| Topic: |
Religions > Bible |
| User: |
"• Ninure Saunders" |
| Date: |
26 Aug 2005 07:27:03 AM |
| Object: |
(~) Faithfulness |
(~) Faithfulness
A Fruit of the Spirit Sermon by Rev. Jeffrey Carlson
August 21, 2005
St. Pauls United Church of Christ, Chicago
Text: Matthew 25:14-30
We come this morning to faithfulness as a fruit of the Spirit in our
lives. Two weeks ago, you may remember, we honored the memory of former
pastor Pister. Its too bad that we arent doing that today, because the
biblical Greek word for faithfulness is pistos. (We could have talked
about Pastor Pisters pistos.)
Just like the other fruits of the Spirit, you dont have to be a Christian
to be faithful. The word in English has a general, secular meaning. When
we call someone faithful we usually mean they are reliable or dependable,
like a faithful friend who sticks with us through thick and thin.
Sometimes we call someone faithful simply because they show up, week after
week, with the predictability of Old Faithful geyser. Even dogs can be
faithful. My dad used to call our basset hound Wimpy his faithful canine
companion. The media always talk about the faithful around holidays, as
in, Well Dianne, its Christmas Eve and were in front of Holy Name
Cathedral as the faithful gather to celebrate the birth of Jesus. (Have
you ever noticed how the Chicago media always look for the faithful at
Holy Name Cathedral?) Im very certain that you will find faithful people
at Holy Name Cathedral, but I think your odds of finding the faithful in
any church are much higher when its not a holiday - like a summer Sunday
in August, for example.
Yet even as we look at the English use of the word faithfulness, its
impossible to miss that the root word of faithfulness is faith. In fact,
in biblical Greek, there are no separate words for faith and faithfulness.
Pistos is used for both. For Christians, faithfulness is directly related
to our faith. The two are inseparably bound together.
I chose todays reading from Matthew because it makes me uncomfortable. Its
good to think about things that make me uncomfortable now and then,
because you can learn a lot about yourself through what bothers you. Im
uncomfortable with this text because it has to do with Gods judgment. I
dont like to think about judgment, and probably most of you dont either.
It goes with the Liberal Protestant territory that we dont like to talk
about judgment. Part of that, I believe, is because many of us have been
burned by judgmentalism. But judgmentalism is not the same as judgment.
Judgmentalism condemns, but judgment holds us accountable, and I believe
thats what this parable is about. We are accountable for how we live our
lives. God respects us enough for that.
Jesus told this parable about a wealthy landowner who goes on a very long
trip. Before he leaves he entrusts his property to three slaves. To the
first slave he gives five talents, to the second two talents and to the
third one talent, to each according to his ability.
So, each servant is entrusted with something. We arent all equally gifted.
We arent expected to be the same. There is no need to compare myself with
someone else. Im responsible for what Ive been given.
The servants were given talents. Talent is another Greek word, and we get
the familiar English word from it. But the original meaning of talent was
a unit of money, a very large amount of money. A talent was equivalent to
15,000 days wages. Thats 50 years worth of wages! So, even just one talent
is equivalent to the work of a lifetime. That is how generous the
landowner is. That is how much he believes in those servants, to entrust
each of them with a huge amount of his property.
Its tempting to think about these talents in terms of our natural gifts
and abilities, and we should do that - but not too quickly. We cant avoid
the uncomfortable fact that at its most basic level this parable is
talking about money. Nothing is more spiritual in your life than what you
do with your money. Nothing. Our spending habits reveal what we really
believe, deep down, about God.
For me, that can be a hard pill to swallow. But, its important to ask
ourselves, honestly, the hard question: what does the way I spend my money
say about my faith, about what I believe about God? What could someone who
doesnt know me tell about what I really believe if they could take a look
at my bank statement? (Thats a scary thought.) Faithfulness is the real,
down-to-earth difference that faith makes in even the most mundane areas
of my life, like how I spend my money. If your right hand could represent
your everyday life and your left hand your faith, fold your hands
together. Thats faithfulness. Faithfulness is where real life and real
faith meet.
So, the three slaves are given huge, extravagant sums of money. They are
given several million dollars to invest. This is where the adventure
begins. They are given freedom to do whatever they want with it. Two of
them rush off immediately to start investing what theyre given. They start
putting their talents to work. They take risks. They have been caught up
into a life that is greater than their own. That is Christian faith. Life
is bigger than just my own wants and whims, my own pursuit of security and
happiness. You may feel you have a small faith in God, but God believes in
you. God trusts you with your life and expects great things from you.
I think about this parable as summer comes to an end and I see kids
getting ready to go off to school. Remember what thats like, going off to
college if you had that privilege? The future is before you and what will
you do with your life? What major will you choose? What will your lifes
work be? And then there are all those other questions that the world
teaches us to ask. How can I make a lot of money? How can I be comfortable
and obtain the things I want - the possessions, the house, the cars, the
electronics, the gadgets, all the things Ill work hard for and feel that I
deserve? And as we get older, we learn that the way the world measures our
worth is whether we can be called by that name that we always hear at
class reunions a success.
Were impressed with people who are successful. And theres nothing wrong
with success. Its good to be good at what you do. The world judges us all
the time by its own measures of success by what we drive, what we wear,
where we went to school, by our career, by the house we live in and how it
is furnished.
