Talents are more than what you're good at - 24th Sunday after Pentecost (Year A)

24^th Sunday after Pentecost – Year A                                                November 19, 2017

Matthew 25:14-30                                                     Panzer Liturgical Service, Stuttgart

Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of stewardship campaigns have been designed using this passage from Matthew. I’m betting you wouldn’t have been surprised if I had handed each of the kids at the children’s message a dollar, telling them to go and make some money to bring back to share at church. In fact, there’s a bestselling book, The Kingdom Assignment, which tells the story of Pastor Denny Bellesi and what happened with his church when he came in one Sunday to give out $10,000 in $100 bills to the people attending that morning. There were three requirements for getting one of the bills: 1. The $100 belongs to God.  2. You must invest it in God’s work.  3. Report your results in 90 days.  Those reports were startling:  people made money hand over fist to contribute to the Church, creative ministries were hatched, lives were transformed, people wept for joy – and all of it was reported by NBC’s Dateline. Great story, right? So why does it give me a little bit of the creeps? [i]

This feels like a truly American interpretation of the parable. In our culture, we can be wooed into the practice of investing for the future – even God’s future – and dealing out the results in tightly measured and regulated packets. The truth of the matter is that the majority of us don’t need to be given $100 to invest for God – we have plenty of our own to do that. And we often forget that, in fact, it all belongs to God.

So, let’s begin today with the premise that this parable doesn’t mean what we’ve always been taught it means. It may take us to an uncomfortable place, but hey, that’s what Jesus does.

Redirection #1: A talent in this story doesn’t mean our God given abilities. The CEB translates it as a valuable coin… definitely not a good translation.

In biblical times, a talent was gold equal to the amount of money that a man would earn over his whole adult lifetime – about 25 years. It would weigh over 50 pounds. It wouldn’t be a few coins that someone could slip in their pocket and forget about. Even the servant with one talent would have trouble carrying his treasure away.[ii]

Redirection #2: We should really pay more attention to the third servant than the other two.  The first and second servants are busy while the master is gone, evidenced by the fact that the master had to seek them out when he returned. And it looks like they were ready, because they were able to give an immediate reckoning for their actions. Now this makes sense to those of you who regularly balance your financial accounts, but to those of us who check the ATM to see how much money we have, not so much.

But then again, the third servant was also ready to give an accounting. He, in fact, had chosen conventional wisdom for dealing with the master’s money. This is not the first time we have seen someone burying valuable things for safekeeping … remember the parable of the man who finds a treasure in a field and sells everything so that he can buy the field? The trick, of course, is to remember where you hide it.

So, I don’t think that this is a parable about keeping busy or being able to account for what we’re doing to build or support the Kingdom. Instead, I wonder what happens if we listen to what the third servant says about the master. It’s not very flattering or comforting… “I know you to be a hard man, so I played it very, very safe.” This is all we have. The other two servants don’t give us any clues to what kind of guy he is. And the landowner neither confirms or denies these claims. Instead, he replies with  a simple question: “If you thought I was so harsh, why didn’t you choose another strategy?” It looks like the master’s response is a self-fulfilling prophecy… the third servant got exactly what he was afraid of.

All of this led me to wonder if that’s not true for us, too. When we see God as an enforcer of rules, we get sidetracked on legalism, and instead of worshiping God, we worship the rules. This version of God is stern and judgmental, and before long, we believe that everything bad in our lives is a kind of punishment from God. When we worship that God, we not only experience God’s anger for ourselves, but also expect that God is angry with everyone else, too. Lots of ink and tears have been spilled over this picture of a God who only wants to keep people in line.

But what if we seek God primarily in terms of grace and expectation? I am often surprised and uplifted by the gifts of time, friendship and possibility that are happening all around me. If we imagine God to be a God of love, then it is much easier to recognize and experience God’s love in our own lives and to share that vision of God and God’s love with others.[iii]

Too often we operate under the assumption that “what you see is what you get.” We lift a few verses out of the Bible and pontificate on them as equally applicable to all situations. But in my experience, context is always helpful. Jesus told this story just before he gathered his followers for a last meal, days before he was taken into custody and sentenced to death, and before he died a painful, shameful death. And while it’s classic theology to think of Jesus’ death as a substitution for our own sins, we should also know that its purpose doesn’t end there. The events of Jesus’ last days – the healings, the parables, the meal, the denials, the death, AND the resurrection are a testament as to how far a generous loving God will go to communicate his love for the world.

