"Using the Most for the Best"
"Using the Most for the Best"
Matthew 25:14-30
November 13, 2005
Rev Carolyn Waters, CCUM
There was a 20-dollar bill and a 1-dollar bill on the conveyor belt of the downtown Federal Reserve Building. As they were lying there side by side, the 1-dollar bill said to the 20-dollar bill, "Hey - where have you been? I haven't seen you in a long time?" The 20-dollar bill replied, "Oh, I have been having a ball! I‘ve been traveling to distant countries, going to the finest restaurants, etc... etc. After describing the great travels, the 20-dollar bill asked the 1- dollar bill, "What about you? Where have you been?" The 1 dollar bill replied, "Well, I've been to the Baptist church, the Methodist church, the Presbyterian church, The Episcopalian church, the Catholic church and to the United Church of Christ..." "WAIT A MINUTE! " shouted the 20-dollar bill. "What's a church?"
Tempting, as it may be to use this scripture to talk about giving, I’m not going to do that! First of all, I hope you have already turned in your pledge card! But primarily the reason to not use this parable to talk about giving your money to the church is because that’s not what the parable is about!
In Jesus day, a talent was around 6000 denarii. One denarius was about a day's living wage. So what the first servant was given translates into 30,000 denarii. 30,000 work days! If you’re making a denarius a day then you are in the upper crust of employment which means that you would have at least a four week vacation time every year……leaving 240 work days a year. It would take over 125 years to make 30,000 denarii. But of course that’s without taking into mind wise investments. In other words, 30,000 was a lot of money! What would it convert to in terms of a day's wage? Maybe $5mil? Having the landowner come up to one of the employees and offer so much would be like winning the lottery. IMPOSSIBLE!
From William Loader: *
“Talent has so much become part of our vocabulary as a term for natural abilities, that we usually miss the point that the parable is talking about money and what you can do with it. The ancient world did not have our complex finance markets, but it knew about investments and profit. Many of Jesus' parables reflect economic practices of the day and how they affected people. People would know what you could do with such a sum. Money was powerful then, too.”
“In this parable, the money is an image for what is potent in the kingdom and for the kingdom. It may also be seen as a way of talking about the Spirit or at least about the life of God within us. It is slightly missing the point to think it is talking about how we use our various natural abilities (talents in the modern sense). It has more to do with how we allow the life of God to flow through us - because it is powerful- like money!”
Loader continues: “Fear of being abandoned seems to motivate burying the talents. Matthew's community might think of the controversy over the expansion of the gospel into the Gentile world and the refusal of some Jews to accept that the doors should be flung open so recklessly. God is misbehaving again and they cannot believe it and refuse to support the adventure. In typically Matthean style the text promises only damnation for such lack of trust.”
Damnation for lack of trust in God. Not damnation for sin…..we can be forgiven for that. But damnation for lack of trust, believing in the possibilities of God’s intervening presence in life.
The parallel with the recent Judicial Council decision 1032 of the United Methodist Church, which gave authority to a pastor of a congregation in Virginia to deny membership (entrance through the doors) to a gay man simply because he is gay is all too obvious! Attempts to control the gracious redemption of a loving God who is at work in the world have never been successful! Hear again Loaders words: “God is misbehaving again and they cannot believe it and refuse to support the adventure.”
“They” have become the establishment. “They” have become the “institutional church”. They too quickly become Us!
Loader goes on to say:
“The parable challenges us not to sit on the life of God in us.”
“If the modern use of talents has any relation to the text, it is at the level of allowing God's life to do its adventures with us and putting our talents (our natural abilities) at God's disposal. The talents of the parable are really about God's life and power, not about our natural abilities. But the appropriate response is to allow God's investing hand to employ our abilities.”
Given the climate in main-line denominations around the issue of homosexuality it a wonder that any of the gay and lesbian community dare set foot in any church. Between the people who are afraid of the presence of diversity in the pews or are convinced that God will damn the individuals and their supporters, and thus leave places such as this congregation primarily out of fear………………AND the community of those who find the behavior and exclusion of our denomination toward gay and lesbians intolerable, and therefore may also leave the church……..we are left with the remnant of the rest of us that keep imagining that someday things will be different. That to leave is to give up. And to stay is to have hope.
Not hope in the institution, but hope in the mercy of a loving God who works in this world despite the institution.
William Loader goes on about this morning’s text from Matthew with words exactly to the point:
“The tragedy is that many people are afraid of losing or endangering God and so seek to protect God from adventures, to resist attempts at radical inclusion that might, they fear, compromise God's purity and holiness. Protecting God is a variant of not trusting God. Matthew wants his hearers to share God's adventure of inclusiveness. God is bigger than our religious industry”
Spiderman once said: “with great giftedness, comes great responsibility."
