In the Meanwhile ...

Sunday, Nov 13 2011

Speakers: Rev. James M. Rand

Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11, Matthew 25:14-30

A “talent” is not an ability or skill.  It’s the largest form of currency in the Bible, equal to 15 or 20 years wages. 

It’s a crazy number with lots of zeroes at the end – an insane number – like superstar athletes get paid: Prince Fielder.  Albert Pujols.  Or what Presidential hopefuls spend on their campaigns.

In some ways, though, a talent goes beyond dollars. There’s really no way to quantify it.

Theologically, a talent is whatever you consider your most valuable possession.  Whatever you have that you wouldn’t trade for all the diamonds in the world – that’s the same as a biblical talent.  If your house caught on fire, it’s what you’d go back to save no matter the risk: the family photo album; or a signed, original Picasso (don’t we wish!); or beloved pet.  You get the idea.  Or a child.

Like talents entrusted to slaves in the parable, children are entrusted to us.  And there’s no way to put a price on them.  Parents of the infants we baptize today understand that.  Grandparents do, too.  Nothing’s more precious than those little babies.

Plus, you only have them so long.  Fifteen, twenty years, like a talent.  Then they’re gone.

“To one, the master gave five, to another two, and to another one.”

Parents relate to that.  Some have one child.  Others two.  My parents received five – five! – wonderful, God-given blessings. Especially the second one.  Precious beyond counting!

And quite a challenge!

I realize that not everybody has children of their own.  The children we have aren’t always precious.  So the analogy isn’t perfect.  But if it helps us think beyond the usual notions of skills and abilities, or dollars and cents, I’ll keep it.  I’m saying that life itself – in us and in our dearest loved ones (whoever they are) – is an enormous, miraculous gift, given to us by God.

Every breath, every heartbeat, each life is like a biblical talent.  “Priceless,” as MasterCard says.

That matters on the day when we not only dedicate offerings and pledges for the coming year, but ourselves – our babies, our youth, our adult selves, our relationships, all our human treasures, and our whole being – to God.  Money is part of that equation; don’t get me wrong.  But it is never the whole thing.  The talent imparted to each person in the parable is more than dollars and cents.

* *

Like the master in the story, God entrusts us with great things, but never more than we can manage.  Each one receives “according to his [or her] ability” – which is not a measure of our imperfections, but a sign of God’s grace and understanding toward us.

The master gives to each, accordingly, and then departs.  I’ve had parents say God does that.  Doesn’t come back till the kids move away.  Not even a postcard from the Almighty.

I’m kidding.  But the sure thing is: God will come back. God won’t be gone forever.

So the heart of the parable invites us to ponder how to live in the meanwhile, how to use the great treasure of our whole being in the interim time.  How will we carry on when God disappears?  What will we do when God goes away, or is invisible, at best?  How will we manage what we have, when God puts us in charge of all the things of this world for a while?

Jesus gives us this parable about life in the meantime.  And we all know “mean” times.  If you’re a teenager on the receiving end of a high school break-up, I don’t need to explain.  When there’s no money in the bank for food or rent … or your longtime boss calls you into the office and says, “We no longer need you” … or a parent dies … or a child … or a sibling … or that beloved pet – you get my drift.  When a child asks why life isn’t fair, and peace is fleeting, and cancer is daunting where Jesus came as righteous ruler, Prince of Peace and Great Physician, we have to confess that we live in an in-between time.  We live between promise and fulfillment.

The parable knows that “mean” times are real, and asks in advance how we’ll respond when those times hit.  How will we live in the gap, between receiving enormous gifts, and a silence and prolonged confusion that often follows?  How do we carry on when the good times aren’t so good any more?

The church that received the Gospel of Matthew was a church embroiled in a similar dilemma.  When Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, he promised to return.  He implied that it wouldn’t be long.  But by the time Matthew wrote, a generation had passed.  People were losing hope, burying their dreams like the third slave’s talent.  For them, the question was how to keep faith as time stretched between Christ’s coming and promised return.

Two thousand years later, we still wait.  We live in the “already” and the “not yet” – the “already” of Christ’s coming, and “not yet” of his return.  And that’s no easy place to be.

So what kind of people will we be “in the meanwhile”?  How will we use the incredible gifts of our lives that have been put in our hands?  That is what the parable asks.

