Laughing at a Funeral

Sunday, November 16, 2008
Preacher: Pastor Kendra Mohn

Psalm 41:1-3 1
Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30

Audio sermon link: http://fileresource.sitepro.com/filemanager/74/filecollections/422/DC940E23-065E-3374-11FC-EE42DC8D2359.mp3

Today’s lesson seems to be speaking about a harsh master, and inequality in his doling out. As we’ve seen more often lately, we have to ask “Where’s the Good News here?”. We are called to take the time and acquire the eyes to see that good news.

Where’s the good news in the hoarding of the single talent. Well, Pastor Mohn puts part of the picture we often don’t see in perspective when she sheds light on the meaning of the word “talent”.

In our Savior's lifetime, a talent was a significant amount of money. A talent was equal to 60 minaes, and a mina was equal to 100 dinarii (pence). A worker might earn one dinarius a day.

So a talent was something on the order of 6000 days pay or 16 years salary! Five talents held the worth of an entire life! Well, this changes one’s perspective … or it can. Pastor Mohn evoked that sense when she challenged us all to view the text from a different angle. If the Master was harsh, was he not also extravagant in what he offered, provided? The Master’s instinct is to give extravagantly, abundantly! And what is expected in return is accountability. We are given each a unique gift. It is our job to discover it and use it as best we can to further The Plan. So let’s not “start with harsh”. God BEGINS with abundant giving. God gives us all LIFE.

Now on to the response. So now that we know the value of a single talent, we know the guy with even the one talent has got a lot to lose! “A lot” renders apprehension, fear, and a feeling of undeservedness. It’s fear that leads the last slave to hide and hoard his keep. Is the Master really harsh? Or is it in our heads “the fear talking”?

The other two slaves “see the opportunity”. They “see it a different way”. Pastor Mohn confesses that “she gets the third guy”. She gets his fear. We can all relate. But we also need to consider why the other two rise above it … why they were not afraid.

Pastor Mohn recently lost her grandmother and attended the funeral in Iowa. As mourners lined up to view the body, Annika, all of 7 months, was wiggling, smiling, and laughing. The scene caused others to break a smile. It was that image: laughing at a funeral that spoke a message. That …

Christians do foolish things, risky things. They take a chance!

They laugh at a funeral.

We all can acknowledge an economic crisis of proportions we have only read about, yet reach in deep and continue to give. We’ve been asked by the Master to dig deep, and to laugh at a funeral. Being asked to give is an invitation from God … to be held accountable for one’s having received in abundance, in extravagance. The request: that we help others smile at a funeral, see the world a different way.

We never deny the crisis or catharsis or The Cross, but we are tasked to live knowing that after, there is always a rainbow, a promise, a deliverance, a life everlasting.

And, if we learn the lesson of the talents, we, too, must “pay it forward” … so the giving never ends.