Jesus spent his life proclaiming and practicing the Kingdom of God. He fed the hungry, healed the sick, offered forgiveness and welcomed everyone who saw through him their need for the love of God. He defied conventional traditions and associated with people who were outcasts. And he called out those who lived only by the rules, those who could not recognize that Jesus was Emmanuel – God with us. And for all of that – he was killed. And just to make sure that we understood how far God can lift us up – from disappointment and tragedy and being stuck in our own expectations – he raised Jesus from the dead on the third day to remind us that life is more powerful than death and love will always win over hate.[iv]

So, yes, this is a parable about using all the resources we have to further the work of the Kingdom. Jesus intends for us to be about that work, always ready and expecting his immediate return. But it is also true that our resources will never be enough. God has this uncanny ability to multiply our efforts in ways that we could never imagine. Our perceived failures are often a witness to the fact that we don’t trust that God has our backs.[v] The good news is that we have unlimited opportunities to get it right... Jesus just wants us to try... to trust that God will bless the efforts we make in good faith that God's way is the best way to participate in the Kingdom of God.

As I was pondering all of this, I was left with two questions, which I ask you to think about this week. I don’t have the answers, only more questions, so maybe together we can come up with some ideas how they might help us grow in faith.

Is it fear that keeps us from taking risks? Are we afraid that our mistakes will be held against us so much that we make safe choices, hoping that maintaining the status quo will be good enough? This certainly seems to be the case for the third servant. He did the minimum required… he did not lose his master’s money. Is that we want for ourselves – just believing or doing enough to stay safe? Or do we want more?

Do we even believe that it’s possible to be adequate representatives of God and Jesus in the world? For all indications, it looks like the first and second servants were very successful surrogates for the master. They made a lot of money for the master, securing a good future for all of them. But mostly they just did what the master asked them to do. They were faithful in representing him in business and in the world. Even if the master hadn’t given them all the profits to keep, they would have been the success their master knew they could be. I’ll bet even if they hadn’t made all those profits, but gave it a good try, he would have been proud of them anyway. How about us?

What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? Is it what we believe about Jesus? Or is it about how we live our lives every day? In our children’s moment, we talked about thankfulness, and how it’s a byproduct of knowing that we are loved. Living out that love every day – that’s what Jesus is asking us to do. And in the process, talents are being multiplied. And we are thankful.

Yesterday I read this really amazing quote attributed to Henri Nouwen, a 20^th century Catholic pastor, theologian, and mystic. It was not the quote I was looking for, but it stayed with me so much that I’ll use it to end today. It read: “For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women and men to be loved.”

I want to be that kind of servant… that kind of Christian.

It sounds easy but it’s really hard. Good thing we’re not being asked to do it alone.

Peace, Deb 

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[i] James Howell, November 19, 2017, http://jameshowellsweeklypreachingnotions.blogspot.de/

[ii] Howell

[iii] David Lose, In the Meantime… How Do You Imagine God? http://www.davidlose.net/2014/11/pentecost-23-a/

[iv] Lose

[v] Carla Sunberg, A Plain Account… Proper 28A, http://www.aplainaccount.org/proper-28a-gospel

Becoming Reformation people - 500th Anniversary (Reformation Sunday)

Reformation Sunday (Year A) – 500^th Anniversary                                  October 29, 2017

John 8:31-36      Romans 3:19-28                                                     Stuttgart Liturgical Service

This sermon has a little bit of something for everyone… a little history, a little biblical interpretation, a little application, and a discipleship challenge… yeah! I’ll try not to make your head spin too much…

I hated Western Civilization history class when I was in school. What did that have to do with me? It wasn’t until I was in seminary that I got why all of this history stuff matters. And I think it will surprise you, as it did me, that my church history books are just as important as my bible commentaries when it comes to preaching and teaching in the church. (Good church history resource – www.christianhistoryinstitute.org)

This month I’ve been listening to a daily podcast called, “Here We Stand.”[i] It chronicles the lives of 31 people who were instrumental in the Protestant Reformation, a movement which started two centuries before Martin Luther’s proclamations. Have you ever heard of these fine folks - Peter Waldo (13^th C), John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, or Girolamo Savonrola (14 C)? Each of them expressed some of the same concerns as published in Luther’s 95 Theses, decades before him. These four have something in common. Each of them was excommunicated from the Catholic Church, and three of the four were martyred, killed by the church for heresy, with the hope that their followers would get back in line, accepting Catholic doctrine as correct and infallible. In the end, it didn’t work.

