Don’t Farb Out!
Matthew 25:14-30 – The Parable of the Talents
Judges 4:1-7 – Deborah and Barak
November 16, 2008
Since moving to Virginia in June I have become more and more interested in the Civil War, or the War of Northern Aggression, or the War to Save the Union, or the War of State’s Rights—or whatever you prefer to call it. Part of this fascination probably comes from my childhood in Mississippi, which is about as Southern as you can get, but at the same time was removed from much of the violent conflict of the 1860’s. But war memories still remain for many people and, as I’m sure many of know, we still live today with many of the repercussions of that large-scale family conflict 150 years ago.
And in catching up on Civil War history I recently picked up a book written about 10 years ago called Confederates in the Attic, written by Tony Horwitz. It is a travel narrative in which Horwitz tells stories of people he meets throughout the south who are still actively living the memories of the Civil War. In particular, he spent a lot of time with Civil War reenactors—or as they term it, not reenactors, but “living historians.”
And there is a particular group that Horwitz meets called the Southern Guard who not only appear for battle reenactments, but also meet on weekends to practice for reenactments. The author joins them for one such weekend and when he arrives a man named—and this is no lie—Robert Lee Hodge—gives him a dingy, nasty uniform, a thin wool blanket, and confiscates all that is inappropriate—including most of his food and his sleeping gear.
Once the other men begin arriving for the practice weekend, the gathering turns into a strange display of affection and admiration with the most authentic clothes and the thinnest, gauntest, most food-deprived body frame garnering highest praise. “Whoa, Joel, you look goo-oood, like you lost some weight.” “Yeah, I dropped 15 pounds in the last two months.” “And look at that new jacket!” “Yep. Type one, early to mid 1862, with piping. Cotton and wool jean. Stitched it myself.”
And later that night, as the group of men gathers for bed under a moonlit orchard on a chilly night, Horwitz begins wondering how he will keep warm with only a wool blanket for a covering. And then, words echoed in the author’s ear that brought his apprehensions to reality: “Sardine Time!” With that, the men flopped to the ground and gathered together for a nightlong spooning and cuddling session. “Spoon left” was the first directive. And a few minutes later “Spoon Right!” and this ragtag, smelly, waif-like group of men alternated warming their backs and fronts, living up to their devotion to authenticity.
Because that is what these “super hardcore” reenactors—as they call themselves—are devoted to. Authenticity. And the extreme opposite of a being a “super hardcore” “living historian” is what is known as a “farb.” No one knows where the term came from, but Horwitz suggests it is either a misspelling of “barf” or, more likely, from the phrase “far be it from authentic.” “Don’t farb out on us!” a reenactor may exclaim. Or “You know Jimmy, well, he’s gone all farby.” “That uniform is total farbishness.” To be a farb is to be unauthentic. And to be unauthentic is to undermine the sacrifice made by soldiers who fought in the Civil War.
And, strange as it might seem, this idea of farbishness, or being a farb is at the very heart of our passage in Matthew today. The Parable of the Talents is one of the most familiar of all of Jesus’ parables. A version of it appears in all three synoptic gospels—Matthew, Mark and Luke—but Matthew’s is unique in a variety of ways.
For one, Matthew writes about talents. A talent was a large weight of money that amounted to about 15 years of labor. So when the man gives a servant 5 talents, he is essentially giving him a clean path to retirement, 75 years of wages! An absolutely mind-boggling amount of money.
But there is a significant downside to Matthew’s use of money in this story. Too many times this passage has been interpreted to condemn people in poverty for not working enough. The interpretation goes something like this: “God has given you talents; you have been given enough, so the fact that you’re poor means simply that you haven’t worked hard enough. You have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps! Don’t be the servant with one talent who was lazy!”
When people interpret this passage this way, they leave out two critical pieces of information. One, Matthew has already condemned the practice of accumulation for one’s own self. Just 3 chapters previous, in Matthew 19, the evangelist tells the rich man that if he wishes to be perfect he must “give [his] money to the poor” in order to have treasure in heaven. Further Matthew also says in familiar passage that one “cannot serve God and wealth.” And again in our own passage for today, we must remember that the servants who were given the talents were not making money for themselves, but for their Lord.
