Rev. Eugene Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church, Sebastopol, California
November 17, 2002
Mathew 25: 14-30
I saw this story in the newsletter of the Brookfield United Church of Christ, the church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, where Tisha Brown, our former student intern, is now the Associate Minister. It seems that one winter morning, snow and freezing rain forced the closing of all the local schools. The radio station announcing the closings kept getting phone calls from the same child, wanting to know if there would be school that day. On the fourth call, the person at the station who was answering phones recognized the voice and said, “You’ve called three times already, haven’t you. Yes, your school IS closed!” “I know,” responded the young child, “but I just love HEARING it again!”
I think that may be one reason I keep coming to church week after week– besides the fact that you pay me to be here of course. I come again and again because I just love HEARING it again…the good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ, an old story that never seems to grow old; I love HEARING it again…the good news that all are welcome at God’s gracious table; I love HEARING it again…the good news that here we are trying to be a community where people are cared for and listened to and given opportunities to learn and serve and care in return; I love HEARING it again…that here is a place we sing together. Where else do you do that anymore? I love HEARING it again…that here is a place where we intentionally reach out to youth and try to create a safe place for them. I love HEARING it again…that in all this and more God’s story is somehow connected to my story – to our story.
I suppose there are those who would say that here, in The Community Church, we are trying to keep alive traditions that have been dead for years. Think of it, you come here and you are invited to give of your time – and how many people really are invited to give of their time anymore? You come here and you are invited to get involved with others, to take the time to know and allow yourself to be known, to be part of a community. How many people really are invited to make the effort to be part of community anymore? Here you are invited to make a generous financial commitment to the church and its ministry, to give of yourselves sacrificially in response to all the many blessings you have received. How many people really are invited to give of themselves sacrificially anymore? And here, of course, you are invited to come and worship, to feel a presence in your life that is greater than me and my needs, and to give as much of your life as you can to that presence, to that loving Spirit. And how many people are issued that kind of an invitation anymore? It’s a weird place we have here. Weird things we talk about. Weird expectations we have of each other. There is nothing quite like it anywhere else. But it is precisely such weirdness that brings me back week after week to hear it again, and it is precisely such weirdness that characterized the life and teachings of one named Jesus.
“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, each according to his ability…” You know this story. Have heard it many times, no doubt often on a Stewardship Sunday. What is it about?
It could be a lesson in basic capitalism, a basic investment policy. If you have a certain amount and if you wisely invest it, look what can happen. You can double your money and be a hero in your house. Of course, such an interpretation might not seem very comforting to those of us who have seen our money do a disappearing act in recent markets. But still, Jesus could be talking about the wise use of the assets we have been given. Don’t just hold on to them. Invest them wisely and they will only increase. Yes, this could be what he is talking about.
It could also be seen as a parable of encouragement. What Jesus is doing here is urging us to discover what God-given talents and gifts we have and then to use them for the highest good. Taken this way, the parable offers the encouraging teaching that everybody has a talent, some have many, others a few, but all of us have at least one. And whatever our level of talent, God wants us to use our talents well. Each of us has something, some God-given gift, we can contribute to make this a better world. I suppose this is what Jesus could be talking about.
Trouble is, I don’t think the parable is that gentle – a word of advice, a warm world of encouragement. I think it is a more demanding tale, a more challenging one. The master gives his slaves money, a lot of money – one talent was worth about 15 years of wages for the average laborer in the first century. He gives them all this money, then he leaves. They do not know when, if ever, he will come back. These were difficult and dangerous times and it was not safe out on the road. It was not uncommon for someone to leave and never return. He has literally entrusted them with everything – with big time treasure. What are they going to do in his absence? How are they going to respond? This, I believe, is the key question addressed in this parable. While the master is gone, how faithful, how trusting, will they be? Will they pull a kind of disappearing act, hide away, play it safe, not take any chances, or will they be out there in the world, active, involved, putting this treasure to work, risking themselves in the master’s name, without knowing when or if he will return.
