Sermon: Keep the Gifts Moving

Text: Matthew 25:14-30

Date: November 13, 2011

Rev. Dee Eisenhauer, Eagle Harbor Congregational Church

          This is a thorny story, don’t you think?  Like a blackberry bush in late August, there may be some tantalizing fruit there but you’re likely to get prickled and scratched while you try to harvest it; don’t be surprised if you’re bleeding by the time you get to digest its meaning. 

          There’s a lot of disagreement among readers of the scholarly variety about what Jesus was getting at when he told this thorny tale.  Some argue that it is the sort of story that has more to say about the way things are than they way things ought to be in God’s realm.  It’s a description, not a prescription.  There are several updated re-tellings of the parable on lectionary blogs to highlight the way-it-is-ness of the story.  Here’s one by Caspar Green at his blog “The Scarlet Letter Bible”:

“It’s like Bernie Madoff leaving on a trip, called his employees and entrusted them with his fortune. He gave one of them $81.5 million. He gave another $32.6 million. And to a third he gave $16.3 million. Then he left.

The one with $81.5 million went off and invested it, and doubled the money. The one with $32.6 million also invested it and doubled the money. But the one with the $16.3 million went home and stuffed it under the mattress.

After a long while, Madoff came home and called them all in to audit their accounts. So the one who had started off with $81.5 million came in with $163 million and said, “Look, I’ve doubled your money.” And Madoff said, “Well done! Dang, you’re good! Since you’ve done so well with this little bit, you’re getting a promotion! And, by the way, you should come to my office New Year’s Eve party.”

Then the next employee, who started with $32.6 million came in and said, “Look, here’s your money doubled: $65.2 million.” And Madoff again replied, “Well done! Dang, you’re good, too! Since you’ve done so well with this little bit, you’re getting a promotion. And, by the way, you should come to my office New Year’s Eve party.”

So it was the third employee’s turn, the one who started with just $16.3 million. He came in and said, “Boss, I know you’re a hard-ass, and you’re a robber baron, and you’re the worst kind of venture capitalist. I was so afraid of losing any of your money, I kept the whole wad under my mattress, and here it is, safe and sound.”

Madoff replied, “You lazy bastard! If you knew that I’m the worst sort of venture capitalist and a robber baron you should have at least put the money into a CD so I could have had some interest on it. You’re fired! I’m reallocating your money to the guy with the $163 million. It takes money to make money, but I’m going to wring every penny out of the little guys. And send this no-good former employee to the slums where he can cry and worry himself to death.”[1]

          The author of the paraphrase says that the story is a sign of the kingdom in that it shows how completely unjust and unsustainable the present situation is, which is why God’s kingdom will bring such great change.  The story illustrates a  social order that leaves people with only two options: Either participate in the robber baron’s crime or live in a state of perpetual weeping and anxiety.   At the time Jesus told the story, there was a huge and growing gap between the rich and the poor.  In their culture, they believed that the system was closed, so that if someone had too much he was basically robbing someone who had too little.  They would not have seen the rich fellow as a good guy.  Further, they would have thought the hero was the third servant who refused to participate in the corrupt system.

          In the children’s lectionary Bible we have, Jesus tells the story and asks, “Do you like my story?”  The listeners assure him they do not.   Jesus says, “I’m glad you didn’t like my story.  I didn’t like it, either…My story is about the way things are [the rich get richer and the poor people get poorer].  But that’s not the way they should be.”  The implication for the faithful, then, is “What are you going to do about it?”

          So that’s one way to read the parable—to let it illuminate the injustice rampant in human society, to let it scratch you and leave you bleeding.  We get kind of used to the way things are, to such a degree that we may lose sight of the unfairness of a social system gamed for the prosperous.  How would God’s kingdom be different?  What responsibility, if any, do we have for the little guy who has even the little he is given taken away?

          There is a whole `nother way to hear the story, though.  Another group of interpreters think the story is about taking what the master has given—whether it’s money or skills or natural talents or even the gift of the gospel itself—and taking some risks with the gift so that it can be multiplied.  This set of readers think the first two enterprising servants (whom we dyed-in-the-wool capitalists would  be inclined to respect anyway) are indeed to be admired because of their confident use of the master’s gifts, which increases the treasure.  The third servant, characterized as lazy and fearful, is the loser because nothing happened with the gift.

