So - I am in my car sitting at the traffic lights, I rev the engine,the traffic lights are red, orange, GREEN. I take the break off, foot on the accelerator… and go no where.
Can you guess why? [take answers]
The car is not in gear.
You can have a perfect car that can do 0 to 60 in 5 seconds - but if it is not in gear it is really useless.
If you could have any car in the world what car would you like to have (take answers)
Apparently the most expensive car on sale at the moment is the Lamborghini Hurricane that will set you back a mere £181,865. I am sure it is a very good car, totally worth the money. But if you don’t put it in gear even a Lamborghini Hurricane is totally useless.
From cars to steam trains.
In the Thomas the Tank Engine book - does anyone remember what the biggest compliment that Thomas or one of his buddies can get?
[Really useful Engine]
In our Scripture Passage today from Matthew 25:14-30 - we are going to get to think are we really useful engines? Or are we like a Lamborghini Hurricane that is not in gear? Like the super car that the engineers have spent years developing, each one of you has amazing potential. So what we are going to reflect on today is - are we in gear, or are we sitting at the traffic lights in neutral.
So lets think about that story we have just heard. This is a story about talents - only before this story was invented by Jesus, a talent didn’t mean an ability - it meant a sum of money. It only changed it’s meaning because of this story
A man goes off on a journey, and before he goes he gives money to his servants to look after his money.
Let’s have three servants up here.[act out what I am saying that follows]
So to one of them he gives Five bags of gold, to the second two bags of gold, and to the third one one bag of Gold. Now you may be thinking that is unfair. I mean if you are thinking of bags this big [use small bag of chocolate money] - and she gets five of them - and she only gets one - that seems unfair doesn’t it.
And sometimes we can feel that with the gifts and talents God gives us. We can think - “It’s not fair, so and so is so talented. Compared with him I am useless. There’s no point me even bothering”
For example we might think - look at the musicians we have playing - we’ve got Jane on the keyboard, Charlie and Daniel on guitar - last monday we had Robin on the drums. So maybe you play drums or saxophone or bass or guitar or whatever it is and you think “I am not as good as them” When it comes to musical talent, they’ve got five bags of Gold coins [go to child with five bags and hold them up] - I have only got one [go to child with one bag of gold coins and hold them up] so there’s no point me getting involved with the music group because I have only one bag.
Except that in Jesus’s story, the bags of Gold that the master gives his servant aren’t this big [the small bag of chocolate coins] - they are this big [enormous black sack of balloons]. One talent of Gold was an enormous load of Gold - I have filled this bag with balloons because if I filled it with something as heavy as Gold then {insert name of child} would not be able to carry it. In today's money, for someone working minimum wage (like most people did in Jesus day) it would take them 16 years to earn enough money to fill this sack. A talent of Gold - sixteen years salary (1) - that is a lot of money. Now yeh, sure they {the other two children volunteers} get even more - {to the one bag child} how much pocket do you get a week? {do quick calculation ie 8 times 100 times the amount} - so would you complain if someone gave you {insert figure} or if you are a grown up earning £30 k a year - would you complain if someone gave you £480,000.
Yes sure they get more, but that is a lot of money in that sack.
Each of us has been given enormous gifts and potential by God. Of course there’s always going to be someone who is more talented than us. Even if you are an Olympic Gold medalist, there’s going to be someone who earns more Olympic gold medals than you. But {pointing to them} - everyone of the characters in this story has been given huge amounts of Gold. Every one of us has been given enormous gifts and talents by God.
So what do our two friends here do? - They take risks, they probably set up a business. It’s like that episode of the apprentice where Alan Sugar gives the people several thousand pounds and wants to see how much money they can make. well [insert name] with five bags takes risks, invests it in a very succussful business, perhaps in selling chocolate coated snails, and ends up with …. ten bags. Well [insert name] with two bags takes risks, invests it in another successful business selling say “solar powered nasel hair clippers” and ends up with …. four bags. [give extra bags of coins]
Note what the first one does - “He went at once”. So many people are waiting until they know more are more highly skilled - until they get the right break before they do anything for God.
But the truth is God honours those who invest their God given raw talent into building his Kingdom.
Once you start genuinely using your God given talent for the Kingdom of God you are already producing from the investment God has put in you. (2)
But what does the third character in the story do?
Can you dig me a hole please - and bury this enormous talent.
well - what’s the master’s attitude to the first two? - he’s full of joy “Come and share your master’s happiness!”- and he gives them even more to look after - so you guys can keep these chocolate coins and at the end of mass - please share them out with every one.
