St. Mary's Regina

St. Mary’s Anglican Church, Trinity 23, November 15, 2020 Canon Claude Schroeder (Matthew 25. 14-30)

In today’s gospel lesson, we heard what is commonly called “The Parable of the Talents”, where, as Jesus tell us, “It is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability.”

Sermon for St. Mary’s Anglican

Date:  Nov 8, 2020

Scriptures:  Amos 5:18-24, Psalm 70:1-5, I Thessalonians 4:13-18 and Matthew 25:1-13

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts together, be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

The Wise and the Foolish

            When I began my preparations for this sermon on Monday, the sun was shining brightly and the temperature was +16. It is November so I knew that the autumn weather would not last and that the cold winter weather would come – I just didn’t know it was going to come as suddenly as The Weather Network is predicting it will come. I am speaking this to you on Friday evening and as yet there is no sign of the blizzard but when it comes, there will be no doubt that one season is ending and another is beginning.

            In Matthew chapter 24 Jesus also talks about an end and a beginning: it is the “end of the age” and what is in the future is the “the coming of the Son of Man”. These are chronologically imprecise phrases and Jesus does not make them as historically specific as his disciples would like Him to. Despite this, various Christians down through the ages have speculated as to when exactly all the things Jesus talks about in these chapters, will actually take place. 

St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church, All Saints, Nov.1, 2020  Canon Claude Schroeder

So today, we have great cause for celebration at St. Mary’s. 

Earlier this morning we celebrated the baptism of Sophia, and now in this service we are celebrating the great and wonderful Feast of All Saints, or as it used to be called “The Feast of All Hallows”, from which we get the word Hallowe’en.

There is no trick or treating going on at the church this morning. 

God has something much better in store for us. 

I was listening to the Mockingbird podcast this week, and the host quoted from an online newsletter called “The Unfurling,” written by a woman called Mo Perry.  In this article, Perry talks about the strange times we are living in, and how it has affected us.  She says: “Everyone is doing their own calculus when making their choices about how to live these days. Some have concluded — by evaluating their personal risk factors and interpreting the news headlines and local public health stats — that they don’t want to go into shops or walk outdoors in crowded areas. They want to get their groceries and other essentials delivered, stay in, and minimize contact with others. 

Others have looked at their own constellation of factors and needs, and come to different conclusions. There’s a huge spectrum of ways people feel about the right balance between sensible precautions and what they need to do for their own economic, mental, physical, and relational wellbeing. 

It seems to me that the vast majority of us are trying to navigate our individual circumstances as responsibly as possible, even if one person’s idea of what that looks like for them is different from another’s.  

The virus is one thing that can hurt us, but there are others. Fear, shame, loneliness, anxiety, depression, poverty, isolation…I posed this question on Facebook and Twitter: “Do you feel like you have to hide (or are less inclined to share) pleasurable or fun activities you do outside your home?” The answers were striking. The folks who said no all explained that they’re not doing anything risky, so they have nothing to hide.

A lot of other folks said yes. And the reasons they gave were only partially about [being] risk-sham[ed]; they also mentioned wanting to be seen as appropriately somber in these dark times.

All this seems to add up to a new relationship we’ve communally developed with social media. It’s a place we go to demonstrate our goodness, display our adherence to the rules, and show our fealty to the approved positions on social issues.

Our real lives — the parts that are messy, fun, joyful, playful, morally ambiguous, less than perfectly ethically vetted — stay in the shadows.”