BURIED TALENTS
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A Sermon preached at the Mint Methodist Church,
Exeter, Prisoners’ Sunday - |
“I was
afraid and went out and hid my talent in the ground”
Mt 25:25
On the
face of it, the parable we have just read
is a straightforward endorsement of capitalism.
A businessman gives his middle managers some money to invest.
Two of them use it to play the market
or perhaps to attract additional venture capital
from elsewhere to float new businesses.
They make megabucks.
One guy meanwhile doesn’t trust the markets –
he stuffs the money under his mattress.
He is roundly condemned for his foolishness and timidity.
But this
parable is not about the stock market –
Jesus is not talking about the investment
or laying out of financial capital, but spiritual capital –
what do we do with our lives, our gifts our abilities –
do we use them recklessly for God, or do we bury them
out of harm’s way?
In the mid 19th C
there was a famous Master of Trinity Cambridge
who was called Dr Whewell.
He had a notoriously low view
of the intellectual gifts of his undergraduates.
On one occasion he was preaching on the parable of the talents.
He retold the story of how
one servant was given 5 talents, one 2 and one one
talent –
then, having peered at his congregation of undergraduates, said,
“I think, gentlemen, in present company,
we need only concern ourselves
with the fate of the man with one talent.”
Far be it
from me to judge the talents before me today.
Though I might say this –
as we start planning how this Church might grow and develop
over the coming years,
I am increasingly struck by the many many gifts
God has given to his people here-
and if we really lay them out for God to use –
gosh, what might we not achieve???
But having said that,
I suspect that some of us still tend to identify ourselves
with the one talent guy.
And I
wonder if like him,
we are sometimes tempted to dig a hole and bury our meagre gifts?
Maybe
with all these high flying 5 talent guys around,
my odd talent isn’t frankly going to make much difference –
better just keep it to myself.
But every
talent counts.
“The woods would be very silent
if no birds sang except those that sang best”
Your
talent counts.
I went to buy a 1000 piece jigsaw at the autumn fair –
I said to Claire Smith “Are all the bits there?”
And sensing a gullible customer, she said
“Why don’t you buy it and see – then you’ll know”
Well I bought it to give to my mum and dad –
in due course I’ll find out – what will it look like?
When it’s done what will my comment be?
“What a superb picture of Exeter Cathedral”??
Or “There’s a bit missing”.
Every bit
counts
Your
talent – whatever it is, however small it may seem –
is needed to complete the picture of God’s love.
A man walks along a Californian beach
one morning after a storm.
Thousands of star fish
have been tossed onto the beach in the night.
Now the tide is receding and the sun rising.
Soon they will all die.
The man walks along,
every now and again stopping to bend down
and throw one back into the sea.
A friend says to him – Why bother –
there is thirty miles of beach ahead of you –
there must be 100s of thousands of star fish -
what difference are you making?
The man bends down and throws another fish back –
Well, he says –
I guess I made a difference to that one.
Your one
talent counts to every single one for whom you use it.
A lot of
what I am saying this morning
is especially for our pastoral visitors.
God has given you the gift of compassion and love and care –
don’t bury your love – put it to work!
But the
message is really for us all -
every one of us is called to care for each other.
God has given every one of us the precious gift of love and compassion.
And to each of us he says:
don’t bury my gift or hide it away – use it – make a difference.
Today is the 17th November, the Feast Day of St
Hugh of Lincoln,
the Saintly Bishop who died on this day in 1200.
Bishops carry a shepherd’s crook
to symbolize their role as pastors
(and of course the word pastor means shepherd).
Some mediaeval bishops sadly carried a crook
but were very poor shepherds.
They were princelings not pastors.
Hugh was different.
He visited the poor, the sick and the dying,
embracing and caring for lepers.
His mediaeval biographer describes
watching Hugh care for the lepers:
“I shuddered …
to behold those swollen and livid diseased and deformed faces
with the eyes either distorted or hollowed out and the lips eaten away!
To an eye darkened by arrogance,
the pearl of God did not gleam in the mire.
But your servant Hugh,
whose eyes you had blinded to external superficiality,
saw clearly their internal splendour.”
The
pastor is called to care not just for some of the flock,
but for the very 100th and last sheep,
the saddest, sickest and most undeserving of the flock -
to recognize and cherish them as a child of God –
and to recognize the pearl even in the mire.
And so on
this Prisoners’ Sunday, Myra Hindley is dead.
And the
tabloids have trumpeted their glee and self righteous satisfaction
that she died imprisoned, unforgiven and hated.
But thank
God our example is not the editor of the Sun,
but the good shepherd who did not rest until the 100th sheep was
saved.
[and – however deep and dark your sorrow and sin –
that is God’s promise to you
even tho you be the very last sheep to stray]
The
literature for Prisoners’ Sunday this year
takes some words from Cain – “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Cain
assumes the answer is “No” –
But the
answer is “Yes”.
We are
called to love and care for our sister and our brother -
whoever they may be –
the prisoner, the murderer, the sick and the sad -
those literally imprisoned,
but also those imprisoned by unfulfilling relationships, economic squalor,
or broken bodies.
Every one is our sister and our brother.
BUT
sometimes we can be afraid to love others –
We all
know that if we offer ourselves to others,
we put ourselves in their hands.
We become vulnerable, as Abel did before Cain.
It
sometimes seems much safer to keep ourselves to ourselves –
- to bury
our talent safe away from anyone else
where it can come to no harm,
hug ourselves and withdraw from the world.
In other
words,
instead of working and loving and caring
and risking ourselves for the Kingdom,
we dig a hole and bury ourselves –
safe and sound and dead to the world.
“So I
was afraid and went out and hid my talent in the ground”
Jesus
says –that is the road to hell on earth –
the outer darkness.
Which is not to be understood as Jesus saying
that God will strike us down,
but rather that our inner self will eventually wither away
and become dark and chaotic
unless we take the risk of sharing with others
and giving and receiving love.
If you
saw the BBC TV series “Castaway” a couple of years ago,
you will recall the group of people
marooned for 12 months on Taransay in the Hebridees.
In one of the final broadcasts, one of the
Castaways, Toby,
reflected on the year of living with the community
and read a poem which he said had helped him –
“To
laugh is to risk appearing the fool,
To weep
is to risk being called sentimental.
To reach
out to another is to risk involvement.
To
expose feelings is to risk showing your true self.
To place
your ideas and your dreams before the crowd
is to risk being called naive.
To love is
to risk not being loved in return.
To live
is to risk dying.
To hope
is to risk despair,
To try
is to risk failure.
But
risks must be taken,
because the greatest risk in life is
to risk nothing.
The person who risks nothing, does nothing,
has nothing, is nothing, and becomes
nothing.
He may
avoid suffering and sorrow,
but he simply cannot learn, feel,
change, grow or love.
Chained
by his certitude, he is a slave;
he has forfeited his freedom.
Only the
person who risks is truly free."
So what
does God give to you today?
He gives
you life and love.
And he
says,
Don’t be
afraid to use my gifts –
take
a risk –
Share
them around amongst friends and enemies alike -
Whatever
you do, don’t bury them.
Yes,
opening yourself up to people,
loving people, is a risky business,
you
may sometimes get hurt.
But, says
Christ, did I not say “take up your cross and follow me”?
And
though the way of the cross
may be one of suffering,
it is also the ultimate path of
love, peace and joy and life eternal.
God gives
you all his love and life – don’t bury it – share it.