Story: For our 10th wedding anniversary, Maddy and I went to Prince George in Britsih Columbia, Canada.
We flew into Vancouver and our friends Pete and Nina came down by car and drove us up to Prince George
It was a three day drive.
The first night we stopped off in Surrey B.C and the next morning went to a Pentecostal Church – the largest church in town of about two to three thousand people.
Being curious, I asked how the church had started and they told me that the church was the fruit of two old ladies – who had prayed for revival 70 years earlier .
These old ladies weren’t great preachers.
So far as I know they weren’t successful by worldly standard.
I don’t even know their names.
But they used what little talents they had – and what a legacy they left behind
The Parable of the Talents reminds us that God isn’t interested in how brilliant we are.
Rather he is interested in how faithful we are.
He doesn’t need our talents.
We are not indispensible.
But he has chosen to use our faithfulness
For Jesus said:
“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. (Lk 12:48)
If we wait until we feel we are worthy to do things for God, we’ll never start.
Because God has given all of us talents to use for the extension of his kingdom
We might not feel comfortable using them.
But Jesus didn’t call us to be comfortable,
He called us to be faithful.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, he could have pulled back from going to the Cross for our sakes.
He could have run away. Yet he knew that there was no other way we were going to be redeemed.
And in the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus said this:
42 "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."
43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.
44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground
(Lk 22:42)
The Christian Church is founded on His faithfulness in carrying out the Father’s will.
And when you see the Worldwide church - what a legacy He has left us
If we are going to follow Christ, then we must follow his example too.
He has given us talents to use for the extension of his kingdom.
None of us are too old to be used by God.
Moses was 80 years old when God gave him the commission to take the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt where they had been enslaved
None of us are too youg to repond to the call of God.
Samuel was a young child when God called him to serve Him as a prophet.
In some ways I am glad that we cannot afford to have a priest in each village of our communities.
Because it takes away the mission of the church SOLELY from the clergy and gives it back to the laity – where it rightly belongs.
We all have an important role to play in the FUNCTIONING of a HEALTHY church, which many similarities to the railway clock in my lounge.
If one of the small cogs, which spin to allow the clock hands to rotate, decides he isn’t going to turn up and work today, the clock stops.
If the church is like a clock – and I think it is, we need everyone in the church to fulfil the calling that the Church has.
You may not be the servant with five talents or the servant with two talents but you at the very least the servant with ONE talent.
You need to use that one talent.
To stay with the clock anology, you might not be the hands or the face of the clock or the train engine that runs on the hour in my clock in the lounge in the Vicarage
But if God has called you to be a cog, if you don’t fulfil what God has called you to do however insignificant – the church - like the clock - will grind to a halt.
The only difference between the clock and the church is that the clock alone is right twice a day when the hands are stopped.
You may feel that you are only a small cog in the church but God wants to use small cogs too.
I believe that this is for a reason that God has allowed us to get to the stage that we can no longer financially support stipendiary vicar in every parish.
The reason I believe is this.
God wants to end the fantasy that the vicar conducts the “spiritual mission of the church” and the laity are simply involved in keeping the building up to scratch.
Rather we are forced back to New Testament principles – to what is known as “All Member Ministry”.
We have just finished studying the book of Esther on our Thursday night Bible Study group.
Esther was a queen in Persia with no power of her own. She was basically the slave of a king through an arranged marriage to him as he had found her so pretty.
She was a Jewess but she had told no one of this.
Haman was the arch-enemy of the uncle who had brought her up Mordecai
Haman was so full of hate to Mordecai that he bribed the King to exterminate all the Jews.
Mordecai sent a message to Esther to go to the King and ask for mercy for her people, but there was real danger in doing.
Why?
The danger was that if she went to see the King unannounced and he did not extend his royal sceptre to her, she would be executed.
She wavered, as many of us might well do, because of the danger she would put herself in by going to see the king unannounced and then Mordecai spoke to her as follows:.
“If you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knowswhether you have attained royalty for such a time as this (Esther 4:16)
Like Esther we are all born to play a role
i) Perhaps it may not be one of danger like Esther had
ii) Perhaps it is one of prayer just like the two elderly ladies had in Surrey BC
iii) Or perhaps something in between?
Whoever you are God has a role for you to play in HIS Church
We just have to find out what God has called us to do!
All of us have talents that God can use. Even those two old Pentecostal prayers warriors.
The Parable that we read in the Gospel today is this
We have to use all of our talents for the mission of the Church.
And sometimes there are greater evangelistic gifts in the congregation – than with the clergy!
The Parable of the Talents is a reminder that God calls each one of us to ministry and you will have to give an account one day of what God has gifted you to do. The more you exercise your talents the greater your blessing will be.
May I leave you with a question.
WHAT IS THE GIFT THAT GOD WANTS YOU TO BRING TO THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH?
