Mercy Investments

Mercy Investments -
Matthew 25:14-30

                Have you ever heard of an inverted stewardship initiative?   One where the church gives you money?  What would you do if I handed you a $100 bill?  There are three conditions: remember that it’s God’s money, invest it in God’s mission and report back in 90 days.  In the year 2000 a California pastor gave out 100, $100 dollar bills - $10,000.   Amazing things happened.  Lives were transformed; the hungry were fed; the sick comforted.  The pastor wrote that the idea originated with the movie, Pay it Forward, and was rooted in the Parable of the Talents.[1]    While I can afford to give the children Round-tuits, I don’t have $100 bills for you.

                You won’t be surprised to hear that the idea was picked up by other churches.  You won’t be surprised to also hear that the idea picked up some criticism.  One critic pointed out that rather than cast $10,000 out in $100 chunks to be invested in isolated ways the funds would have a greater impact invested together in a deliberative fashion. 

                RUC, you are investors like the first steward of Jesus’ Parable - taking great talent and investing it for greater good.  You’ve given a significant portion of your benevolences to the Community Ministries of Rockville.   According to an estimate of Thom Stanton, RUC has contributed somewhere between one and a half to two million dollars.   And every dollar was likely exceeded doubly or triply by volunteer time.  Praise God, with courage and tenacity, RUC has shared its treasure, its time and its talent creating and sustaining the compassionate ministries of CMR.  

                They strive to tackle homelessness in Rockville?  They hope to create and run several homes for Rockville’s homeless.  CMR needs 100 $100 dollar bills or more so they can make down payments on homes.  They also need time and abilities.  They need volunteers for their Safe and Habitable Home Project.  They need people to call lonely seniors.   They need Spanish translators for the Kasemann Clinic, which, by the way has served 950 people since July.  Praise God for your good investments of compassionate talent.

                The talent from Jesus’ parable was literally a weight between 57 – 80 pounds.  A talent of silver represented about 6000 days of a common worker’s wages.   A talent of gold was about 180,000 day’s wages.   Both were unimaginable treasures. 

                You know how the parable goes:  owner leaves on a trip, three servants were told to invest his property each given vast sums of wealth, the two with the greatest sums of wealth trade with them, keeping the blessings in circulation and the blessings magnify, the one cautious and fearful servant buries the 80 pounds of extravagance.  The potent talent tightly wrapped, its beauty bound from sight, hidden under soil, and captured by fear.  God’s compassion impounded.  When the owner returned, the servant was rebuked.  Prudence rebuked.  Fear rebuked.  The jailer of the blessings was rebuked.  

                What did Jesus mean?  What was a talent?  You know how parables are.   They are like late-morning, right before you wake up dreams.  Everything means something other than the obvious.  I dreamt this week that I was teaching people how to paint a home’s exterior.  What was my subconscious telling me?  Something about painting – or something about teaching  –  or something else, maybe a Habitat for Humanity something?  

                What does the talent represent in Jesus’ parable?   Is it financial?  Sure.  Disciples share the resources God’s entrusted to them in ministry.  Is it our gifts of abilities, our talents?  Amen.  Disciples invest the abilities God’s entrusted to them in ministry.   We, disciples, return to God God’s investment in us time, talent and treasure.  We love God caring for our neighbors and the world profoundly giving our hearts away.

                These interpretations of this parable are right, good and true.  Yet, in my studies, I was convinced of another interpretation.[2]   The talents are more dazzling than gold, more impressive than our abilities.  What the foolish servant buried was more marvelous than imaginable. 

                Did you know that our hearts are where our treasures are?    Who watches the Antiques Roadshow?   It’s about buried treasure, the things of our family’s heritage.  Often the treasure is found to have great financial value.   More amazing to me are the treasures of family, the treasures of heart: a great grandmother’s secretary from which she wrote loving letters to her son while in World War I’s Europe, the six generation wedding ring, the timeworn cedar chest holding a family’s ancient quilts.   Maybe, the buried talent was a treasure of heart, of relationships?

                My father is a treasure hunter.   As children, he hunted with me and my two brothers on the farm where he grew up.  We looked for a bag of gold coins his grandmother hid under a tree root, we looked for Civil War relics, and we looked for a wooden, toy gun.  I was more interested in the toy.  Rationally, I realized it was rotted away.  Yet, I hunted anyway looking in the fence rows and under bushes.  The toy was a heart gift; it represented a stranger’s kindness.   When my dad was a young boy, one of General Patton’s tank battalion’s practiced maneuvers on their farm.   One young soldier was particular kind to my dad, telling stories and teaching life.  Before they were deployed, the man whittled Dad the marvelous toy gun.   We never found the remembrance of kindness.  We don’t know what happened to the young soldier.  

                It was a good mercy investment.  My dad magnified the treasure’s lesson.  Like that young soldier he pays attention to the little ones.  He has ever been a joy around children, kind and loving.  Our heart’s wealth magnifies through use.

                Two of the stewards invested the treasures and they were magnified.   Maybe they invested God’s mercy and the mercy grew as amazing grace?  What did Jesus value so much he metaphorically named it a talent, a colossal sum of wealth?  The parable is about the Kingdom of God.  It’s nestled within parables on the Kingdom of God.  Jesus’ talent may represent his teachings, the wisdom of God’s way, the secrets of the Kingdom of God.   

                Greater than gold, the talents the stewards invested were the merciful teachings of Jesus practiced.   The talents were the justice teachings of Jesus practiced.  The talents were the secrets of Jesus practiced -- secrets teaching God’s love, secrets teaching love of neighbor.   

                Matthew 25 ends with a vision of God’s Kingdom, “‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory…. he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.   Then the king will say to those at his right hand, “Come, you that are blessed by Abba, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”

                The foolish steward buried the pearl of great price, Christ’s teachings of mercy.  He buried God’s heart.  He covered God’s light under a bushel.  He wrapped up and tucked away the healing stories of Jesus, the miracles of inclusion, the welcoming of children.   He imprisoned Immanuel, God with us.  Afraid to risk, the disciple hid away Jesus’ commands to love the least.

                The foolish stewards are alive and well in the world, within us and around us. 

Afraid to live the gospel investing mercy, the practical stewards entomb the transformative powers of Christ’s stories.   They forget stories like Rockville United’s heritage of love of neighbor through CMR.   They bury the story of two congregations coming together in unity to serve.    They want us to become absorbed in ourselves, to become oblivious of other’s suffering, to learn to hear only stories of fear and to hide our hearts away too.    Afraid there isn’t enough talent, isn’t enough time, isn’t enough will, they urge us to bury Jesus’ heart ways making them wistful memories.   The practical stewards claim we are too old, too small, and too busy.    And we hunt for relics of by-gone glory.

                But we will not bury the pearl of great price.  We cannot dig deep enough graves, strong enough graves to contain God’s mercy, Christ’s prophecies, or the Spirit’s justice making chaos.  We cannot hide Christ’s light under bushels of fear.   Invest Christ’s stories.  Invest God’s mercy.  Love will be magnified, our love will be magnified.  God will celebrate with us that our love is magnified.   

                Invest the gospel of Jesus in big and small bills, in minutes, months and major movements, in acts of kindness both smiles and down payments.  Give time, talent, and treasure as love of God and neighbor.   Dreaming and pray together where to invest next the great God-giving talents of this congregation.

                I close with poetry of George Bernard Shaw, “This is the true joy in life – that being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. That being a force of nature, instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for it’s own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch I’ve got to hold up for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it to future generations.” 

Amen.