| Calvary Episcopal Church, Rockdale |
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| THE 26th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 13 November, 2005 The Rev. Robert C. Granfeldt |
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Well, here we are at that time of year, again. You know what I mean – that time of year
when our Accounting Warden is struggling to build a budget; the Stewardship Committee
is sending out letters and pledge cards and speaking (briefly, I promise you) at Sunday
morning services like today’s; and the Rector writes letters and is expected, of course,
to preach at least one Stewardship Sermon.
Actually, I jumped the gun. I preached my stewardship sermon back on the 16th of
October, but didn’t say so! You may remember it: the one about Jesus’ enemies trying to
trap him with their question about paying taxes, and Jesus it back on them – the one
when I said that Jesus’ point was that EVERYTHING belongs to God – and NOTHING to
Caesar!
And now, here we are with this little parable, a month later. And guess what! It says just
about the same thing!
It’s actually one of the more difficult Gospel readings to preach about, for the rather
simple reason that it’s one of the most familiar of the parables that Jesus told, and one of
the most preached upon. And when it’s all been said before – what more is there to say?
After all, how many parables have been so widely known and preached that they’ve
actually contributed a word to the English language? I used to think it was just an
amazingly appropriate coincidence that the name of an ancient middle-eastern currency
should actually be the same as the English word we use to designate certain of the
special human abilities we have. The same word for a measure of value in commerce and
a human attribute; how wonderfully they come together in this parable. Until of course, I
found out the word “talent” came into the English language because of this parable in
the King James’ version of the Bible.
The problem, unfortunately, as is so often the case with anything that is tremendously
popular, anything that is really, really well-known, anything that has been talked about,
endlessly, is that it’s bound, eventually, to become just a little bit trite. And,
unfortunately, that’s what has happened to this parable – and to much that’s been said
about it.
How many times have we heard that every person has his or her own talents, however
humble they may be? And how many times have we heard, especially at this time of year –
stewardship season – that God wants us to put our talents to good use, to help people,
to improve the world, to serve him? Very true, of course; so true that we ought to
remember it all year ‘round, not just at stewardship time.
And so obvious and so over--told that the ideas, themselves, have become trite.
And making a parable of Jesus trite is to miss both the real importance and the depth of
Jesus’ teaching.
The first thing that needs to be realized in this parable is that the traditional form of the
story that we’re most familiar with – for most of us that means either the King James
version or the Revised Standard Version – is misleading in translation. Both tell us the
rich man in the parable calls his “servants” together, before his trip, and gives them his
goods for safekeeping. More modern translations are more accurate in calling them what
Jesus really said they were: slaves. It’s an important distinction, because the hearer is
meant to realize that these men – these slaves – have nothing of their own or on their
own. All they have is from and of their master. It all belongs to him – even their very
selves.
When he returns, he asks for an accounting. From two of the servants he receives back,
again, a multiple of what he’d left, and he’s very happy. But from the third, he gets back
just what he had given him – no less, but no more. The two who had increased what had
been entrusted to them, he praises and rewards with even more. The third, he punishes
and takes back what little the man has.
It’s at this point that most sermons begin talking about the “talents” which each of us
have, and making much of our varying abilities, our talents. One commentator used the
building of a cathedral to illustrate. “Jesus knew,” he wrote, “and clearly taught that men
differ in their talents. There are diversities of gifts. Some men draw plans for a cathedral,
some compose music for its organ, some carve the stone, and some build the road to the
door. But every man is talented. No man is without some gift essential to the building.”
How simplistic. How trite. How shallow that really is. When I read it, I wondered why the
writer didn’t go farther. Why didn’t he add, “some men dig the ditches that provide
drainage to the cathedral grounds – because they’re equipped to do nothing else –
because they have no other talent.” And why didn’t he add, “and some men beg at the
gate, because blind or crippled, they have nothing at all they can contribute to the
building”?
It is, quite simply, trite and simplistic to talk about “all of us” having talents, and “all of
us” having contributions to make. Trite, simplistic, and wrong, because it misses the
point of Jesus’ Parable, which is not about “talent” in our English language sense, at all –
that’s our corruption, and our language’s corruption. Jesus’ parable is much, much
deeper than that.
What it’s about is our very selves.
The slaves in the story – and, again, it’s important to realize they are slaves, and not
servants – have nothing of their own or on their own – only what they receive – only what
they’re entrusted with – by their master.
We have nothing of or on our own – only what we’re entrusted with by out master, most
of all, and beginning with, our very selves, our very beings – our life itself.
The slaves are expected to take what they’re given and make it grow, make it increase.
We are expected to take what we’re given, which is our selves, and nothing more, who
and what we are, and make it grow, make it increase!
What we are required to do is nothing more – and nothing less – than become the
persons we are created by God to be; to fulfill the image God has of us in our wholeness;
to grow into ourselves, the persons our Father would have us become.
God’s greatest gift to us is not the talents or abilities which we may or may not have, but
our being, itself, who we are, and the person he calls us to be. That is our task, to realize
that person, to fulfill, in ourselves, that gift of being, of who we are, so that we can – both
in our lives and at the end – so that we can, in the words of the Prayer Book, “present
ourselves, our souls and bodies, a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice” unto God.
It is ourselves we are given to care for; it is ourselves we are required to present to the
giver – our God – improved, grown, fulfilled.
I knew a young lady – a wonderful, beautiful, intelligent, talented young lady – who lost all
the abilities she had, all her considerable talents. Struck down by illness at age 24, this
young lady lived the last seven years of her life as a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic,
unable to breathe, or to move, except for her face, unable to speak, but with a mind and
a personality untouched – locked into a body that just didn’t work. She could design no
cathedrals, compose no music, carve no stone, build no roads. She could dig no ditches,
nor even beg at the cathedral door.
What she could do was be herself. What she could do was continue to grow as a human
being, grow as the person she was and was called to become.
What she could do was love others, as God creates us all to do. And what she could do,
in the end, was present herself, her soul and her body, “a reasonable, holy and living
sacrifice” unto her Lord.
In those last seven years of her life, she “accomplished”nothing. She “did” nothing. She
“created” nothing.
Yet in those last seven years she grew even more into the incredible human being she
had been on the way to becoming when the illness struck. And in doing so, she had the
most profound effect imaginable on everyone she came into contact with. She changed
people’s lives. She changed people. Simply because, left with the barest minimum of
what it means to be human – left with no “talents” or abilities, whatever -- she did such a
wonderful job of BEING human – of BEING the person the Father had created her to be,
and of BECOMING even more, that person.
There is nothing trite in Jesus parables, nothing trite in his teachings. What Jesus and
his teachings are about is life, itself, the God who is the creator of life – of our lives, and
of what our God requires of his creation, and of his children. The Stewardship we talk
about is such a minor thing; such a small thing. Of COURSE we give of our treasure and,
yes, our talent to the Church – it’s OUR Church – and to God’s work in the world It’s OUR
work, OUR world! He has given us our lives, our very beings. What he REALLY wants is
that we grow in what he’s given us, improve in what and who we are, and come back to
him, presenting him with the increase: “a reasonable, holy and living sacrifice” unto God.
We should ask Him to accept nothing less.
In Jesus Christ’s Name. Amen.
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