Fear and Abundance

After college I moved to Washington DC, and had a couple of different jobs – everything from working as a legislative assistant to waitressing tables.  In DC I worked for a variety of bosses with a variety of temperaments and leadership styles. I had wonderful bosses who were interested in my personal and professional development, and challenging bosses like Mr. Anton, who owned “Anton’s Loyal Opposition,” a restaurant and watering hole near the congressional office buildings.

Mr. Anton was a difficult and demanding character. He always wore a black suit, a white shirt, a black bow tie, and a pompadour hairdo, as if it was the 1950s and he was just about to leave for the prom. His restaurant was covered in black and white photos of him with his arm around various senators and representatives. He wanted the wait staff to hard sell alcoholic drinks and even made us take a class in which we learned how to do this: “and what drink would you like with your dinner?” He wanted us to tell restaurant patrons that the fish was fresh when it was frozen. He wanted us to recycle the dinner rolls and butter curlicues that went uneaten, and he thought that all waiters and waitresses should get 50% tips – he actually checked our receipts regularly and anyone not making 50% in tips was fired. Mr. Anton was rarely in a good mood, and all I remember is him getting mad and screaming at various employees – the head chef, the waiters, and the pianist who, as the night went on, and he continued to sip from his cocktail glass on the piano, played increasingly rousing renditions of “New York, New York,” and the theme song from the movie Ice Castles.

Today’s readings have a heaviness to them, a sense of urgency. Psalm 90, the only Psalm attributed to Moses, asks God to “teach us to number our days.” It reminds us that God, the Creator, was here long before us, and has been Israel’s refuge over the generations. Time is fleeting and God is aware of all that we done, good and bad.

Our reading from Thessalonians sounds like it comes straight out of the Advent season: be awake, be sober, do not put down your guard. It includes an important reminder to encourage one another in faith. Even though we fall short of our potential, God has created us for salvation, for abundant life and wholeness rather than suffering and destruction.

Our Gospel from Matthew, containing Jesus’ parable of the talents, is the most challenging scripture lesson of all. It is also confusing and disturbing. In it, a master gives three servants varying amounts of money to steward until he returns. The first two servants double the number of talents they are given – the first transforms five into ten and the second two into four. But the third servant, fearful of the master, goes and hides his talent underground. He is so intimidated by the master and the repercussions of losing the single talent, that he buries it. When the master returns he is pleased by what the first two servants have done with what they were given. They have taken risks and greatly increased the funds put into their temporary care. They are declared “good and trustworthy.” When the master learns that the third servant has done nothing with his talent other than bury it, however, he is enraged. Why is the third servant punished for playing it safe?

In this parable, as with most parables, there are many layers and elements which are meant to shock and surprise. For instance, a talent is an outrageous sum of money. One talent equals fifteen years’ worth of wages. This parable is thus not an indictment of the poor, those who have little and are understandably reluctant to take risks with what they have. Something about this parable is addressing the whole notion of abundance. Abundance is present in this parable from the beginning in the form of the talents, and a master who believes that in a healthy world, abundance begets abundance.

 The other aspect of this parable that strikes me right away is the fact that the third slave is the only one who described as being afraid of the master. His image of the master, his understanding of the master’s character, causes him to act from a place of fear. This makes a lot of sense to me; the way we view others affects how we interact with them and whatever they entrust to us.

How we perceive and experience God, the people around us, and life in general, affects our emotions, actions, and the atmosphere of our workplaces and homes. Recently, I read that most people in the U.S. live with constant fear. They are fearful of losing their job, fearful of their marriage and other relationships dissolving, and fearful that if people knew who they really were deep down, they would be abandoned. As the pace of our world has sped up, we can no longer keep up and are fearful of getting further and further behind. While the economic swings of the last two decades caused many people to suffer greatly, I’ve known people with minimal resources who lived with hope and a sense of abundance in God’s provision, and others with plenty of resources who lived in the constant fear of losing them. If we live predominantly in a paradigm of fear, of course we will bury what we have. But if we bury our talent, it has no chance to multiply and help others. But if we understand our lives, all that we are and have, as a gift from the loving God who wants us to make the most of everything God has given us, we will act differently.

Just like the servants in today’s parable, we are the stewards of many things. God entrusts us with lives, gifts, relationships, specific passions and areas of interest, and resources. God even entrusts us with a faith community like St. Matthew’s. The church is not ours, but God’s. We are only temporary stewards of this treasure. It’s also clear to me that God does not want a play it safe approach. Some of us are at the life stage where we could coast – stop taking risks, stop innovating, retreat into our comfort zone. At. St. Matt’s things are going well. We could just rest on our laurels.

But I don’t think that coasting is what God calls us to do. God calls us to take the great abundance God has entrusted to us – the incredible assets we and St. Matthew’s are entrusted with, and encourages us to think big, to take risks for the sake of others and ultimately the Kingdom. We can only do this if we know two things – truly know them deep n our bones. Everything we have and are is God’s and is intended to contribute to the abundance of all, and that God loves us beyond comprehension. God created us in a spirit of delight, giving us specific interests and gifts that are meant to complement the gifts and interests of others. God created us to live abundantly and to flourish with a diverse spectrum of people from every race, nation, and class background, as we acknowledge one another’s dignity and contributions to the whole.

In the Episcopal Church we are pretty good at talking about God’s love, but not so good at talking about accountability or judgment. Our parable, just like last Sunday’s parable, emphasizes accountability. We will be held accountable for what we have done with what God has given us.

I like to think about judgment as a mirror, God holding a mirror up to us so we can see ourselves as we truly are our in order that we might become who God created us to be. Interestingly, in every book or article I have read about people who have been declared legally dead and then come back to life, there was an experience of a life review. As they were dying, most if not all of these persons watched the major scenes from their life play before them as if they were watching a movie.

Each of us will die one day. Thankfully as followers of the Way of Jesus we know that death is not the end, but the entryway to a new phase of life in which we live with God and others more fully than ever before. The scriptures tell us that we will be held accountable for what we’ve done with all that we have been given. When we look at our calendars, checkbooks, and “to do” lists let us ask ourselves the question “who and what are we serving?” and how are we stewarding the incredible assets God has temporarily entrusted to us?

The God we follow, worship, and serve, thankfully bears no resemblance to Mr. Anton. Our God is not angry, unethical, difficult, or fickle. Our God is a God whose very essence is unconditional love and compassion; a God who sent his son to us in great vulnerability so we could live. Our God is a God who heals all our painful memories and rights our wrongs if we will only acknowledge them and turn away from whatever is not of God. This is the God who knows our potential and holds us accountable so that we will truly live and prosper. Let us take a few moments to think about what it would look like for us to live from a place of abundance and thanksgiving rather than fear, the way God desires us to live.