I don’t know if the tough decisions our leadership has been wrestling with have trickled all the way down through the congregation yet - though it would surprise me if you haven’t noticed that attendance at worship is down. Well, one of the challenges that goes along with a drop in attendance is a drop in resources. And so when session put the budget together last week we had to cut every single bit of discretionary spending to the bone, and we’re still facing a deficit for 2003. We expected to face a deficit for 2002, but we hoped to pull out of it next year. And we’re not. Why not?
Well, it’s certainly true that our demographics are changing. And people who used to come every Sunday are being replaced by people whose patterns of attendance are more like every other Sunday, or less, and sometimes people forget that the work of the church goes on even when they are not there. But even more important, I think, is the state of the economy. I don’t think that it’s any coincidence that our financial difficulties almost exactly parallel the decline in the stock market over the last two years. There has been a lot of bad news, and it’s lasted a lot longer than most of us expected. The Dow and the Nasdaq are still a long way from where they were, and a number of people probably got caught with their margins down. Even if you weren’t invested in Enron or Worldcom, Global Crossing or Adelphia, tech stocks are still sloshing around in the bilges, while international stocks - which I had been really optimistic about - are evaporating like spilled wine. The joke about our 401K plans turning into 201K’s isn’t much of an exaggeration, and many people are feeling the pinch, even if it’s largely psychological, since jobs are still relatively plentiful and real income has risen.
Many of you have heard me say that if we are doing what God wants us to do, that he will provide the resources we need. Does this potential deficit mean that God is not pleased with our ministry? Are we doing something wrong? I don’t think so. We are still a congregation of generous givers. We are still a congregation who serves the church and one another with commitment and energy and love. We are still a congregation which reaches out to strangers, who feed and clothe the cold and hungry. We are still a congregation committed to the word of God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So why are we not getting the kind of return on our investment that we - or at least I, perhaps naively, expected?
This parable is one of the best known of Jesus' parables, probably only the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son are more familiar. How many of you already know it? It would almost be enough to just read the Scripture, say "This is what the Holy Spirit is saying to us; draw your own conclusions," and sit down.
But while the Holy Spirit doesn't object to being obvious, he is rarely simplistic. I think that there is more here that is worth spending some time on.
What I want to know is, would the master in the parable have had a different response to his servants if he'd waited to settle accounts with them until after the books closed at the end of 2001 than if he'd done his checking at the beginning of the year? One year the investment results showed a profit, and the next they showed a loss. Would the master have praised them in 2000 and fired them in 2001?
What if, instead of returning 10 talents to his master, all the first servant had to show for his work was a promissory note for half shares in the profits of a caravan currently presumed lost somewhere in the Arabian desert? What if the second, who proudly turned over the two talents to his master, had also gained a reputation for shoddy goods and shady deals?
Is the bottom line all that matters to God?
I think we all know the answer to that. As a matter of fact, this parable is commonly used to show that quantity is not the basis for God's assessment of his servants' performance, by showing that the man who showed a profit of two talents received exactly the same reward as the one who made over twice that much.
We know that God does not judge us on how large a check we can write, or the number of people who fill the pews, or even on how many Bible verses we memorize.
So if this parable isn't about being rewarded for performing good works, what is it about?
I think it's about relationship. I think the clue lies in the response the third servant gives to his master when asked to give an accounting of his stewardship.
People may fail to use the gifts God gives them for a wide variety of reasons. Sometimes it's complacency, sometimes it's lack of self-esteem, it might be ignorance, fear of change, or just plain laziness. I knew a woman once who never used her good china for fear of accidentally breaking a dish. It's not that Claire just saved it for company - she never used it. It was too precious to risk. She valued possessing it but was unable to benefit from it. But this is not what motivates the third servant in this parable. On the contrary. He can't wait to get rid of this burden. He could have kept it in a pouch around his neck if it were only a matter of keeping something precious safe. But he doesn't even want it in his house. Hear what he has to say for himself:
'Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.' [v. 24-25]
These are the words of someone who does not like the person he works for. These are the words of someone who does not believe that his employer has the right to profit from the labor of those he has hired. This servant is, in fact, accusing his boss of exploiting his workers, of stealing the fruits of their labor. He resents his subordinate status and tries to shift the blame for his low productivity onto management. Talk about passive-aggressive! You can almost hear a "so there" sort of sneer in his voice. This is someone who would rather have nothing to do with his master's affairs; he ignores, denies, rejects, and ultimately loses the opportunity to be taken into partnership.
