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1 Corinthians 12:1-22 & 26-31 AND Matthew 25:14-30
You heard earlier Paul’s account to the church in Philippi, his assertion that God has given us all gifts, different kinds of gifts, which Paul portrays as a “demonstration of the Spirit…given to each person for the common good.” He then uses his body metaphor to explain how we need all these different parts and how profoundly we are connected, for we all know that there’s not a single part of our bodies that we can cast aside as if we don’t need it…except maybe the appendix. We don’t know what that does and many, many people seem to get along fine without it. So, 99% of our bodies we need!
When we hear the parable of the coins, it is easy, especially in our capitalist culture, to think that this is about money. It is about investment. Now, I am not an economist. In fact, any of the leadership who have worked with me on budgets, or people who have served on boards with me, or my poor wife will attest to the fact that I am barely competent with math. Words are my gift. Numbers are not.
So I may have no idea what I am really talking about as I open this sermon telling you about something called “pre-seed investment.” This is apparently a new thing in the world of start-up investment and it acts as an alternative to raising the traditional “friends and family” seed monies in order to get a a startup idea off the ground. Basically people invest in you, before your idea is really even fully formed or proven. It really isn’t about money at all, but about risk and reward, about investing in human potential instead of just the rather limited marker of money as success.
This is what I think God does with us. God invests us with gifts – call it genetics, call it natural selection, call it nature OR nurture, the creative force of the universe, the energy that makes one tree and elm and another an oak, or creates both lions and dolphins…that force also fills us with gifts, skills, and abilities. And the point of the parable really isn’t to just get a good return on investment, it is to remind us that we have been given these things for a reason. We are to use them. And to use them in a specific way.
The three servants are each given different gifts and we might, again in our capitalist mindset, see one as better than another. After all, what’s better than two coins? Three coins. The Master gives according to ability, the text reports. That word translated as “ability” is dunamis, the root for our English word dynamic, or dynamo. It means power or ability or capacity. So the Master seems to know something here but lest we think that this is just a tale about how some are able and some are not, let us note that gifts are given to everyone. Everyone in the story has something. And the catch of the parable is that it is the one who does nothing, the one who buries their gift in the dirt, the one who risks nothing that is condemned.
Now, I’m not as harsh as Matthew. There’s no need for the whole “gnashing of teeth.” I know the reality is far more complicated than the morality tale. But I also know this – we do all have gifts. God has granted us with amazing things and all of us choose at times to bury those gifts in the dirt. And I’ll even go a step further. Some of us have gifts that we don’t think are gifts. Because of the way that society prizes some things over others, the way that we segregate and discriminate, it can be quite easy to think that the very diversity which God has gifted us with is, instead, a barrier or something to be hidden.
One of the reasons that we should speak out against the many discriminations that exist on our culture is that such bigotry denies the very gifts God has given us. Now I know we don’t tend to think, in our culture, that being a woman is a gift. Nor do we think that being born of African descent, or being same-sex loving, or transgendered or any of the other ways that some created selves are denied the same definition of “image of God” that other created selves are afforded. And part of the work that must be done theologically and culturally is to recapture that sense of created-ness, that assertion that who we are is a gift and the need to use those gifts for the good of the whole. For it takes all of us – every.single.other. – to even hope for the kin-dom of God.
Please note that when Jesus calls out people, when he engages in sharp parables to drive home deep truths, even when he chastises, he does not go after the created-ness of anyone. He holds all people as children of God. That theological claim, however, does not excuse any behavior. It does not allow for scripture to be warped for political or ideological gain that idolizes the individual. It does not allow for the continued oppression of some people by others in the name of so-called “holiness.” It does not allow for interpretation or theology that twists God’s intention to love, to free the oppressed, to care for the rejected, to uplift the marginalized, to regard the overlooked, and to empower the powerless. No, Jesus calls that out quite readily. And the lesson for us is to not only learn to do the same, but ALSO to remember to distinguish, to the best of our ability, between actor and action, between a person with inherent worth and value, and their actions, which can be objectionable to us, even abhorrent.
This parable calls out any notion we might have of squandering that which has been entrusted to us, and therefore asks us to recognize and engage the gifts we have. And, perhaps more importantly, it calls out any belief that such gifts are for our benefit alone. For this parable comes in the middle of other parables, all of which Matthew has linked together – along with his characteristic impending judgment – to demonstrate how we are to use our gifts to work for the kin-dom, to be salt and light in the world, to embody the promise of Emmanuel, God with us. That is precisely what I think that this parable addresses with this cryptic and kind of coarse slogan at the end – “Those who have much will receive more, and they will have more than they need. But as for those who don’t have much, even the little bit they have will be taken away from them.” I might say it this way – it only works if you work it. It is when we think ourselves not up to the task or, worse yet, unworthy, that what we have is diminished, taken away as it were. What we find when we give from what we have, from the gifts God has given us, is a return on investment that surpasses what we might imagine.
God has invested in us…some of that “pre-seed” investment that really doesn’t rely on a set plan for our lives, or a blueprint that we are fated to follow, but instead invests in us, who we are and the gifts we have, and then accompanies us as we seek to use those gifts. And we ought to seek to use those gifts we have, the parable asserts, and not bury them or hide them away. What is your gift? I don’t know. I have some good ideas about a lot of you, but that’s between you and God. And how do you use those gifts? I don’t know that, either. That is also something you must discern with God, seek out as if you were looking for a job. There are want-ads all around you, of course, but it is you who must decide what you give and where.
This is the week of Thanksgiving – a holiday that deserves much more attention in my book because it celebrates something in which we should place much more of our energy and focus – gratitude. In a culture that trains us to clamor for “more, more, more”, Thanksgiving asks us to pause and consider what we have…and to be grateful for it. For those of us who have lost people close to us, this marks the beginning of a season that can be challenging, and it is also a chance for us to recognize what we do have – the connections that still exist, the relationships that we are still a part of, the people who are still in our live…for if there is one thing that death reminds us of, it is that life is short and the time to start using your gifts is now. The time to say, “I love you,” is now. The time, to paraphrase the great poet Mary Oliver, to plan what you want to do with your one wild and precious life is now.
Happy Thanksgiving, Fellowship. I am grateful for you.
Amen.