Magic Penny

sermon by Torin Eikler
Matthew 25:14-30 Zephaniah 1: 7, 12-18

I am not a big sports fan. But, I do hold onto one memory of attending Wrigley Field for a memorable game in 1998. That day, I was at the ball park with a group of volunteers who were out for a fun trip and paying little attention to the game. Oblivious to the momentous event occurring on the field, they decided to leave in the eighth inning to get the van before traffic got bad. I stayed despite their urgings and was rewarded by seeing Kerry Woods throw a record 20 strike outs. Perhaps it’s not as good as a no-hitter, but it was very impressive none-the-less. In the end, I found the others waiting in the van (where they were parked in), and we waited another twenty minutes before we could get out of the lot. Twenty minutes during which they had to endure my labored attempts to convince them of the momentous nature of the event they had missed due to their lack of staying power.

I don’t pay attention to the basketball or the football seasons. I don’t even know how WVU is doing in football, though I always know when they are playing, especially their home games. I do follow baseball a little, but I don’t know how the World Series ended since the Cubs lost in the first round. Honestly, I think I’m glad that they have continued their unbroken streak of a hundred years without a World Series title. (It should keep their fan base limited to the diehards rather than fickle folks who follow the winners.) As I said, I am not a big sports fan, and I don’t like to use sports metaphors or examples much. But, the story of Kerry Woods’ record game fits, in a strange way, with the parable we have just heard. (And, I’m sure Mike, at least, appreciates the use of baseball trivia in a sermon.)

Pitchers, you see, have a gift – a gift for throwing a small ball sixty feet with incredible accuracy and a good deal of speed. It may seem like a trivial thing, but for really great pitchers, it is not just a gift but also a passion. The more they use this gift, the better they become. And, as recent technology has discovered, they not only gain strength and skill, they also gain bone mass in their pitching arm. Some pitchers’ even develop bones in their working arms that are twice as thick as those in their catching arms. But once they stop pitching, those same bones dwindle back to their normal size and strength in a comparative wink of the eye. Kerry Woods is no exception. Shortly after his breakthrough game, he injured his arm and spent several months in recovery. In that short a period of time, the bones in his right arm shrank back to match those in his left, and as far as I know, they have yet to reach their former strength. The phrase, “use it or lose it,” it seems, is particularly apt in this situation.


And the same phrase can easily be used to summarize the message of Jesus’ parable. One servant is given 5 talents … another 2 talents … another 1. They are all entrusted to use those talents on their master’s behalf while he is traveling. The first two did their best, doubling their master’s wealth in his absence, and they were rewarded with even more. The third, hid his coin away so that he would not risk his master’s wrath should he fail, and he had his coin and his honor stripped from him. Use it or lose it. Yet, as with all parables, there is more to the story – in this case a troubling statement: “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but to those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.


These words have often been troubling to me and to many others who have heard them used to justify the accumulation of wealth in fewer and fewer hands while others find themselves at a loss to make ends meet. Just like the phrase “the poor will always be with you,” they don’t seem to fit with Jesus’ other teachings. What about his instruction to the rich young ruler to sell all that he had and give the money to the poor? What about the instruction to care for the destitute as if they were Christ himself? What about the upside down kingdom where the last and least become the first and most cherished?

In some ways, this text brings up feelings in me that mirror my frustration with the multi-trillion dollar bailout designed to support banks and other financial institutions with unimaginable resources on the backs of tax-payers – the majority of whom are working or middle class families. Where is the compassion and support for families who are being turned out of their homes just as we head into winter? Why is it so very bad to talk of redistributing wealth when so many need more to survive and a very few have enough to buy more than any one person – or even any million people – really need? Secretary Paulsen’s response to these questions, it would seem, is to ask the people to have more faith… to trust that somehow supporting the financial system will help the struggling to survive. And, I suppose he should know, but it sure seems like helping those who have, get more while those who have not, get less.


As I sit with these questions – these doubts and frustrations, I am reminded of how important perspective and context can be. I come to the scripture, as we all do, with my own subtext – my experiences, my current situation, the way in which I have been taught to see the world. And, it is helpful to realize that Jesus was talking to people who heard him with the same kind of cultural blinders on. When he talked about the Kingdom of God – which is exactly what he is doing here – he had to deal with the people’s preconceptions about what a kingdom looks and feels like. He had to find ways around how the people had learned to think about God and how interacts with the world. In a way, he had to speak their language and use their cultural framework as a point of reference. Anyone who has tried to communicate in another language or another culture will realize just how hard that is. How, for example, can we explain the concept of democracy to a people whose entire history and culture have been built around the idea of a hierarchy in which each class has absolute power over those below them – power that ultimately trickles down from ruler who is an avatar – the living presence of a god on earth? Without a common frame of reference, it’s nearly a hopeless cause. And, the power of the parables Jesus used was that it embraced the language and culture of the people and used it to strip away obstacles to understanding through its own contradictions.


