Psalm 100 invites us into a spirit of intimacy. It reminds us that we are made by God, we belong to God, and we are the sheep of God’s pasture. We are entrusted to the intimate, loving care of our shepherd – a shepherd willing to leave the 99 to come find and care for any one of us who is lost. Ultimately, the Psalm reminds us that God is good.
When we begin with the conviction that God is the one who calls to us in the garden, or the good shepherd who takes off after us when we stray, and if we believe the kingdom of God is a realm of gift and grace, not scarcity and fear, we might pause before assigning every characteristic of the master in the parable to God. And in that pause we may notice that fear of the master is what caused the man to bury his talent in the ground. Fear is the problem here, not the point.
What this passage is really about is hope – the hope of the unity of the living with the dead in Christ. The image of being caught up in the clouds with Jesus, reunited with those we love can be a beautiful one, whether it’s real or metaphorical. It invites us to wonder: are there ways we can be caught up in the clouds while still here on earth?
If we truly let our hearts and minds absorb how Jesus says blessedness can actually manifest in a life, well maybe we’d be present enough to our neighbor to help lift her poor spirit and satisfy her hunger and thirst in deeper ways than the ones that just reinforce our own virtuousness. Maybe we’d also receive the next unfolding moment of our lives for the unmerited gift that it is.