The Parable of the Talents & the recycle bins

“Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping

where you did not sow, and gathering where

you scattered no seed…” –Matthew 25:24

This morning was beautiful in Houston: crisp, cold, --the air was clear –the sky was brilliant and a peaceful blue.   I got out for my morning walk a little late –I tend to get out a little later these days—but when I woke and found the house was cold I knew I couldn’t stay in bed; I had to get outside. I had gone to bed still thinking about those virgins and their oil jars and their lamps, but I woke up to the thrill of a cold house; I had to be up. And I was eager to get outside.

The cold weather (for Houston) came with a bit of a breeze (I guess) because a few of my neighbors’ recycle bins were blown open. (Several of us had put our bins out Friday, hoping that the recycling pick-up would start again, but apparently not yet. There hasn’t been a pick up since before Harvey; so, many bins in our neighborhood are almost overflowing with broken down boxes and beer cans and plastic bottles.)  When I got halfway down the street to Helen’s house –she’s the friendly neighbor lady with the three floor mop dogs who talks to me about the weather and her grandchildren and our friend Molly.

Anyway, when I got to Helen’s house (p.s. her husband’s name is Anthony) (I mean, just so you know)… Anyway, and … Anyway, when I got to Helen’s house I noticed that their recycle bin had blown open and  there was a couple of flattened boxes near their driveway and a couple of plastic water bottles, and another sheet of cardboard up against the curb across the street.  My immediate reaction was to pick them up, but I didn’t. I started to walk past them. Looking at their open bin which was still pretty full, I figured trash had blown out of it sometime in the night, and thought of closing it for them so more trash wouldn’t blow out. But, I started to talk myself out of it. I began to convince myself that this wasn’t my mess to clean up, and that –in fact—it would be good for the person responsible to find it and clean it up.

I rationalized that they needed to learn to put their recycle bin away and not to overstuff it –and to make sure they secured the lid.  If –I reasoned—I cleaned up their mess –which, now I was noticing was also scattered across their driveway and decorating their front lawn (Boy! They must be good at this whole recycling thing!) –anyway, if I cleaned up their mess for them they wouldn’t find it and learn to take proper care next time.  Heck, it would be a disservice to them and the community at large if I… It was at that point that I found myself stooping down to pick up a flattened box and a couple of plastic bottles….

Anyway (again), this is how I came to stop thinking about the poor foolish virgins and their lack of oil and began to understand more clearly the parable of the talents. Coming upon the mess at Helen’s house (and Anthony) my initial reaction was to help. There was a mess, and I didn’t want to just leave it for someone else. That would be wrong. Yet, when I hesitated, and began to rationalize, I pushed that initial urge down; in a way, I buried it, and as I did, I noticed a growing tension and anxiety rising inside of me –taking its place.  And with this growing tension came resentment. Why can’t people take care of their own trash? Why can’t THEY be responsible for their own recycling? Who do THEY think they are? Why should I be taking care of their messes?  They won’t learn or change unless I let them suffer the natural consequences of not securing their trash. In fact, for their own good, I should probably grab some more recycling and throw it around the yard as well and those beer cans in the neighbor's recycle bin –maybe I should throw some of those around, too!

In that moment I was becoming a “hard man,” a man “who reaps where has not sewn,” a man who “gathers where he has not scattered,” and a man who scatters where he has not recycled! (when no one is looking…)

But the reason I was becoming that man was because I was burying my talent.  I was (to use a psychological term) sublimating my gifts.  Yet, after picking up Helen’s yard and pushing what I could back down into her bin and then putting the excess into the bin of those nursing students who live next door, I continued on my walk and –with another stop or two to pick up stray cardboard and plastic-- I realized:

This is the parable. I was living it. Right here. Right now.  God has given me certain gifts (my talents), one of which is the urge to help.  And when I bury that talent not only do I hide my gift, but I also begin to grow resentful, just like that “one talent” servant in the parable.  And like that servant I begin to project my resentment onto others –including the Master (i.e. God).  Burying my talent, I begin to grow hard and bitter and I project that bitterness and growing hardness, onto the world. I see others as fools and irresponsible and selfish and…

But, in fact, at 6:08 am, Helen and Anthony were probably still snuggled warmly in their bed under extra blankets and completely unaware of what the beautiful cold morning had wrought on their recycling. (And, in fact, they are actually very kind, very generous and very loving neighbors, who always invite us to their post-Thanksgiving Crab-fast!)

