Who is God for you?
I don’t mean the official statements, the Creed we will recite after this sermon. I don’t mean the images of the prayers we say.
Who is God when you’re alone? Who is God when you’re at work, or with your family, or awake in the middle of the night?
Some of us grew up with a harsh God, an unreasonable and dangerous deity who had to be placated at every turn.
Some of us learned of a loving God, so gentle and forgiving that we never really had to fear judgment.
Some of us, perhaps, met a God who is awesome, powerful, but compassionate and merciful.
It matters how we see God.
All of our readings today call us to be awake and alert for signs of God’s return. They all describe a God who wants to be with us, wants us to desire partnership, but who will not put up with a sham relationship. As a friend of mine says, God is not co-dependent. There are consequences.
It matters how we see God.
In fact, our images of God are self-fulfilling prophecies, as we learn from the Gospel.
When the master goes away, he doesn't leave exact instructions. He entrusts the servants with huge amounts of money - even one talent was years’ worth of wages - and he leaves. He knows that each servant has different capacities, so he gives them different amounts, but even one talent showed a lot of trust.
We don’t hear from the first two servants how they see their master, but we can guess from their behavior. They each go out and risk losing the money in order to double it. They apparently are not afraid of the master’s judgment.
The third servant, however, is the real center of the story. This one is already afraid of his boss. That fear paralyzes him so that the best he can do is no harm. And that is his undoing. He is cut off from the master, even before the master comes home and throws him out. He has cut himself off by his belief and his fear, and his actions follow from his belief. The actions are exactly those that will lead to an angry judging master.
Have you ever had an encounter with someone who you feared or resented, and found that your fear and resentment led you to provoke the other? I certainly have. My heart closed, my eyes closed, to the possibility of a new relationship. I was so settled in my old story about the other person that I couldn’t see anything new, so I treated them as if they were that person I expected. And lo and behold, that’s who they turned out to be!
The third servant could not see what the master actually did with the other two servants. When each of them risked and gained, the master did not just take what they had earned. He instead gathered them into the joy of the master - a way of describing partnership. He promoted them.
Now, we don’t know what would have happened if the first two had come back and lost everything. That’s a clue that this story isn’t really about things that can be lost in that way. It’s about treasure that can be buried, but never lost by being risked. Or, it can only be lost by being buried.
What is that treasure?
Reading the end of Matthew’s gospel, we get the answer. The Gospel itself is the treasure, the news of God in Christ.
We are not given that treasure to bury it in our hearts.
We are given that treasure to share it, to risk being fools for Christ, to call others to this adventure of life. We are called to use every resource at our disposal, every gift given us by God, to make disciples of Jesus.
As Paul says, we are to encourage one another and build up each other, to keep awake for opportunities.
This risky behavior turns out to be the safest path.
John Buchanan has written: “The greatest risk of all, it turns out, is not to risk anything, not to care deeply and profoundly enough about anything to invest deeply, to give your heart away, and in the process risk everything. The greatest risk of all, it turns out, is to play it safe, to live cautiously and prudently.”
If we think that the risk is too great, we can gain resolve by looking at the alternatives.
We may think there’s a safe place out there, a quiet corner where we can be sheltered from the effects of sin and chaos.
Think again.
In our day, global warming is swiftly making parts of the planet uninhabitable. Population explosions are exceeding our ability to provide food and living space for everyone. Income inequality generates violence and resentment. While the U.S. does not have suicide bombers, we do have a higher rate of violent death than Iraq or Afghanistan.
As Zephaniah says, neither our silver nor our gold will be able to save us when the sea levels rise or a new Ice Age comes.
I am not blaming these on an angry God. We don’t have to go that far.
I am saying that God is not co-dependent.
God will not rescue us if we are determined to destroy ourselves and one another.
The greatest risk of all, it turns out, is to play it safe.
When we do risk, when we venture out with our Gospel treasure, we win. There’s no way to lose.
The more we share, the more we have.
If we run into ridicule, or exclusion, or indifference, or even persecution, we have still had the joy of connecting with the source that made it worthwhile. If you don’t hear a word I say today, I still have the privilege of thinking and praying and writing and speaking about the Gospel.
But maybe, just maybe, you will be set on fire. Maybe you will go home and tell someone else about the treasure you find in a life shared with Christ. Maybe you will speak out about where you see signs of God’s hope, and God’s pain. Maybe my little risk will pay off. Maybe I, and you too, will enter into the joy of our master.
May it be so.
