Theologian and Christian author Frederick Buechner defined a parable as “a little story with a big point.” He went on to say that “if you have to have it explained, don’t bother.” That somewhat cynical explanation of those quick graphic stories Jesus told throughout his ministry may pertain to some of the parables, but the one we just read, “The Parable of the Talents”, well, I am not so sure it applies to that one.
After all, preachers can raise up so many different perspectives for their congregations to reflect upon. I mean, we could focus on what this vignette tells us about the kingdom of God. After all, most Biblical scholars agree that Jesus’ parables all elucidate some aspect of God’s realm, God’s dream for the world – be it the overwhelming need for compassion, the role of grace, the value of forgiveness and reconciliation, or how we treat the outcasts, the marginalized, and those whom society has chewed up and spat out.
We could talk about scarcity and abundance – and whether we have chosen to approach life with our cup half-full or half-empty. Or we could zero in on the significance of equality in this story – or the lack thereof. After all, each of the three servants was given – seemingly randomly - differing amounts of money to guard and watch over.
Then again, we could make pronouncements on the pros and cons of investing – and go headlong down the rabbit hole of speculating about the wisdom of having anything to do with the stock market these days, what with our unsettled and somewhat volatile economy. Who will blink first – President Trump or Xi (Shee) Jin Ping? Was Uber’s much anticipated IPO a success, a failure, or something in between?
Or - we could disregard the financial markets completely and discuss the development of our own personal gifts and talents for the glory of God – naively presuming that the English meaning of the word “talent” is identical to that in the Aramaic language that Jesus spoke – which is untrue, by the way, but can so easily send us headlong down another rabbit hole, the one leading us to speculate just how much a monetary talent would be worth in today’s economy.
Would it be the equivalent of a year’s salary for a day laborer in first century Palestine? And how much exactly would that be? Could a flat $5000. do it? Were these talents that Jesus referred to in his story gold or silver? Is a talent just a shekel? And so on and so on. But, that’s right, we were going to disregard stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and compound interest.
OK then: We could debate the final outcome for the servant who buried the money allotted to him and argue whether or not the master’s decision to toss him into eternal darkness was really all that fair – given the circumstances. After all, the misguided servant did not squander it on the newest iphone or binge on gourmet dinners and expensive wine or hightail it to the mall for an all-night Black Friday shopping spree. He just put it in an envelope and kept it safe under his mattress. What is not to like about that?
We cannot be completely sure what single point Jesus wanted to make when he told this story to the assembled crowd hanging on his every word. All we really know is that an unnamed master was going on a long journey and decided to leave his property and belongings with three trustworthy servants.
One servant got a lot of money – five talents. One got a fair amount of money – two talents. One got just enough to get by – one talent. The five talent and two talent fellows thumbed their noses at the unpredictable rises and dips on the New York Stock Exchange and figured that you have to spend money to make money – and they both doubled their assets by the time the master returned. He was tickled pink at their success.
The one talent guy took a different approach. He was more conservative and safely slept on his talent every night that the master was gone – and checked each morning to see that it was still there – because he was afraid that he might someday find it missing.
I suspect that this one talent guy presumed the master would be pleased that he had neither unwisely spent a dime nor lost a penny. How surprised he must have been then when he received not kudos but a real haranguing! The master called him all sorts of nasty names – bad, lazy, short-sighted, fearful.
Not only that, but his fate was sealed. He was kicked out into the darkness, the Gospel writer tells us, there to pass presumably all of eternity helplessly crying and gnashing or grinding his teeth! Yikes – and we thought that controlled, conventional, middle-of-the-road, don’t rock the boat, thoughtful management of our resources was a plus! After all, as Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann wrote, “What’s so wrong with being cautious? Discretion and deliberateness are virtues, not vices.”
And maybe they are a plus in the stock market. You know what they say: “The rule is to buy low, sell high,” “Let it ride …”, You need to be in it for the long haul…”,
“It’s not timing the market that matters, but time in the market.” At least, that last one was what it was written on the white board in our financial planner’s office for a long time.
However, Brueggemann goes on to say, “But with (the) third servant virtues become vices. Prudence and wariness easily become self-protectiveness and restraint. Inhibition turns to fear, and the servant ends up refusing the risk of trading in the marketplace.”
Breuggemann is stating pretty emphatically that the same controlled, conventional, middle-of-the-road, don’t rock the boat, thoughtful management of our resourcesis far from a truism when it comes to being a Christian – or being the Christian church. Being a follower of Jesus – or being part of the Body of Christ - calls fora wildly speculative attitude and perspective.
Being the church in the 21stcentury calls for living dangerously. Just as God went out on a limb and, in the beginning, created something out of nothing, so we too as a church are challenged to co-create with God in the same way – co-create new ministries that reflect changing needs, follow the Spirit on the sacred course Jesus sets out for us - even if we do not know exactly where it is leading us.
