How
sad. You ought to be able to picture it, the third slave who approaches
his master, paralyzed by his master’s reputation,
tongue-tied when it’s time to give an accounting, afraid to make
a mistake, so he does nothing. The master calls him wicked and lazy,
but I don’t think he was either. I think he was a good person
who could not trust that what he had to give would have been enough.
In a
former parish we needed to raise some money and had the bright idea
to send every family and individual in the parish a $10 check and
a copy of the parable we’ve just read. We called it the “Talents
for Talent Project.” The word talent in the Bible was
a kind of money which could be used as a means of exchange, as venture
capital, as the establishment of an account for income purposes. And
so we were giving $10 of talents for use by the talent of
our parishioners in much the same way as the master had given his servants
five talents and two talents and one talent. It was an interesting
experiment.
In the
first place, just like the five-talent servant and the two-talent
servant in the parable, lots of parishioners did lots of creative
things, some of which became the “gifts that keep on giving.” For
instance, four or five of the young moms used their money to buy materials
to make Christmas tree ornaments and jump-start a Christmas fair that
parish had never had. Some pooled their money to buy food and put on
a dinner party to which there was a fee attached. It seems to me that
that $1,000 investment brought in $3,000–$4,000 which for a small
parish in the 1970s was a great shot in the arm. It was a real success
and I was effusive in my praise.
But
what about those who didn’t participate? What about those
who simply sent their $10 check back in and who perhaps didn’t
think it was such a great idea? And what about those who either forgot
or just ignored the check? It would have had the same effect as those
who had returned it uncashed, but it also would have been nice to acknowledge
that the church was even trying. And so it occurs to me to think a
little more about that third servant in the parable and those persons
in my former parish who in essence hid their talent.
Now
we’re in the middle of a stewardship campaign and it’s
certainly tempting to draw analogies between this parable and what
our pledges represent. On one level, Christ Church is an exciting five-talent
church. The resources God has given us are extraordinary and we witness
it on many different levels. In fact, what do these things have in
common: a truck loaded with 90 boxes of appropriate clothing for the
victims of Katrina; the commissioning of a Te Deum composed by the
organist-choirmaster of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London in memory
of a Christ Church chorister with its English premier sung by our choir
last summer in Durham Cathedral; a record number of Christmas baskets—the
largest of any parish in the Diocese of Chicago—for needy families
identified by Cathedral Shelter; seven teenagers and adults on a mission
trip to Southeast Mexico; the transformation of the Great Hall for
our Centennial celebration…What do they all have in common?
It’s a rhetorical question, in that I know and celebrate the
answer which is that they all illustrate a five-talent parish using
its talents that God has given us in a variety of ministries to the
glory of God.
But
what about that one–talent servant? Does he characterize
any of us in his inability to use what God has given him in the service
of God and God’s Church? Perhaps the question has to do not so
much with the nature of the one-talent servant but the nature of his
master. Look back at the parable and the servant’s characterization
of the master as a harsh and unjust man who inspires only fear and
caution. Is this our incentive for wanting to please God, or at the
very least not wanting to offend God, and hence the paralysis I spoke
of earlier. In all fairness to Matthew, we get different pictures in
Scripture, whereas in an earlier parable a servant is also entrusted
with the great wealth of his master and when he incurs a fabulous debt
he is forgiven whereby here, the servant is condemned although he has
lost nothing of his master’s money. It is a mixed message, and
what are we to do with it?
Truth
be known, Scripture portrays God in a variety of pictures which include
both wrath and mercy, jealousy and trust. It doesn’t
take much of a stretch to conclude that if humankind is created in
the image of God then God must have feelings, at least insofar as our
limited view can picture God, feelings of anger when God has every
right to be angry, and feelings of judgment. Fair enough. But I find
myself skittish when confronted by those who are only too happy to
tell me how angry God is.
I think
of all those representations of Hell in medieval art portraying God
as particularly bloodthirsty. It’s a little like the contemporary
poll which found 95% of those polled believed they would go to heaven,
but 65% of those 95% knew of someone who was going to hell. Recently
one noteworthy televangelist and national politician says that God
will “get” a small town for having voted out the Intelligent-Design
school board? This is the same representative of God who said that
Orlando, Florida would be hit by hurricanes because Orlando is particularly
tolerant of one form of sexual identity.
Is that
what our Collect for today means when it says that God has caused
all holy scriptures to be written for our learning, and that God
would grant us to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest
them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of
everlasting life (making sure you note well the damnation that God
provides for those who don’t)? I believe, and you can be as discerning
as you want about this preacher’s interpretation of Scripture,
I believe that in the final analysis God believes in you and me,
that God knows you and me, and that God yearns for you and me to
know God.
All
these parables we’ve been considering have to do with ultimate
things—they’re binally not about a great fundraising idea
or about how to run a business or a quaint look at everyday life in
Jesus’ time. They’re about God’s kingdom and about
God’s people and about faithfulness in the face of our fears
and distractions andcomfort zones. It’s all abut God’s
passion for us and our passion for God.
The
timidity and reticence of the one-talent servant breaks God’s
heart because it reveals a motivation that will take no risks for the
sake of the Kingdom, that will take no risks for the sake of God’s
love.
I believe
there are many of us, myself included, who need to learn what taking
a risk for God really means. That’s why we’re
privilegedto learn today of what it means to be a Christian in the
Sudan and in Southeastern Mexico who in the face of deprivation and
danger can say God is good, who lives one’s life as an inheritor
of the Kingdom, every day, in every circumstance.
Those are people with five talents, gifts of faith I envy but who
encourage me and welcome me to glimpse the glory of a kingdom that
even I can inherit as well. Amen.
