Talented

 Friends, this is a popular text to preach on. It comes up in the lectionary every three years like clockwork, and the majority of my colleagues will use this text for their sermons today, even though they had other options. The text lends itself toward a point that a lot of us want to make this time of year, while we’re doing stewardship campaigns and encouraging pledging–give generously of what you have to the Master.

And we’ll eventually land there. But despite how popular this text is, it’s not the easiest to preach on well. This is a different side of Jesus than a lot of us are comfortable hearing about in church. We’re seeing Jesus’ spicy side. This isn’t Jesus the Good Shepherd, someone you can imagine cuddling adorable lambs. This isn’t the sermon on the mount, and Jesus telling you that, sure, the lilies of the valley are pretty, but God made you even prettier. This also isn’t “your faith has healed you” Jesus. This is a frustrated Jesus. Not the Carrie Underwood Jesus who takes the wheel, but the Jesus who pulls the minivan over on the side of the road and makes you get out and walk.

As a mom, it may be difficult to do this Jesus justice, but he gives me a charge that lights my fire. I like spicy Jesus. He gets me. And he grows me.

But, not everyone loves spicy Jesus. Some of us have been burned by folks who took the words of spicy Jesus and wielded them for harm. Read without care, the end of this passage sounds like a “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” text–an infamous fire and brimstone sermon from 18th century preacher Jonathan Edwards, who proclaimed that God dangles each of us over an eternal fire, could drop us in at any time, and probably should, but has decided not to for the moment.

Or, put in more modern words, “weeping and gnashing of teeth” sounds like the interpretation of God proclaimed by a guy who was great at comedy but not so much for spiritual advice, the late George Carlin:

“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.”

But I maintain, that’s not who God is, it’s not who we are, and it’s not how we need to read these words. We can do better.

First, a new vocabulary word for you, just for fun: “pericope”. It just means “chunk of text” Use it to win Scrabble. This pericope sets up a few dichotomies between people and the Divine. The Holy is a “master”, and we are “slaves”, or “servants” in softer translations. God is the owner of all, and we have what we do in our hands as a temporary loan. And God, ultimately, decides fate. God orders the world, and we obey. But don’t run for the hills, George Carlin, it gets better.

This pericope tells us about three different people. The Master, the God character, was going away for a little while, and entrusted all three of them with “talents”, a form of currency that has an intentional double meaning. Sounds like the Master also has a personal relationship with all three of these folks, and knows them quite well, because the Master left talents with all three of them. Not three equal portions, as much as each could handle. And not talents to spend on living expenses. Talents to put to work–go out, meet new people, talk, share, trade, build relationships, and make those talents grow. Two of the servants do exactly that. They trust themselves with the Master’s talent as the Master trusted them with it in the first place, and they have faith that they are worthy of that trust. So they take risks with their talents, and are rewarded for it. When the Master comes back, they return double what they were given.

Then there’s the third servant, the one that brings out spicy Jesus. Notice where he made his mistake. It wasn’t greed–afterall, he gave that talent right back to the Master, he didn’t put it in his wallet and disappear. It wasn’t a lack of faith, either, at least not directly. Nor was it selfishness. Rather, it was fear of the Master. It was that warped George Carlin theology: “I know you’re harsh, Master. I know you reap what you don’t sow. And I was afraid, so I buried my talent.”

When we try to stuff God into any kind of restrictive box, especially the tight box of fire and brimstone theology, we bury our potential. There’s no room to grow, because growth requires trust. A God that we’re terrified of isn’t a God that inspires us to get creative. We don’t want to share Good News about that God. That understanding of God doesn’t help us make new relationships, or share, or trade. And we definitely don’t take risks for that God, for the same reason that servant did. We act like scared ostriches around that interpretation of God, and bury our heads–or our talents–in the sand. We bury what could have been. When the Master comes back and learns that servant had locked the Master into that fixed, graceless box, that servant found himself with the weeping and gnashing of teeth, because there was nowhere else for him to go. He made his own self-fulfilling prophecy.

There are much bigger possibilities when, instead of facing God with terror as if the Divine is a giant shoe and we’re ants, we see God in a dynamic way. The Holy can, indeed, be spicy. Our Creator can light a fire under us so we don’t get too comfortable. Discomfort makes us move. It makes us try something new because we have to.

Real talk, this passage is meaningful to me because it’s the one that convinced me not to quit this crazy ministry thing. I was 24, and I was still in seminary, and I felt like an ant under a giant shoe. The shoe wasn’t God, per se, but a system that told me I’d never be big enough to represent God in the world. I was the second youngest person at CRCDS–yes, I asked around, and even checked a few driver’s licenses to find that out. My older classmates talked a big talk about their impressive first careers before seminary, their extensive life experiences, and their overflowing supplies of wisdom and skill. Of course, I know now that they put up that bluster because they, too, felt like ants. But I didn’t know that then. I wasn’t a former teacher, or banker, or engineer, I was a part time Wegmans cashier smushing your bread and dropping your eggs. I had also just ended a year-long internship at a local church that taught me a lot of bad lessons about all the images of the Perfect Pastor that folks project, and how I’d never live up to any of them because I was a woman. Plus Sean and I had just gotten married, and I didn’t know if I wanted to drag him down a road with a hazy future. Maybe it would be safer to bury my calling, my talent, in the sand, and use the MDIV I was on track to finish soon to do chaplaincy work, or teach, or run away and join the circus. I put my ordination progress on ice for a little while. 

But one day, I visited a Catholic mass in the city of Rochester, and the priest did a short homily on this pericope, and I heard God saying, you’re not an ant, and the UMC’s ordination process might not be pleasant, but it’s not a giant shoe, either. Don’t bury your talent in the sand. You’ll survive this if you stay. You’ll take risks, and go on adventures, and meet people, and trade, and share, and grow. Your imagination is too small.

And I stayed.

And I’m here.

And so are all of you.

We’re still here because we’re talented, and open to all the possibilities. We’re curious, and willing to experiment, and take risks. We’re meeting new people, and making new relationships, and sharing, and trading, and growing.

Don’t confine God to a tight box of bad theology. Don’t bury your potential by saying “hey wait, WE’VE NEVER DONE IT THAT WAY BEFORE.” Don’t let fear shrink your imagination. And don’t try to pour water over a spicy God. Don’t settle for what feels comfortable in these ministries. Invest your talents, and grow.

Amen.