Message: Taking Risks

$450,000 dollars!  What would you do if Danielle Smith walked in and handed you $450,000? Or you happened to be in the audience of an Oprah Show and she said, “you get money and you get money and you get money, everybody gets money!”

And the dollar bills start falling from the ceiling and everyone goes nuts!  Wow! Look at it all!  Woo hoo!  Money!

Now you may be saying, hold on a moment, the people in today’s parable didn’t get almost half a million dollars, they got a measly talent.  Why are you blowing this out of proportion? After all, we know what this parable is about.  It’s about wise investing and not just our money but our skills and aptitudes, right?

Well, yes and no.  It’s easy to overlook this particular parable because we’ve heard it so many times.  Same old same old.  But we forget that parables were told by Jesus to shock his listeners.  The stories were like a defibrillator to their souls, to surprise them and help them think of the world in a new light.  Jesus didn’t intend this story to be boring or predictable!

So let’s put it into a bit of context.  First of all, remember that he is talking about a master and his servants in the Roman empire.  Chances are they are not servants, they are slaves.  They don’t have the right to go on strike or switch jobs without permission.  They do what they are told and they don’t need resumes because they have the job for life.  No retirement plan either unless they have a compassionate master.  But they get two square meals a day and a roof over their heads if they are working hard.  And it’s all about pleasing the master because if you don’t, you could be out on your ear and homeless at the snap of a finger without a severance package, a recommendation or anything other than the clothes on your back.

The master decides to leave his slaves in charge as he goes on a long journey.  He hands them some money.  A talent, which in the Greek is talanton which meant weight, probably the equivalent of a ton of gold or as one commentator said, 15 year’s wages for an average citizen.  That’s what the third slave gets, 15 years wages! 

So at $15/hour, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, over 15 years, a talent is about 450 thousand dollars!  The other two slaves must have been even more astonished.  The first got two and a quarter million dollars, the second got almost a million.  No wonder they invested that money in some kind of interest-bearing project.

The third slave got considerably less, probably because the master knew he wouldn’t be able to wrap his mind around such a huge sum of money.  But still, almost half a million dollars without any instructions is a pretty impressive windfall for anyone.

How many of you would throw half a million dollars into a clay pot and dig a hole in the back yard and bury it there for safe keeping?  Or would you throw it in a checking account?  I think most people would figure out some way to earn interest, it’s a bit of a no brainer.  Back in the time of Jesus, burying a few coins was not unusual, it was similar to putting money into a mattress.  Back then there were no bank machines on every corner and no credit cards.

So, the third slave buried his money to keep it safe.  Then when the master came back, the slave came up with a million excuses as to why he did nothing with the money.  He didn’t want to take a risk with the money.  He didn’t trust the master’s judgement, he didn’t want to disappoint him, and he didn’t want to take a chance.    And he tried to shift the blame to his master.  It’s your fault I don’t take risks.  It’s your fault I want to make sure to please you. 

Except this cautious approach didn’t please the master.  The excuses didn’t land well especially since the other two slaves did invest their windfall.  The third slave could have simply asked the first two for advice on where to invest.  Instead, he chose the easy way, the simple way, the way that didn’t take him out of his comfort zone.  He chose not to risk.

One of the six hallmarks of a thriving church is the willingness to take risks.  In fact one minister described their thriving church as one that had a high risk appetite. He said “we're comfortable with failure and excited to try different things to get different results.”  Sounds like they take this parable to heart!

Taking risks might be as simple as sharing our events on Facebook even though we get push back.  Taking risks might be wearing a rainbow pin.  Taking risks might be challenging people to not gossip about others.  Taking risks might be coming to our Trans day of remembrance potluck tomorrow evening where we will commemorate people who risk their lives just by leaving their homes to shop for groceries.  Taking risks might be trying a new mission idea to help our community become safer for others. Taking risks might be handing out sandwiches to our neighbors.

As Jesus said, a life with zero risk is a terrible way to live because it means that fear drives every choice we make.  And as Paul wrote, we are children of honesty, called to live lives of openness, trustworthiness and compassion.  We are called to live with courage and with encouragement and with risk taking because God has trusted us with abundance and sees us as talented and beloved.  May we see ourselves as God sees us, capable of risk and courage as we live into God’s vision of what the world could be like if we loved and worked as Jesus did.  Let us be grateful risk takers for God’s vision! Amen.

