New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani says that, if you want to help New York City right now, you should buy a plane ticket and fly there, check into a hotel, eat dinner and take in a show.  Our instincts tell us to sit tight and not take any risks right now.  Yet, if we do, our fears will become self-fulfilling prophecies; we’ll slowly but surely rebuild our lives in the image of our greatest fear.  Out of the fear of not living we will actually do just that, stop living. 

That’s not just a principle of twenty-first century capitalistic economics.  Jesus said it’s that way, too, in the eternal Kingdom of God.  Jesus would often say, “‘the kingdom of heaven is like’” and then he would tell an earthly story to paint a heavenly picture.  Some of his stories had such an ancient or middle-eastern context they are hard for the modern western mind to grasp.  This is not one of them.  This is the story of a master who has three slaves.  You’re right there already, aren’t you?  Think of where you work.  Think supervisor, employee.  Are you there, yet?  Sure.  A master and three slaves. 

Each is entrusted with some of the master’s money.  A talent, to be specific.  A measurement of silver.  Each employee is given some of the company assets according to his supervisor’s perception of their ability to handle responsibility.  The boss goes off to earn some more frequent flier miles and then returns.  It’s annual evaluation time.  Each employee is asked to cough it up about how responsible he was when the boss wasn’t standing there looking over his shoulder.  Two get promotions.  One gets fired.  What’s the difference?  That’s what Jesus wants us to find out.  Because this isn’t about supervisors and employees.  This is about God’s kingdom and God’s servants.  The kingdom of God is like, Jesus said, like this.

God gifts us “‘each according to his ability.’”  We are not all equally gifted.  But, we are all gifted by the same God for the same ultimate purpose.  We will not be judged by God by how our gift compares to anyone else’s.  That doesn’t stop us, of course, from judging each other by how our gifts compare.  We are like little children sitting under the Christmas tree, one eye on the gifts we’ve been given and one eye on everyone else’s.  Unsatisfied with just knowing that we’ve been given gifts, we’re keeping tab on what everyone else got.  Are we loved as much?  How come they got five boxes and I only got three?  How come their box is bigger than mine?  How come he got that church?  That promotion?  That job?  That wife?  That house?  We grow older.  We don’t always mature.  And, we miss the point.  We’ll not be judged by the size of our gift in comparison to anyone else’s but what we did with what we were given in comparison to our ability.  Jesus says that is the way it is in the Kingdom of God.

So, two of the slaves, given “‘five talents’” and “‘two talents,’” put their money to work and double its value.  When the master returns he says to each of them, “‘Well done, good and faithful servant!  You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.’”  It’s that way in supervisor-employee relationships.  People who prove to be responsible are given more.  Jesus says that it works that way in the Kingdom of God, too.  We’re given the privilege of participating with God in doing his kingdom work.  We are blessed with gifts and opportunities.  He’s watching how we handle things; he knows who can be trusted with more.  We will give account.

Which makes me wonder about this one-talent guy.  I’d really like to know what it was that made him bury his talent and then lose it altogether.  And, I’m really wondering why it is I get so uncomfortable every time I read this parable and find myself more able to identify with him than the other two.  Why is that?

Actually, he reminds me of a time when my work ethic was in, let’s say, it’s embryonic stages of development.  I’m standing in front of my supervisor’s desk giving account.  I can’t remember what it was I had done.  More likely, it was something I hadn’t done.  I do remember that Jack Ridlehoover, my ministerial mentor in those days and these, was not happy.  “I’m really grateful to have this opportunity of working with you in this great church,” I said.  I’m thinking I’ll force his nicer hand by playing to his sympathetic side.  It didn’t work.  Whatever else Ridlehoover did, when he gave you a job, he held you accountable.  “I’m really grateful,” I said.  But, he cut me off at the “No Excuses” pass.  “You’re not acting like it,” was all he said.  At least, it’s the only thing I remember.  Except that we never had to have that conversation again.  His words tattooed my heart.  The kingdom of God is like, like that, Jesus said.  I really identify, even sympathize with, this one-talent guy.

He’s giving account.  It’s not something he’s done.  It’s something he hasn’t done.  You can tell by his tone he knows he’s toast.  But, he thinks he can force his master’s nicer hand by playing to his sympathies.  “‘I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground.  See, here is what belongs to you.’”  Do you hear it?  Describing himself as both afraid and responsible, he wants his boss to think he’s done him a favor.  By not losing what wasn’t his to lose, or gain, in the first place, only to use, he’s been a good hand.  It doesn’t work.  Cutting him off at the pass, the master describes him a different way.  “‘You wicked, lazy servant.’”  These are tough words, painful tattoos.  “‘Wicked’”?  The same word used in other places to describe Satan?  Is it that bad?  That evil? 

Well, maybe not if you’re into comparison.  The way we all tend to be.  Have you noticed?  Since September 11 hardly one word about Condit.  A Congressman exploiting interns for sexual pleasure can’t compare to the World Trade Center event.  So, for now, Condit is, by comparison, off the hook.  For now.  We’ll see.  He will, for sure.  Unlike us, God doesn’t judge by comparison.  Evil isn’t graded on the curve.  The lazy servant gets the same tattoo as Satan, wicked.  Does Jesus have our attention yet?