So, when Jesus wanted to talk about the character of life and power in the Kingdom of God, he used the language of life and power in the Roman Empire – the language of wealth and servitude. (Sound familiar?) The master leaves for an extended business trip and leaves his slaves with some assets to manage in his absence – a test of their business acumen for certain, but also a test of their faithfulness. He returns to find that two of the men have done as he would have, risking the capital for the hope of a gain (in this case, successful risks). The third has been less faithful, choosing, out of fear, to abandon the master’s intentions and best interests by burying the money where it would do nothing by gather dust. Upon the master’s return, each of the slaves is dealt with not, I suspect, according to what he was able to produce but according how he acted.

But the Kingdom has a different currency. It’s not about wealth. It’s not about treasure set aside in storage houses. It’s about love and compassion and faithfulness in the search for justice through mercy and grace.

For some reason, the paradox created as this particular parable seeks to illuminate the nature of the Realm of God reminds me of the children’s song “Magic Penny.” I know it’s probably too late to stop you all from singing it in your heads, but if you’re like me, you started with the section that goes … “It’s just like a magic penny. Hold it close and you won’t have any. Lend it spend it, and you’ll have so many, they’ll role all over the floor.” Use it or lose it. But, is that what the song is really about?

We all know that it’s not. The song is a tool for teaching children about the nature of love. None of us, I suspect, have ever had a magic penny like the one in the song, but the idea is strangely easy to picture for adults as well as children. And, that’s what makes it such a good tool for introducing the complex ideas about how love grows and binds us all together. In the same way, the parable of the talents helps us to understand the way we are called to live out the Kingdom’s promise.

As children of God, we are all blessed, more or less, with gifts and talents. As followers of Christ, we also have hope in the promise of new life in the Realm of God. We are entrusted with that promise and called to make use of our blessings, however big or small, in such a way that we spread the promise out into the world. If we reach out in faith, the risks are great, but when we meet Christ again along our journey we will find that we meet with approval whatever the result of our effort. And, we will find that our faith grows and flowers as well so that we are able, more and more, to meet the challenges placed before us.

Unfortunately, many of us find ourselves trapped by fears and worries. This world’s blinders keep us focused on the potential of embarrassment, shame, and failure where the Spirit would open our eyes to the amazing possibilities for living the Reign of God into world around us. When we are governed by that fear, we hope and pray that we do not meet Christ on the road, for we know that we have abandon the master’s intentions and the best interests of all this creation and we fear his judgment. As we walk through life with an eye constantly cast over our shoulder in wariness, our energy, our promise, and our faith are sapped by fear. And, we wither spiritually.

This dual reality is attested to by many Christians across the centuries, and it is this truth that Jesus points to as he tells the story of three slaves and how they respond to the promise, the expectation, and the hope entrusted to them. “Use it or lose it” may well capture the moral of the story – at least for those who focus on the down side. The image of an untold number of pennies flooding out of our hands to roll all over the place, though, is more in keeping with the opportunity we are presented. The language of the Realm of God, after all, is the language of mercy, grace, love, and faith and those gifts do indeed spread and grow stronger as we engage them in our lives.

And, there is even more laid before us. Lest you feel like giving up in those moments when you feel yourself wrapped up in fear or withered and dry, remember that the promise of Christ is as ever-present and ever-renewing as the grace offered to us by God. We have only to call out from whatever dark, desert place we find ourselves and the Spirit, always waiting within and around us, responds with the refreshing, renewing water of life.

With that endless grace and love – a stimulus package capable of meeting every spiritual need – we need not fear. We are free to invest of love and our care in the world recklessly because we know that this is what Christ, our master, desires that we do with all the blessings that we have received – especially that most precious gift of abundant life. The test, as much as there is one, is not what we achieve through our efforts, it is how we approach the challenge … how we answer the call.

We are beloved children of God. We are disciples of Christ. Let us be faithful disciples, then, and spread the word of hope and grace and new life to all we meet without worry or fear. For love and hope, compassion and mercy, grace and faith are the currency of the Realm of God, and they are not small, dead, finite things. They are living with the pulse of God’s life and the promise of the Spirit, and the more we give them to the world, the more they grow in abundant and power. And, in the end, all of us will receive much more than we give. We will have grace, faith, love, and hope in such a measure that we will be rolling in the bounty. What need is there to fear? Why not share with freedom and abandon and enter into our master’s joy?

May it be so!