          I’m not going to take sides between the two different views of the parable.  Jesus’ parables often leave the hearers scratching their heads about the exact meaning, and that’s one reason they are classics.  I did get to thinking about a book I read last summer that had some profound things to say about gifts in motion, which I want to connect with the parable.  The book is The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde.  On the way to talking about art, Hyde shares quite a bit of research about the nature of gifts and how they function in human culture.

          Some indigenous cultures are founded on gift-giving and gift circulation.  The cardinal property of a gift in such a culture is that whatever one has been given is supposed to be given again, not kept.  “Or, if it is kept, something of similar value should move on in its stead, the way a billiard ball may stop when it sends another scurrying across the felt, its momentum transferred…The essential is this: the gift must always move.  There are other forms of property that stand still, that mark a boundary or resist momentum, but the gift keeps going.”[2]  What is common sense in a tribal culture is sometimes lost on a more commodity-oriented culture.  Hyde says that when the Pilgrims first arrived in this land and encountered the native culture they had to invent a whole new term for a behavior they found rather odd.  The term “Indian gift,” appearing in a Puritan history in 1764, is explained as “signifying a present for which an equivalent return is expected.”  Hyde invites the reader to imagine a scene in which an Englishman comes to an Indian lodge, and his hosts, wanting to the make the guest feel welcome, ask him to share a peace pipe of tobacco, and give him the pipe which is a peace offering that has been circulated among local tribes for quite some time.  The Englishman is tickled pink.  What a nice thing to send back to the British Museum!  He takes it home and displays it on his mantle until such time as he can donate it as an artifact to the museum.  Time passes and he is visited by some leaders of a neighboring tribe.  To his surprise the guests seem to have some expectation in regard to the pipe.  The translator finally explains that if he wants to show his good will he should offer them a smoke and give them the pipe.  Miffed, he invents the term “Indian giver” to describe these people with such an appallingly limited understanding of private property.  He represents their opposite; something like “white man keeper,” a person whose instinct is to remove property from circulation, to put it in a warehouse or museum, or more to the point for capitalism, to lay it aside to be used for production.[3]

          Generally in a gift-based traditional culture, the rule is that a gift cannot become somebody else's capital, and there must be no explicit condition of exchange: "A man who owns a thing is naturally expected to share it, to distribute it, to be its trustee and dispenser."  The most important side effect of keeping gifts moving in some way is that gifts have a role to play in the formation of relationships.  The giving and receiving of a gift is very different from exchanging a commodity.  You can go to the hardware store and pay money to the cashier for padlock without striking up a relationship with the person who takes your money and gives you a receipt.  That’s quite different from what happens when a shy teen gives a white teddy bear to the cute girl he’s been afraid to talk to on Valentine’s Day and their eyes meet as she giggles a thank you.  The gift is a symbol and a vehicle for a relationship.  Even in commodity-driven cultures like ours we recognize the way gifts build relationships that, on a wider scale than two people, build and strengthen communities.

            Hyde writes about how gifts circulating in a traditional culture are seen to go in a full circle that comes back to bless those who allow gifts to be fertile and growing by keeping them moving.  In many traditions, the circle is understood to include the mysterious provider of all the earth’s abundant gifts.  Rituals are developed that acknowledge the Giver and return a portion of the gift to the creator.  For instance, some tribes in the Pacific Northwest believed that salmon voluntarily sacrificed themselves so that their human brothers and sisters would have food for the winter.  The first salmon to appear in the river would be given an elaborate welcome.  After a ceremony in which the fish was honored and shared, the bones were returned gratefully to the sea.  Because they were treated as gifts with proper gratitude and return, the people trusted the gift of salmon would remain abundant.  Traditional Hebrew religion had a similar tradition around “first fruits” offerings.  The first fruits of the harvest were offered as a sacrifice at the temple.  Some were burned so the aroma of gratitude could be carried up to God, and some were consumed by the priests of the temple to represent the circle. 

          When the Lord is included in the cycle of gratitude and circulation, the gift leaves all the previous boundaries of ego and tribe and does what Hyde names “circling into mystery.”  A sacred offering of first fruits does much more than accomplishing the practical task of feeding the priests.  Hyde writes, “The passage [of the gift] into mystery always refreshes…when the gift passes out of sight and then returns, we are enlivened.”  It has to do with grasping that all things owe their being to God, and receiving all that we have as a gift from God.  Faithful people, then, try to keep the gifts of God circulating, passing them on to others, and ritually dedicating some to the Lord in some way so that the circle is complete. 