Let’s be clear.  The master, the one in whom Jesus wants us to see an image of God, isn’t grading on the curve.  He isn’t calling the servant “wicked” because his investment didn’t pay off like the others.  That’s not the point.  This is not a parent demanding straight “A’s” of an only “C” capable child.  This isn’t a father asking his youngest son, “Why can’t you be like your older brother?”  That’s not what this is.  This is a master who refuses to be remade in the image of his servant’s fear.  That’s it.  That’s the evil.

I once thought that the evil in this man’s life was his unwillingness take his gift and put it at risk for the sake of his master.  That evil is an unwillingness to risk what is neither ours to lose or gain, only use.  It’s evil to bury God’s gift instead of risking it for the sake of God’s kingdom.  And, that is part of what Jesus is saying.  Whatever we have we’ve been given we’ve been given to risk for the sake of the kingdom.  Before you run off thinking the preacher is crazy because he doesn’t know how many hours you put in this week to earn that paycheck I’d ask you to consider who gave you the legs to run with.  The mind with which to think.  The heart and lungs and eyes and, well, you see, it’s all gift.  It’s not ours to lose or gain, only to risk for the sake of the Kingdom. 

So, what is it that made those two young women, Baylor graduates, travel to Afghanistan and share Christ with Islamic fundamentalists at the risk of their very own lives?  How do people do that?  Only if they don’t think of their life as their “very own” but as a gift to be risked for the sake of something greater than just living a little longer and more comfortably.  Only if they believe in a God who is like a master who will someday take account of what they’ve done with what they’ve been given. 

Part of the evil in this one-talent man’s life was his unwillingness to put his gift at risk.  But, beneath all of that is something even more sinister.  It was his attempt to remake his master in the image of his own fear.  “‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed,’” he said.  Where did he get that idea?  Not from the master who had, in fact, entrusted him with a great deal.  His master even replied by saying, “‘you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed?  Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.’”  This man’s fears became a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Out of fear of losing, he did just that.  His fears became his false god.  And, here is what Jesus was saying that means.  Those who miss the kingdom will be those who, needing someone to blame for their failure to trust, go so far as to remake God in their own image. 

This is the serpent asking Eve in the Garden,  “‘Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden' (Genesis 3:1)?’”  Instead of taking God at his gracious word, “‘Did God really say?’”  This is religious extremism, liberal or fundamentalist, redefining God in its own image, destroying others.  This is the KKK invoking Jesus’ name at a lynching.  This is the very seed of the most evil of all evils, redefining God in the image of our own fear.  Once that seed is planted in the human heart, there is no controlling what crop will come up.  No telling what that lost heart will do in order to find someone to blame for its miserable existence!  It might even fly a jetliner into a skyscraper.  Or use those who do, by comparison, as an excuse for allowing the existence of what it perceives as lesser evils. 

Dr. Larry Williams took me to Fairfield this past week to see a little place he’s carved out of twenty-one acres of Freestone County for a retreat.  He’s built a tree house way back up in the woods, thirty feet above a creek.  We were sitting up there Thursday morning.  It was so beautiful and quiet.  Every now and then, a leaf would drop or squirrel would scamper.  And, all of it happening, like it has for thousands of years, without any input from me.  It was then that I realized that all this stress that keeps crawling up the backside of my neck and lodging itself migraine-like in my brain grows out of this illusion that, by working harder, I’m actually in control.  And, God didn’t call me to be in control, only faithful.

You see, the master of the slaves didn’t commend the return they got on their investment.  He commended their faithfulness.  Even if the one-talent guy had risked his gift and lost it, the master would have surely blessed his faithfulness in spite of his loss.  He, too, would have heard his master say, “‘Well done, good and faithful servant!  You have been faithful.’”  Not because he was in control and therefore able to guarantee the outcome of his investment, only because he was willing to risk it.  Oh, what might have been!

Nancy niece, Anna is twenty-five.  She’s always lived on the edge.  Since graduating from nursing school, she’s been practicing to be a mid-wife.  So far, she’s worked mostly in underdeveloped places in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.  She travels to all these places alone.  We stay half-afraid for Anna.  We never know where she’s going to call from or if she’s going to call at all.  She gets some kind of thrill out of investing her life in places most of us wouldn’t risk traveling in a group, much less alone.  But, one thing about her, she’s so alive!  The more she goes and risks, the more alive she gets!  I wonder what it is about risking everything most of us spend so much energy trying to protect that keeps her so alive? 

Every signal we get right now says, “Stay close.  Don’t go too far.  Watch out!  Protect what’s yours.  Buy a gun!  Better to be safe than sorry.”  But, do you think Jesus really meant it when he said, “‘whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it (Matthew 16:25)’”?  If there was ever a time for us to find out, don’t you think it’s now?  You and me.  Right now. 

If there was ever a time!