Rules vs love

There’s nothing more annoying some days than losing my poppy.  It’s gotten to be a bit of an obsession with me.  I keep my poppies from year to year, stuck to a cork board so I won’t go without.  I have tried bending the pin.  I have horded poppies.  I have checked as I’m leaving a place to make sure I haven’t lost them.  All because I fear the censure and judgement of people who assume that my lost poppy is a sign of disrespect to veterans, that it is unpatriotic or unCanadian. And it’s not all in my imagination either.  There have been times when people who are normally nice, kind people have let loose a diatribe or scathing remark about my empty collar without asking if I lost it.  They assumed bad intentions and they judged my character and they let me have it.

I’m sure they, like the religious scholars Jesus was talking about, had good intentions.  We do need to remember the dreadful cost of war, the dreadful consequences when totalitarian dictators brainwash voters with us vs them rhetoric.  But I think we do need to be careful when we hear people put rules ahead of love.

There’s a house in Edmonton that was set up for moms who wanted to get off the streets and get sober.  Some were fleeing the drug trade, some were running away from a toxic childhood home, or bad boyfriends.  Some had lived under bridges, and some had couch surfed.  The ones who had children under 5 had nowhere to turn.  If they went to a homeless shelter, they would lose their children to the system.  And they all had to be sober for three months before they could access social service programs and treatment centres.  Three months can be a long time when you don’t know where to find a safe haven.  When I first visited, I was told that the residents might be afraid of me.  Because I was white, I looked like a social worker.  And social workers took children and babies away.  They would even show up in the maternity wards before the moms were released!  The rules were more important than love but the group home made love more important than rules.  Whatever happened, everyone was committed to keeping the children safe.  That was their mission, their purpose, and they were committed to that rule of love.

Generosity is the same.  If we are being told to be generous because of the rules, instead of love, it, as Paul says, it’s extortion.  That is what Jesus was pointing out when he showed the poor widow giving her two cents.  She was giving for love, but the hypocritical leaders of the church were pushing her to such giving because of the rules.  We learned last week that you can’t get to heaven in a rocking chair.  Well, a visa card or fat check book won’t do it either.

It’s important to be intentional and loving with our money, just as we are called to be intentional and loving with our words and our actions.  When we think things through carefully with intention, there’s a fancy word for that, discernment, which is a spiritual practice.  It’s when we choose how we use money and where we use money.  Society doesn’t want us to take time to think about purchases, they want us to spend emotionally.  They want us to grab that extra chocolate bar at the till, become addicted to the shopping channel, spend money on the latest eye-catching gismo we see on the internet, or the coolest thing out of the latest Hammacher catalogue.  I have just got to get that glow in the dark motion sensor toilet seat that doubles as a nightlight!  Really?

We are called to remember that we can’t get to heaven on such an amazing throne, available for the low price of 16.99, with free gift wrap included, even if we do qualify for free shipping.  That is not about love of God, love of neighbor, love of self.  On the other hand I don’t think we should be like Elon Musk, who when the U.N. claimed that 2% of his wealth would solve world hunger, retorted that he didn’t believe the U.N. could save millions of lives with such a donation.  His cynicism is a way of justifying his $311 billion dollars.  And what about folks who spend 250 to 300 thousand dollars to get a ride into space?  So maybe we can get to the heavens with a big enough bank account, but where’s our love, our ministry, our mission, our caring for God’s neighbor in that?

Compared to Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, we may feel more like the poor widow who only has two cents to rub together.  But we do have a false sense of our own economic status when we only compare ourselves to millionaires or billionaires.  Compared to many around the world who live on $5 a day, we are wealthy too.  So how do we find a healthy relationship with money that falls into our Christian ethic without either giving away everything we own in guilt or hording everything we have in fear?

Nathan Duncan teaches church goers that most of us fall into one of three categories: we are savers or spenders or sharers.  He encourages us to think about where we need to save more, where we could spend more, and how we could share more in a healthy balance.  We should never be like the Widow woman giving her last coins to the church, nor should we be like the hypocrites who demand money from people so they can wear their fancy outfits and show off in church.  When we share, let us do so with careful discernment and love.  When we save, let us do so with careful discernment and love.  When we spend, let us do so with love. Love, not rules.

Intentions matter.  I intend no disrespect to veterans when my poppy slips off my coat.  The social workers I’m sure didn’t intend to traumatize the moms but make sure the babies were safe. But let’s err on the side of love in all that we do, because we are loved and called to love in everything we do.  Rules can be loving and health-giving, but ultimately, God calls us to healthy relationships and balance, even healthy relationships with money.  By discerning and loving, we can make healthy choices that benefit both ourselves and our neighbors, and helps bring God’s heaven a step closer to earth for us all.  May we work together to build Heaven on Earth for all God’s children.  Amen.