          I see echoes of this understanding of gift in Matthew’s thorny parable.  The Master entrusts property to the servants—a lot of property, an almost unimaginable pile of wealth.  The ones who “get it” respond to this gift by putting it to work (or putting into play?), keeping it moving, and the gift generates abundance.  These servants tellingly “enter into the joy of the Master.”  I don’t think that’s necessarily about good performance on the earnings report.  It could just as well have to do with the joy of keeping gifts moving, of recovering and renewing gratitude for the great gifts given, and for seeing abundance triumph over scarcity.  The one who ends up miserable was too frightened to circulate the gift; he took the gift out of circulation and effectively killed its joyful effervescence.  He introduced a toxic note of scarcity into the scene of abundance by his fear.  Maybe that’s why the master was so mad.

          Mulling over Hyde’s research on gift-oriented and commodity-oriented cultures, it strikes me that in a church we have a theology that is more like a traditional gift-oriented culture.  We do perceive life itself as a gift from God, as well as all the gifts of the abundant earth.  We have regular practices around keeping gifts moving.  But the church operates within a surrounding culture that is basically commodity and property oriented.  We have a giver theology engulfed in a keeper society.  No wonder the stewardship season gives us a collective headache.  We have the difficult charge to translate the joyful, fruitful duty of giving to a people indoctrinated daily in keeping and consuming.  There is an unavoidable culture clash afoot.

          This is only complicated by the chief tool we are given to keep God’s gifts moving through the institution of Church—namely, money.     Money is not a tool like a dustrag that can be easily and safely handled by most people.  Money comes with tons of baggage--family history, cultural iconography, long traditions of use and abuse.  It is sticky, and faintly dangerous.  I learned this week that the very word “money” has its roots in the Latin word “moneo,” which means “warn.”  Jesus talked about money a lot, and most of his money talk came in the form of a warning about its power to seduce humankind.

          Money is a tool more like superglue than a dustrag.  A useful tool, but sticky and dangerous.  I occasionally  use superglue, and I always read all the warnings, and try to be super careful while handling superglue, but I always seem to wind up with superglue somewhere it ought not be, like between my fingers, gluing them together.  If I were doing something that required my face to be close to the project I would probably end up gluing my nostrils shut.  That’s how powerful superglue is and how clumsy I am in my use of it.

          Money is one of the most powerful and efficient tools we have to keep God’s gifts circulating through the agency of Church.  We are inviting you next week to promise your money for the coming year’s mission.  It’s too bad we have to ask you to use such a sticky and dangerous tool as money to give as a gift to the church.  All I can say is, consider yourself warned about how difficult it is to be generous with a tool that is more often employed in keeping, safeguarding, hoarding, and consuming in our culture.  I hope we can all safely handle it without getting stuck in fear like the third servant in Matthew’s stickery parable.

          In a way, giving money to or through a church redeems it.  Not like a mob’s money-laundering operation, but like a ritual that reminds the community about the gifts received and the nature of the Giver, sending representative money into what Lewis Hyde called the circle of mystery, enlivening and refreshing it.  Some of what we give is carried out of sight, like the bones of the Native’s gratefully received first salmon washing out to sea, or the smoke of the ancient Hebrew’s sacrificed pigeon rising to the clouds.   Gratitude for the many gifts we receive triggers a giving of other gifts, and some circles around in praise to God, and then gifts circle back to us.  Walt Whitman put it nicely: “The gift is to the giver, and it comes back most to him.”  It comes back in a transmogrified form, perhaps, but it returns. 

          Anticipating some return, of course, is not what motivates one who participates in keeping the gift moving.  I think it has much more to do with entering the joy of the Master by getting into the repeating flow of receiving, gratitude, and giving, which goes also by the alias “Abundant Life” in the gospels.  It’s entering the process as a channel for the Master’s generosity.  An old Persian story tells of a beggar who came to Caliph Marwan, asking him for charity.  “Address your application to Allah,” said Marwan.  The beggar replied, “The application has been sent.  It came back marked, ‘Refer to Marwan.’”  The Caliph was enlightened.  “Here at last,” he declared, “is a man who realizes everything must have a channel.  It would be well if all you people present were to realize it.”  And the beggar was rewarded.[4]

          Beloved, let us be channels for the Giver’s generosity in the world.  There is so much more to abundant life than having everything.