So, in a world that judges us by our success, this parable about Gods
judgment should actually come as a relief. For the One who really matters,
for the One of ultimate meaning and concern, for the God of the Universe,
our lives are not judged by whether or not we are a success. When God
looks over the span of our lives, God only asks if we have been faithful.
As most of you know, I was ordained on June 5. One thing pastors have to
give up way early on is any fantasy about being thought of as a success in
the way the world measures success. (That was one of the reasons, among
others, that I put off going to seminary.) But once you finally accept the
fact that many people will find your calling to be foolish, you can enjoy
the humor that comes along with the name of pastor. I get a kick out of
the perplexed silence that comes when someone finds out what I am. It
happens again and again. I might meet a successful businessman for the
first time. Hell be telling me about his job and then ask, And what do you
do? Oh, Im a pastor. Then theres always a five second delay when I can see
the wheels turning in his head and hes thinking, Oh geez, did I already
swear in front of this guy without realizing it?
People have expectations that go along with the name pastor. Were supposed
to be different in some way, maybe a bit odd. Many of those expectations
are based on stereotypes. I always find it interesting, now, to see how
pastors are portrayed in movies or on TV. My father, who was a pastor,
used to complain that were either depicted as hypocrites or as decrepit
old men who only show up at funerals and weddings.
That may be, but Im happy to try to do my part in not conforming to
stereotypes. But because people expect that as a pastor I should in some
way be different from them, that also helps to keep me faithful. I need to
remember that I have the name pastor. The name pastor makes me
accountable. It is a pair of shoes that I need to keep growing into all of
my life. If you were here for my ordination service you would have heard
me make the promise to be faithful. Faithfulness for pastors is serious
business. I have three relatives who were all pastors in conservative,
evangelical churches. After years of education and several years of
ministry, with wives and children, each one had to step down from their
ministries because of marital infidelity involving a parishioner. Thats
sad. Faithfulness is for the long haul, for a lifetime. Lives can be
changed forever because of unfaithfulness. Faithfulness is serious
business.
But its serious business not just for those who wear the name pastor. Its
serious business for all of you who wear the name Christian. When you were
baptized with that name, it meant that your life is no longer your own.
You no longer belong to you. You have a bigger purpose. The waters of
baptism are meant to infuse your whole life. You are caught up into the
story that God is telling upon this earth. And thats an exciting place to
be.
When their master returns from his long journey, the two servants who made
a profit on his money bring their talents out. He calls each of them that
name we all long to hear, Well done, good and faithful servant. Bravo!
Brava! We love to hear that weve done a good job. Theres nothing wrong
with that. Its hard-wired into us. We need to learn to praise each other a
whole lot more and criticize a whole lot less.
So what does it mean to make a profit for God? What is a return on Gods
investment in your life? What does faithfulness look like? Its actually
very simple. But it is so counter to how the world defines success for us
that it takes faith to truly be faithful. The meaning of a faithful life
immediately follows this parable, and its the climax of the last long
speech Jesus makes before he is arrested. Its a familiar passage. Its a
scene of judgment. Youve heard it before, but we need to hear it again,
especially we who live in a culture that is so obsessed with success.
Heres what Jesus says to the faithful,
Come, you that are blessed by my Father, 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 he will answer them, Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of
the least of these who are my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.
Thats what it all comes down to. Thats faithfulness. It puts everything we
do into a different perspective, doesnt it? A faithful life is one that
makes a difference in the lives of other people through feeding the
hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, welcoming strangers. Every
one of you has access to Christ in the needy. Its not really that hard, is
it, what God asks from our lives? But it takes faith. It takes faith to
live as if the ultimate standard for our lives is not success but
faithfulness - faithfulness shown through simple, consistent habits in a
lifetime of service to others.
St. Pauls is a congregation made up of many very talented and gifted
people. You all do things in your lives that are beyond my abilities and
you know things that are beyond my comprehension. You live with stress and
expectations that are very different from my own. Faithfulness does not
mean that you all need to quit your jobs and become pastors or social
workers. We are all different with different gifts, as this parable
clearly teaches. Faithfulness means that if you are a lawyer then you ask
yourself, How do I do my job faithfully? How do I be a faithful computer
programmer or investment banker? How do I be a faithful teacher or a
faithful director of marketing? And even how do I be faithful when I am
unemployed? I think that those are far more interesting and exciting
questions for life than How do I become successful? And God gives you a
great deal of freedom to explore and to take risks in order to find out
what that means in your own life. For Christians, there is no everyday
sphere that is separated from your faith sphere. Where real life your
job, your checkbook balance, your relationships with your spouse, your
partner, your children, and even what you do for fun where real life
meets real faith, thats faithfulness.
Carrying the name Christian should make all of us a bit odd. Well have
different priorities. Well have different goals and ambitions for life
when were faithful. Well spend our money and live our lives in ways that
sometimes might even make us seem foolish to others. But thats what
happens to faithful people. You see your life through different eyes
through the eyes of faith. You see your life as a gift from a generous and
faithful God.
====================================================================
Pax Christi,
• Ninure Saunders aka Rainbow Christian
Jesus is my Shepherd and He knows I'm Gay
http://Ninure-Saunders.tk
My Yahoo Group
http://Ninure.tk
Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches
http://www.MCCchurch.org
The Bible Site - help provide free scripture
http://www.thebiblesite.org
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