New Page 1

The sermon is short this morning. I’ve preached on this passage before, pouring out my heart, encouraging my parishioners not to bury their talents and gifts, but use their resources abundantly and extravagantly for the Kingdom of God . This is the message that has always spoken to me when reading this text. We are to risk investing our entire lives, talent, money, and wisdom for the Kingdom.

Last night as I was doing one more quick read-through and printing of this morning’s sermon, I realized that I took the passage and made it into something I don’t think Jesus intended for his audience. Then I went and read an article that confirmed for me that I had done the passage an injustice. Suddenly, I couldn’t read the passage the same way, and had to start my sermon over.

I now have a problem with our Gospel passage this morning. Of course it is not without its gems, like the oft-quoted line, "Well done, good and faithful servant." This line so aptly describes many of our folk, and can be authentically used at most memorial services. However, this passage often gets whipped out during the ever-important Stewardship campaign in the church. The text comes with the message, “God has blessed us, don’t be like that wicked servant, pledge to the church, it’s an investment in the kingdom.” It is the same message we heard a few weeks back when Jesus reminded us to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” We all have talents, and what we own is on loan to us from God. This is an important message to be reminded of. I think that frequently we are not bold enough in our talent sharing. We often use tools in the church that speak to this understanding of the text. They come in the form of spiritual-gift inventories, and time-talent inventories. These are incredibly useful tools, but I’m not sure they are what Jesus had in mind.

There is a little book out on the market called The Kingdom Assignment. You may of heard about it on a recent Dateline episode. The book is the story of pastor, Denny Bellesi, who doled out $10,000 in $100 increments to church members one Sunday, with three requirements: 1)the $100 belongs to God, 2)you must invest it in God’s work, 3) report your results in 90 days. The results and stories that came out of this project were amazing. People were making money left and right to contribute to the church. New and creative ministries were not only dreamt about, but enacted. Lives were transformed, and the church took on a whole new energy and joy that it had not experience in a very long time. I thought to myself, “How fantastic! If only I had $10,000 to hand to out to you this morning, the creative people of this community would certainly have fun with that project!” I would like to thank James Howell pastor of Myers< /st1:PlaceName> Park United Methodist Church in Charlotte , North Carolina though, for putting this story in perspective for me. He writes, “So why did I shudder a little when a church member brought me the book and said, "Let’s do this"? It feels so American. In the culture, and now in church, we’re dealin’, we’re investing -- more is better, we think. Why should I give somebody $100 and say, "This belongs to God," implying that the other half million in his investment portfolio is his?”

In this parable, Jesus was talking about "talents," but not in a way that you and I usually talk about talents. The word talent is a translation of the Greek word talanta. Talanta does not mean special ability, passion in life, the little lights we have to shine in our world and community. And yet, over the years this is the meaning I have assigned it as I remind us of the importance of sharing our gifts, both genetic and financial, with God. When speaking to his original audience, Jesus wasn’t saying, "U se what is in you, invest what you have for the kingdom." He was talking about a coin that was the largest denomination of currency in the first-world system. We should translate talanta as "a huge bucket-full of solid gold" or "a bank CEO’s mega-bonus" or "winning the Oregon Lottery."² In fact, a talaton, in biblical times, was an immense sum of money. Some Bible commentators suggest that one talent, just one, was equivalent to thirty-eight years of wages for a worker. Thirty-eight years! Many people of the day were lucky if they even lived that long, much less worked that many years. The sum was about $6,000 denarii which today, is easily more, than I will earn in 30 years in the ministry.

This amount of money would stun any of us who might receive it all at once. Imagine the recipient being a Mediterranean laborer. He wouldn’t have a20clue about how to invest one of these talanta much less 5 of them. You see, Jesus, who had never personally seen that kind of money, used an outlandish example to symbolize the gospel. “What value would Jesus attach to the gospel? It is the pearl of great price, it is "more precious than gold"; you sell all you have and don’t notice the door slamming behind you as you sprint after this Jesus.” The gospel speaks to extravagance…extravagant love, extravagant grace, extravagant service, extravagant faith. The gospel is worth more than we can imagine…to the early reader 5 talents was it.

Another critical piece of the story is that the servants in this parable do not represent individual believers. We often get lulled into thinking merely about our autonomous life with God and how this parable affects each of us, God giving me talents. However, these servants are the church, a corporate body to which the gospel has been entrusted. The rewards of investments are not neat progress reports after 90 days, but the joy of the messianic banquet, the Kingdom of God .

So what does this say about the “wicked” servant? In Jesus’ day, burying money was regarded as conservative and sensible, and the servant no doubt expected to be commended for his cautious but wise choice. But he got a verbal thrashing from the master. If this parable is Jesus’ suggestion that an astonishing gift has been unloaded upon an unsuspecting church that has not the faintest clue about how to handle it, then might it be that the parable solicits from us not the offering up of our individual abilities, but rather the honest admission of our corporate inability to fully invest in the Kingdom? Each year we elect, smart, dedicate people to serve on our ministry teams and offer insights from their experiences and wisdom, but maybe what God needs is people who are willing to shake their heads and confess, “We really have no idea what to do with this, the treasure is too big.” Maybe then, and only then, we can dare something for God, rather than limit God to the reality of church structure. Maybe then, without the pressure of God in a Methodist box, we can start to hear the God of all creation speaking new life, Kingdom life, into a church that is in need of some God energy. God gives the gospel to not me, individually, so my ability can be put to good use, but to us so our inability might be exposed and God thereby glorified. When we recognize the transformational power of God in the life of this community, then we are truly able to transform each other and the world.

Then again this thought process might ruin a financial campaign. Or would it? The gospel isn’t being unleashed in the world if thirty percent of church members start to think of an extra $100 or so as belonging to God, or even if the most clever stewardship campaign in history inspires each of us to tithe. The gospel is just too big to narrow down to the church budget. Surely it is only to the dumbfounded, to the clueless, to the overwhelmed, to those who are under no illusion that they have ever known quite what to do because of Jesus and don’t pretend it could ever be otherwise -- to these people that Jesus says, "Well done, good and faithful servant." It is the struggle, the reflection, the commitment, the honest self-awareness, the grace, the prayer, the confused-but-willing church people that help to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth. Be present to the journey. Be present to this community. God is using us for the Glory of the Kingdom. Thanks be to God. Amen.

¹ I would like to thank James Howell, pastor of Myers Park United Methodist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. His article "Trojan Horse” appeared in The Christian Century, (November 1, 2005, p.19). This article was influential enough for me to start my sermon over…I glean heavily from his wisdom.

² ibid