Investing
Eastern Parkway United Methodist Church
A warm welcome to each worshiper today. We celebrate you and offer you our friendship and love. We are a congregation of people who seek to grow spiritually, to become more like Christ in His compassion and acceptance of everyone while growing more aware of what it really means to be Christians today.
As a Reconciling Congregation, EPUMC affirms the sacred worth of persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities and welcomes them into full participation in the fellowship, membership, ministries, and leadership of the congregation.
943 Palmer Avenue, Schenectady, NY 12309 / 518-374-4306 epumc943@gmail.com / www.easternparkway.org
Order of Worship
November 19, 2023
10:00 a.m.
*You are invited to rise in body or spirit.
Prelude
Greeting and Announcements
Mission Statement:
We are a faith community striving to be, to nurture, and to send forth disciples of Jesus Christ.
Call to Worship:
We lift our eyes to the Lord.
God created the heavens and the earth
We raise our voices in songs and speech
We raise our voices in prayer and praise.
Lord, hear our prayers, accept our praise.
Lord, open our hearts to receive your blessings of peace. AMEN.
*Hymn Come, Ye Thankful People, Come #694
Prayer of Confession:
We are "pack rats", O Lord. You continually pour gifts and blessings into our lives and we hide them away for fear that they might disappear or not be worthy of acclaim. We squander them wastefully on things that are not healthy or helpful to others. We confess that we have not always recognized the talents we have been given. We find it easier to belittle the gifts than to honor the giver. As Jesus reminded his listeners to honor the giver of the gifts by using them to create something better, for healing, for hope in the world; remind us that the message of Jesus is truly pertinent to us today. Forgive us when we have treated it as a nice story. Help us to take the gifts you have given us, to develop them, and use them in ways which will offer healing and hope. In Jesus’ blessed Name, we pray. AMEN.
Assurance:
You are loved by God and given so many gifts to be used to help others. Do not fear to use these gifts, for God is with you, continually blessing you and the gifts in your service. AMEN.
Scripture Reading Matthew 25: 14-30
The Parable of the Talents
14 “For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; 15 to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. At once 16 the one who had received the five talents went off and traded with them and made five more talents. 17 In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. 18 But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. 20 Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things; I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things; I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you did not scatter, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow and gather where I did not scatter? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. 29 For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance, but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 30 As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Sermon Investing
This is another Gospel story where we spend more time with the angrier, saltier side of Jesus. Personally, I really like this side of him. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with Jesus’ gentle side, and in fact some of the most powerful messages we can bring out of the Gospel come out of Jesus’ tenderness and compassion. But this week we’re not getting Jesus the Good Shepherd comforting the adorable baby lambs, or Jesus telling us that as pretty as the wild flowers are, God provides clothing to make us even more stunning. This week we’re getting Jesus yelling at us to knock it off and to quit messing up our nice things. It’s harder to preach this side of Jesus and make him sound like Good News to you all, but I gotta say, as a mom, boy do I get salty Jesus. Sometimes caring for others means telling them hard truths.
But about those hard truths–part of the reason why this side of Jesus is harder to preach about is because the message we’re inclined to pull out of a story like this one first is a message that sounds contradictory to who Jesus is. Take this pericope, for example. That’s a fancy word that means “chunk of text”, use that to win your next game of Scrabble. We’re led to assume that the “master” is God, and we’re the “slaves”, which isn’t a word I like hearing come out of Jesus’ mouth. Your translation may soften that word as “servant”, but at the time that Matthew wrote this down, he and people like him understood society through the dichotomies of master and slave, rich and poor. And, really, we still do. But if God is the master and we’re “slaves”, then the first message I hear coming from Jesus–and the one more conservative preachers taught me to glean from this pericope when I was a kid–is “God is a great big tyrant, we can make God mad really easy, God has unreasonable expectations for us, and if we fall short the wrath of God will come right down on us. In short: don’t tick off God. But also, you probably will. So, you’re headed to hell, and it’s hot down there, dress accordingly.”
That’s my spin, but the comedian George Carlin, may he rest in peace, hit the nail on the head of why faith never worked for him when he said this:
“Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever 'til the end of time!
But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He's all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can't handle money!”
And, to Carlin’s last point, a knee-jerk, classic read of this text will make God sound greedy and capitalist, which had rough implications in Matthew’s day, and even rougher implications now. Does God want us to just make the Holy a bunch of money, or else face condemnation?
No. And I lament how many people in history have read their warped priorities into the text instead of allowing the text to change them. Because we’ve had a whole lot of white, angry, greedy men tell us that God is a white, angry, greedy man, and the consequence of that kind of interpretation has been a bunch of George Carlins running for the hills.
We can do better.
