26Pentecost A Matthew 25:14-30 17 November 2002
Rev. Roger Haugen
This summer, while we attended the Synod Convention in Swift Current, a friend pointed out one particularly fine house. It belonged to a person who was somewhat of a hero in the area. In that ranching area, one gains a certain amount of hero status by living large, trying the big thing. If the person fails, more is added to the legend. It turns out that this particular person had made it big twice only to lose everything and he was on the way up for the third time. Risk was something he sought, something that made life worth living. As much as I admire someone to takes such risks, there is a pull to avoiding risk, not living large.
Jesus tells us a parable about a wealthy landowner who turns over significant amounts of money to three servants. They didn’t all receive the same because he recognized that they had varying abilities. Two meet the challenge with enthusiasm, take risks and, when the owner returns, have doubled the money. The third, controlled by fear, hides the money and gives it back to the owner, having lost nothing nor added to it. On the return of the master, the first two are excited to tell of their investment gains. The one talent servant addresses the master in an apologetic, defensive tone, making it clear that he understands his failure. His fear of the punishment expected is enough to stop him from attempting anything other than conserving what was. The fear of risk meant the loss of opportunity, the failure to grow.
The first two are faithful to the master, and the master, recognizing such faithfulness goes beyond fairness to generosity. The third servant does not know the master as one who is worthy of trust, and hopes to get out of the situation with as little pain as possible. His failure to see who the master really is results in his rejection.
If we are honest, most of us feel more comfortable with the third servant’s response. Risk is frightening, safety calls to us at every turn. That Jesus commends those who take the risk and rejects the one who doesn’t, does not sit well with us. Fear leads one to play it safe. The problem is, playing it safe is not an option in today’s parable. Peter Drucker, the business consultant, has defined four different kinds of risk:
the risk one must accept,
the risk one can afford to take,
the risk one cannot afford to take,
and the risk one cannot afford not to take.
It is this last risk that Jesus is talking about in this parable.
The church knows a lot about the fear of risk. There is the old joke of how many Lutherans does it take to change a light bulb? “Change?!” So often we will settle for less, if there is risk involved. We may be presented with opportunities for service, opportunities to share God’s love with those around us yet we find reasons that it won’t work, or reasons we shouldn’t get involved, or we calculate the cost and find it to expensive by our measures.
The church of Luther’s time was completely captivated by fear. Everything had the threat of Hell attached to it. As a result the people hid in superstition, praying to this relic, doing that penance, living in darkness not the light of the Gospel. Thinking of captivity rather than freedom. Robert Capon says it this way,
If we are ever to enter fully into the glorious liberty of the sons of God, we are going to have to spend more time thinking about freedom than we do. The church, by and large, has had a poor record of encouraging freedom. She has spent so much time inculcating in us the fear of making mistakes that she had made us like ill-taught piano students; we play our songs, but we never really hear them, because our main concern is not to make music, but to avoid some flub that will get us in dutch (page 148). Between Noon and Three
Luther’s response was to encourage the people to “sin boldly” and in doing so, depend completely on the grace of God. We trust God implicitly to carry us through whatever failures our bold action might produce. We are free for so much. As baptized children of God we are children of the light and not of the dark. We are free to love because we have been loved. We are freed from fear because Jesus has destroyed all reasons to fear. We are freed to trust God in all things and to trust that God will lead us into new life that is full and fulfilling. We are simply invited to follow God’s lead.
The difference between the first two servants and the third was that of trust. The first two trusted the owner to accept whatever outcome their investment might produce, the third was afraid of what failure might produce because he did not trust the owner to be gracious in failure.
It is easy to settle for less, rather than risk. I spent a year working in a mill in British Columbia after high school. I planned to save money so that I could attend university. My bank account was growing as I was making good money. Somewhere during the winter I became aware of how easy it would have been to stay there. I would have only made more money as my seniority improved, to leave it all and go to school seemed a rather large risk. I am glad I didn’t settle for that.
A woman facing death writes,
If I had my life to live over . . .
I would take more chances, I would take more trips,
I would scale more mountains, I would swim more rivers,
And I would watch more sunsets.
I would eat more ice cream and fewer beans.
I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones.
You see . . . I was one of those people who never went anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle,
A gargle, a raincoat and a parachute. . .
If I had it to do all over again, I’d travel lighter, much lighter,
Than I have.
I would start barefoot earlier in the Spring,
And I would stay that way later in the fall.
And I would ride more merry-go-rounds,
and catch more gold rings, and greet more people,
and pick more flowers, and dance more often.
If I had it to do all over again.
But you see, I don’t. Peace, Love and Healing. Bernie Siegel
As Christians we are to trust God above all else, to trust that no matter what happens, we are chosen by God, called children of God and promised that we will never be abandoned.
We are like the servants in the parable, people gifted with so much abundance, with God expecting us to do wonderful things with the great gifts that we are. We are asked to take the good news of our being chosen by God to the world around us. “Here is your piece of the world and time, Go! Be fruitful with your gifts. Join with me in the great adventure of giving birth to life!” God asks us to be faithful in the use of our gifts. God asks that we walk the great adventure with the gusto of God’s grace. (Mary Ann Wiesemann-Mills) We cannot do this if we are handcuffed by fear.
We are all created and gifted by God. If God didn’t need you and hadn’t placed gifts within you to be used in the wonder of creation, God would not have needed to create you. Our task is discover what those gifts are. Fear can make us willing to accept less, to discount our gifts and abilities. Fear might also give rise to false humility, that says, “I can’t do anything.” But this false humility is actually an affront to God who created you.
It really isn’t a question any more of what I can do but what God can do through me. Trust in God leads us to step out boldly, fearing nothing, risking failure fully expecting that God to be with us in the adventure because that is the promise. Peter wasn’t a failure when he stepped out of the boat to walk to Jesus, he stepped out in faith and only when he started thinking like those still in the boat did he start to sink.
God has placed each one of us here with a purpose, with gifts to accomplish that purpose. Our task is to discern the gift and make use of them. As Ronald Vallet has observed in his book, Stepping Stones Of The Steward:
"The challenge is to ask yourself how you can use your resources of time and talent and treasure for God. What is that special thing which you can do that nobody else in the world can do in quite the same way? Is it to laugh, to smile and share your sense of humour? Is it an ability to encourage and inspire? Is it an ability to pray? Is it a loving tone people hear in your voice? Is it skill in music or art or teaching or managing or any number of other talents? The possibilities are almost limitless. What are those things the Owner of all things has entrusted to you? How have you responded to that trust? How are you doing as a steward of Jesus Christ?"
These last Sunday’s of the church year all point to the last times. Jesus is to go to Jerusalem to be crucified in the next chapters of Matthew. The texts at the end of this church year invite us all to ask whether we are doing less than we could with the one life that God has given us. In the parables of these last Sundays, Jesus invites us to live each day as if the end times are here. As one person put it, “Live each day as if it were your last. And one day, you will be right.” We are not to wait passively for the last days but are to fill our days in service to God and to others. Living in trust and hope we hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
