Stewarding Our Stories

(Sermon preached November 3, 2024) The scripture associated with this sermon is the Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25:14-30.  Frederick Buechner makes the association of the stewardship of pain and this parable.  This sermon asks, "What do we do with our pain?  How do we steward it well?"  A comment related to the parable.  This sermon does not exegete this parable.  If I were to preach on this parable, my post-election analysis is that this parable describes the way things are and why the rich get richer.  Profiting from interest was forbidden in Jewish culture.  And any master that reaps where he doesn't sow, and gathers where he didn't scatter, is exploiting those who do sow and scatter.  The outer darkness might be an apt description of the margins where so many people are relegated by poverty, illness, tragedy, sexual identity...