My brothers and sisters in Christ, let us pray. Eternal God of our bodies, minds, hearts and spirits, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts always be acceptable in Your sight. Our strength and our redeemer, Amen.
It seems to me that after the events we’ve witnessed this year—between COVID-19 sickness without a vaccine available, record-breaking temperatures and forest fires, a way-too active hurricane season that has slammed the same part of Louisiana 4 times since August, and our own weather issues with way too little rain to put us in a severe drought, and ongoing economic uncertainty with friends and neighbors who work in food and travel services, there is a lot going on and a lot to worry about.
We are a fearful people, who need to plan for the things coming at us and what we’re going to do to avoid getting nailed for it. But just like we talked about a couple of weeks ago when we read the Beatitudes, we seek to be the hopeful people that God’s Kingdom looks like. Rewarding those who don’t seek for themselves, but give to others first. Remember the old song, “Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God?” (Singing a few lines).
The way we cast out our fears, whatever they are, are to trust in something helpful and hopeful, right? And that usually involved living outside ourselves and depending on others. But it also involves our knowing, in the core of our being, that God is with us whatever befalls us. And that trust in God’s grace in giving us our gifts is able to be recovered time, and time, and time again. God’s helping us when we help others is never exhausted, is it? Because we trust God’s love.
But this parable hits us in the realities of today’s world and situation, doesn’t it? Life isn’t fair. Through dumb luck we are born into wealth or families that provide us love or countries that have advanced health care and we don’t die in infancy. Warren Buffett called it the “ovarian lottery”, that he was lucky to be born to good parents in the USA and had good people who helped him make his way in the world and his fortune. Our parable says that some folks receive far more than others. The parable doesn’t make judgements about this; it just throws it out there, that’s how the world is.
It reminds me of a retirement seminar I went to a few years ago. The firm who promised me a good steak in exchange for a seminar telling me I would never have enough for at the end of my working life for the last years of my natural life were out to ruin my appetite by making me afraid. Unless…of course…unless…I invested my money with them. Because if I saved everything I could and gave it to them, I could have all the money I needed. That means security. And that means I don’t have to worry anymore about my future.
But what the financial advisors did not say, is the quality of life I would have along the way as I journeyed to my final days. They never told me about anything other than to figure out for myself and my own needs what I needed to be comfortable. They left me with the impression that if I didn’t give them the money they needed then someone else would take it and I’d be left in the dust of fallen lives who didn’t plan and someday hungry and homeless. Despite my having won the “ovarian lottery” and my life to that point in time.
So this parable of ours…this parable about security… just like to Beatitudes, helps to demonstrate the gap between our perspective and God’s perspective for our lives. We are given gifts. But are they for our own selfish pleasure? Is that why we have abilities to do certain things better than others? Does God reward us so we can celebrate and say, “Oh, thanks God, for giving me the mind, heart, and Spirit that I can accumulate more for me and look upon it forever.” I knew one man who loved looking at his increased bank book each month, but his family was miserable and never got to do anything for want of money, but he would boast he saved almost 40% of his income. But to what end? And to those he said that he loved?
Where do we see ourselves in this parable? And what do the talents represent? Are we a one-three- or five talent person?
Jesus talks about security in this parable. We all want positive affirmation, “Well done, enter into the joy of your master”. And the promise of that close relation with God is the treasure of treasures, isn’t it? But it’s a weird kind of security, because we have to give away what we have to get the relationship we want.
God doesn’t really take kindly according to the text to folks who try and keep all for themselves and not share it, or as the story says, invest it. We save by losing. We gain by giving up. We are asked to lose a bundle on Jesus, to push in all our chips, and unlike the parable, we might lose it all.
This is a hard lesson and parable. After all, what commandment did the one-talent man violate by keeping his stuff to himself and not losing it? Murder, theft, adultery? Nope. He could be a good neighbor, the fellow who keeps to himself but keeps his garage door closed and his dog from barking, doing no harm.
Do no harm. That’s a good way to live, right? It’s one doctors follow a lot. But we want our doctors not to just look at the status quo when we go to them, to do us no harm. We want them to treat us. Imagine if we went to a fearful doc who said, “I promise to do no harm, but I’m not going to treat you. Treatment has risks, and I might get sued. And from what I’ve heard about you, you’re the type who would sue.” That doctor is secure, though. And maybe a good neighbor, keeping to himself.
But like this doctor, the one-talent man feared the master, seeing him as unreasonable and harsh. It’s hard to trust someone who treats us harshly, right? And we can’t love if we can’t trust. So the trust relationship here in the parable was zero for the one-talent man. It was impossible for him to obey the first commandment, to love God with all heart, soul, mind, and spirit.
The one-talent man carried a picture of God that was on that was not FOR him, but out to get him and with a checklist of all the wrongs he was getting into. So he would not trust his life to a god like that—he dug a hole to save his life, and lost it.
The decision on how we invest God’s grace is ours.
But unlike the financial seminar, we can’t give into fear. We have to learn to leap into God’s arms, into the unknown future, to trust in two things. First, we must have a gracious image of a loving God who gives us grace because he loves us. And second, we have to commit to a lifelong investment, losing a bundle along the way by freely bestowing grace on others.
Please don’t mistake me by saying we shouldn’t pay the rent or save 3% for our 401(k). But we should give freely what we have beyond that, and also with our hearts and hands, so that we can celebrate the best investment we will ever make: growing our gift-bearing and gift-evoking community. Do you know what that is?
I’ll leave you with these final thoughts.
It’s the Community Congregational Church. Do you see us in that parable? Do we help each other identify gifts and use ours wisely? Do we pray that all who walk into our lives share their gifts with the world?
We are not called to be like the “one-talent person” in this parable who is paralyzed by fear, afraid to engage in risk-taking, and whose life is, as a result, unfruitful. Instead, we are called to invest, nurture, and enlarge the gifts with which God has entrusted us. True discipleship involves responsible use of all that God entrusts to us.
So our call this week is to be the Church. And not bury our treasure, because tomorrow is too important.
Thanks be to God, Amen.
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