* *

It asks by showing us two choices.  The main difference seems to depend on one’s view of the master (harsh or generous) and one’s view of the world (benevolent or cruel).

In short, the parable asks whether I will be motivated by grace … or by fear.

* *

Not surprisingly, the parable leans toward grace.  Two out of three slaves look at the world through that particular lens.  They experience the master as generous, not stingy.  They recognize that he gives lavish gifts to all.  “You handed over to me five talents [or two talents],” the first ones say.  Then they describe how they put those talents to use.  They know what the master did for them before they did anything in return.

“Blessed are those that can give without remembering and receive without forgetting,” says the well-known theologian, Anonymous.  That’s how it is for the first two slaves.  They receive without forgetting.

They experience the master as generous and kind.

And it doesn’t stop with that encounter.  When the master returns, he offers them still more, saying, “Good and faithful servants, I’ll put you in charge of many things.”  It’s not clear if that’s the result of their attitude toward him, or simply that the master is always inclined to be generous.  Either way, he invites them into “the joy of the master.”

The master’s gifts keep flowing.

Harsh, vindictive, cruel?  Not in their eyes.

But that side of the equation is in the parable too – and in the world– as a minority voice.  “I knew you to be a harsh man,” the third slave says.  “So I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.”

I don’t know about you, but that voice sneaks into my head far too often, trying to get the upper hand.  It’s a voice that wants to debilitate and derail my capacity to live in the grace and fullness of God … or debilitate and derail my capacity to live at all!

There are people who say we get the god we ask for. Genesis affirms that we are made in God’s image – the image of one who creates and blesses and dispenses all that we see and touch.  But Exodus (and the golden calf) insists that we humans are equally capable of making gods in our image – generous or stingy, caring or cruel.

* *

That raises the question of what to do with that minority voice in my head – the one that says if something can go wrong it will.  How do I avoid being incapacitated by fear?

I lived in a fraternity house one year in college.  In the middle of the fall semester, we had a house meeting to plan a party. One guy said he’d get his band to play.  Another offered to take care of refreshments.  All of us were signing up for something.

Suddenly, a guy in the corner of the room raised his hand.  “I’d really like to have a party, and I think we should have a party.  But what if it’s a bad party?”

It was like the Titanic hitting an iceberg.  Our plans shuddered to a halt and started to sink.  “Yeah.  Maybe we better not have a party after all.”  The guy in the corner just listened and smiled.

Finally, another guy piped up.  “You guys are nuts.  Let’s just have a party and not worry about it.”  Which we did.  And it was terrific.

At the end of the party, I stepped out on the front porch and looked up.  For the first time in my life I saw what may have been a sign from the heavens, shimmering with color, as if to say, “enter into the joy …”  It was the northern lights.

How do we keep from being incapacitated by fear?  By remembering the gifts we’ve received … and trusting the Giver … and not being afraid to offer those gifts.

* *

If you are like me, you probably read this morning’s parable with God as the master, and we humans as the slaves.  But turn it around.  Imagine God as any one of the slaves, and yourself (on this stewardship Sunday) as one imparting a gift.  Which kind of God do you want taking hold of your treasure – one that buries it and does nothing?  Or a God who multiplies it, in order to return twice as much?

Now ask, in which image of God do you want to be made?

How will you show it?  And how will you live it?

The truth is that a gift multiplied, even by humans, is proof that God is at work in our midst.  Visible or not, God is near.  Blessings abound beyond expectation or hope.  The invitation never ceases for us to “enter into the joy of the master.”

That is why 1 Thessalonians can sing that, “God has destined us not for wrath but for … salvation” and can urge believers to “encourage one another and build each other up.” Though God may come in the midst of our fears “like a thief in the night,” that coming serves only to break the cover of darkness and terror, so that we can be “children of light and children of the day.”

Jesus came at the dawn of a new day, bringing power for life … for you and me, and for all of us together as the church.  That is why we are here.  God is at work.  The only issue is how we receive God’s gifts.  We can handle them fearfully, like the lost and lonely slave in the petty assurance that what we bury today can be dug up tomorrow.

But we can also turn loose of our life in praise and thanks and doxology, knowing that the power for life and the gifts of our lives will conquer fear and despair. (The previous two paragraphs adapted from back cover of The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann, WJK Press, 2011.)

The meantime won’t always be mean.

So beloved: Enter into the joy of your master, through him who died and now lives … for you.

To the glory of God.