveal in a world full of misconceptions about God. God is the one who created you and made you the way you are. He is the one who forgives you and claims you in Christ and makes you a member of His Kingdom. He is the one who provides you with gifts of His own Spirit. He is the one who commissions you to serve where you can be productive. And, when Christ returns, He will reward you for doing what He has created, equipped, and commissioned you to do. God has an overflowing generosity which is personal and powerful in our lives. He won’t abandon the lost or break the broken. Rather, He invites all people to come to know the wisdom of His love.

11.             “Draw near to God,” James says, “and He will draw near to you” (James 4:8). As we look at our lives and our service in the Kingdom, questions of stewardship come up. But, before we begin talking about the service we give to God, it’s important to talk about the service God gives to us. He is not our taskmaster. He is a Savior. Not only has He saved us from sin through Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection from the dead, but He has equipped us with gifts and given us talents according to our ability and promises to rejoice with us in those works when He returns. Ultimately, the performance this parable emphasizes is not ours but Christ’s. Because of Jesus, the “Good and Faithful Servant”, serving the Lord is for us a blessing rather than a burden.

12.             By the power of the Holy Spirit, our Savior transforms us from slaves or servants to sons and then to heirs Galatians 4:1–7 says, “¹I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, ²but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. ³In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. ⁴But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, ⁵to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. ⁶And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” ⁷So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”

13.             “Use it or lose it?” The joy of the Master is that God used His Son Jesus to serve us so that we wouldn’t be lost eternally. Knowing God means we know ourselves as His children, forgiven of sin and equipped for service in the world. To know the joy of service in this world now is to know the joy of the Master both in this world and in the next. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.

“I Wish I Would Have Known Sooner...” Matt. 25.1-13, Pent 23A, Nov. ‘20

 

1.                Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word on this 23^rd Sunday after Pentecost is taken from Matt. 25.1-13, and is entitled, “I Wish I Would Have Known Sooner,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                This parable is harsh. It judges. If you do not believe, you will not be saved. But, let us pause for a moment and think about why Jesus is telling the parable. After preaching for a congregation’s 50th anniversary, a Lutheran Pastor was sitting in the church basement at a table, eating roast beef and potatoes with some of the parishioners, when their conversation turned toward anniversaries. “I wish I had known her sooner,” Jim said. He was relaxed, sitting there with his wife Becky. They were both in their fifties and had been married ten years. “What do you mean?” the Pastor asked. Jim shared how things in his life would have been different if he had known Becky earlier, when he was younger. “She’s been a good influence on me,” he said, and then he elaborated. At first, Jim was joking. He would not have partied so much. Those trips to Las Vegas in his thirties would not have happened. But as he went on, his tone turned serious. “It would have been good to have someone there when mom died,” he said. “That was rough, alone.” At that point, he stopped talking and eating. His words sunk in. “I wish I had known her sooner.”

3.                I think we have all had people in our lives we wish we had known sooner, people who changed us. Our lives would have been different if we had lived longer in their company. That blessing of companionship is what I would like you to think about as we listen to this reading from Matthew. The parable of the wise and foolish virgins is harsh. Jesus is warning His disciples about the second coming. There will be a time when Jesus returns. The moment of His return is the end of the opportunity to believe: You are either saved or damned. You either believe or you do not. For those who are accustomed to living in the spiritual land of opportunity, the parable is frightening. It strips us away of all of our defenses.

4.                Jesus says that there will come a point when there is no more time to believe. On that day, just being in the company of other Christians will not do it. All of the bridesmaids are together but not all of them are saved. Relying on the faith of others will not do it. The foolish bridesmaids cannot borrow oil from the wise. Having the right intentions will not do it. Though they want to buy oil, the foolish bridesmaids cannot secure it and find themselves locked out. Relying on the fact that Jesus will not snuff out the smoldering wick or break the bruised reed will not do it. A time comes when the door closes. The wick is snuffed out. The reed is broken. And, when the door closes, it closes. Even if you stand out in the dark crying, “Lord, Lord, open to us,” He will say, “I do not know you.” Our god of second chances is suddenly gone. Our god who, when he closes the door, opens a window, is nowhere to be found. This time when God closes the door, He locks all the windows and pulls down the shades. The parable is harsh. It judges. If you do not believe, you will not be saved.