Back to the parable. When Mr. 1-talent Servant accuses the master of being a “hard man who reaps where he does not sow,” I wonder if that servant isn’t actually projecting his own hardening heart onto a master who, it seems at the beginning of the parable, is actually very generous and trusting.  According to scholars, a “talent” was actually a huge sum of money –worth about 15+ years labor. So, this master handed that first servant the equivalent of about 75 years salary and asked the servant to take care of it for him.  (My first thought wouldn’t have been to invest it, it would possibly have been to get on the next camel caravan headed to Switzerland!)  So, the master wasn’t acting hard or selfish when he handed out the talents to his servants.  He entrusts huge sums of money to his servants, and then he shares with them the profits.  So, why does the 1-talent servant call him hard?  Because the servant himself has become hard.

If we share the gifts God gives us, we find that they are returned to us doubled, and our vision of God will (I imagine) expand as well; but if we bury our gifts we lose them and as we do we will find our spirit shrinking, our hardening hearts blaming God and our vision of God embittered and growing resentful and scrupulous.

Be your gift! Become the gift God made you to be, and no amount of oil or lamps will matter because you will set the world on fire (St. Catherine of Siena); you will light the world!  But bury your gift and the world seems to grow dark and cold and hard –and in that darkness, you can too easily lose your way, and then where will you be? Somewhere sad, bitter and lonely, haunted by the sound of much “weeping and the gnashing of teeth.”

Postscript: As I was coming back to the house, I saw a largish opened box in the middle of my next door neighbor’s lawn. My first thought wasn’t about recycling or bins, but of Christmas.  I looked at that simple, empty, open brown box and thought –What an interesting Christmas lawn-decoration. Way to go, Anna! I like it. Simple. Subtle. And much easier to maintain than her wobbly giant  inflatable Santa on a train.  Sometimes what you see depends less on what it is, than the way you look at it.

Stay awake --some more thoughts on the wise & the foolish & the oil that lights the lamp

“Therefore, console one another with these words.” 

--1 Thessalonians 4:18

“Whoever watches for her at dawn shall not

be disappointed, for he shall find her sitting by his gate.”

--Wisdom 6:12-16

The readings that go with the parable of the wise and foolish virgins are not particularly helful or consoling to someone who is stuck on or struck by the vision of scarcity our Lord chose to use when depicting the Kingdom of Heaven in that parable from Matthew 25:1-13.

For a man who has turned water into wine and made a handful of loaves and fishes so abundant they are sufficient to feed thousands of people and still have leftovers that overflow and fill extra baskets, why would He depict the Kingdom of Heaven as a place where there may not be enough to share, and so you have to worry about filling your own jar while I hold onto my oil in case I need it later –that’s troubling to me. Not in a way that makes me doubt God or scripture, but troubling in the way that makes me wonder: why this vision of the Kingdom of Heaven? Why compare Heaven to a place or situation wherein I can’t risk sharing my oil, my good deeds, my faith, my love, my hope, etc, because there may not be enough to go around.  If we assume these really are the words of Christ, and we assume that Christ was free to depict the Kingdom of Heaven however He wanted, AND that He actually has firsthand knowledge of the Kingdom of Heaven, then we can trust that this particular depiction was intentional.  And I still wonder: why was that particular detail so important to the story Jesus wanted to tell? Why, if He could have told us any story He wanted, did He tell us one in which the wise virgins worried that their oil might not suffice?

Many people have told me that I was looking at the story wrong.  I assent that is probably true.  But the Church, in all her wisdom, has chosen readings to go along with this that focus our attention on the message Christ has called our attention to: Be prepared!  Await the dawn. Stand at the gate and watch through the night. Stay awake.