As professor Warren Carter notes, one of the regrettable aspects of this passage is that it co-opts the Roman imperial practice of the rich getting richer. In Rome there was a drastic separation between rich and poor, and the Roman economy was organized in a way that exploited the vast majority of the population, especially the poor and the rural. As Jesus states earlier in Matthew “You know the rulers of the Gentiles [or Romans] lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant.”
You see, this passage must be read not as an economic model, because Jesus has already dismissed economies where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In fact, Jesus’ economic teachings are entirely opposite of this—Jesus teaches sharing and generosity and egalitarianism, where all people prosper and those who need help are treated with dignity and grace, not with banishment and loss of property.
In fact, Jesus undermines the Roman economy, saying don’t give into greed and inequality, but subvert those sins with generosity and selflessness. To the rich man, Jesus says “Give all that you have to the poor.” This is entirely contrary to Roman expectations.
And seeing through the economic temptations of this passage is vital in today’s world where the gap between rich and poor has been steadily growing, as more and more people succumb to poverty. I am sure many people in this sanctuary today know people who have been recently affected by the economic downturn. Unemployment has reached a 14-year high and the people who are losing their jobs are not just victims of their own laziness. There are other factors involved.
And it would be hard for me to count the number of people I have met throughout my life who remain the working poor despite their work ethic, as they shuffle between two or three jobs and work 60 or 70 hours a week to put food on the table. I don’t suspect any of us gathered together today would expect Jesus to say to these people “to all who those who have, more will be given, and they will have in abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” We have a savior of generosity and understanding, not a judgmental and heartless one.
So what does this passage mean? If it is not talking about “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps” then what is it saying? Well, at the heart of the Parable of the Talents, Matthew is encouraging his community of faith to be authentic to the message of Jesus. He is supporting their efforts to live faithfully in world that is fully of temptations. He is asking them to listen for the word of Jesus even in the most difficult of times. He is telling them, “Don’t be a Farb!” “Be True!” “Be Authentic!” You have been given faith; now use it to make your way through the tumultuous world in which you live. Don’t hide your talents of faith, but let them guide you through your life.
Or as Bob Dylan puts it:
“You might like to wear cotton, might like to wear silk,
Might like to drink whiskey, might like to drink milk,
You might like to eat caviar, you might like to eat bread,
You may be sleeping on the floor, sleeping in a king-sized bed
But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.”
You see, by the time Matthew writes this, most of the people who knew Jesus personally had already died. There was a major rift within Judaism and within Christian circles about what Christianity meant. The Jewish Temple had been demolished by the Romans only 10 years before and it seemed like heartache lay around every corner and people didn’t know what to do with their talents of faith. So Matthew tries to makes it simple.
You gotta serve somebody, so hold fast to the teachings of Christ. The time is near when Jesus will return, so cling to the words of Jesus in these desperate times. Stay true and authentic to the talents of faith Jesus has granted you, because…
- Blessed are the poor in spirit in a society of self-indulgence.
- Blessed are those who mourn in a world of inequality and selfishness.
- Blessed are the meek in a society of the power-hungry.
- Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness and do not exploit others.
- Blessed are the merciful in a world of revenge.
- Blessed are the pure in heart in a land of deceit and abuse.
- Blessed are the peacemakers in country that condones violence.
Rejoice and be glad for their reward is great in heaven.
This is the message of Matthew in the Parable of the Talents, and they are words that still speak to us today: Persevere. Be true. Be strong. Be faithful. In our world that is frequently consumed with violence, selfishness, malice, envy and strife, blessed are they whose talents are not silver or gold or dollars or euros or vengeance or power, but whose lives are filled with love and faith and hope and generosity. Blessed are those who diligently work for the Kingdom of God even in the hard times, when jobs are lost, when people are hungry and cold, when energy costs rise, when families and friends draw near to death and sickness. Those who are true, those who are authentic, those who don’t succumb to farbishness in times of despair, those are “good and faithful servants.”
Because even in our times of tumult and insecurity we are never alone. We have each other. We have our families and our friends. We have our faith. We have our God-given talents and gifts. And we have Jesus who encourages us to hold tight to actions of kindness and care and love, because as Matthew reminds us with the very last words of his Gospel, Jesus is with us always, even to the end of the age. Amen.
