Hello friends,

It feels like it’s been a long time. And, I have to admit, I believe this scarcity is largely due to the pandemic, and various associated events, which have pushed me deeply into a reclusive state.

I intend to delve deeper into all that in the future, but for now this dissection will have to do.

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Recently I was attending a group when a friend of mine read Matthew 25:14-30 and, upon reading the text, finished by imploring us to heed the message in the tale and make good use of our talents. Then sat down.

Everyone seemed to be fully on the same page. Namely: we must all put our talents to good use, in order to avoid the intense (and rightful) punishment of ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ of the ‘lazy worker.’

And, I must admit, I was aghast. And, I wish I could’ve raised my finger and asked, ‘Have you considered that the master might be the ‘bad guy?’ But I couldn’t.

I really wish I’d had the courage to note that there’s been another translation from the creation of this story.

Then, I wish that I’d continued by mentioning that it seems reasonable to note that this story was narrated to peasants. Peasants which, I imagine you can imagine, wouldn’t have been particularly assured by the message within the interpretation we’ve just heard. That God is just like our masters in that he will also torment us if we don’t create more riches for him to exploit.

This message may be reassuring to middle class people who’ve been taught their whole life to just work harder and they’ll be rewarded, but not so much to the not-haves of first century Palestinians. (Something, I’d suggest, that is also worthy of attention in our present times.)

Anyway, I best be moving on,

I wish you the best,

Power to the people,

-Bradley (he/she/they)

Ps. I hope to be back soon with my experience in and through the pandemic.

Pss. Most of the ideas in this post are from Richard Rohr’s book ‘Simplicity’

Psss. I’d be honoured if you could share your thoughts, share if meaningful, subscribe and stay tuned.