As the Assistant to the Bishop for Generosity in the Delaware-Maryland Synod, maybe I shouldn’t be actively negating this text as a stewardship parable. But I think that this text is actually yet another cautionary tale for our disciples and future leaders of the church. Absolute Power You know the phrase. And so does everyone in our pews. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. As soon as the first two slaves have money in their hand, they begin to use it in ways that will gain them more. That was never the instruction of the master, but it’s immediately what they do? Why? Because power consumes us. Wealth and it’s allure consumes us. We see it additionally in the response of the master too. Again, there was never any explicit instruction that the slaves were required to turn a profit. But after the first two slaves produced a profit, then the master expected the third slave to produce a profit as well.

Matthew 23:1-25:46 is known as “the Judgment Discourse.” And really all of it builds together. Unfortunately, by skipping most of chapters 23 and 24, we find ourselves in the middle of a complex parable. Without any narrative context, traditionally this parable is all about preparedness, right? “Keep awake therefore!” Preparedness. That’s the moral lesson in traditional interpretation. Always be prepared. Even though the final words (signifying some level of interpretation) are “Keep awake,” the only distinguishable difference is that the wise had extra oil. All of them fell asleep. All of them were awoken by a shout. It’s just a matter of oil. So be prepared for the end times. Because apparently if you don’t have enough oil, you’ll be locked out of the kingdom forever. Go to Costco, they sell it in bulk.   But from everything that Matthew has been doing, this honestly feels wrong. And I think that’s because it is. This is another setup. Afterall the big parable of Matthew 25 is still coming and if we take the sheep, goats, and king seriously, then this parable should be turned completely on its head.

We are continuing the temple testing. We have heard from the Chief priests and elders, the Pharisees’ disciples and the Herodians, we skipped the question on resurrection by the Sadducees, and now we have the Pharisees, with a lawyer asking another question, “What is the greatest commandment?” First, this question is not a bad one. This was a typical rabbinical question. With 613 commands in the Torah, what should take priority? It’s a fair conversation and a fair debate. R. Alan Culpepper recounts two good stories of this. There is the famous story of Hillel. “When a gentile challenged Hillel, saying that he would become a proselyte if Hillel could teach him the whole law while he stood on one foot, Hillel replied, ‘What you yourself hate, do not do to your neighbor: this is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commentary thereof; go and learn it’ (b. Šabb. 31a; cf. Matt 7:12).” And another, “Similarly, the oral tradition of the Pharisees records that Simeon the Just used to say, ‘By three things is the world sustained: by the Law, by the [Temple-]service [or worship], and by deeds of lovingkindness” (m. Abot 1.2).”[1] These are cherished stories, and the Hillel story in particular is supposed show wisdom and make you chuckle, right? The absurdity of the challenge is met with almost flippant simplicity. This is clearly the trajectory that Mark takes. The scribe is sincere in this question, wanting to know Jesus’ take in this matter and it follows closely in this tradition that we hear in the two accounts above. But Matthew is taking a different trajectory. The lawyer is not sincere. This is a questioning competence, and it is a question of heresy. Is Jesus attempting to destroy the Law?

There are a lot of two kingdom takes on this text that are important theologically and for the nuances of our understanding of institutional ethics and Christian relationship within our government structures. But I think that if we begin preaching on the necessity (or lack thereof) of taxes on April 15th, then we’ve strayed a little too far down the money rabbit hole. Instead, the traditional angle helps to keep us centered. As early church writers focus on, this is a call to give of ourselves to God. Tertullian writes, “That means render the image of Caesar, which is on the coin, to Caesar, and the image of God, which is imprinted on the person, to God. You give to Caesar only money. But to God, give yourself.”[4] And Augustine writes more concisely, “To Caesar his coins, to God your very selves.”[5]

While tradition has told us that God will take this more violent approach on the Day of Judgment, Jesus always seems to choose a different way in Matthew. So, what if God and Jesus aren’t the King? What if this King represents Herod or Caesar? Afterall, those are the more likely candidates of enacting violence when they don’t get their way. Now, Debie Thomas’ main question was, ‘What if the unrobed man was Jesus?’ And last week’s parable introduced the possibility of Jesus not always being the Lord or hero figure in a parable.

Immediately we need to be very careful in our sermons this week. We need to take a hard look at the commentaries that we are using. Because this is one of the antisemitic clobber passages that has been blatantly mishandled for many generations.

It makes complete sense that the chief priests and the elders would come up to Jesus and question his authority. They don’t know him from Adam (there's good theology humor in there) and now this man, who sent them into a frenzy yesterday, is back the very next morning stirring up trouble all over again. To say that this is a tense moment is a drastic understatement.... With all of this tension, there are two things that are preventing Jesus from getting arrested instantly, the crowd that is listening and his first answer to this question: John the Baptist. While the chief priests have never met Jesus before last night, they know of John the Baptist. In Matthew’s Gospel, John is not of traditional significance. Unlike Luke, Matthew does not associate John’s lineage with that of the priestly tribe. He’s kind of a nobody other than his giant following. But, no one could doubt that he was captivating. Even Sadducees and Pharisees came to him to be baptized (3:7). So, these chief priests, who would never have acknowledged John’s authority now have to choose how to respond to Jesus’ reversal question in front of the crowd, “Was John’s baptism from heaven or from human origin?” By appealing to the crowd and answering, “we do not know,” they relinquish their opportunity to claim the ultimate authority in the room and thus give Jesus the floor to hold court.

So, based on Peter’s question, we assume that this parable is going to be a lesson on “rewards.” And if you read it at face value, it is about God subverting the reward system, right? We can easily preach on this being about God’s unfair grace. The grace is the same for those who came at the beginning of the day and those who only worked an hour. It is not about work or value. It is about grace for everyone. It’s a lovely message. But it’s also one that broods resentment. And while maybe that is inevitable to a certain degree, I don’t think it gets to the whole subversiveness of this text. Because when we preach unfair grace, I hear lots of discussion about laziness. ‘Well, where were all those folks that didn’t show up until the end of the day? Doing nefarious things? Why should they get the same reward? Did they sleep in? Were they hungover?’ And this absolutely could have been a discussion about salvation in Matthew’s community. Why should someone who only just hopped on board be entitled to the same grace and reward of God as me who has been in this for much longer? If we preach on this text as unjust grace, then I don’t think there’s as much for us to take away from this text. There is little action for us to take other than, “don’t be jealous of your neighbor.” Particularly, because a denarius is not really a lot of money… it’s just the bare minimum.

21Peter came and said to [Jesus], “Lord, if another member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times?” 22Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven times. This question is important because Peter, the one with “the keys to the kingdom” (16:17-19) is representing the church (and us) and asking a very human question. Peter is asking for the limit. “What is the limit of our grace?” “When is enough, enough?” “When can we finally call someone a lost cause?” To many of us it’s a justifiable question. Surely there is a limit to our grace, right?