Looking for Loopholes

 

Do you ever wonder how other people seem to have an unshakable faith?  How they seem to have all the answers? How they know with certainty what we wish we could believe in with such certainty too? 

I know I have moments where I wonder if there’s a God and what kind of God there is.  Why the world is the way it is, especially right now, and where is God in the midst of all these changes.

So it’s really refreshing to hear today’s scripture about Moses.  How he had experienced a burning bush and that wasn’t enough to make him sure and certain.  How he had gone back to Egypt despite his fears and certainties and was allowed to talk to the very Pharaoh himself and that wasn’t enough to erase his doubts.  How he had been reunited with his birth family and that wasn’t enough.  How he parted the reed sea and that wasn’t enough.  How his people were fed in the desert and found water in the rocks and that still wasn’t enough.  How he had clouds leading by day and fire by night and that still wasn’t enough.  How he was given a constitution for his community and even that wasn’t enough.  Somehow it seems like maybe he was looking for a loophole.  Looking for an excuse that would weasel him out from having to do the hard work of leading the people.  Of having these difficult conversations on the tops of mountains where he was maybe half-afraid of what God would ask him to do next.  Or maybe he was looking for a guarantee that the difficult things were behind him and with God in his pocket, the future was going to be nothing but sunshine and roses.

The scribes and Pharisees were also looking for loopholes, a way to get rid of Jesus, and a way to duck out of taxes.  Paying the government with money carved with the image of a man and words on the coins declaring that man a God contravened the second commandment about graven images.  Looking for a loophole that meant they could disregard Jesus or discredit him in front of the people he was teaching.

We look for loopholes in our lives too, look for ways to duck taxes or avoid changing our behaviors.  When I hear of people suing schools and restaurants over masks without a doctor’s letter, or wandering around in grocery stores defying the signs clearly posted, or when I listen to store clerks frustrated with customers coming in deliberately putting the clerks in uncomfortable positions, I wonder why they are so determined to look for loopholes.

When it comes to loopholes, Christianity doesn’t make it easy. We are to engage in the present circumstances with an eye to the future, what Jesus called the Kingdom of Heaven, something we work towards while living in the now in all its uncertainty.  On one hand, we pay taxes.  On the other hand we keep vigilance for abusive uses of those same taxes.  We are called to both obey and challenge.  Pay to the Emperor what is the Emperor’s and pay to God what is God’s.  Be clear that the Emperor is not God and be clear on our own loyalties.

We are living in a time when many people don’t think about God.  They may not have a connection with God.  They may have bought the idea that they are God and expect to be treated as such.  No regulations or rules for them!  They are not interested in community or what is best for their neighbors or even their family.  They are interested only in making a comfortable life.  This time in history has profoundly shaken up that ideology. 

We may not be able to change them, but we can look at ourselves.  Like Moses, we can take time to ask God some tough questions.  Where are you God?  How do we know you are with us?  How do we know you will be kind to us?  How do we know you are leading us?  We may need to prepare ourselves to hear some tough questions back.  Are we putting God first in our lives?  What does that look like?  How does that impact what we do and how we do it?  Are we paying taxes to our community in appropriate ways or are we looking for loopholes to dodge our responsibilities to the land we live in?  What belongs to God and what do we need to do to pay it back? 

Thinking about putting God first in my life was a big part of my sabbatical this summer. I spent a lot of time reading and praying about leadership and about this community of faith.  One of the practices I added was a daily moment of self-reflection modelled on Ignatius of Loyola.  He recommended we take some time each day asking ourselves if we have given to God that which is God’s, where we have looked for loopholes and where we have seen God’s face.  Like Moses, we mere humans can’t see more than God’s back side, but if we pay attention, we will see God at work in our lives.  Give it a try this week.  Last thing at night or first thing in the morning, ask for God’s help to understand and appreciate the day.  Look for things to be grateful for.  Review the feelings you had.  Choose one of those feelings (positive or negative) and talk to God about it.  Look toward to the new day and ask that God be with you.  We can use these as prayers or journal prompts.  The practice has brought me a sense of peace and hope that has renewed my commitment to you and to God.  It might not be as dramatic as what Moses experienced on the top of the mountain, but in these difficult times it has certainly helped me remember to give to God that which is God’s, my daily living.  It’s comforting to know that God is with us, nudging us along, and quietly growing and supporting us so that one day we may be able to see God face to face like Moses did.  In life, in death, in life beyond death, God is with us, we are not alone!