It’s very clear that Martin Luther, while still a rebel, stands on the shoulders of preachers and theologians who preceded him. This protest reformation of Christianity began because good, faithful people, saw how far the Church had strayed from the teachings of Jesus. They saw the value of reading scripture themselves instead of relying on a priest for interpretation. Before Luther, John Wycliffe in England and Jan Hus in the current Czech Republic translated the scripture into their vernacular languages and paid the price with their lives. It turns out that an educated laity was a threat to the Church. Luther never intended to start a new branch of Christianity. He just wanted the one that he was a part of to be about faith and relationship with Christ and not mired in following the rules.

There were a few of things that Luther had going for him that those who came before him did not. (See “Why Luther?” by Gene Veith[ii])

1) Right time, right place… The pace of the world was rapidly changing during the 16^th century. The University in Wittenberg had begun teaching the new Renaissance curriculum alongside the classics, and other theologians were great influences on Luther, among them Philip Melanchthon, who is buried across the aisle from Luther in the Schloss Church. The political climate was also in flux. Luther’s patron, Frederick the Wise, Duke of Saxony, protected Luther from the reach of the Catholic proceedings, which sought to removed Luther permanently as a voice for change within the Church and society.

2) The printing press… Guttenberg’s press made quick distribution of information possible. Best known for printing the first German bibles, he was also the largest printer of indulgences (the church’s version of “get out of purgatory at great cost to your loved ones”) which Luther railed against in his writings and sermons. In reality, Luther may or may not have posted them on the church door. But he did send them in a letter to his bishop, and by January 2018 had them printed and distributed to anyone who would take them. It wasn’t Facebook, but pretty momentous for the time.

3) He was a great writer, scholar, teacher, and preacher. It was his gift. It was his calling. But he didn’t let it go to his head. He also believed that every believer was called to a vocation. Becoming a priest brought great honor to a family. But Luther taught that everyone was called to serve God in some way, and all are honorable.

God’s callings are mostly quite ordinary—everyday relationships in the family, workplace, church, and community—in which Christians live out their faith in love and service to their neighbors. But God sometimes works in extraordinary ways as well, and when He does, He works by means of vocation; that is, through human instruments.[iii]

In a sense, Luther was releasing people to their live out an authentic faith, not just follow a set of rules designed to steer people to the heavenly gates. And no matter what Protestant tradition that any of us come from, we are a product of Luther’s work and the ones who came before and after.

Luther wrote volumes on doctrines described in the scripture. He is best known for his writings on salvation by faith alone – His Preface to the Letter to the Romans influenced many, including my own John Wesley. But he also wrote about the role faith has in the lives of Christian believers. It was not enough to confess and believe. Genuine faith is evidenced in everyday living.

In the reading from John, Jesus addresses the age-old (and contemporary) problem of what it means to be free… in the language of faith - of what it means to be saved. Is freedom or salvation about the religion of following the rules? That’s certainly where Jesus and the Pharisees came into conflict, over and over again.

I think it’s what often trips us up, too. Luther asks: Is faith about orthodoxy – right doctrine – or is it about orthopraxy – right living?[iv] Is it about checking off all the right boxes or how we treat our neighbors? Is it about saying we are Christian or living so that people know it without our speaking a word?

“The truth will make you free…” Where does this freedom come from? Is it bestowed on us by the institution or is it a gift from God? Jesus spent a lot of time breaking the rules – for all the right reasons… to help people… to teach lessons. And in the end, it got him killed.

Reformation comes when certainties about who is in and out of the Kingdom of God are in conflict with Jesus’ call to love and serve. Reformation (defined as “the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory”[v]) begins when we realize that life in the world and life in the Kingdom are not the same thing. Reformation comes when we gather our courage and step out in faith that God speaks truth to us all, often replacing certainty of the known, the comfortable, for trusting God in middle of the unfamiliar.

Life in Christ is not just about understanding Christian doctrine, it’s also about living out Jesus’ teachings. Through his study of Romans, Luther reminds us that faith is only truly fulfilled through discipleship.