A friend of mine is married to a man named Leo who was raised by rigid, legalistic fundamentalists, in the kind of environment we now call "toxic faith." The God they taught this sensitive boy to obey was a grim and vengeful one, who punished harshly each infraction of what seemed to be arbitrary and whimsical regulations. Leo has rejected that God. When he speaks of what he was taught as a child, his voice fills with anger and pain. My friend Paula speaks often of the loving God she serves, but Leo still isn't interested. When I called to ask their permission to share their story, Leo said, "Well, if God's not the sadist I was raised to believe in, he's a slovenly old dotard who doesn't do any quality control on his flock. If he's not a vicious old tyrant, then he's a slum lord." Leo would probably bury his talent in the back yard, just like the third servant, if he didn't throw it away outright.
And that leaves me with an observation about the next exchange between master and servant.
But his master replied, 'You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. [v. 26-27]
The servant knew that he would be asked for an accounting. He also knew that he could have made a nearly risk-free investment, with no effort on his own part, that would have protected him from the full wrath of his angry boss. He preferred to take the consequences of doing nothing than earn a profit that would go to someone else. God forbid! ...that God should get the glory.
This is not complacency, or laziness, or low tolerance for risk. This is rebellion.
I have heard it said, from people who are inclined to agree with Leo that God is arbitrary and unjust, that the servant's punishment was too harsh. But I tell you that what the servant lost was what he had already rejected. He did not want to acknowledge God's rights and he did not want to share in God's purposes. He wanted, in fact, to have as little to do with God as possible. And that is, in the end, what he got.
On the other hand, what can we say about the attitudes of the first two servants in the tale? All I know is that they did what they were supposed to do and God was pleased. Whatever else I might come up with would be pure invention. So where can I go for an illustration that we can hold up in contrast to the behavior of the third servant?
Where else but to the lectionary? And by chance - or perhaps by the guiding of the Spirit - I found a pretty good illustration completely by accident in 1 Sam 23:7-18 when I looked up the text for the 33rd Sunday in ordinary time for NEXT year. The Judges passage for this year doesn’t fit nearly as well. Anyway, I’ll read it to you bit by bit as I explain how it fits our dilemma. The passage begins in the middle of the story of David's turbulent relationship with King Saul, who first loved him and later, as David's fame as a warrior began to eclipse his own, sought in vain to kill him.
David has been just one jump ahead of Saul for some time. First his wife Michal, Saul's daughter, sneaks him out through a window. Then David's refuge with the prophet Samuel is blown when Saul follows him there. He bounces from Judah to Philistia and back to Judah, taking refuge in caves and in sanctuaries, and wherever he goes Saul is on his heels. At the beginning of the chapter, David has just run off a band of Philistines who had been raiding the Hebrew town of Keilah, and the citizens welcomed him and his men within their walls.
You'd think at this point David could relax. After all, he is God's anointed, the military victory he has just won had God's blessing. He's been faithful, energetic, and brave. And here he's been handed what looks like a secure stronghold as a reward, in which he and his men can refresh themselves and get recharged for the next phase of the struggle. But no. That would be too easy.
When Saul hears about this (he has spies everywhere) he says, "God has given him into my hand; for he has shut himself in by entering a town that has gates and bars." Saul summoned all the people to war, to go down to Keilah, to besiege David and his men. [1 Sam 23:7-8] So then David hears that Saul is on his way, and he asks God what to do.
"O YHWH, God of Israel, your servant has heard definitely that Saul plans to come to Keilah and destroy the town on account of me. Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me to him? Will Saul come down, as your servant has heard? O YHWH, God of Israel, tell your servant." And YHWH said, "He will." Again David asked, "Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me and my men to Saul?" And YHWH said, "They will." So David and his men ...left Keilah and kept moving from place to place." [1 Sam 23:10-13]
It's not fair, is it. David has just risked his life, and those of his men, to rescue the people of Keilah from their enemies the Philistines. The least they could do is return the favor, right? How risky could it be, after all? It's a walled town, David has 600 men, surely a few of the locals would be willing to take a few risks for their hero. And remember, this is the man for whom people had been cheering and shouting all over Israel not so long before.
