Matthew 25: 13-40 Dear Partner in Preaching, I will say at the outset that I don’t think I have much new to say about this parable that falls near the end of the church year and near the close of Matthew’s record of our Lord’s earthly ministry, though I did hear it in slightly a new way relative to these last few weeks. So here we go…. While often lifted up as a good stewardship text – whether of money, time, or (most predictably) talents – this parable, I believe, has been read and preached in way that seems more fitting to one of Aesop’s fables than one of Jesus’ kingdom parables. So rather than offer the “moral...

Matthew 25:14-30 Dear Partner in Preaching, What prompts the terror of the third servant? I mean, he’s not just nervous, or even afraid, but rather terrified. And so not only doesn’t he go out and trade to increase the considerable amount with which he has been entrusted – approximately a million dollars – but he doesn’t even put it in the bank for interest (as the property owner observes), but buries it in the ground (lest the banks fail?). What’s curious to me is that I’ve often read this parable without even questioning the servant’s assessment of his boss. When he says, “I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where...

Dear Partner in Preaching, Well that was fun! Our sharing and conversation via last week’s letter and comments, that is. Let’s do the same this week, and continue building a community of partners in preaching. As to this week… Over the years I’ve learned a lot from marketing guru Seth Godin. And one of the things I’ve learned seems particularly apt in light of this week’s parable. Godin argues in his little book All Marketers Are Liars that it’s not just marketers who lie, but all of us do. What he means is simply that we regularly tell ourselves things that we at least suspect, and sometime know for sure, are not true, and...