PARABLE

And the kingdom is like this, apparently: Jesus had gone away and left us with certain “talents.” To some he gave an abundance of these “talents.” To others, a bit less, and to some, whom we will call the institutional church, he gave only one talent.

The first group is, say, The Red Cross. Jesus gave them a heart for helping others and they are Johnny on the spot with aid when there is a crisis, a catastrophe, or a disaster.

The second group, is say, a local group like MIFA (Memphis Interfaith Association), or any such group in any such city in America. They have a heart to feed people and they do it with programs like Meals on Wheels.

The third group is the church. And I’m sorry, but to keep it within my own experience, I will say the local Southern Baptist church.

So run get your shotgun, here comes Jesus. Back from his whatever it was he went off to. He comes to the first group.

“See,” says the Red Cross or some organization like it, “we knew you wanted us to help people who were facing catastrophe and disaster, so we built an organization that does that and we reach millions of people with our help.”

“Terrific!” says Jesus. “You did the right thing. That’s great! You extended your influence and helped some folks. Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

He comes to the second group.

“See,” says MIFA, or any similar organization, “we fed some folks with a lot of personal investment of time and labor and what other money we could collect. We fed thousands of people each month and kept people from going hungry.”

“Excellent,” said Jesus. “You did the right thing. That’s great! You extended your influence and helped some folks. Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

Then he comes to the third group.

“See,” says the church, “we built this enormous building that has giant surround sound speakers, audio visual stuff that could be from Star Wars, plush carpeting and professionally designed interiors (mood lighting, soothing colors, tasteful accessories and wall hangings, etc.), the most comfortable seats you ever landed your tush on, digitally controlled temperature so that no one can complain about the heat or the cold, a parking lot so big we run a shuttle out to the farthest spaces, landscaping with three fountains, and boy oh boy wait till you see the rec center-cum-gymnasium that features an Olympic sized swimming pool, two-level walking track, basketball, racquetball, and tennis courts, and oh yeah we have a fleet of cutting edge buses that have DVD players and—”

“Wait,” said Jesus, “I just—”

“And the programs!” continued the church, “man we have a programmed, cyclical curriculum to make sure every conceivable age group, social category (like divorcees, singles, blendeds, etc.) believes the right thing, our athletic teams reach out to the athletically gifted of our community, and we even do all sorts of mission trips to Guatemala, Honduras, and we raise money to send to China and the Philippines, and—”

“ENOUGH!” Jesus cried.

“Enough? We did enough? Oh hallelujah!” cried the church.

“NO! I mean, stop already,” Jesus cried again. “Who did you do all this for?”

The church gazed absently for a second, imagining the scope of its bragging. “Why, for you, of course.”

“But you were supposed to do all that for the poor, the widow, the infirm, the elderly. You were supposed to be Me to Them.”

“Well, we know how concerned you are about right belief, Lord. We know that your dad spent a lot of time establishing what to believe and how to behave, so we built…all this,” the church said, waving its arm across the broad spectrum of empire, “for you. We reach out to people that are needy, of course, but we get them in here with all these distractions—excuse me, I mean attractions–and we get them to believe the right thing. Right belief, right?”

“You totally misunderstood me,” said Jesus. “I wanted you to multiply your influence so that people would have their needs met.”

“Oh!” said the church, “ ‘multiply our influence.’ My bad, I totally neglected to mention our marketing department. We have a presence on Facebook, Twitter, and even Instagram. Every staff member has a blog. We have an interactive web page with links to all our programs and services, podcasts of every service, as well as the traditional forms of marketing like mail-outs, billboards and newspaper ads.”

Jesus put his head in his hands. “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do,” he sighed.

“Yep! That’s the slogan we put on our coasters.” The church leaned in a little and whispered, “We had a team of our burly deacons sneak these into a local bar.” The church snickered.

“So what is the monetary value of all this,” Jesus asked.

The church whipped out its smart phone. “Got that on an app right here,” the church smiled with pride.

“Whoa,” Jesus said, looking at the number. “That’s impressive.”

“Now who is multiplying their influence and helping some people?” the church said smugly.

Jesus handed the phone back to the church.

“Sell it,” he said.

The church stood in stunned silence, as if it hadn’t heard the words of Jesus. “What, the phone?”

“Sell it, every bit of it. Half of the liquidated assets I want you to give to the Red Cross or some other like organization. I want you disburse the other half among ten local organizations like MIFA, organizations that are actually putting food in mouths and clothes on backs. Or you can give it to schools if you like. But get rid of it. All of it.”

“Oh my Lord,” the church whispered. “We can’t do that. For we are very wealthy. Very wealthy indeed.”

“No, your are rich. You have made yourselves rich with my wealth, knucklehead. It was never meant to be hoarded. You have stored up these earthly treasures where any thief can break in and steal it. You have made an Empire, and done only a little for the Kingdom. Do you know the story of the gleanings?”

The church brightened for a moment in recognition of the familiar Bible story of the farmer who left the corners of his field unharvested so that the poor and the widows could glean them and thus have food to eat.

“Yes,” the church said weakly. “That’s what we did.”

“Right. But not as a matter of course. You made it a matter of purpose. You intentionally enlarged your own portion just to leave the little gleanings of mission trips and mission offerings out of your surplus for the others. It was all supposed to belong to them. You weren’t supposed to keep any of it. You got it exactly backwards.”

The church began to slowly back away, its head hung low.

“Where are you going?” Jesus asked.

“I’m late for a worship planning meeting. We’ll show you,” the church said, “we’ll show you how much we love you with the best service we’ve ever had this Sunday.” The church walked away.

A tear escaped Jesus’ eye. “I won’t be there,” he said softly.

Jesus wept.