But David doesn't complain, or rail against their ingratitude. Instead, David decides to trust in God, rather than in walls, and he leaves. And where does he wind up? Does God provide him with a rose garden, a cozy haven among a more grateful and generous people? Not a chance. He ends up in the wilderness of Ziph, which as anyone who has been to Israel can tell you is about as hospitable as Death Valley. Is this any way for God to treat his chosen one? The only thing it has going for it is that it's easy to hide in. And Saul sought him every day, but God did not deliver him into his hand." [1 Sam 23:14]
Notice here - David wasn't comfortable, but God was protecting him. And more than that - during this time, King Saul's son Jonathan comes out to encourage David, reminding him of God's promises, saying, "Do not be afraid, because the hand of Saul my father shall not find you, and you will be king over Israel." And guess what? Jonathan was right. Saul didn't catch David, and David became king over Israel. [1 Sam 23:17]
So what? how did David feel about all of this? Did he really want to be king all that badly? Was he that ambitious? On the one hand, future wealth and fame; on the other, spending his youth running from one hiding place to another, never knowing where his next meal was coming from or for that matter where Saul's next attack was coming from, losing friends to betrayal as well as to battle. Was it worth it?
All we have to do to answer that question is to look at the Psalms. “One thing I have asked from the Lord, that I shall seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord." [27.4] "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for Thee, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God."[40] "Give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name." [86:11]
David doesn't follow God out of fear, and he doesn't follow God for gain or advantage, either. David follows God out of love. This is a love relationship from beginning to end, filled with joy, and gratitude, and humility, and confidence.
So: how do we put these two very different stories together?
The first point I'd like to make is that what looks like the safest course of action may, paradoxically, be the most risky. Who would have thought that a wilderness would be safer than a walled town? And I know that dipping into our reserves for a second year in a row is very uncomfortable for many people. It just doesn't feel safe. But while good stewardship is important, refusing to risk our capital just because God is just a little bit slower in turning our circumstances around than we’d like is really not an option, just as David knew that staying in Keilah was not an option, and as the third servant in our parable should have known that burying his talent was not an option.
The second lesson is that just because you're doing what God wants you to do doesn't mean that there won't be pitfalls and setbacks, times of failure and weakness and discouragement. We won't be a megachurch by next summer, even if we do everything right. Not everyone we reach out to will respond. Not every idea we come up with will be a winner. There may even be times when we wonder how we'll measure up on God's balance sheet if he comes back and asks for an accounting before our investments pay off.
But the most important of all is a question. Ask yourself, "Why am I doing this? Am I stepping out, changing, taking risks, giving lavishly, because I'm afraid God will be mad at me if I don't?" I hope not. But it might be, because too many Christians were raised as Leo was, always looking over their shoulder and trying to avoid God's notice. Or ask yourself, as I have to do all too often, "Am I doing this out of ambition?" There's nothing wrong with dreaming big dreams for God, or rejoicing in the successes that God gives. But if that's our motivation, we'll wind up with nothing, because even if we should succeed beyond our wildest imaginations, and everything we touch seems to turn to gold, and we have to enlarge our parking lot and go to two services, if we think of it is ours we will lose it. Everything that we do already belongs to God. And my friend Leo would think this quite unjust. "Greedy old man," I can hear him say, "harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed." But God owes us nothing. Not even a deadline.
The passage from 1 Thessalonians - which is the correct one for this year - has something to say to us:
"Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you... the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." [1 Th 5:1-2]
Now this is given in the context of a warning, but God schedules his rewards just as unpredictably as his judgments. But they are just as certain. And we have to remember that the labor itself is God’s gift to us; we can’t demand that he give us credit for the results as well as a share in them. We are always in debt, and not even the most frantic and single-minded activity can get us off the hook.
If we follow God for love, though, it doesn't matter. The debt won't weigh heavy and the balance sheet won't haunt our rest. Because this is a love relationship, and the love flows in both directions. God owes us nothing. He owed his faithful servants in the story nothing but his continued favor, and the privilege of remaining in his service. And even if that were all, it would be enough, to be in God's favor, and to be in God's service, and to be under God's protection.
But that isn't all. An accounting will be made. And whether we have much or little to show for our efforts, the end of our story, like those of the two faithful servants in Jesus' story, will be, "Come and share your master's happiness!" And that - if we follow for love - is all we could possibly want.
