Matthew 25:14-30
Taking Risks
James Sledge November
19, 2023
When I was in seminary, I took an elective
class on evangelism. It was a three week long course with a week of it being
travel to visit various churches that were doing a good job of drawing in lots
of people. We spent a good deal of time at the largest church in our
denomination as well as at churches of different traditions.
There was one church we visited that I’m
not sure how it became part of the itinerary. Perhaps it was meant to be a
negative example. This was a little country church in North Carolina, but the
suburbs had gradually changed their neighborhood.
When we visited, the church sat on a
little corner of land that was bordered by a new four lane highway on one side,
a crossroad on the other side, and a shopping center and its entrance on the
other two sides. It looked a little strange and out of place, this old brick
church wedged in between roads and a shopping center.
In the course of meeting with church
members, we discovered that they had been offered a ridiculous sum of money for
their property. There was probably enough acreage to put in a restaurant and a
couple of businesses, and developers were eager to acquire the land.
The little church was struggling with
declining attendance and membership. The building was falling into disrepair,
and the future looked grim. But money from a sale could allow a fresh start.
They would be flush with cash and easily able to rent space somewhere to meet
while they decided about what came next. They could even hire new staff and
embark on an evangelism campaign that could create a thriving new congregation,
and people from the presbytery had encouraged them to take the money and open
a, hopefully, exciting new chapter in the church’s life.
But the church had decided against taking
the offer. Many of them were getting older and wanted their funerals to be held
there. They also worried about what might happen if they had a fresh start.
What if they didn’t like what happened? What if the old members got outnumbered
by new folks? Those fears were too strong, and no one was able to convince the
little church to take a chance on an exciting new future.
This is a rather unusual scenario, but it
some ways it is simply an extreme version of something that goes on at churches
regularly. Comfort with the status quo and, even more, fears about what might
happen often shut down anything bold and new.
More than once I’ve been part of a church
conversation where someone had proposed an exciting new ministry, but fears
about not being able to find volunteers, worries about tight budgets, and
concerns about what impact it might have on the status quo carried the day. And
the new ministry never got the green light.
Churches tend to
be very risk averse places, and very often worries and fears about what might
or might not happen are more than enough to overcome any excitement about
trying something new and unproven. Even the most liberal or progressive
congregations can be incredibly conservative when it comes to trying new things.
In the Presbyterians Church’s Book of
Order, in the opening chapter, it says this under the heading The Calling
of the Church. “The Church is the body of Christ. Christ gives to the Church
all the gifts necessary to be his body. The Church strives to demonstrate these
gifts in its life as a community in the world (1 Cor. 12:27-28): The Church is
to be a community of faith, entrusting itself to God alone, even at the risk of
losing its life.”[1]
At the risk of
losing its life. That’s what it says, but I’m not sure how many congregations
actually embody this statement. Many congregations won’t risk a little money or
the possibility that the church might change significantly. Never mind their own
life.
Now some of you may be wondering what any
of this has to do with a scripture passage that has often been interpreted to
mean, “Use your talents wisely.” But it turns out that this parable is not
about that at all, not unless you define “wisely” in a fairly peculiar way.
The fact that the monetary unit in the
parable happens to be a talent lends itself to the rather trite, proverbial
understanding, but in Jesus’ day, a talent was a weight and a large sum of
money, by some estimates, around fifteen year’s wages for the average worker.
Perhaps if the parable said that the slaves were given five million, two
million, and one million dollars we might hear it differently.
This is also a parable where we need to
pay attention to details. We are told that the slave who had received the
five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents.
The slave with two talents does the same thing. But what did they have
to do to turn such a huge profit? I’m sure we have some finance people in the
congregation today who would tell us that any investment that quickly doubles
your money is a risky one, and you could easily have lost a fortune.
Another facet of this parable that may
escape us has to do with the last slave’s burying his talent in the ground. To
my mind that sounds like the crotchety old guy who keeps his money under his
mattress because he doesn’t trust banks, but there were no banks as we know
them in Jesus’ day. There were no regulations or safeguards about money
invested with what were then called bankers, and so many who first heard Jesus’
parable may well have thought that the last slave did the prudent thing, the
very thing they would have done.
Finally, we are told this last slave’s
reason for doing what he did. He was afraid. I think I can sympathize. If
someone had given me a large sum of money to take care of until their return, I
would be worried about not losing any of it, and I might well have put it
somewhere FDIC insured, which is exactly the sort of thing this slave does.
When we examine this parable carefully,
the third of four parables that Jesus tells to address what his followers
should be doing in the time before his return, those who are praised and
rewarded are the ones who took big risks. The parable doesn’t even seem to
consider the possibility that they could have lost it all, so either Jesus
means that risks taken for the sake of the gospel always produce rewards, or
that the slaves would still have been praised even if they had lost huge
amounts.
So what would we say if Jesus came back
today and asked what we’ve done with the treasure he’d given us? On one level,
that treasure is the good news of the gospel. How are we doing bold and even
risky things with the gospel?
But we’ve also been entrusted with the
legacy of those who went before us, a rich history along with wonderful and
historic facilities. What are we doing with those that is bold and even risky?
Or are we just trying to make sure they stay intact?
And what motivates us? The desire to use
our treasure to do amazing things, or fears over what might happen if we’re not
careful?
I believe that all congregations have a
calling, work the Jesus gives them to do. A lot of congregations never live
into this because they are too cautious, too fearful. But those that do,
churches both large and small, do wondrous and amazing things.
Where is Jesus calling the Meeting House?
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