Proper 28 A
November 16, 2008
(Sunday after I announced I was leaving
Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18
Psalm 90:1-8, 12
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30
I guess I’m the last person my age or older to learn this. I have just now come to appreciate, really appreciate, the sheer genius of Dr. Seuss. Many of the books he wrote that my father read to me and I read to my children, who now read to their children aren’t really for the children. The odd looking characters and bright colors are for the children. The simple words, oddly put together, just plain silly some of them, are for the grown-ups who read to the children. We’re the ones who learn from the words. The children haven’t lived long enough to have a context for the words to do all that they can do for us. That is to point to something much larger.
Green Eggs and Ham. Remember that one? There was a time I could recite the whole book from memory. As a kid I loved the rhyming. I still loved it when I read the book to my kids. But when I read it to my grandkids, I found a lesson about judgment in that little book – about judging by the looks of things. When you think about it, judging by the looks of things doesn’t mean you know anything about what or who you’re judging. Another person will see something different than you see it. The reality competitions so popular on TV these days, like American Idol, Dancing with the stars, and the rest of them are examples of that. Three judges, each one sees or hears something different in the performance of the person being judged. Once in awhile they agree but often they don’t.
The character in the book is strongly opposed to having anything to do with green eggs and ham. Judging by the looks of things eggs are supposed to be yellow and white. Ham is sort of a pinkish ham color. Neither ham nor eggs can be green. If they are, they can’t possibly be good to eat. Now here’s where Dr. Seuss meets today’s Gospel.
The parable Jesus told to the disciples is about judgment too. Not about poor judgment when it comes to money. That’s too superficial. That would be like staying in the smallness of a Dr. Seuss rhyme and missing the largeness of the words. No parable is to be perceived that way. Parables point to truths beneath and beyond the words it takes to tell them. This one is about a specific kind of judgment. You and I are not supposed to read the parable and judge the wicked servant who didn’t manage his master’s money very well. And then maybe judge ourselves (because we are servants too) on how well we manage money. That is not the focus of this parable.
In an honor/shame society, it was shameful for a wealthy man to do anything with his wealth strictly for the purpose of increasing it. That included trading or investing. It was common for a nobleman to hand his money over to his servants not telling them what to do with it but expecting them as obedient servants to protect the honor of their master. Likewise, the servants, trusting the honor of their master would have expected him to do the honorable thing when he returned and reward them for their obedience. Two of the servants judged rightly. They judged their master to be a man of honor acting according to the social mores of the time. In turn the master judged them to be trustworthy and loyal and rewarded them. The third servant judged his master wrongly, in an unkind and disrespectful way. His master reciprocated that judgment. All three servants judged their master, whether he would return to claim what he entrusted to them but the third one could not see good in his master. The master did not see good in him either.
There is another reason the scruffy fellow in the book could not be open to trying green eggs and ham. Not with anyone, not anywhere, not ever. From the beginning of the story he did not like that Sam-I-Am who was offering those green eggs and ham.
Not just Matthew, but in all the Gospels the Pharisees were not able to receive the grace and mercy God was offering through Jesus because they judged him wrongly. He wasn’t even a good Jew in their eyes. He healed on the Sabbath. He touched the untouchable, and he had table fellowship with sinners and such. He didn’t follow the law like a good Jew. There’s no way he could be God’s Anointed One. Besides that, look where he comes from, they said. How can anything good come from
Humans have been judging God since the Garden of Eden. Wrongly, much of the time, God has been pursuing us, trying to get us to taste God’s grace and mercy the way that Sam-I-Am pursued the scruffy fellow to taste green eggs and ham. We are all servants and our Master when he returns will judge us for what we have done with the grace we have been given. Our relationship with Christ directly influences the judgment we anticipate. If we know God in Christ as the one who loves us more than we can imagine, who gave up his life, so we could be in relationship with God for all eternity, if we have been gracious and loving to each other, then on the last day the judgment we anticipate is the judgment we will receive. We can expect to see the heavenly banquet prepared for us and hear the words we all long to hear: "Well done, good and faithful servant. Draw near to me and share in your Master’s joy."
