St Martin's & St Paul's
Parish Canterbury
Parish Canterbury
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Last week in the Gospel, Jesus described the Bridegroom saying to the foolish Bridesmaids: "I never knew you" (Matt 25 13). In this week's Gospel ( Matt 25 14 - 30) we are told that the Master who gave his servants talents to invest and then calls them to account when he returns says: "To those who have, more will be given; to those have nothing, even what they have will be taken away".
There is something formidable about both these sayings. They make you feel uncomfortable, you want to acknowledge them and then move quickly on. They don't sound like the merciful Jesus, pitying and forgiving, giving everyone another chance. But we can't ignore them.
Matthew is quite a tough and uncompromising Gospel and some commentators say that this was because he, of all the four gospel writers, was most aware of the ongoing challenge of the Synagogue in exile, maintaining that Christ was wrong headed and his followers likewise. That is probably true but Matthew didn't make things up; he knew that Jesus had said some pretty harsh things and didn't exclude them.
So how to we approach them? Matthew is in fact telling life like it is: people who don't make an effort will eventually get overlooked; people who don't even make good use of the little they have will end up losing even that. Isn't life like that? We all know situations where we've tried to help but eventually become worn down by someone's inability to make real use of that help. Jesus in Matthew is being realistic about the world: it's a tough place and you have to be prepared to act, to take it on its own terms and deal with it. Even those who give advice and support from a Christian standpoint will know that they can only go so far to help people before they have to say, "I'm sorry this isn't working, you must cede your place to someone who is prepared to try". It is an awful decision to have to make but it happens.
When we consider this line in the realm of faith, I am reminded of some of the funerals I have taken. Only thankfully occasional ones deal with a deeply tragic situation in which someone has followed a deeply problematic lifestyle to its final conclusion. At that point all we can do is commend them to God's love and mercy. When I first came here we used to have a man come into St. Martin's who drank heavily and often made a mess in the church which poor David or someone else had to clear up. He also made quite a nuisance of himself sometimes in services. Eventually he died and his funeral, taken by another priest who also knew him well, was one of the saddest I have known, on a bleak January day, cold and very overcast. Many of this man's friends had come to see him off: people who belonged to that body they sometimes call the underclass. I was so relieved to get back to Canterbury, to sit and have a warm drink in a pleasant, orderly home. But I thought too how, according to the Gospels, Jesus would have sat with the friends: the people who needed him, not the ones who had all they needed at that time to sustain them.
I can't give a definitive interpretation of what Jesus' tough sayings mean, but only remind myself and you that God is a God of justice and of mercy. Sometimes we glimpse the one and sometimes the other, but they are always together.
Amen.