The gifts or talents entrusted to us give us the ability to do great things. In our personal lives and in our lives together as a community of faith, I believe that the gathering of people here at Christ Church are gifted beyond measure. We are gifted because God has invested in us. We are gifted beyond the 125 years of resources needed to equate 30,000 denarii to $5 million. We have been given much in terms of our openness to one another, our vision of what the world could be, and our desire for the body of Christ to be REAL in the world.
With those gifts comes responsibility. With those gifts comes the expectation from GOD to act in the world according to the measure of the gifts we have received. With those gifts comes the expectation that we will not be silent in the face of injustice; that we will not be complacent in the atmosphere of judgment; and that we will not be afraid because of the risk of losing numbers or money.
Those who do not speak, lose their voice.
Those willing to risk nothing actually risk losing everything.
Life is a risk.
Fr. John J. Boll says of this scripture passage: “the faith we have is not fragile, it is a rich and an effective treasure and need not be handled with kid gloves. If we don't take risks with it, how can we say we have faith?”
Actually, the third slave acted as he was probably taught. In first century CE, Jewish culture taught that if one was entrusted with something of great value, one should bury it in the ground for safekeeping.
But we are living in a different world. To bury your valuables would be foolish. To leave all of your financial resources in CD’s would give reason to pause for question.
Chose any issue that brings passion to your heart. Chose any social concern that screams for God’s intervention. Pick any headline that reminds you of the hurting world. And listen to the places where God is begging you to invest yourself for the sake of mercy in the world in which we live. Lay aside the “risk” and take on the challenge to live out what we say we believe in.
Our issues need not be the same issues, but our hearts must come from the same place if our lives are to be counted for much of anything. When our hearts and our spirits come together we do begin to “count” and make a difference. When we stand up, even one at a time, others notice and begin to stand along side.
The greatest tragedy of our convictions is not conflict; the greatest tragedy is apathy or fear.
The person given much, who does little to nothing with the resource, is the greatest disappointment to God.
God challenges us to use the most of who we are for the best of what the world can be.
God challenges us to use the most of what we have for the best of what the world needs.
God calls us to be the most of who we have been created to be for the best of who God is in us.
Are you willing to spend your life living the most for the best?
*references from William Loaders web site: http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MtPentecost26.htm
Matthew 25:14-30
November 13, 2005
Rev Carolyn Waters, CCUM
There was a 20-dollar bill and a 1-dollar bill on the conveyor belt of the downtown Federal Reserve Building. As they were lying there side by side, the 1-dollar bill said to the 20-dollar bill, "Hey - where have you been? I haven't seen you in a long time?" The 20-dollar bill replied, "Oh, I have been having a ball! I‘ve been traveling to distant countries, going to the finest restaurants, etc... etc. After describing the great travels, the 20-dollar bill asked the 1- dollar bill, "What about you? Where have you been?" The 1 dollar bill replied, "Well, I've been to the Baptist church, the Methodist church, the Presbyterian church, The Episcopalian church, the Catholic church and to the United Church of Christ..." "WAIT A MINUTE! " shouted the 20-dollar bill. "What's a church?"
Tempting, as it may be to use this scripture to talk about giving, I’m not going to do that! First of all, I hope you have already turned in your pledge card! But primarily the reason to not use this parable to talk about giving your money to the church is because that’s not what the parable is about!
In Jesus day, a talent was around 6000 denarii. One denarius was about a day's living wage. So what the first servant was given translates into 30,000 denarii. 30,000 work days! If you’re making a denarius a day then you are in the upper crust of employment which means that you would have at least a four week vacation time every year……leaving 240 work days a year. It would take over 125 years to make 30,000 denarii. But of course that’s without taking into mind wise investments. In other words, 30,000 was a lot of money! What would it convert to in terms of a day's wage? Maybe $5mil? Having the landowner come up to one of the employees and offer so much would be like winning the lottery. IMPOSSIBLE!
From William Loader: *
“Talent has so much become part of our vocabulary as a term for natural abilities, that we usually miss the point that the parable is talking about money and what you can do with it. The ancient world did not have our complex finance markets, but it knew about investments and profit. Many of Jesus' parables reflect economic practices of the day and how they affected people. People would know what you could do with such a sum. Money was powerful then, too.”
“In this parable, the money is an image for what is potent in the kingdom and for the kingdom. It may also be seen as a way of talking about the Spirit or at least about the life of God within us. It is slightly missing the point to think it is talking about how we use our various natural abilities (talents in the modern sense). It has more to do with how we allow the life of God to flow through us - because it is powerful- like money!”