5.                But, let us pause for a moment and think about why Jesus is telling the parable. Let us look behind the hardness of His hand to the softness of His heart. Jesus wants all people to be saved. Jesus has come to bring salvation to sinners and to begin the gracious rule of God leading to the final restoration of all things. Jesus wants all people to come to the knowledge of the truth… and His love is so strong, His desire to work in your life is so great, that He wishes you would know Him sooner rather than later. He wants you with Him now, rather than just on the Last Day.

6.                Jesus does not want to be a figure hovering on your horizon, someone you always intend to get to know. Jesus does not want to be a friend you call as your lifeline, your last-ditch effort to get yourself out of a jam. Jesus does not want to be your backup husband, the one you turn to when all the others are gone. No, Jesus wants to be more. He wants to be your only bridegroom, your only Savior, the only One who loves you into life – a life you had no idea existed, a way of being you could not have dreamed of. And Jesus wants to do that now.

7.                That’s why Jesus is so final when he says the words here in Matthew 25, “The door was shut.” There is such a sense of finality in that statement. The words of the text convey a stern message of permanence, “The door was shut and would stay that way.” Open doors are a picture of invitation and new possibilities. Closed doors offer us images of squandered opportunities and rejection. The rejection in the image of the closed door in this parable doesn’t originate from Jesus who speaks these words, who called Himself “the door” (John 10:9); rather, such rejection is carried out by those who foolishly fail to heed these words.

8.                Jesus says that the midnight cry to meet Himself as the bridegroom would be heard by all. Jesus desires that everyone have a place at His banquet celebration. Just as the Savior does not exclude any in His call to the wedding banquet, neither does the devil, the world, and the sinful flesh shield anyone from their desire that people reject the wedding call. Both the wise and foolish virgins “became drowsy and slept.” This can be seen as a description of the danger facing humans on this side of eternity of missing out on heaven. That judgment comes in the image of the closed door. The fact that distinguished the two groups of virgins was their lack of preparation.

9.                We must remember that end time consequences are shaped by present time beliefs and practices. The lack of preparation demonstrated by the foolish virgins portrays the procrastination that some people in this world have toward the Lord of all times. While our earthly life endures, He gives us countless opportunities to turn to Him. There will be some who gain entrance into His kingdom “just in the nick of time,” like the repentant thief on the cross (Luke 23:39-43) or the workers who were enlisted for labor late in the day in the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard in Matthew’s Gospel (Matt. 20:1-16). But, ultimately the day of salvation will come, and then there will be no extension of grace.

10.             Even though the heavenly Bridegroom exercises extreme patience in allowing all people the opportunity to repent of their sinful errors, the time will come when the banquet must proceed. When the kingdom is completed, the door will be shut. What a call this is for us to constantly nurture the faith we have been given. Midnight is closer than we might think.

11.             So, what Jesus does in this parable is scare the living daylights out of us. He condemns those who are ignoring His call, those who are pushing Him away, those who are letting Him hang out in the margins. To this half-hearted spiritual dabbling that looks at Him as one of many options, Jesus says, “No.” He pulls back the curtain and reveals how on the Last Day, He will be the one who comes with all the power and all the glory. He will open the doors to those who are His and He will shut the doors on those who are not. And He wants you to be His, to live in His kingdom… not just in the end but today. Jesus does not want you to wish you had known Him sooner. He wants to know you now.

12.             So, how do we prepare for Jesus’ coming? What’s the “oil” that we are to have in our lamps? The oil is the means of grace that God gives to us through His Word and Sacraments. When getting ready for a class or storm or other situation, we have to do something to make preparations. To be prepared for Jesus’ coming is to believe in Him. God has done everything to prepare the world for Jesus’ return. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus took care of all the details. Jesus the Bridegroom gave His life for His Bride, the church. Jesus has given us the oil of faith in our Baptism. He continues to fill our lives with the oil of His Word. We continue to rejoice in the grace He provides, and we joyfully wait for His final arrival.

13.             So, if you do not know Jesus, this shocking parable is His way of getting your attention. Jesus has come to save you. If you do know Jesus, this is your moment to sit back and give thanks for the things He has done. Rejoice in His love and give your heavenly Father thanks that Jesus is part of your life. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.