Who amongst us knows what it is to be enslaved, to be stuck in a moment, a situation, a lifetime of fear or shame from which we cannot be freed on our own?
Who amongst us knows what it’s like to have systems of oppression stacked against us...to be held captive by
another person, an entire way of being, a political or economic system such that our minds and bodies are unable to dream anything beyond our current captivity?
Who amongst us knows the daily threat of violence as a result of who we are: our race, gender, identity? Who amongst us knows the daily threat of violence at the hands of those who do not value us as the beloved person, people, communities God created us to be?
Because there is something we often miss in this gospel text: the reality of slavery and an exploitative economic and political system that ought to inform our reading of it, and what Jesus might be up to (if he is in fact a prophet like John the Baptist before him, or Elijah, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos, and the many others in whose tradition he walks).
There is something we often miss, but today, I want us to be awake to the possibility of what might be happening here. Today we continue our journey with Jesus on the road towards the big city, towards Jerusalem and all that will follow:
- Encounters with religious leaders and political elites,
- Disagreements with close friends,
- A memorable feast; and
- Betrayal at the hands of one of his closest confidantes
We continue our journey with Jesus. In the forward momentum of Matthew’s re-telling, we have just been invited, reminded, warned to stay awake.
This invocation will, of course, be echoed in the Garden of bitter tears, Jesus grieved and agitated in outer darkness on the brink of betrayal, faced with another choice—like the temptation in the wilderness of who to follow.
He will weigh his choice (as we all must) and he will choose (as we’re all invited) to embody God’s dream, to proclaim and to live into a world where all have enough and believe that they are enough even in the face of intentions, practices, and life-denying systems designed to crucify many for the sake of the few, sending those who resist to the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
There are many ways into this story, of course. And yet, in the wake of #metoo and #blacklivesmatter; in the wake of the current civil unrest in the United States; in the aftermath of residential schools and our country’s ongoing genocide of Indigenous Peoples, it seems wrong—somehow—not to invite the current realities of systemic oppression into the conversation, and to help us to ask better questions of God and one another.
How might we seek news that is good for one and for all?
Coming to today’s Gospel lesson, one question it seems important to ask is simply this: For whom is this Good News? (and a related question: for whom is it not?)
Does this gospel proclaim good news for the poor, release for the captives, recovery of sight for the blind, and freedom for the oppressed? Does it embody this reality in some way?
Or is the message far less expansive?
If the message is about anything less than the redemption of the entire cosmos, the righting of wrongs, and the overturning of unjust structures of society, then can it, I wonder, be the Jesus gospel?
Jesus came to liberate Israel, to liberate all humanity from sin—the ways we wound our lives and the lives of others. Our turning in repentance turns us from violence, and frees our imaginations to dream—with God’s dream—a world of reconciled relationship we never thought possible.
And so, what I’d like us to consider today is the possibility that the third slave, the one who is ultimately cast into outer darkness by a harsh master holds the key to the parable.
Because what I see in the third slave is one who has played the game for so long trying to get on side of his master, wanting to be more like his master, but has realised somewhere along the way, that it’s not worth it.
It’s not worth it to participate in this system of oppression that enslaves him, and that enslaves his neighbours. It’s not worth it to play any longer by the rules of that oppressive system, even if it’s going to cost him.
And so I wonder, what if it is the one who has seen the underbelly of the system, refusing to play by its oppressive rules any longer who holds the key?
What if it is Rosa Parks or Martin King, rather than
the one MLK calls "the white moderate" who ought to be listened to?
What if it is the victim of harassment and abuse, rather than
the unrepentant movie producer who ought to be heard?
What if it is the high-school aged climate activist, rather than
the heads of nations
who ought to be believed
about the immediacy and urgency of our response
to global climate catastrophe?
This parable brings up many challenges, not least, I think, because I often find myself wanting to be on the winning side.
I want to be one of the ones with privilege. I want to be one of the ones who is close to those with wealth and power. And that’s why I find the third slave so troubling.
What I think the third slave gets—is precisely this—he’s still a slave. He is slave to a way of living that isn’t good for him, for his neighbours, or for the land on which their lives depend.
With that in mind, where is Jesus leading us? And perhaps more to the point, if he goes there, are we bold enough to follow?
In the passage that follows ours today, a King divides the nations.
We may have heard the story of the sheep and goats before. The King identifies those who fed the hungry, offered a drink to the thirsty, befriended the stranger, clothed the naked, tended the sick, and visited the prisoner. These are the ones who will inherit a kingdom that is unlike any government this world has ever seen. It is a kingdom where the people at the centre are the ones who our society has pushed to the margins—cast into outer darkness. This, according to that parable, is where we are to find Jesus.
Which brings me back to today’s story about the three slaves.
How might our faith be transformed, I wonder, if we were to see Jesus in the story of the third slave? How might we live if we resisted the temptation of the first two slaves, choosing instead to go with Jesus to the places this world considers “outer darkness,” but where Jesus appears to take great delight?
Sources:
Keesmaat, Sylvia C., and Brian J. Walsh. “Outside of a Small Circle of Friends: Jesus and the Justice of God.” Podcast Link.
Herzog, William. Parables as Subversive Speech: Jesus as Pedagogue of the Oppressed (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994)
Myers, Ched and Eric DeBode. Towering Trees and Talented Slaves: Jesus’ Parables. (The Other Side Online May-June 1999, Vol. 35, No. 3). Article Link.
