The Coin of the Realm of the Kingdom of Heaven: A Sermon for the Twenty-fifth Sunday After Pentecost

Preached at All Saints, Collingwood, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, 19 November, 2023, the Twenty-fifth Sunday After Pentecost.  Readings for this Sunday: Judges 4:1-7; Psalm 123; 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11; Matthew 25:14-30

There’s an old, slightly archaic English phrase called The Coin of the Realm.   This phrase means the legal currency of a state, or more generally just means something like “the genuine article”.

Recently the Canadian mint unveiled a facsimile of the new dollar coin, bearing the image of our new king, Charles III.  As is custom, the head of the new king faces left, whereas his mother Queen Elizabeth looked to the right on coins, the difference signifying the end of one reign and the start of the second.

I recall when the loonies and toonies were first introduced in the 1980s, and how my American friends were fascinated with them, not only as the idea of a dollar coin was strange, but also that the coin had the Queen’s head on one side!   Strange to Americans at the time, perhaps, but for us, we adopted the loonie and toonie as coins of the ream, even if their weight was hard on our trouser pockets!

Coins of course figure prominently in today’s parable, usually called The Parable of the Talents.  In this story, Jesus describes three servants whose master entrusts them with considerable sums of money,  talents, in the expectation that they will increase his wealth during the master’s absence.  The parable ends with rewards for two the servants, but has scary imagery of punishment for the third servant who does nothing to increase the wealth given to him, and merely buries it for safekeeping.

Biblical scholars agree that the sums of money given out by the master were ridiculously large, fortunes even by today’s standards.  A talent in the ancient world was often a unit of measurement, the weight of many gold or silver coins, so the third slave probably dug a pretty deep hole to bury a LOT of coins.   However, since we know that parables are stories offering insights into the value system of God, I think we can safely say that the parable is not really about money or about investment strategies.

Jesus often begins his parables with the phrase “the kingdom of God is like” and then uses a powerful figure - a master, a king, and landowner - to represent God, while the servants, slaves, or employees in the parables represent us, God’s people.  At the end of these parables the master holds the servants accountable.  Those who have done well are rewarded, and those who have acted selfishly are punished, and for the wicked servants the parables often end with “weeping and gnashing of teeth”.

So, if the parables are about the kingdom of heaven and how it works, and if we want to understand and learn from the parable of the talents, then a useful question might be,  what do the talents represent in this parable?  Or, to put it another way, what is the coin of the realm of heaven?

There are abundant places in Matthew’s gospel alone where we could find answers to these questions, and many of them we have visited recently during this church year.   Two weeks ago, on All Saints Sunday, we heard the Beatitudes, from the Sermon of the Mount, and Jesus’ list of those who are blessed (Mt 5:3-12):

• Those who aren’t full of themselves, the humble and meek
• Those who want to see justice and goodness done in the world
• Those who work for peace and reconciliation
• Those who are merciful

In showing God’s love and regard for these sorts of people, Jesus reveals that the coin of the realm of the Kingdom of Heaven are the things that make that kingdom manifest in the world: peace, love, a fierce desire for justice, generosity of spirit, and perhaps above all, mercy.

Jesus teaches these qualities in many parables, like the king who forgives his servant an impossibly large debt, and then becomes angry when that same servant will not forgive the minor debt that another servant owes him (Mt 18:21-35).  In another he compares the kingdom of heaven to a vineyard owner who pays everyone the same, regardless of hours worked, because it is his right to be generous (Mt 20:1-16).  

And after another parable, Jesus teaches that “the kingdom of God will be  … given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom” (Mt 21.43).  That last teaching reminds us that Jesus is a teacher who expects results, who wants his disciples to learn and then do what he has shown them.

So what if the talents in today’s parable are the coins of the realm of the kingdom of heaven - generosity, justice, mercy, and love - the very things that we receive from God?   And what if the duty of the servants is to invest them in a world that needs more generosity, mercy, and love?  In other words, to take the gifts that God has given us and pay them forward?

The third servant in the parable is punished because he won’t do anything with what he’s given, which begs the question, what good is love if no one is loved?  What good is justice if no one receives it?  What good is mercy if no one is shown mercy?   How can justice, love and mercy do good if they are buried in the ground?

Let me finish with a few words on the ending of the parable, all the scary stuff about outer darkness and weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Should the third servant have been afraid of the master?   No, not if he had understood what he had been given as a gift rather than as a menacing burden.  Likewise, it does us no good to hear this parable and then conclude that we should be afraid of God.

Jesus has chosen us to be workers in the vineyard, partners in the kingdom of heaven and friends of God.   As always, he asks us to follow him, and in return he promises us that he will return to restore God’s kingdom, at which time there will be judgement.  Those who have shown mercy, love and justice will be rewarded, and those who chose not to will not have a place in the kingdom of heaven (Mt 25.32-46).

The kingdom of heaven rests on the foundation of God’s justice.   We trust that goodness, light, and right will be upheld on the last day, and we especially need that assurance in these dark and uncertain times.  But we need not fear that justice.  In our second lesson, we heard St Paul remind us that we need not fear God’s anger: “For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 These 5.4).

Soon we begin the season of Advent.  The days will grow even shorter and colder.  Our scripture readings through Advent will speak of the coming of the king from his long journey.   We will light candles, we will keep watch and be ready like good servants, and we will await our king with joy and expectation.  And in the meantime, we will use the gifts we have been given - love, justice, and mercy - for the sake of the world God loves, because love, justice and mercy are the coins of God’s realm.