Talents, Faith and Fear
1st Thessalonians 5:1-11, Mt. 25:14 to 30
Sermon for 11-23-08
This is our third parable from chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew. Today’s reading comes in the middle of the Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids, a story about being ready and the Sheep and the Goats where Jesus tells us to minister to the “least of these” and we will be ministering to him. I decided to save “the Talents” for Stewardship Consecration Sunday as I assumed it would be most appropriate for emphasizing the giving of our money and our gifts of time and talents.
Our letter of Paul to the Thessalonians, the oldest of all the NT scriptures sets the stage as he describes the Christians’ belief in that time that the day of the Lord, the end of the world, or some would say the second coming of Christ—which Paul believed would happen in his lifetime--would happen unannounced and everyone needed to be ready, be awake. None of us likes to be faced with the unknown. I think Paul was saying that whatever happens, our life and our world is in God’s hands and will unfold in God’s way. In the meantime we need to live in joy and confidence and encourage each other to not worry about timetables as whatever happens we will be alive in Christ.
Parables are tricky things, ideas and stories that are open to many different interpretations. Let me start off with telling you the traditional interpretation of this parable. The talents that are described are huge sums of money, multimillions of dollars, more than most of us today and certainly in that day would ever see. The Master, who is usually seen as God has given each of his slaves a certain amount of Talents and then goes away. The first two invest the talents and greatly increase the Master’s wealth; the third slave buries the Talent given to him. When the Master returns, each slave shows what he has done with the wealth given to him. The two that increased their wealth were greatly praised; the one who only buried his wealth was chastised severely and even thrown into the “outer darkness”. The moral of the story would be that God has given us all talents and money and we are to multiply those gifts and return them back to God. You can see why I thought this would be a good Stewardship scripture, motivating all of you to give back to God, so that God could say to you, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things so I will give you even more and you will come share the joy of your master!” Sounds good, doesn’t it? Hopefully such an example would encourage you all to give generously to the Church, God’s agent here on earth. However, because it didn’t ring true for me that God would be such a harsh master, I was eager to see other interpretations.
Now some more background on an alternate interpretation of this scripture: The economy in Jesus’ day was an economy of scarcity in which it was believed that there was a limited amount of wealth so if any one accumulated more that needed, he was seen as depriving others. Many today shrug this off with, “No big deal! The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, that’s just the way it is.” In Jesus day there was another economy also, an Honor economy. Honor too was seen as a limited quantity so if you accumulated too much honor, too quickly you were seen as greedy and grasping. From this point of view the master in this parable would be seen as not honorable but greedy. His great wealth would have been considered as obtained dishonorably and very possibly illegally. The first two slaves followed in his footsteps and did not confront him with his greed. Now the third slave who was called lazy actually did what rabbis advocated—if you received money from someone for safekeeping, you were to bury it in a safe place to make sure you were able to return it to its owner. Other scholars have suggested that maybe this third slave might have been challenging the motives and methods of his Master by refusing to participate in an unfair society, showing faith in the face of fear? (I wonder if any of you feel guilty about participating in our commercial society through owning stocks in corporations which support things such as guns, wars, unhealthy practices or products such as cigarette companies to just name a couple of the many harmful things that corporations make money on. It’s been a concern of mine for a long time and why I encouraged that our church endowments be invested in socially responsible companies.)
A third interpretation of this parable notes that Jesus is talking to his beloved disciples very close to the time they are to be parted by Jesus’ crucifixion. Jesus has already told them enough stories about how the kingdom of heaven is big enough for all and how much God loves them, more than any of them could have deserved. This minister1 feels Jesus is now telling this story to give them courage, that they have been entrusted with something of enormous value and to make the best of it. This interpretation sees the third slave as one so fearful of what lies ahead that he’s paralyzed; he does not live his life fully because of his fears.
We are living in anxious and fearful times right now; the radio, TV, and newspapers remind us everyday of how bad off our economy is. However, we do not have to give in to that fear like the third slave. It seems his fear of the master may have been what immobilized him from sharing his gifts or producing something of value with his talent. His fear kept him from taking a risk. Those of you that have heard me preach for a while, know that I believe in a God that is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Faith in this kind of God allows us to be fearless in sharing and using our gifts. All of you sitting out there this morning have different tools, some have more financial resources; others have more time; others have more talents such as singing, painting, teaching Sunday school, decorating, reading scripture, cooking, praying, sending cards or notes, cleaning up from coffee hours and potlucks. We all have been given something to use and to give to build God’s kingdom. It’s important to me that Deering Community Church consider stewardship as containing all of these different things.
This year our goal has been for everyone to join the circle of giving. We hope that you will pledge money if you can, even a small amount; however, today as we consecrate our stewardship offerings, I want each of you to take the paper that was in your bulletin and write down what non-financial gifts you will be willing to share with us in the year ahead. Even if you have already given us a pledge card about money, please take a little time and prayerfully consider what else you are willing to do for this church. As I’ve said so many times before, no one has to do everything and everyone can do something. I know there are some of you that do so many things, they won’t all fit on the page. You can keep on doing all you want to do but please limit yourself to no more than two or three things on the paper. Be sure to sign your name as it’s a three way promise between you, Deering Community Church and God. Put these in the collection plates along with your pledge cards if you have yet to turn those in. And then we will consecrate all that this community of faith has to give in a circle of hands after the offering has been received.. May whatever fear you have be tempered with faith that God is good and that God loves you. May we live fully and courageously as we join hands in building a part of God’s kingdom right here in Deering. Thank you and God bless you for all that you do. Amen
Sermon for 11-23-08
This is our third parable from chapter 25 of the Gospel of Matthew. Today’s reading comes in the middle of the Wise and Foolish Bridesmaids, a story about being ready and the Sheep and the Goats where Jesus tells us to minister to the “least of these” and we will be ministering to him. I decided to save “the Talents” for Stewardship Consecration Sunday as I assumed it would be most appropriate for emphasizing the giving of our money and our gifts of time and talents.