If we can manage to parse out the word I’m about to use from our modern, capitalist use of it in other contexts, then I’m going to tell you that this pericope is about what happens when we invest in our relationships, both with God and one another. We hear about three different people–I’m not going to call them slaves like Matthew did, I don’t think that helps anyone here. Matthew tells us that the powerful character entrusted what belongs to him to three people in his employ. And he gives according to what they can handle. In the story it’s “talents”, a form of currency, but the double meaning wasn’t lost on those who translated this story into English. And he told them, I’m giving you exactly what I think you can handle right now. Take it, and see what you can do with it. The first two people took their talents and interacted with other people. They made relationships, traded, and combined their talents with those of others, and made the little bit that they had in the first place much more. But the third person is, in my opinion, the actual greedy one in this story, which is why the powerful character comes down so hard on him. He takes something that was never his, buries it so he doesn’t have to risk losing it, even though it wasn’t his to lose, and doesn’t try to make the relationships that the other two made. The big boss lays it into him at the end, because otherwise this guy just wasn’t going to get it. When you follow God you take risks and invest in other people, not your own well being.
God wants us to make the most of what we have. God trusts us with what we can handle, and expects that we’ll use what we have to grow, not shrink. And growing in this life, especially if we’re following Jesus, means getting out of our comfort zone and engaging with other people.
On a personal note, this story helped me stay in the ministry at a time when I wasn’t sure I could keep doing this. And I hadn’t actually even gotten off the ground yet. But I was a senior in seminary. I was a candidate for ordination but had taken about a year off from the process because I was feeling burned. I had been through two and a half years of divinity school with a bunch of people who were older than me and felt so much more worldly. They talked all the time in class about their previous careers and their families and they were so confident, and so good at making small talk. And I was just a part time grocery store cashier who kept getting in trouble for accidentally smushing bread and cracking eggs. I had just gotten married, and I had also just spent a year interning at a church that I love to pieces but where I learned quickly that people have all kinds of expectations for clergy, especially clergywomen, and no matter what I had done there I just never felt like I was enough. So I put my ordination on ice and questioned if maybe I’d rather use that master of divinity degree to teach, or do chaplaincy, or work at a 501c3, or do something otherwise nontraditional. But one day I visited someone else’s church service, and their pastor lifted up this passage, and the message I heard was, Don’t get scared and run away. Don’t bury your talents in the sand. Go back and make relationships, and grow.
If you can understand a story like that, then, fundamentally, you can understand anyone. Our world is in a lot of pain, and it got that way from all of us retreating to our respective corners, burying what God gave us, and refusing to even try to talk to each other. The most relevant, but painful example of this that I can pull to mind is the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. Where do we even start? Israel is bombing and sanctioning hard in order to answer Hamas’ attack in October, and in an effort to force the return of their hostage neighbors. Hamas won’t budge. And innocent people are dropping dead. This war spans multiple religions, multiple cultures, nationalities, territories, and thousands of years of hostility. Does a ceasefire legitimize Hamas’s attacks? Does continued warfare justify violence against many innocent people in order to free innocent hostages? What can people like us, thousands of miles away, even do?
Take the advice I did twelve years ago. Don’t run away, don’t bury your talents, or your heads, in the sand. Talk. Make relationships with people who are different from you, even when it feels very risky. That’s how we grow away from war and toward something much better.
Amen.
*Hymn What Gift Can We Bring #87
Offering
Offertory
*Doxology #94
*Prayer of dedication
Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s Prayer
Let us pray.
Lord God - we give you thanks for all your gifts to us – for daily food - for health - for each breath we take - for freedom to choose - and for the gifts of your word, your power, and your love. Our hearts are truly overwhelmed, O God, when we consider all that you are and how you have entrusted so much to us. May we be worthy of that trust - may we be a people who are unafraid to live as fully and as richly as you want us to live.... Lord hear our prayer....
Help us O God, as followers of Jesus, to multiply all that you given us, to risk spreading your word and perhaps see it misunderstood, to gamble by loving those whom others think worthy only of hate, to take chances by doing good to those who have not done good to us. Help us be faith filled and to desire to
increase your glory and your goodness in this world. Make us ones who share in both word and deed that which you have given to us. Lord hear our prayer....
We pray, O God, for the church here today - that it may encourage all its members to discover, develop, and use all their gifts, those of nature and those of grace... Lord hear our prayer...
We pray for those who are poor in body or in spirit... for those who are oppressed and heavy laden.... for those who are sick or in despair... Minister O God by your Spirit, and by us, to all those for whom we have prayed - and help us walk faithfully in the path of our Lord Jesus Christ - he who taught us to pray
together as one family, saying. Our Father….
— copyright © Rev. Richard J. Fairchild, and posted on his Kir-Shalom website. Visit his site for other good lectionary-based worship resources and sermons.
Our Father, Mother, Creator God, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. Lead us, not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory forever. Amen.
*Hymn Now Thank We All Our God #102
Benediction
Postlude
Staff
Natalie Bowerman Pastor
Betsy Lehmann Music Director
Joe White Custodian
Cassandra Brown Nursery Attendant
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