Twenty-sixth Pentecost
Matthew 25:14-30; I Thessalonians 5:1-11; Zephaniah 1:7, 12-18
I buy lottery tickets. At most maybe once a week but I have to admit I listen to the advertising that reminds me again and again that you can't win if you don't play. My policy is that when ever I am in the gas station I buy a lottery ticket. Of course now that we have a hybrid car I stop at the gas station a lot less often, but when ever I am there I buy the ticket and then I dream. Okay, I'll be honest about the dreams too. I am after all a pastor and I believe that God is very closely involved in my life. I often find myself talking to God. Not just the formal prayer thing that I also do but those "in your head" kind of conversations.
You know the kind, "Alright God, what are we going to do now?" or "Lord, I think I need a hint handling this one." And even when I'm talking to myself, which I seem to do more of now that I used to, I have this feeling that at any time God may start listening in so I have come to believe that I need to be careful what I think--or how I think. So when I buy a lottery ticket with an especially large prize, like the one coming up this week for over 300 million dollars, I make sure that the first thoughts I have when I think about winning the lottery are about how I would tithe the winnings, give 10% to the church and other charitable causes and what kind of foundation I would create to give the rest of the winnings away. I want God to know what a really good thing it would be for the church and others if I won the lottery. I want God to know that if a little luck were thrown my way I would invest in the right priorities.
Such thinking led me to do a little research on lottery prize winners and I was surprised to find that most winners do not engage in a lot of philanthropic endeavors. In fact, most do not even aggressively invest their winnings in the hopes of making the winnings grow. Most lottery winners at least start out saying they are not going to let all the money change them. Which seems to mean they do not become either more benevolent or capitalistic. And one of the most curious findings is that winners of million dollar lottery prizes report exactly the same level of happiness with their lives as the rest of the American population, which is to say, 30% of Americans report being "very happy" with their lives at any given moment. Those who won the millions indicate that they are no happier then any one else, except that they have lost their dream of some day being rich, which for some has had some very unfortunate impacts..
The quest for happiness. It is not so much a matter of luck as it is the blessing of gift and our ability to see the blessing of the gift. Our Gospel lesson for today is usually identified as the parable of the talents. It is tempting to approach this text as an allegory. To see God as the great judge evaluating how we have lived our lives and rewarding or punishing us accordingly. Certainly the text is often used as a motivational reading to prove that hard work pays off in the end. I suspect that untold numbers of children have had this parable read to them by parents attempting to motivate young people to use their gifts, practice the piano, dance, homework, etc. "Use your talent or you will lose your talent" is the simple moral derived.
The fact is, however, that a talent in the time of Jesus was not a special gift or ability. A talent was one of the largest denominations of money available. Scholars estimate the talent to have been worth roughly 10 years average income conservatively ranging from around $300,000 to $1 million. To have even one talent was to be given a great deal. Clearly the man in our story is trusting each of his servants with a significant amount of money. And while two servants are given significantly more than the third servant, there is no question but that the text probes the question of what it means to be gifted. It is hard, of course, to hear the word "talent" and not think in terms of our gifts and abilities. I do not think that is entirely accidental nor all that unfortunate. For starters it makes us consider our various talents, our abilities and resources, and how they might be used. This is no easy task, although it can cause us to risk losing our focus.
Pastor Haydn McLean tells of the minister who preached a sermon on today's parable of the talents. After the service a parishioner remarked to the minister, "I'm not a particularly gifted person. I can't teach Sunday school, my singing voice isn't good enough for the choir, and I'm too shy to visit prospective members. But I do have one talent that might be of some use to the church."
"And what is that?" the pastor asked.
"Well," the man said, "I have a talent for criticism. I can criticize the choir, I can criticize the church council, and you know how I criticize your sermons. What do you think I can do with that talent?"
The minister responded, "Do you remember what the man did who had only one talent? He buried it in the ground. I suggest you would be advised to do the same."
There are talents and there are talents. That is actually what this parable is also trying to suggest. Discerning and risking, that is what the meaningful life is all about. Most of us when we were very young had dreams, only they weren't dreams back then. They were certainties.
Ask any four or five year old what they want to be when they grow up and they will make absolute declarations of fact. "I'm going to be a fireman." Or "I'm going to be a doctor, teacher, garbage man, cook." Often the identity declared depends on what book or video has just been experienced but each declaration is a certainty in that moment. It is only with the passing of years and experience that the child of certainty becomes the searching adolescent.