Our letter of Paul to the Thessalonians, the oldest of all the NT scriptures sets the stage as he describes the Christians’ belief in that time that the day of the Lord, the end of the world, or some would say the second coming of Christ—which Paul believed would happen in his lifetime--would happen unannounced and everyone needed to be ready, be awake. None of us likes to be faced with the unknown. I think Paul was saying that whatever happens, our life and our world is in God’s hands and will unfold in God’s way. In the meantime we need to live in joy and confidence and encourage each other to not worry about timetables as whatever happens we will be alive in Christ.
Parables are tricky things, ideas and stories that are open to many different interpretations. Let me start off with telling you the traditional interpretation of this parable. The talents that are described are huge sums of money, multimillions of dollars, more than most of us today and certainly in that day would ever see. The Master, who is usually seen as God has given each of his slaves a certain amount of Talents and then goes away. The first two invest the talents and greatly increase the Master’s wealth; the third slave buries the Talent given to him. When the Master returns, each slave shows what he has done with the wealth given to him. The two that increased their wealth were greatly praised; the one who only buried his wealth was chastised severely and even thrown into the “outer darkness”. The moral of the story would be that God has given us all talents and money and we are to multiply those gifts and return them back to God. You can see why I thought this would be a good Stewardship scripture, motivating all of you to give back to God, so that God could say to you, “Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things so I will give you even more and you will come share the joy of your master!” Sounds good, doesn’t it? Hopefully such an example would encourage you all to give generously to the Church, God’s agent here on earth. However, because it didn’t ring true for me that God would be such a harsh master, I was eager to see other interpretations.
Now some more background on an alternate interpretation of this scripture: The economy in Jesus’ day was an economy of scarcity in which it was believed that there was a limited amount of wealth so if any one accumulated more that needed, he was seen as depriving others. Many today shrug this off with, “No big deal! The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, that’s just the way it is.” In Jesus day there was another economy also, an Honor economy. Honor too was seen as a limited quantity so if you accumulated too much honor, too quickly you were seen as greedy and grasping. From this point of view the master in this parable would be seen as not honorable but greedy. His great wealth would have been considered as obtained dishonorably and very possibly illegally. The first two slaves followed in his footsteps and did not confront him with his greed. Now the third slave who was called lazy actually did what rabbis advocated—if you received money from someone for safekeeping, you were to bury it in a safe place to make sure you were able to return it to its owner. Other scholars have suggested that maybe this third slave might have been challenging the motives and methods of his Master by refusing to participate in an unfair society, showing faith in the face of fear? (I wonder if any of you feel guilty about participating in our commercial society through owning stocks in corporations which support things such as guns, wars, unhealthy practices or products such as cigarette companies to just name a couple of the many harmful things that corporations make money on. It’s been a concern of mine for a long time and why I encouraged that our church endowments be invested in socially responsible companies.)
A third interpretation of this parable notes that Jesus is talking to his beloved disciples very close to the time they are to be parted by Jesus’ crucifixion. Jesus has already told them enough stories about how the kingdom of heaven is big enough for all and how much God loves them, more than any of them could have deserved. This minister1 feels Jesus is now telling this story to give them courage, that they have been entrusted with something of enormous value and to make the best of it. This interpretation sees the third slave as one so fearful of what lies ahead that he’s paralyzed; he does not live his life fully because of his fears.
We are living in anxious and fearful times right now; the radio, TV, and newspapers remind us everyday of how bad off our economy is. However, we do not have to give in to that fear like the third slave. It seems his fear of the master may have been what immobilized him from sharing his gifts or producing something of value with his talent. His fear kept him from taking a risk. Those of you that have heard me preach for a while, know that I believe in a God that is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Faith in this kind of God allows us to be fearless in sharing and using our gifts. All of you sitting out there this morning have different tools, some have more financial resources; others have more time; others have more talents such as singing, painting, teaching Sunday school, decorating, reading scripture, cooking, praying, sending cards or notes, cleaning up from coffee hours and potlucks. We all have been given something to use and to give to build God’s kingdom. It’s important to me that Deering Community Church consider stewardship as containing all of these different things.
This year our goal has been for everyone to join the circle of giving. We hope that you will pledge money if you can, even a small amount; however, today as we consecrate our stewardship offerings, I want each of you to take the paper that was in your bulletin and write down what non-financial gifts you will be willing to share with us in the year ahead. Even if you have already given us a pledge card about money, please take a little time and prayerfully consider what else you are willing to do for this church. As I’ve said so many times before, no one has to do everything and everyone can do something. I know there are some of you that do so many things, they won’t all fit on the page. You can keep on doing all you want to do but please limit yourself to no more than two or three things on the paper. Be sure to sign your name as it’s a three way promise between you, Deering Community Church and God. Put these in the collection plates along with your pledge cards if you have yet to turn those in. And then we will consecrate all that this community of faith has to give in a circle of hands after the offering has been received.. May whatever fear you have be tempered with faith that God is good and that God loves you. May we live fully and courageously as we join hands in building a part of God’s kingdom right here in Deering. Thank you and God bless you for all that you do. Amen
posted by Sermons given at Deering Community Church @ 8:15 PM
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