Second before Advent / Remembrance

1 Thess 5.1-11; Matt 25.14-30.      13.11.11

A record number of poppies have been sold this year. Remembrance Day has a renewed place in the life of our nation. It’s so right that young children from Western our Church School shared their prayers and pictures with us today. Remembrance is an integral part of their education.

Together here, in this church, we give thanks for all who have given their lives in the two World Wars of the last century and more recently.

Iracq and Afganistan, have reminded us of the cost; the terrible human cost, of armed conflict.  We pray especially today for families who have lost loved ones, in Afganistan, this last year. Our hearts go out to them.  

We pray fervently for an end to all wars, and for peace with justice the world over.

Since the end of the 2^nd World War the quality of life for the majority, (but not all), people, in the Western World has gradually increased.

The last few decades have seen prosperity that the soldier, sailors, airmen and civilians of 1939-1945, could only have dreamed of.

We, in the Europe of today, are faced with an economic,  financial and political crisis on a mind boggling scale. Surely one of the ways we can honour our war dead is to face the future with the courage, resilience, and action they exemplified and embodied.

The question is: “What are we going to do, or continue to do, or do that bit better; with love and joy, as our ongoing response, to the freedom we have been given. It’s crystal clear, that there is no place in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for the lack lustre and the luck warm.

Today’s Gospel spells this out; and rather more clearly than is comfortable. We have a parable, in which activity is rewarded, and passivity condemned. The final verses are particularly challenging.

Living life, as it should be lived, is a theme that was ever-near to Jesus’ heart. He returns to it in this parable.

We can almost hear him saying: "ask, risk, venture, try, use your gifts, give yourself rather than hoard yourself, don’t leave others to do all the work".

Words like this are implied in every line of this parable. Two of the servants, or slaves, take a risk. They are congratulated and rewarded. The third refuses and is roundly condemned.

The third servant’s reason is interesting:

Master I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you didi not scatter seed;so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.

I wonder what Jesus had in mind when he put this bit of dialogue into the story. Perhaps Jesus is saying that this is how some people think of God – harsh, fickle, even cruel. If we read on, it seems that the Master is riled, not so much by the loss of his investment, as by the description of himself that we’ve just heard. Perhaps we can hear angry sarcasm in the words:

you knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter.

Now comes the most important , and very hard part,  of this parable;

take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all who have, more will be given…but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.

This is amongst the harshest things Jesus ever said. And we find it very, very difficult.

It helps to be clear that this parable is really not about little bags of gold.

It’s about the gift of human life that we all receive. It’s about the particular gifts that we as individuals are given. It’s about, how we use, or invest these gifts. It’s about the attitudes with which we come to the living of life.

For example: if our attitude to reality – or God – is that we are dealing with a cunning enemy, who is harsh, fickle and cruel  -  then we will never venture onto the stage of life to play out our role, and to speak our part.

Fear takes over. Fear will freeze both our legs and our tongues; and whatever part we would have been able to play, with our limited gifts, will become impossible.

In the words of the parable:

even what we have will be taken away.

Even our limited part in the play of life will be taken. 

On the other hand, if we are prepared to see reality – or God – as the gift of our lives, and whatever particular gifts we’ve been given, then we can walk onstage; confident that God wants us in the cast. We can offer what we have and what we are, and when we have gained courage and gathered confidence, from experience, we will find more and more satisfaction in the part that we play.

Again, in the image of the parable:

more will be given.

This insight from the Lord can be expressed in terms of the stage. It’s equally true about our spiritual journey; our inner lives. If we make no investments in this dimension of ourselves, our spirit wastes away, drying up like a plant left un-watered.

We lose even what God has given us. This is a stern warning. Words from our Vision Day a year ago are particularly relevant and stand the test of time.

 We are called:

to nurture our inner lives to energise the way we live.

This is a tough Gospel with a very strong message. Today you and I are challenged to take it with the utmost seriousness.

We do this, as part of our honouring, of those we remember today who died for our freedom. The last verses of today’s Gospel reading make very tough reading. Notice how vehemently the servant is condemned: 

as for this worthless slave throw him out into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

We need to remind ourselves that this punishment is not for what he did, but for what he did not do. We often tend to think that God is exercised about our misdeeds. It comes as something of a shock to realise, that God may be a good deal more exercised about the deeds we do not do.