In a word, we are challenged to risk – ourselves, our time, our possessions, the way we have always done things here in church. We are called to risk – in our worship, in our music, in our programs, in our mission and outreach, even in how we use and share our building – or if we continue to have a building at all.
I heard a story about a young man who was eager to become a paratrooper. He went to the local recruiting office and asked the enlisting officer what he could expect in the Airborne Division’s jump school. The recruiter, a former paratrooper himself, said the initial part of the training would take three weeks.
“The first week, we separate the men from the boys,” the recruiter soberly told the young man. The young man nodded eagerly.
The recruiter continued on the same serious note. “The second week, we separate the men from the fools.” He then paused dramatically.
With great excitement the young man asked, “Sir, what happens in the third week?’
“The third week,” the recruiter explained with a smile, “”we teach the fools how to jump out of an airplane.”
And so it is for us as Christians, for us as the church. The Apostle Paul even used those same words: “We are fools for Christ’s sake.” In short, we are called to risk - to be what others will call foolish – so that we can co-create a transformed world with God.
Worship consultant Marcia McFee put it this way, “God is involved in risk with us. With little evidence to the contrary, God keeps inviting humanity to strive for good, to help co-create a better world... even as we seem bent on doing the opposite,” on not rocking the boat, on being conventional, on continuing the way we have always done things.
You know, there are two ways we can live out our days in this church. We can waste them. Heavens know there are a ton of things we can waste them on – outdated programs, burning out the same volunteers, cutting expenses over and over again. You know the drill….
However, that is what T.S. Eliot in his play “Murder in the Cathedral” labelled “partly living.” "Throughout the years (the chorus sang) we have gone on living, living and partly living." It is a corollary of the definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over with exactly the same result.
The alternative to wasting our days here in the church is risking them – risking them on our passions and on the things we really believe in, risking them on co-creating a better world with God, risking them on all that Jesus stood for – compassion, reconciliation, radical inclusion, a soft spot for the poor and the down-and-out.
As Biblical scholar John Buchanan noted when he interpreted this Parable of the Talents, “The point here is not really about doubling your money and accumulating wealth. It is about living….It is about taking risks. . . The greatest risk of all, it turns out, (he writes) is not to risk anything, not to care deeply and profoundly enough about anything to invest deeply, to give your heart away and in the process risk everything. The greatest risk of all, it turns out, is to play it safe, to live cautiously and prudently.”
Therein lies the tragedy of this parable for the one talent guy. Here he was thinking that not risking, not taking chances, not rocking the boat was the way life should be!
Do you remember during Advent when we read about the angel who came to Mary and said to her, “Don’t be afraid.” When it comes to why we choose – or choose not - to risk - that phrase is key. In fact, it is really the foundational call in all of Scripture – from beginning to end. “Fear not,” we hear over and over again. Fear not; have faith instead!
It is what God expected of Noah when the Holy One told him to build an ark and shelter the earth’s animals from the rain. It is what God expected of Abraham when God told him both to leave home and, by the way, expect a that long-hoped for child would be born - even when he and Sarah were ready to trundle off to the retirement home.
It is what God expected of Paul when he was blinded on the Road to Damascus, and his life was never the same. And it is what God continues to expect of us – to live faithfully rather than fearfully, to risk rather than hide away.
That is the difference between the five and two talents guys and the one talent fellow in the parable. The first two were willing to give faith a try. The other one gave in to fear.
All of us – even today in a world of uncertainty where we are pressured from all sides to withdraw, to insulate ourselves, to build walls and protect our borders, to carry guns in case someone opens fire at Walmart, to take all that we can because someday there may not be enough – all of us – even today – here in the church – in spite of all the scary unpredictability that enshrouds us – we are called to be not people of fear but people of faith. God expects us to risk for the sake of God’s dream.
Marcia Mcfee put it this way, “Jump out and give things a try, break through the fear with steps toward a goal of creating a change. Think of the talents as grace... if we clutch too tightly to God’s abundant grace, believing it is scarce, we will constantly see lack all around instead of possibility and we will live with that fear and the fear will stymy us.”
As we move forward as a church, knowing that change is inevitable if we are to survive, knowing that risk is a given, as we move forward, following where the Spirit leads, carving out a ministry that reflects the world’s needs and mirrors all that Jesus stood for, let’s hold tightly in our hearts these words written by a blogger I read this week:
Care more than others think is wise
Expect more than others think is possible.
Dream more than others think is practical.
Risk more than others think is safe.
If we do those things – I trust that we will both survive and eventually thrive – as aDream more than others think is practical.
Risk more than others think is safe.
church community here in Raymond.
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