Sermon November 13, 2011

Judges 4:1-7

Psalm 123

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Matthew 25:14-30

“Abundant Possibilities”

When the lives we live and the rituals and habits that comfort us are suddenly changed or are unreliable—we get afraid. When the stocks and bonds of Wall Street—the purported basis for our economic system gets shaky, we begin to fear. When people are no longer just in the habit of going to church, we begin to fear. When the world beneath us rocks and the winds twist and blow, when the rivers rise and flood, we begin to fear. And we begin to speculate on the meaning of these things; are these signs? Are the omens of God's action?

And we've been having that conversation ever since Jesus' time. When? How? Do we know? Is it? Will it? And we get responses: I have the answers; The date after my recalculations is . . . No one has the answers; There are no answers, and so on. . .

And in Matthew 24:36, Jesus' response, “About that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” And in Mark's gospel, he said the same thing. And in Luke's gospel, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, 'Look here it is!' or 'There it is' For in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”

But, I digress . . .

It doesn't seem to matter that we can't know the answers—when we are fearful or are particularly insecure or suffering and so one . . . our fears tend to lead us away from rather than toward God's will for us. Fear often makes us hide instead of moving us productively.

The three parables in Matthew 25 follow a long dialogue and teaching that addresses Jesus' disciples about the end of the age. And in that dialogue and teaching—we begin to understand that it may not be as we imagine—instead, the kingdom of heaven is may just be in the midst of God's living and dwelling among us, in us and through us. 

 

This second parable of God's kingdom is traditionally known as the Parable of the Talents—often cited, used and overused in the stewardship sermon. The story goes: A rich man leaving on a long trip gathered three slaves and gave them their duties while he was traveling. To one he gave five talents , to the second he gave two talents and to the third he gave one talent. When he returned, the first had double the money to 10 talents, the second had doubled it to 4 talents and the third had stashed it and gave back the 1 talent. And the first and second were rewarded—the third was punished. The short version.

At first glance, it sounds like the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and that's the way it works. Perhaps . . . but since this isn't the only story that Jesus tells about God's realm of being, there may be another way of looking at it.

For one, we have to see it within the set of three in which Jesus tells it. Last week, the text was the story of the prudent and foolish bridesmaids—those who planned for the delay of the bridegroom and those who didn't. Those whose lamps were full of the oil of God's blessing because of the blessings they were and those who didn't bless others and had no oil in their lamps. The third, next week's parable is the about how we treat the king in disguise . . . but that's another story.

Today's parable . . . well, it's about money and it's not about money. Jesus often uses money, wealth and power to illustrate how the world works and doesn't work and how God's kingdom works. And Jesus uses huge piles of money, giant vats of wine and ridiculous tiny and huge things to illustrate the parables. So when Jesus told this story, he used a talent. A talent was 30 years wages for a laborer. Today that would be about $780,000. So 5 talents valued today would be $3,900,000 and 2 talents would be $1,560,000. The rich man was really rich. And the slaves must have been really trustworthy . . . right? So one was entrusted with nearly $4 million and one with $1.56 million and the last with just over a quarter of a million. And they were given no instructions. They were entrusted with his property. That's it. What would you do with practically limitless resources, abundant blessing and the trust of your master?

Are you excited or are you scared to even think about it?

A talent has also come to mean an ability with value and actually comes from this parable. So if it's not just about money, what do we do with that?

So three people are gifted with incredible abilities. One is overwhelmingly talented, destined to be an artist in any medium that she tries. The second is also incredibly able and can do almost anything with flare and with grace. The third is full of ability, and though not like the other two, this person is very good at almost anything she attempts. The first succeeds by following her talents into a career full of power and success. Then second funnels his hearts desire into serving others through generous and self-sacrificing giving. The third never sees her own abilities and their worth. She never does more than is necessary and leaves the courage to the courageous, the success to those she says have so much more talent than she does.

When we stand before God and we see and understand the gifts that God has given us, the overwhelming blessing and talents that were in our hearts and minds and the passions in our bodies and souls, what will we say? What do we say to God right now, today, as we see glimpses of God's intentions for this wondrous world of ours?

A few years ago, I worked with a church renewal book that described every church—and I mean every church—as a wagon. It was like a covered wagon, but in the picture, it was a wooden box full of stuff. There was canvas, wooden wheels, etc. And on the box, full of stuff there were already wheels, but they were square. In the box of the wagon were round wheels, too. But the square wheels were already on the wagon.

The author of the book and developer renewal program claimed that God had given every church, every church, everything it needed to do God's will in God's own kingdom, those parts and pieces had to be sorted so that God's work could be done. It was possible, barely, for the wagon to move with the square wheels, but why should it have to? It was possible to roll along unprotected from the elements, even though it had a canvas cover. But why did it?

Why didn't many churches use all that God had given them to do the work that God had also given? All the money, yes, the money, invested in the people and activities that were to be done. All the abilities, the talents of that sort, positioned to teach, preach, serve, cook, make, clean, walk, talk, write, care, heal, feed, to do the things that had to be done.

About a month ago, I had you think about your story and God's story and how those stories intersected, met, crossed over each other . . . so today we can think about how this story of God's realm of being touches us, too. How do your resources support God's realm and how do your talents meet God's expectations? How can we put those together to do more than they could ever do alone?

Earlier this week, I was talking about living our lives closer to God, being more intimately associated with God and building that relationship. Out of that conversation, I realized that often when we make choices about how we live our lives, we don't face a choice of two forks in a road, one marked right and one marked wrong. Instead, we face a series of roads and choices—some closer to God realm than others, others may clearly be farther, but many are hard to distinguish. In the grace of God and in the miraculous wonder of our lives, soon after making a choice, we have the chance to make other choices and choose another fork that moves us just a little closer to God.

Each choice involves risk and some of the better choices mean greater risk to our comfort and may mean more change. When we risk comfort and seek out change, it's scary. And when we are scared, we might be tempted to bury the great gifts and treasures we have so that we never ever lose them, but then what will we gain?

As I read today's worship materials, I identified with this paragraph:

A congregation gathered in the church hall for a meeting to discuss whether or not they would call Jane to be their new pastor. For a variety of reasons, the congregation had dwindled over the last ten years from 150 members to just over 40. They did not feel very hopeful and, given the shrinking membership and desperate budget, there was talk of closing the church. But a seed of encouragement remained. This pastor saw possibilities for the congregation. If they chose to invest themselves fully in the heart of God’s way – to give themselves as a community to it – amazing things could happen within and through them.

The details vary slightly, but isn't this who we are?

And rather than worrying about the earthquakes and tornadoes, floods and famine as signs of the wrath of God, perhaps we can see them as signposts that direct us to care, give, work, serve, clean, preach, cook, walk, talk, feed, cloth and shelter and so show the realm of God in our lives.

Let us plant those seeds of encouragement; let us choose to see the abundance we have rather than the scarcity. Let us invest ourselves out of the certainty of God's grace instead of hiding away in fear of God's wrath. And when faced with many choices on the road that is our life let us choose God's way, so that we stand and walk and work with confidence on the way that Jesus calls us to walk.

To God's everlasting and ever-present and ever-developing glory. Amen.