Sixty per cent of all college first year students are either undecided about their degree direction or will change their major over the next four years. And the average American can expect to change jobs 5-7 times during their working lifetime. Discerning and risking. There come those moments when we must admit that our control of quantum mechanics is such that we probably will not become a nuclear physicist or our fear of small spaces in high places probably rules out a trip to Mars in the near future. Discerning our limits and our abilities closes some doors but it also points us toward the abilities and resources we do have--other possibilities. Every success story we hear can be explained in some way through the discernment of gifts, abilities, yes, talents and aptitudes that could then be risked in some way.
This is the lesson of this parable. That the richness and riches of life require risk taking. The Bible word and theological word for risk is "faith". Believing in a possibility beyond the immediate moment. Imagine what it would be like to have 5 or 2 or even one million dollars of someone else's money to use and invest as you chose? That is the core story to this parable. The question that comes to mind is, would we be bold enough to believe that there could be more. This being the northern suburbs I have no doubt that most members of this congregation have not just one but numerous ideas as to what could be done with a couple million dollars to make it increase in value. Most members of this congregation would expect that they could do something with that kind of money. But what about our faith? We are pretty confident about growing money. How about the gospel?
Jesus gave his disciples a great treasure. Each of those disciples risked life and fortune to spread that word. To multiply the word. Investing that word into the lives of others who then likewise passed it on by investing in the lives of still other people. Faith means risk, otherwise it would be called knowledge or fact. We are people who have been gifted by God. This parable is proclaimed by Jesus to the talented, those who have gifts and whose basic spiritual need is to be careful not to become the prisoner of their gifts. Hoarding is our sin; sharing and giving away is our victory. Jesus condemns those who hang on to what they have and praises those who live by faith. Those who are willing to risk investing beyond themselves.
One of the most difficult passages in all of scripture is the conclusion to this parable. The slave who was not willing to risk any part of the one talent he had been given finds that by returning with only the one talent the master is angered. That one talent is taken from him and the master declares, "For to all those who have, more will be given and they will have an abundance; but for those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away." This passage is one of the meanest in all scripture. Outer darkness is the curse; if we don't invest ourselves in God's world, we will find ourselves in the place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. There are those who see this as a warning about God's future plans but I prefer to interpret this passage in present rather than future time. Those who can't give away what they have are already in hell. We are constipated spiritually. We feel bloated and unable to move. We are not free. We are bound. We become so scared at losing what we have that we don't even enjoy it while we have it. Some people hang on to their children and live in great fear of the empty nest. Other people hang on to their jobs even if they are bored stiff. Still other people keep way too much security in their personal accounts, so fearful are they of having less than they have at any given moment. Another kind of person also exists. That person is not the captive of his or her talents. That person does not stand on the edge of safety but lives deeply within it. That person who is most talented is the person most free of their talents. They own their talents rather than their talents owning them. When we keep a little distance even from the good stuff that surrounds us, we find that we can enjoy it, use it, and secure ourselves by it. When we hang on to our wealth too tightly, we crush it or it crushes us.
Pastor Donna Schaper tells of a little girl who told her mother she was too big for training wheels. The mother said that was impossible, the child was only four. The child insisted. One day, the mother said fine, let's just see how hard you fall when I take these training wheels off your bike. The child got on the training wheel free bike and sped away off into the distance. There was no fall. To love this girl was to let her go.
Pastor Schaper observes that "We may have, what we can let go of. what we cannot let go, we cannot have."
Faith means risk. Tomorrow night the church council will meet to prepare the first draft of our budget for next year. New members of the council always ask, "So how much money do we have to work with?" The answer is the same each year. "God only knows." The budget is prepared well before the last stewardship commitment comes in. We know God has blessed our church members. We pray our members will respond in faith and share their talents with the church. It is a simple fact that repeats itself again and again. Those who discern God's blessings and believe in the future increase their commitments of time and dollars. This is a truth that has repeated itself every year of my ministry. I do not understand it. I only believe that God will bless and provide. The church exists because people are willing to step into God's future. The church is those who let go of the past and embrace the possibilities of life lived by faith.
There are some people who think of their check in the offering as a lottery ticket to blessing. If they are lucky, they believe, God will bless them. I think of my check in the offering plate as an affirmation of the truth I know. I am blessed. I am blessed to be a blessing to others. There is no question of luck or fortune, not even a question of talent or ability. My blessing is a gift from God. As we listen to this parable it is impossible to not consider our talents. Everyone has at least one. Most of us have several. No matter how many talents we have our lesson for today invites us to give one away. Give it away today. The list of possibilities is almost endless--teaching, singing, serving, helping, listening, sharing, affirming, cleaning, fixing, repairing, seeking, inviting, and on and on. Discerning the Spirit's presence and leading in our lives, embracing the gift of faith we have been given. That is the promise of this parable. Not a reward but a blessing.
Jesus said, "For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance..."
Amen