Loader continues: “Fear of being abandoned seems to motivate burying the talents. Matthew's community might think of the controversy over the expansion of the gospel into the Gentile world and the refusal of some Jews to accept that the doors should be flung open so recklessly. God is misbehaving again and they cannot believe it and refuse to support the adventure. In typically Matthean style the text promises only damnation for such lack of trust.”
Damnation for lack of trust in God. Not damnation for sin…..we can be forgiven for that. But damnation for lack of trust, believing in the possibilities of God’s intervening presence in life.
The parallel with the recent Judicial Council decision 1032 of the United Methodist Church, which gave authority to a pastor of a congregation in Virginia to deny membership (entrance through the doors) to a gay man simply because he is gay is all too obvious! Attempts to control the gracious redemption of a loving God who is at work in the world have never been successful! Hear again Loaders words: “God is misbehaving again and they cannot believe it and refuse to support the adventure.”
“They” have become the establishment. “They” have become the “institutional church”. They too quickly become Us!
Loader goes on to say:
“The parable challenges us not to sit on the life of God in us.”
“If the modern use of talents has any relation to the text, it is at the level of allowing God's life to do its adventures with us and putting our talents (our natural abilities) at God's disposal. The talents of the parable are really about God's life and power, not about our natural abilities. But the appropriate response is to allow God's investing hand to employ our abilities.”
Given the climate in main-line denominations around the issue of homosexuality it a wonder that any of the gay and lesbian community dare set foot in any church. Between the people who are afraid of the presence of diversity in the pews or are convinced that God will damn the individuals and their supporters, and thus leave places such as this congregation primarily out of fear………………AND the community of those who find the behavior and exclusion of our denomination toward gay and lesbians intolerable, and therefore may also leave the church……..we are left with the remnant of the rest of us that keep imagining that someday things will be different. That to leave is to give up. And to stay is to have hope.
Not hope in the institution, but hope in the mercy of a loving God who works in this world despite the institution.
William Loader goes on about this morning’s text from Matthew with words exactly to the point:
“The tragedy is that many people are afraid of losing or endangering God and so seek to protect God from adventures, to resist attempts at radical inclusion that might, they fear, compromise God's purity and holiness. Protecting God is a variant of not trusting God. Matthew wants his hearers to share God's adventure of inclusiveness. God is bigger than our religious industry”
Spiderman once said: “with great giftedness, comes great responsibility."
The gifts or talents entrusted to us give us the ability to do great things. In our personal lives and in our lives together as a community of faith, I believe that the gathering of people here at Christ Church are gifted beyond measure. We are gifted because God has invested in us. We are gifted beyond the 125 years of resources needed to equate 30,000 denarii to $5 million. We have been given much in terms of our openness to one another, our vision of what the world could be, and our desire for the body of Christ to be REAL in the world.
With those gifts comes responsibility. With those gifts comes the expectation from GOD to act in the world according to the measure of the gifts we have received. With those gifts comes the expectation that we will not be silent in the face of injustice; that we will not be complacent in the atmosphere of judgment; and that we will not be afraid because of the risk of losing numbers or money.
Those who do not speak, lose their voice.
Those willing to risk nothing actually risk losing everything.
Life is a risk.
Fr. John J. Boll says of this scripture passage: “the faith we have is not fragile, it is a rich and an effective treasure and need not be handled with kid gloves. If we don't take risks with it, how can we say we have faith?”
Actually, the third slave acted as he was probably taught. In first century CE, Jewish culture taught that if one was entrusted with something of great value, one should bury it in the ground for safekeeping.
But we are living in a different world. To bury your valuables would be foolish. To leave all of your financial resources in CD’s would give reason to pause for question.
Chose any issue that brings passion to your heart. Chose any social concern that screams for God’s intervention. Pick any headline that reminds you of the hurting world. And listen to the places where God is begging you to invest yourself for the sake of mercy in the world in which we live. Lay aside the “risk” and take on the challenge to live out what we say we believe in.
Our issues need not be the same issues, but our hearts must come from the same place if our lives are to be counted for much of anything. When our hearts and our spirits come together we do begin to “count” and make a difference. When we stand up, even one at a time, others notice and begin to stand along side.
The greatest tragedy of our convictions is not conflict; the greatest tragedy is apathy or fear.
The person given much, who does little to nothing with the resource, is the greatest disappointment to God.
God challenges us to use the most of who we are for the best of what the world can be.
God challenges us to use the most of what we have for the best of what the world needs.
God calls us to be the most of who we have been created to be for the best of who God is in us.
Are you willing to spend your life living the most for the best?
*references from William Loaders web site: http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/MtPentecost26.htm
posted by Rev Waters | 10:10 AM
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