Perhaps there is a message there –in that message—about how we fill our oil jars.  But it isn’t consoling. If we stay awake, watch at dawn, stand at the gate, will God fill our jars? Will that earn us enough oil? Faith? Hope? Love? Grace?  OR is that how we fill our jars?  Is the act of being vigilant and staying awake (in a spiritual and faith-filled way) the way our jars become filled? Is filling our jar kind of like growing our stomach? Think of the first time you went to an all-you-can-eat buffet. You probably couldn’t really eat that much. You may have filled your plate, and you may have emptied most of it and then gone back to fill it a second time, but in reality –you couldn’t eat it all. Your stomach wasn’t sufficient to your appetite…so to speak.  But, if you keep going to that same all-you-can-eat buffet every Wednesday for seven-teen weeks in a row by week 15,16 or 17 you are going to be plowing through the shrimp, the crab rolls and the sweet and sour tofu like nobody’s business!  And pretty soon the manager is going to be watching for your car in the parking-lot and when she sees it, she’ll be turning the “open” sign around and pulling trays off the steam table! You will not be welcome. But your belly will definitely be sufficient! It takes time, and it takes effort and most of all it takes commitment. But it is achievable. That, I promise. Just ask the lady at Mai Que about the skinny college kid with glasses who used to… Never mind.  I’m off topic.

Those readings: Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians, the Book of Wisdom, Psalm 63, they aren't exceptionally helpful with this issue. Paul simply encourages us to know God is in control and not to worry about those who have died in the faith (i.e. at the steam table).  On some level, he seems to be saying that God's supply of oil is sufficient for all who fill their jars from it.  But Paul's vision is much more concerned with an eschatological vision of entering into the eternal all-you-can-eat buffet line. A place where the tandoori chicken is always abundant and the naan is always fresh and hot. And the plates have really big lips so that nothing spills...
Psalm 63 depicts the love of someone who watches for God constantly –even on his bed at night. That is one of my favorite psalms to share with people in the hospital, because hospital patients know what it is to be miserably awake in the middle of the night when nothing good is on TV and all you dare hope for is sleep or dawn.  And yet it speaks of yearning for God, like a dry weary land that yearns for water.  That is certainly the feeling I remember when I was stuck in the hospital for four nights.  And it speaks of being sated as with choice food --i.e. the sweet and sour pork.

The Old Testament reading (Wisdom) shows us a vision of a “wise virgin” who is prepared, who watches for God, who will not be disappointed. She stands at the door to the buffet waiting to hear the key turn in the lock so she can be first in line!  The church (during last week's mass) paired this uncomfortable parable with these readings to help us focus our attention on what would seem to be the key message: Be prepared. Watch. Stay awake.

But, in the end, I am still left to wonder: why this vision of Heaven? Why this story? Why these virgins? And why this oil, and why it couldn’t be enough?

The only answer I have is: our oil is non-transferable. My lamp cannot be lit by your good deeds, and vice versa.  But that doesn’t seem to be exactly what the Lord was saying.  And maybe the church is right: maybe He was just offering us a simple warning: stay awake. Because we know the hour or the day, but we do know it will come –like a thief in the night --just when we sit down with our second plate of pot stickers, and some of that great cashew curry stuff.

The wise & the foolish (and the lamp of grace)

“…the wise ones replied: No, for there may

not be enough for us and you. Go 

instead...and buy some for yourselves.”

 –Matthew 25: 1-13

The “no” of the wise virgins has always troubled me.  There are (of course) allegorical readings to justify the seeming coldness of their response, to make theological sense out of its apparent heartlessness, but despite all that, it still feels painfully discomforting. In the end, we are still left asking: why?  Why can’t they share their stinking oil? And even more importantly, why would Jesus present us with such an uncomfortable vision of the Kingdom of Heaven? 

A standard way of looking at this parable is this:

 God is the bridegroom and we don’t know when He will come, and like the wise bridesmaids, we are called to be ready when He comes. The oil is read as some element of that preparation: grace, good works, love, faith, etc. The wise virgins have stored up enough of this element, while the foolish have not. And then when the Bridegroom (God) comes those who are prepared enter into the feast (the Kingdom of Heaven?) while those who were not, are left behind, knocking at the door but unrecognized by the Bridegroom.   