That’s why Luther’s insistence that people be able to read the Bible for themselves is important even to us. And yet, let’s be honest, are we faithful about picking up the bible and reading it for ourselves? I’d say that many of us, including me, are not. I’ll admit that in the weeks when I am preparing to teach or preach, I am immersed the Word. But many days, I am content to reflect on a verse or two as contained in a small devotional, willing to check that box as “done.”

Here’s a challenge for you. The New Testament book of Mark was the first gospel written and is only about 660 verses. It can easily be read from beginning to end in much less time than watching a college football game. If you’re not up for reading it all in one day, ready it over a week, noting the details that emerge as the story progresses. And if you’re really intrigued, go on and read the gospels of Matthew and Luke – they are a little longer, but not too much. Notice the ways they reflect the book of Mark and the ways that they are different. See which themes run consistently throughout these three books, and see if you can figure out what themes are different. Get a good study bible and the possibilities are endless.

And that’s how it starts. Immersing ourselves in the biblical narrative continues to be the best encouragement for living out faith every day. That’s what discipleship is all about. Does reading the parables of the lost coin and sheep and son change the way we see those lost around us or help us without own depression and anxiety? Does going to church on Sunday make a difference in how we treat people the rest of the week? Yes, but maybe not the first or second or tenth times we read them, but they do have the power to work their ways into our souls and hearts in ways that will change us forever. 

In the passage from Romans, we see Paul connect the idea of faith with justice or righteousness.[vi] Writing to a Church that was becoming increasingly multi-chromatic, he wanted to make sure that everyone understood that law has its place, but relationship with God and with one another turns all of our previous notions about faith and freedom upside down. For Paul’s church, that meant Jews and Gentiles gathered in the name of Jesus to share meals and ministry – they became a new family called Church. In our world, it means climbing over the same tall barriers of gender, race and nationality, trusting that God has called us and will be with us in the midst of our brave new lives.

The biggest challenge we face today is how to be reforming without fracturing into a million splinter churches. It feels like such a fine line to find the truth that sets us free without breaking apart all the ties that bind us together. Too often, we choose between one or the other… truth or unity. No solution to that yet, well, because total trust in God is just hard. Try as we might, we love power and want to be the gatekeepers of truth. Watch or read the news and we’re reminded that it’s a sickness over the whole world right now.

Jesus, Paul and Martin Luther all remind us that there is a solution: that the “we” is stronger than the “me.” It’s the hardest work that any of us will ever do - to acknowledge and then overcome the differences between us, allowing the differences between us to be our strength instead of our downfall. And we will be unsuccessful until we put our trust in God to heal the wounds between us.

People often ask me why a liturgical worship service means so much to me. After all, we are worshiping each Sunday in a tradition that goes back over 1000 years. They ask, “Don’t you get tired of praying the same prayers, and knowing exactly what’s going to come next?” Time and again I am able to say that those are exactly the things that make the experience so worshipful. I am constantly amazed at how a verse in a well-known hymn will speak to me in a way that it never has before, and that while I may have preached on or heard these same texts many times in the past, this week they are made new again by all of the life that has been lived by me and other in the between time.

Reformation doesn’t necessarily mean dumping out everything old from the Church in an effort to take on new things all the time. Reformation means being willing to be re-formed… made new… and trusting that God freedom and righteousness are the gifts on the journey. David Lose, Lutheran pastor and former president of Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia sums it up this way:

Perhaps the best way to celebrate the Reformation is not to celebrate it at all, but rather to repeat it. To remember both halves of Paul’s mighty words, first the difficult truth that “all have sinned and fallen short” in order to hear the blessed news that “all are now justified by God’s grace as a gift.” For here, indeed, is a truth that sets you free. And it is a truth that still has the capacity to change lives, the church, and indeed the whole world. [vii]

May God send us into the world to be a Reformation people.  Amen.

Peace, Deb

[i] Podcast – Here We Stand - https://www.desiringgod.org/here-we-stand

[ii] Veith - https://tabletalkmagazine.com/posts/2017/10/why-luther/

[iii] Veith - ibid

[iv] Samuel Cruz, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3451

[v] Dictionary.com http://www.dictionary.com/browse/reform

[vi] Jane Patterson, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3448

[vii] David Lose, http://www.davidlose.net/2017/10/reformation-sunday-the-truth-about-the-truth/