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Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Criminal Caution
Psalm 123; Matthew 25:14-30
It's annual pledge season again in the church. Leaders create a budget for the new year, hoping to find the balance point for faith and financial realism. Members do the math and make a commitment to give from their finite resources a fair amount that will help the church fulfill its mission.
All of this in the midst of a crazy uncertain economy whose daily market reports look like a tournament in extreme bungie jumping.
How timely then, that this week's Gospel story is a parable from Jesus about how to invest for God.
Three workers are entrusted by their wealthy boss with three amounts of money while he goes on an extended trip. Five talents, two talents, and one talent they're given. (A talent was a unit of weight, the value differing according to the coinage being weighed. Who knows the actual worth in this story? What we do know is these were pretty huge sums of money.)
When he returns, the employer calls for an accounting. Two of the three are rewarded nicely, but the third gets the rudest of awakenings -- just before his lights go out forever.
The story's not really about money, it seems. In fact, our English word "talent" means a skill, an ability, a personal gift for some good endeavor. And that's what Jesus is talking about in this scary, promising story.
Well, actually... It turns out... Once you start looking for practical applications... This story really is about money after all.
How so? Glad you asked.
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
3:48 PM
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Ready Or Not
Psalm 78:1-7; Matthew 25:1-13
Jesus is coming. Look busy!
So went a popular bumper sticker of a few years back.
The hope, or longing, or fear that Christ will return one day to finish what he began -- like, say, the salvation of the world, the righting of all wrongs -- began even before his first coming came to an abrupt and brutal end on Good Friday.
This week's Gospel story has Jesus telling one of his own stories... About a wedding, and how everybody needs to be ready to attend and celebrate the great event. His punchline is a challenge to stay on the alert, because not one of us knows "the day or the hour" of his appearing.
My sermon includes three answers to the musical question, "What day, exactly? Which hour, in particular?"
First, I believe he's speaking prophetically to the religious leaders right then and there. Second, for 2,000 years this story has been understood as a prediction of the Second Coming. And third, it can mean a spiritual visitation by Christ at the moment of death.
Any of the three interpretations includes the serious warning: Be absolutely prepared to welcome Christ when he comes into your life! Give no room to presumption, distraction, or complacency.
In God's timing, the week I prepared this sermon included a lot of preparation for the funeral of a dear member of our church family who exemplified that kind of readiness to meet the Lord.
Rayoal Blose's long good life ended in a long hard illness. Even towards the painful end, she radiated grace and kindness whenever I visited her. "Hi, Jack!" she'd say, beaming with joy. She always asked about my wife Joanne and our daughter Sharon, both of whom she had a special liking for.
Rayoal especially liked Sharon's love for children and her desire to have one or more of her own someday. For Rayoal had taught kindergarten for decades back in the day. And she said more than a few times that she'd love nothing more nowadays than to volunteer again in our Sunday school ministry, "'cause I just love those little children so."
Her countless stories of life with her husband Orville and their son Curt made crystal clear what I'd already considered to be an obvious truth. Rayoal was ready to welcome Christ at his coming here at the painful end of her life, exactly because she had been ready for his appearing every day of her life.
Perhaps she'd never say it this way, but she lived each new day as if it were her last day. And so she was on the lookout, you could say, on her toes and ready to join the joyous dance upon his grand arrival.
When I wound up my sermon with her story, nobody in the room could miss the point -- about Rayoal, or about the story Jesus told about being ready when he comes.
Are you ready?
Listen to the GODcast!
posted by Jack Buckley at
10:42 AM
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