He gives them even more responsibility
When we use the gifts God gives us even more responsibility.
say you go along to a homegroup - you may think that’s not much to give God - just an hour and a halfs meeting once a fortnight or once a week. But you know there’s people who started doing something as small as that and found themselves on a journey that led to them being pastoral assistants like Tricia or Patty are … or even to being ordained
If we give something of our time or talents back to God - then God is overjoyed - “well done Good and faithful servant” - and he takes us to the next level “you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things”.
{send the three to sit back down}
Two of the servants can see the joy that God has so they want to please him and they take risks and use the talents that God has given them. But the third shuts himself up in his own fear, “So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground…”- and his gifts are left to rot.
[Louise] if you could now please ride your bicycle up here - thank you.
Now - what I want you to do is don’t put your feet on the ground, but don’t pedal at all. Don’t move your feet at all. You’d think it is hard to ride a bike - but it’s actually much harder to stay still. If you remember from when we learn to ride a bike - at first it seems scary to go fast - but you wobble less when you move.
life is like riding a bicycle - often in life taking risks is less risky than not taking risks. Who is more at risk - an extreme athlete cycling hundreds of miles a day or a couch potato watching the cyclist on TV? at first sight it seems like it is the athlete who is taking more risks - they could fall they could get hurt. But actually the couch potato is the one who can get diabetes, a heart attack etc etc(3)
I am sure you will all agree, it’s the same with churches. Churches where no one takes any risks are the ones that end up closed. They are like the couch potatos rather than the athletes. They are like the person who buries their bag of Gold in the ground rather than investing it in a business. Faith is spelt R- I-S-K. God gives us our talents - and it is far less risky to take a risk and use them. One of the words that someone had at my Collation was “boldness” - and I don’t think that was a word for me alone - I believe that is a word for all of us. I don’t want anyone to ever say “I didn’t know whether the vicar would like it or not so I didn’t want to take a risk” - I can always tell you afterwards if I would prefer it done slightly differently the next time, but like the man in the story, I would much rather you used the the skills and abilities you have, than buried them in the ground.
Of course - so many Christians already do put this parable into practise. A 2012 survey showed that 98 million hours in social action projects through their churches (4) and that is excluding all the hours Christians spend volunteering on their own outside of churches. I have only been here a fortnight, but I have been really impressed by the way so many people at St Barnabas use their gifts. This isn’t a church where people bury them in the ground, this is a church where people use the gifts they have been given. All I can say is keep it up - use them more.
"A small boy thought his pocket-knife was to be used for sticking into the ground or flicking it into trees. Grandpa watched as the boy used the knife in this common way for many days.
Then Grandpa said, ’Let me show you what you can do with that! Grandpa found a piece of kindling and carved an intricate design of stars and circles. Grandpa said, ’Let me show you something else. He took some soft wood, whittled,gouged and cut, and shaved for about a half-hour. When he was finished, the boy was staring at the smiling bearded face which had emerged from the block of wood.
Smiling from ear to ear, Grandpa said again, ’Let me show you something.’ He went to the refrigerator and using the knife’s bottle opener, opened two bottle of pop.
There ’’Grandpa said, ’you can see there are a lot of good things you can do with this knife.’ The boy smiled and looked in amazement at this very special knife."
(5)
Many times our gifts, our talents are like that knife. God gave us something beautiful, something which can do a lot of good things, but placed in our hands we don’t know quite what to do with it. Placing these gifts in God’s hands, placing our lives in His hands, then, then we can see how wonderful the gifts are, we can see what truly wonderful things we can accomplish with God’s gifts.
There’s a story that’s told about an incident in the life of Abraham Lincoln. He had brought one of his aides along with him to a Wednesday night service at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. As they walked back home, the aide asked the president how he liked the sermon.
Lincoln replied, "I thought it was well-thought through, powerfully delivered and very eloquent."
"So, you thought it was a great sermon."
"No," the president said, "it failed. It failed because the preacher did not ask us to do something great."
Is this sermon any good - well that doesn’t depend on whether you enjoyed it or not - what it depends on is whether you put it into practise - whether you take a risk and use the gift God has given you (6)
(1) figure courtesy of a sermon by Larry Thomson on this site
(2) taken from a sermon by John Gullick on this site
(3) taken from a sermon by Randy Croft on this site
(4) figures from www.jubilee-plus.org/Articles/337911/Jubilee_Plus/Research/RESULTS_OF_THE.aspx
(5) taken from asermon by Fr Tim Zingale on this site
(6) taken from a sermon by Mary lewis on this site