                And yet, even in such a reading, that image of the oil that cannot be shared is woefully troubling.  Why can’t the oil be shared?  Why doesn’t the story involve a miraculous abundance of oil? Something like a Hanukah miracle or the story of the widow and Elijah (cf. 1 Kings 17:12-16).  I want to hear that God’s grace is overflowing and inexhaustible. Like the loaves and the fishes.  A kind of multiplication of the oil miracle would have made this a parable of God’s generosity, His overflowing grace that inspires and overflows into acts of grace and faith in all whom it touches.  It overflows from my lamp to yours. And if I give you some, I won’t have to worry “that there may not be enough” for me, because in the economy of grace, there is always enough –pressed down, shaken together and running over (cf. Luke 6:38). But that isn’t the vision Jesus gives us here.  Why?

                One answer could be that the lesson He offers here isn’t about grace or faith, it’s about commitment and preparedness.  And though I can accept that, it feels insufficient to address the discomfort of the wise virgin’s “no.”  Why, then, would Jesus include this detail?  In the end I am still troubled by why the Lord chose to depict the Kingdom of Heaven in this way.  So, what if we try that famous “four-fold” method (literal, allegorical, moral, anagogical), and see where that gets us.

                First, the literal level: based on the story, and on the little historical research I have done, it is highly unlikely that the virgins would have been able to share their oil. The need of the bridesmaid to make sure she had enough oil for what might amount to a long walk with lengthy stops to greet neighbors, receive greetings, and pick-up tacos at the Jack-in-the-Box, would have required that these lamp-carrying virgins come prepared. One scholar pointed out that bringing a lamp without oil would be like us bringing a flashlight with no batteries.

                But allegorically and morally, I still want to ponder: can we share “our” grace?  Can we share with another person the grace we have received?  Or, can a person touched by grace simply light her own lamp and let it shine for all to see?  Is that do-able? Is it grace-ful? And anagogically I wonder: what does this mean about the efficacy of grace.

                Pondering this passage, I am struck by the existential question at the core of it: the foolish virgins ask the wise to share their oil (their grace, their faith, their love, etc) and the wise say they can’t (or won’t).  Which is the most puzzling thing about this story told by a man who could literally turn a handful of fish and a small basket of bread into more than enough food for over 5000 men (not counting women and children).  Why isn’t the point of this story something about the wonders of sharing? Why is it instead a story about not having enough to share?  For me, that question seems to knock at the door that Jesus opens here.  And yet, stepping inside, I must say, I don’t know where it leads. 

Some might say my confusion comes from paying too much attention to a small (unimportant) detail. The story is really just about being ready. Don’t get so distracted by the oil!  But, isn’t this Jesus guy the same guy who said: His Father knows when a sparrow falls to the ground; and even the very hairs of your head are numbered. Clearly, the God He preaches cares about even the littlest details.

 So –what does this little detail mean?  Is it something about our individual existential problem: As Delmore Schwartz wrote: no one can take your bath for you. In other words: perhaps no one can fill my lamp for me.  And that could be the anagogical lesson addressed in this seemingly eschatologically aimed story. Both existentially and eschatologically we have to have our own faith? When I stand before God to be judged, to be recognized as one of His children, God won’t be asking me who my parents were or what schools I attended or how often I went to mass.  Perhaps the eschatological reading of this parable has something to do with how God knows we are His –does our lamp burn? Does it shine its light so that He can see our face and know we are His?  

And yet, why can’t the virgins share their oil? Is it because, I can’t burn your oil in my lamp? I have to have my own. Not because you don’t want to share with me, but because your oil won’t light my lamp. Because your grace won’t illuminate my faith. And your faith won’t shine in my soul.  I have to have my own.  Is that weirdly existential lesson part of the beautiful paradoxical perplexity of this quite troubling parable?   Maybe.

But something else I’ve been wondering lately is this: maybe sometimes the point of the parable isn’t to offer us an easy (or hard) answer. Maybe sometimes the point of the parable is to offer us a question. Something to get us thinking… Food for prayer and contemplation.

God Bless you. If you read this, I am heartily grateful, and know that I pray the Lord’s grace fill your jar and light your lamp.