ACCOUNTING FOR FAITH; MATTHEW 25:17-41; DEDICATION SUNDAY/11.19.17; THOMAS H. YORTY; WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Let me introduce a modern version of one of the servants in the parable of talents. A few weeks ago I went to an annual dinner in Pittsburgh with 20 high school class- mates– all men. We gather each year where we grew up to reminisce and reconnect.
One of our friends, Dan, has been quite successful; his company owns a corporate jetand he flies to a South Carolina island every Thursday where he and his wife live most of the year, then back to Pittsburgh Monday morning.
Some of the dinner conversation was about retirement as some of us had retired or were about to.A few days later I got an email from Dan. He said he couldn’t relate to the idea of retiring. And yet, he also said that he felt certain areas of his life were out of balance, from neglect, because of the intensity and long hours he keeps running his business.
I wrote back that it probably was more difficult for him to leave an enterprise that he created and that is doing so well, than it was for most of the rest of our classmates who spent careers working for someone else.
But I also said I wasn’t sure continuing at the pace he was keeping, giventhat other areas of his life were neglected, was the best use of his time. While I didn’t presume to have any solutions, I suggested a different distribution of his time might be more faithful to his wellbeing and the wellbeing of others – including his family and his church to which I know he is committed.
Dan is a contemporary example of one of the servants in today’s story who has received an abundance of blessings.
Nowconsider the backdrop to the parable. In Matthew 25, things are starting to wrap up. Jesus is nearing Jerusalem and his crucifixion. We hear the parable of the talentsset against his impending death but he also points to the endof history.
The focus of his last three parables, including today’s, are what discipleship looks like taking into account that things are coming to an end. Sothe parables illustrate what it means to be faithful, what it means to be prepared, and today, what it means to risk.
In telling the parable, Matthew and Jesus tell us that discipleship requires ‘situational awareness’. Situational awareness is an aviationterm used more recently by people who train schools and businesses how to remain safe if and when an active shooter is on the premises.
But situational awareness is much more than that. Ram Dass, spiritual leader of a generation ago, wrote a book, Be Here Now,in which he wrote that to be a fully conscious being we have to be aware of our presence in our immediate situation.
Yet, Jesusis talking about something even more powerful and encompassing: Jesus illustrates with the two servants who double their talents an urgent engagement with the worldthat comes from knowingthathistory willend.
We don’t know when the end will come but there is an abiding sense across the civilizations that it will be linked to our accountability.
Whether our accounting will be to some aged man with a white beard sitting on a throne up in the clouds or whether our accountability will be to our own moral im- perativethe end of a life or organization or civilization isn’t final untilthat person or group is seen through the lens of not just what was achieved, but what was valued.
In other words, what I am saying is that the principles and truths that we have or haven’t taken the timeto discover and guide our decisions by but more importantly to surrender our lives to, these principles and truths will be the final measure of our days and what kind of people we were.
Where do such principles and truths come from? No philosophy or religion claims to have invented its wisdom and truth. Rather these tenets are given to us from beyond us. For example, in the Abrahamic faith traditions, the written text of the Law that Moses brings from Mt. Sinai, or the example of a prophet or king or Jesus himself, embody what I am talking about. These truths are transcendent. From the Socratic dialogues to the great religions to Einstein’s ruminations on the universe, the created world has an inherent order and truthgiven at its creation, accessible to all, and that leads to our best life.
There are times in our brief span of years, before ‘the grass withers and the flower fades’ as the psalmist says, when we are awakened to a deeper reality that resets themeaning and purpose of our living.David Brooks the New York Times op-ed writer in a recent interview talks about the two mountains of life. The first mountain is when we start outand want to become a good teacher or lawyer or to raise a family.
But then something sets us off course or goes awry and the expectations we had fall short and we enter into the valley. Yet, it is in the valley where we are opened up and deepened and realize that we were on the wrong mountain; and this awareness enables us toembark upon the second mountain of life.
The second mountain is more interior than exterior; it is about a pour- ing forth, rather than accumulating; it is transcending my ego not buil- ding it up; it’s taking the big risk, giving myself away; these are the things remembered and celebrated at the end of a life.
People in the second phase of life are filled with a joyousness, they radiate good energy, confidence and gratitude. Their satisfaction and purpose has nothing to do with accumulating money and material things. Their focus is more on dependence than independence; on intimacy and not achievement. They are emotionally open.
Let’s come back to the parable. One scholar says that each talent in the parable, on the one hand, represents fifteen years of wages but, on the other hand, those talents could serve as placeholders for anything – time, expertise, money or some combination of all of the above.
What is so surprising, what no one sees coming is the return of the master to account for his talents. To the first two who have doubled their talents the master says, “Well done good and faithful servant. You have been faith in a few things I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master.” But the third servant is rebuked and sent away.
If the third servant hired a personal injury firm to sue for unfair treatment he’d point out that he is not dishonest; nor fraudulent,nor an embezzler or prodigal.
These, of course, are the causes for sadness and remorse in Jesus’ other parables. So why does the cautious servant get lumped with those who don’t get it? Discretion and deliberateness are usually virtues not vices.
But with this third servant virtues become vices. Prudence and wariness are rationalizations for self-protectiveness and restraint. Inhibition covers fear, refusing to risk is presented as wise.
What contributes to this servant’s moral blindness is a lack of situational awareness. He fails to take the full measure of his passivity from the perspective of the end of his life. His estimation of the master as harsh and reaping where he does not sow is blaming the master for his own sloth; indeed, he contradicts the master’s confidence in him when the master gives him a significant portion of wealth to manage.
But those who are aware of the needs of the community, who understand that we are ultimately accountable for the blessings given to us, these servants understand that to those to whom much is given, much is expected; there’s no way for them to avoid commitment and risk. For Matthew’s readers the risk was quite serious: the public expression of the gospel in a culture of oppression and even persecution.
Matthew’s aim is to fill out what it means to be a follower of Jesus while the church waits for his return. It has nothing to do with passiv- ity or a checklist of rules but active engagement and responsibility and the willingness to risk the gift for the sake of healing a relation- ship or building a ministry. Remember, the master gives no instruc- tion of what is to be done with the talents. We decide on our own.
You see, even though my friend Dan flies to an island off the coast of South Carolina every Thursday for a long weekend, he’s not so different than you or me. He just has an extra talent or two. Like him, each one of us, has to decide what to do with our blessings for a circle wider than our own comfort zone.
Today’s lesson is about much more than a convenient illustration for annual giving Sunday. It calls for more than the preacher encouraging the congrega- tion to reach a little deeper and give the annual pledge goal a bump. The less- on today goes right to the core not only of how you and I are living our lives but for whom, and to what end. Our disregard for the planet and our being content to ignore the harsh reality of daily life for those who felt left behind and lashed out in the last election,puts most of us in the company of the third servant. But the parable probes more deeply than our politics; it gets as personal and intimate as our family life behind closed doors and our willingness as a congregation, not just a handful of staff and elders, to immerse ourselves in the issues of race and healing in this city.
If we’ve made ‘settled arrangements’ that limit us in any way from using what we have to the fullest, then are wise to note the fate of the third servant. We won’t get out of here alive but we can depart this life with honor and the satisfaction that we didn’t shrink from our best.
There’s no stage in the life of an individual or family or church to which the Parable of the Talents does not apply; we’re human, we need reminders.
The second mountain beckons.
So does the master, to multiply what we’ve been given so that more may be added, and joy, our reward. Amen.
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