The Church of St. Paul & Incarnation, Jersey City NJ
November 15, 2020
Year A, Proper 28: The 24th Sunday after Pentecost
Judges 4:1-7
Psalm 123
1 Thessalonians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30
Holy Risks
Well, we’re getting close to the end of another church year – a church year that has certainly been like no other.
Next Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King, the last Sunday of the year, and then it’s on to Advent, that brief and beautiful season of preparation and waiting – when we look back to the birth of Jesus and look ahead to his return in glory.
The parable we heard last week - the one about the foolish bridesmaids who didn’t have enough oil, who weren’t ready when the bridegroom came at an unexpected hour – that parable had a real Advent feel, remember?
Stay awake! Be alert!
And today’s parable that I just read – what’s usually called the Parable of the Talents – it also has a real Advent feel.
On the last day we will be asked to account for how we have used our talents, how we have invested our many blessings.
I suspect that the Jewish people who first heard this parable from the lips of Jesus himself experienced this story quite differently from Matthew’s community many decades later.
Remember, Jesus lived in a time when Israel was under occupation. Many people were landless, which meant they depended for their survival on the wealthy who did own the land. Remember the day laborers we heard about a few weeks ago? There were all those guys who were desperately hoping that someone would hire them for work, some still waiting around at nearly the end of the day – those men who were so surprised by the “unfair” generosity of a rich man who pays everyone the same amount no matter how much or how little they worked.
That story gave us a glimpse of the first century economy – and so does the Parable of the Talents.
(By the way, we actually don’t know the exact value of a talent, but it’s safe to just think of it as a lot of money.)
Anyway, Jesus tells us of a rich man who, before heading off on a trip, distributes talents to his slaves, each according to his ability.
We have to give him credit because he clearly knows his slaves quite well because they all perform pretty much as well or as poorly as he expected – the ones who received the most talents get a 100% percent return on their investment – and the one who received just one talent, well, he fearfully and carefully buried his talent. He didn’t lose anything, but there was no profit made – nothing was gained.
What I find striking about this parable is that the fearful slave with the one talent is exactly right about the master – he really is a harsh man who makes his money off of the labor of others.
And the master proves the one talent slave right by punishing him, by taking the little he has, by casting him into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
I suspect that the people who heard this story from Jesus himself heard it as no big surprise – just another example of rich landowners being quite cruel, trampling on the wellbeing of the poor, taking the little that they have.
The rich get richer. The poor get poorer.
It’s an old story.
But, by the time Matthew writes down this story, the Parable of the Talents has become a warning to be ready for the return of Jesus when we will be held accountable for how we have used the talents we’ve been given.
If you’ve been going to church for a while, you’ve heard lots of sermons to that effect, maybe even from me.
And especially as one year draws to a close and other is about to begin, it’s definitely worthwhile for us to reflect on what we do with all we’ve been given.
But, we need to remember that God is nothing like the harsh man in the parable.
Just the opposite.
God is love – and God wants nothing for us besides love and abundant life.
So, here’s a weird piece of trivia for you.
Both my grammar school class and my high school class had the same valedictorian.
It’s true.
And, no, it wasn’t me – though thank you for thinking so!
Our double valedictorian was a very bright, nice, and hardworking guy named Steve.
Now, I actually don’t have any memory of my grammar school graduation. But, I know it happened because there are pictures.
But, I do remember my high school graduation pretty well, and I even remember a little bit of Steve the valedictorian’s address.
Like many people in similar situations, he called us graduates to be bold and to use our educations and, yes, our talents, for good.
Thirty-five years later, the particulars of his speech are a little hazy for me now, except for this. He said to us:
“The saddest words in the English Language are would’ve, could’ve, should’ve.”
And, I have to tell you, Steve’s words have kind of haunted me for all this time.
I’ve quoted them to myself many times, especially when I’ve kicked myself with regret for poor choices that I’ve made, when I’ve missed a good opportunity, or when I’ve tried to work up the courage to make a decision, to make some big change in my life.
Over and over, I’ve heard Steve’s words echoing in my head, “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve.”
But, the truth is that none of us gets through life without at least some regret, right?
Sometimes, it’s regret about the ways we’ve fallen short, the mistakes we’ve made, the times we’ve hurt other people, unintentionally or, yes, sometimes even on purpose.
More often, though, I think we regret the times we weren’t bolder.
We regret the times we didn’t have confidence in our talents, the times we didn’t take a calculated risk, the times we give into fear like the slave in the parable, the times we didn’t trust that God would be with us no matter what, even if our risk didn’t turn out the way we had hoped.
God is nothing like the harsh man in the parable.
No, the truth is that God is always by our side, especially when we take holy risks, when we try to use our talents for good.
And, when we may seem to fall flat on our faces, when we seem to get not much return on our investment, God still manages bring new life out of what sure looked like failure.
Holy Risks.
For example.
Some of you know that about ten years ago Sue and I moved from New Jersey to Gainesville, Florida, where I served as the Episcopal chaplain at the University of Florida and rector of a small suburban church called St. Michael’s.
It was by far the biggest move we had ever made, a real stepping out in faith to live and work in a place where we didn’t know anyone at all, a place that in fact Sue had never even been until the day we moved into our new home.
In Florida we met lots of wonderful people – the college kids who were devoted to their chapel (and sure loved those Gators!) and the parishioners at St. Michael’s, who had fought long and hard to keep their church alive.
But, the truth is that it didn’t take Sue and me too long before we started realizing that we had made a mistake – that we were just too far from our families and friends - and we soon started considering the possibility of moving back home, or at least closer to home.
To make a long story short, we left Gainesville almost exactly a year after we had arrived.
When I drove out of town for the last time, with two cats beside me howling in their carriers, I knew I had let down a lot of people, especially the folks at St. Michael’s.
I felt like I had failed.
I was embarrassed.
And, I knew it would take a while to put the pieces of our life and my career back together again.
Now, eventually everything worked out just fine.
I was able to return to Grace Church in Madison, where, after a little awkwardness that I’m sure was mostly in my head – I kept thinking about the goodbye party they had thrown us not so long ago – we were able to settle back into a place where we were known and loved.
And, of course, a little more than seven years ago I came back here, came back home.
But, the truth is that, as recently as a year ago, if you had asked me about my Florida experience, I still would have felt embarrassed about the whole thing.
There still would have been a lot of regret – should’ve, would’ve, could’ve…
But, during the pandemic something remarkable has happened.
Almost ten years after I drove away with the howling cats, a handful of my Florida people have, in a way, become my parishioners again.
So, Tina and Jean and Vince and Jessica, and I think there are a few more lurkers out there, either tune in here on Sundays and/or call in to “Church By Phone” during the week.
In a time of trouble, God has reassembled our community.
My friends, God is so, so different from the harsh man in the parable, the man who has no patience for fear and failure, and who takes from those who have little and gives to those who already have a lot.
God wants us to not be afraid.
God calls us to holy risks – to take a chance on love and generosity and community – to use our talents as best as we can to help others and to glorify God.
And, when we chicken out or when our risk doesn’t seem to pay off, God doesn’t scold us or cast us into the outer darkness.
No, God picks up the pieces of what looks to us like failure and gets to work, assembling something new and even more beautiful than we could have imagined.
So, as we approach the end of one difficult year and look ahead to the start of another, let’s remember that God has blessed us with many talents.
Let’s remember that God is by our side no matter what.
And, let’s not be afraid to take some holy risks.
Amen.
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