Irresponsible Privilege

Matthew 25: 14-30

Perfectionism just thrives inside the beltway. If you look around this room, I bet you’ll spot many perfectionists in our midst. At the root of this all, is the fear of failure. If we’re not perfectionists, we may still be ridden with self-absorption and anxiety, with the persistent thought that we’re not good enough. Not good enough parents, not good enough for the job we really want, not good enough to find someone to spend the rest of our lives with, not good enough to be and do all that we’ve ever wanted. Or all that God has ever wanted for us. That is if God really is a loving supportive God, and not the demanding punitive one.

For the first slaves in our story, self-esteem is a not an issue. They receive their tasks, tailored to each one’s ability, and go about fulfilling their work. The last slave, however, is overcome by fear: he fears this master who is ruthless, who reaps what he does not sow. He wouldn’t be able to do the job anyway, so why try? Better to bury the talents so they will at least be safe. In the end, when confronted by the master, the slave doesn’t blame himself, he points his finger at the master, for being a cruel man who would never have been satisfied anyway. Maybe this is an accurate depiction of an assertive and creative God, or maybe it’s a fearful projection. It’s not his fear that matters, but his inaction in the face of it.

We are made in the image of a God who loves us. Our being begins and ends with God, how could we not value who we are?

The talents, whether we think of them as money or abilities are resources: God-given resources that the can be put to good use in service of the Commonwealth of God. We are responsible for our collective values, decisions, and stewardship. Like those slaves, we are both entrusted and accountable with much of sacred value.
The mistake for the third servant is the assumption that he had anything in the first place. The only thing he had of value belonged to the master and he sat on it, as if it were really his. No glory came out of it. What do we have that doesn’t ultimately belong to God? And who are we to squander that gift?
This idea of wasting God’s gifts reminds me of a poem by Marianne Williamson:
Our deepest fear
Is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear
Is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light,
Not our darkness,
That most frightens us.
We ask ourselves,
Who am I to be brilliant,
Gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people
Won’t feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us;
It’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people
Permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

We are entrusted with the glory of God, for the love of God. This isn’t glory so that we can outdo others, it’s glory and liberation for everyone. That we can glorify God through ourselves. Not that we can love only ourselves, that we can get over ourselves enough to love God and others. We don’t have to waste time wondering if we’re good enough, but we get out there and actually do something.
The talents come to represent power for the slaves. For those who invest well, they are given more. In this same story in the gospel of Luke, the productive ones are given more cities to rule. God has given us each a measure of power and influence in our own lives.
Now before you go off to take over the world, let’s think about what these means. If God gives us power that we are to invest and not squander, what does that mean? How do we use this power for good and not to co-opt others?
It’s easy for most of us to deny that we have any power or gifts: that we have nothing to bring to God’s kingdom, but ourselves. We may feel poor in earthly power, there’s a long list of people who have more.

The real truth is that every person in this room is powerful. As individuals, families, and congregation gathered here for worship: we have a lot of power. We need to use that to be involved in God, and not give in to the apathy of “there’s nothing I can do.”

The Carpenter’s Shelter, just up the street, provides many services for the city’s lost: the homeless, the hungry, the needy. The people who run the shelter and those who volunteer have a lot more power in the world than those who come seeking help. Generally, these are the people society who can hold a job, pay for their own housing, buy cars and groceries, balance their income, and invest wisely. They are self-sufficient citizens. The people who come seeking help have very little power in the world. For whatever circumstances in their lives, they are not able to play the game of life in America without guidance.
For this situation, it would be all too easy, for the powerful to help the needy without changing the hierarchy of power. Never ending hand-outs and bailouts would keep the helpless helpless.

In the shelter’s early years, its dedicated workers noticed that many folks who staid in the shelter and then left, would end up at the shelter again. Perhaps they had trouble keeping their job and paying the rent, or for some, the shelter was the safest home they had ever known. The Carpenter Shelter now provides an extensive list of programs that help people find jobs and keep them, helps them find and secure affordable housing, helps them get into college, helps in ways that break the cycle of dependency. Currently, for every 100 people who pass through their shelter, 90 never have the need to return. The shelter workers have not buried their talents, but have invested them in the people that they serve. They have used their power to empower others. They have used their privilege responsibly.

Think about verse 29: “For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away” (Matthew 25:29). In the midst of November, we find ourselves making our lists: our wish lists and our shopping lists: in the midst of thankfulness for what we have we face the excess consumerism of the Christmas season. We temper this with our charitable giving: so both our consumerism and our charity reach new heights. But we don’t hear as much about social change. Our Christmas consumerism and charity are all about this moment, but not usually about lasting changes.
VOICE stands for Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement. You’ll be hearing more about VOICE in the coming months, as we plan and dream about the future of the mission here at WSUMC.
VOICE represents a collection of faith communities: Christian, Jewish, Muslim, people of different backgrounds and economic levels all united around the common cause of improving life, based on the challenge to care for all of God’s children. They seek to work with the government to change policy, to help create more affordable housing, immigration reform, and affordable medical care.
They are faith communities who are coming together: combining their power and their influence to get the attention of elected officials: to work for the greatest needs of the Northern Virginia area. They are combining their power to help those without power.
The Rainbow Fish has everything when it comes to beautiful scales, but no friends. He gives away his scales, and so he looses, he only has one instead of many, but his scales are distributed among all of he new friends, and he has more than he ever had before. He loses most of his scales, but he becomes rich in friendship and love.

Love is one of those “talents” that easily multiplies the more it is given away. We can never run out of love. The more we love others, the more love we receive. Loving someone else means not being afraid: it means investing ourselves, our gifts, and abilities, in the world: in the lives of other people, and not hoarding everything to ourselves because we’re afraid we may have nothing to offer.

Jesus invested his whole life in the world. He gave us everything he had. On the night before he was arrested, he shared a simple meal with the few that he had entrusted to be a community of God in the world. They were a group of people, many of whom buried their talent in the face of fear, but who came to have enough faith in themselves and God to carry out Jesus’ work.
Jesus took food from the table: common, ordinary food and told another story with it. He picked up a loaf of unleavened bread, the kind their ancestors had eaten in Egypt, a bread already rich in redemption and said “it’s as if this were my body and its broken for you, that you may live, remember me when you eat it.” And he took a cup of wine, made from grapes and vines, grown out of God’s good earth and said “it’s as if this were my blood that is shed for you that you may have eternal life in God, think of me when you drink it.”