As I was thinking about this parable, about Stewardship Sunday, I found myself leaving the three servants and their master and instead thinking about Horton. You might remember Horton, from the Dr. Suess’ stories. You know the story, many of you have read the book, Horton Hears a Who. Horton the elephant is conned by a Who Bird into sitting on her egg. She promises to be back soon, but of course she does not come back. She has someone to take care of her egg, so she is off to have a fine time. Days pass, and Horton sits on the egg. Terrible weather comes up, but Horton sits on the egg. Temptations beckon to him, but Horton sits on the egg. Everybody who comes by ridicules him, but Horton continues to sit on the egg. And you know his oft-repeated refrain:
I meant what I said and I said what I meant,
An elephant faithful one hundred percent.
He is faithful to the promise – the promise he made to the unfaithful bird, but also to the promise held within the egg. Will she ever return? He doesn’t know. Will the egg ever hatch? He doesn’t know. But the promise is there, he believes the promise, so in spite of his uncertain present, he remains faithful. And in the end, of course, the promise is fulfilled. The egg hatches and, lo and behold, what comes out looks a lot like Horton and asks, “Are you my mommy?” And Horton, who looked so stupid, so foolish, so gullible, finds joy beyond description through his own faithfulness.
So often we say that what we do today determines the future, certainly helps to shape it. I have preached that sermon more than once. But in these two stories, both Dr. Seuss and Dr. Jesus present us with a rather radical notion. They suggest that in fact the future can help shape the present. The quality of life we live today, what we do, how we live, how faithful we are, how we use our limited resources, might very well be determined by our vision of the future.
Jesus says, “Look, I have given you a matchless treasure – the Gospel promise, the Gospel truth, of mercy, peace, and forgiveness; of love and justice and hope. Do you believe it? Do you believe that these are the values of the future? A future not determined by today’s principalities and powers but by God. And are you going to allow this future, God’s future, to shape your life now? If so, then you are going to get out there and live those values today. Don’t play it safe, don’t hide that treasure in the ground. If you believe it, then dare to live it…right now!”
This week we sent you a couple of mailings. The first was a brochure analyzing where our money comes from in the church, where it goes, and reflecting on some hopes and dreams for ministry in the coming year. The second mailing was a letter from the stewardship committee with a pledge card, which we are inviting you to bring with you to worship next week for our Consecration Sunday. We also included a return envelope if you cannot be with us next week. On the back page of the brochure in the first mailing, I wondered if this might not be a dumb time for a pledge drive. Think of it…the economy is uncertain, jobs have been cut back, money lost in the stock market, the shadow of war looms over us and our economy. It’s easy to want to play it safe – to bury our treasure and wait for better times.
But our parable would suggest that as people of faith, while we certainly pay attention to the day’s headlines, we also do not allow those headlines to determine the horizons of our life, our faith, or our giving. The Gospel promise remains. Like those servants, like Horton sitting on his egg, how are we going to live out that promise here and now? How are we going to allow the promised future to determine how we live, how we give of ourselves, in the present? Do we play it safe? Or like the saints who have gone before us in this church, people like Bev Brinley and Roy Jacobson, do we risk our time, our ability, our financial support here and now because we have heard and believed God’s call to a hopeful future? I am going to choose to take that risk. I don’t even know what my salary will be for next year yet, but I am going to increase my pledge. And I invite you to join me in that. I believe the promise and there is just too much at stake to play it safe.
Martin Luther King, Jr. caught the spirit of today’s parable, which I believe is the spirit of Christ himself, when he shared his timeless vision of the future: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident – that all men are created equal.’ I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood…I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.” It was a vision of the future, but it changed the present and it impacts us to this day.
And so it was that Jesus shared a vision…something he called the Kingdom of God, and he invites us to share it with him, indeed to serve that Kingdom, that realm, even now with the hope that the vision will transform itself into a dazzling new reality. Because you see, there are some visions, some visions of the future so powerful that just declaring them transforms the present.
In the words of George Bernard Shaw: “You see things as they are and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream of things that never were and I say, ‘Why not?’”