The Twenty-seventh Sunday after Pentecost, November 16, 2008

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Judges 4:1-7, I Thessalonians 5:1-11, Matthew 25:14-30
St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, West Valley City, UT

In today’s readings there is a sense of God’s active involvement and care in the lives of people. God uses the prophetess Deborah and the commander Barak to deliver Israel from her enemies. In our Epistle, Paul stresses how we are to live in the faith and hope of God, for the coming of God is imminent in our lives. And I see this not just as the coming of Christ in glory, but the coming of God into our lives in this mortal life, when we see with the eyes of faith and heart of love the presence of God in our lives.

In this first of our known letters of Paul, he uses language which will be amplified later when he writes to another church in Greece, in Corinth. Now to the church in Thessalonica he urges them to put on God as we would clothing for protection: …put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. It is a homey image to put on faith, hope, and love as if we were putting on our shirt and slacks. They are part of how we are in the world. Faith. Hope. Love.

The parable Jesus tells of the talents gives us another insight into life in God. Now, a talent in the first century was probably equal to the wages for the average worker over a 15 year period. So this is a lot of money!

But as in all parables, we are to hear it symbolically. It is not a lesson in the economics of capitalism. It is a teaching on engagement and involvement in the life of God and God’s community. It is about the Kingdo—reign—of God, not about the marketplace. We are to understand it in symbol and meaning.

The talents can be symbols for any number of parts of our lives. I see them as symbolic of my life in God and God’s community. These talents are how I am engaged, as it were, in the community of the faithful. How do I use my life in community and relationship? How do I invest myself in my personal spirituality? How do I invest myself in relationships? Relationship to God. Relationship to you. Relationship to others. How do I engage with God? How do I engage with you? These are the talents that I have and there is indeed a richness about them when I choose to engage.

Now, if I do not engage. If I do not stretch spiritually, if I do not show a sense of affection and engagement in community, then I stand at risk of losing what has been offered me in these relationships.

Herbert O’Driscoll, the priest who led the pilgrimage I was on in Scotland notes the following about this parable: We need to be quite clear that this parable is not about little bags of gold. It is about the gift of human life that we all receive and the particular gifts we receive with it. It is about how we use or invest these gifts. It is about the attitudes with which we come to the living of life.

If I come with the attitude of engagement, involvement, life and sharing, then my own sense of self and my own particular gifts are increased beyond my own imaginings. In the words of I am who we are both I and we are enlarged by our mutual sharing and caring of one another. None are diminished. All are built up. There is a promise of such magnitude in this parable of sharing the life of community and communion in God.

But, you notice the servant who does not engage, who does not share, who does not invest himself loses what has even been given. I do not see this as a punishment but as a natural consequence on lack of care for others. What—he—we have can be lost when not shared with others. We are called to be in community. This is where we thrive and grow. When we absent ourselves from the life of community part of us is lost.

In our culture we often talk of how we will be punished for those wrong or bad things we do. This parable is very clear in that it is also in what we do not do wherein lies the risk of loss.

I am enriched and enhanced through my life with you in community, through you in faith and through you in the sacraments of the church. I am the richer because of you. I am who we are. And I am very blessed, richly blessed through you.

This is the last Sunday of our formal stewardship program, the stewardship of monetary resources for the coming year of mission and ministry. As of last week we are considerably behind where we were last year, both in number of folks who have pledged, and in the total amount pledged. I know very well the uncertainties of these times. I also know that without your engagement, involvement in our community that we are all diminished. So, I invite you to fill out a pledge card if you have not already done so. If you feel you could pledge more than you thought earlier, fill out another card. As in the parable of the talents, this is not about bags of gold as it is rather about the gift of human life that we all receive and the particular gifts we receive with it. It is about how we use or invest these gifts. It is about the attitudes with which we come to the living of life.