Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 28, Year A)

A Sermon From All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Briarcliff Manor
Sermon preached by the Rev. Timothy E. Schenck, Rector, on November 17, 2002. 
Based on Matthew 25:14-15, 19-29 (Proper 28, Year A).

Whenever the parable of the five talents shows up on a Sunday morning, preachers almost always work in a definition of a “talent.” Sometimes it’s seamlessly finessed into the sermon. But not this morning. I’ll just get it over with and move on. A talent doesn’t refer to a skill or a special ability. It has nothing to do with being able to play the trumpet or speak French. A talent is a sum of money; a large sum of money. One talent was equivalent to the wages a day laborer would have been paid for fifteen years of work. So rarely did the average person even ever see a talent, let alone have one to spend or be entrusted with one. How much would that be around here? I did a little math, which is in itself a bit scary, but at least I used a calculator. I recently read that the average yearly household income in Briarcliff is $237,075. Yes, you heard that correctly. Multiply that by 15 years and you get $3,556,125. So in Westchester dollars a talent is worth over $3.5 million. And the guy who’s given five talents? That’s almost $20 million. I’ll admit this is very “fuzzy” math, but in any case a talent was a lot of money.

This parable, however, isn’t really about the money. It’s not the ‘parable of the wise and foolish investors.’ The underlying point is not that “it takes money to make money.” And it doesn’t offer us a Scriptural approach to financial planning. After all, even the slave who returned to the master the one talent he was given would be considered a financial genius in the current economic climate. He didn’t lose money!

But as I said, it’s not really about the money. This parable is a strange way to characterize the Kingdom of Heaven, as Jesus tells us he’s doing. A master divides eight talents among three slaves. One gets five, another two, and another one. And then the master goes away for what we’re told is “a long time.” Upon his return he settles up the accounts. The first made five more talents, doubling his return. The second made two more, also doubling his return. And the third returned the single talent he was given.

But again, this parable isn’t about the money itself. It’s about how we receive the God-given gifts we’re offered and entrusted with. This starts with our very lives, the greatest gift that God offers to us. Do we do what’s necessary to make the most of it through service to God and one another or do we bury ourselves by only looking downward and inward? Do we accept our God-given gifts and talents (and I use the word this time in its conventional sense) or do we ignore what has been entrusted to us? Our natural inclination is often to bury our own gifts and talents. Instead of using them joyfully and making ourselves vulnerable by using them and challenging ourselves, we often bury them, living in fear of failure. We bury our gifts and talents because it’s safer that way. Nothing ventured, nothing risked.

So, acknowledging that we all bury or at least partially obscure some of our gifts and talents, the question must be asked: what aspect of your life have you buried for safe keeping? Why have you buried it? Is there something you’re afraid of? Like failure or ridicule? It may just be time to dig this gift up, unearth it, dust it off, and reexamine it. Sometimes we bury relationships or emotions. And they need to be set free. They need to see the light of day. If the slave’s talent with which he was entrusted never saw daylight, how could it have been nurtured, how could it have grown?

I have a feeling that the master in this story would have been more forgiving if the slave had tried to use his talent to make it grow but had nonetheless squandered the whole amount. I think of the prodigal son. Inaction and the inability to move past our own fears shows a lack of trust in God. The slave approached his master out of an attitude of fear. “I knew that you were a harsh man, so I was afraid,” he says. His fear paralyzed him. And his reaction was to turn inward, to bury his fear. Out of sight, out of mind.

The other two slaves, on the other hand, approach their master out of an attitude of gratitude. They were entrusted with responsibility and in turn sought to show their own gratitude for what they were offered. These are fundamentally different approaches to God. One is fearful, the other trusting. One dwells on God’s loving mercy, the other on God’s wrath.

God desires that we live as children of the light, not buried in darkness. In a sense we are all talents – that is valuable commodities. For we are made in God’s own image. God wants nothing more than for us to come out of the darkness that entombs us; to see the light; to be nurtured by our faith in Christ; and to grow.

 © The Rev. Tim Schenck 2002

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Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 28, Year A)

A Sermon From All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Briarcliff Manor
Sermon preached by the Rev. Timothy E. Schenck, Rector, on November 13, 2005. 
Based on Matthew 25:14-15, 19-29 (Proper 28, Year A).

Money. It’s a topic no one wants to hear about from the pulpit. It’s fine if Jesus talks about it, as he does in this morning’s gospel. We just don’t want our clergy to preach about it. Because when we start preaching about money, people get uncomfortable. We start to squirm a bit; maybe start coughing. The pews all of a sudden seem even more uncomfortable than they already are.

Episcopalians are particularly vulnerable to this. Money seems an unseemly topic to discuss from the pulpit. It’s so…undignified. And traditionally we like to talk about money about as much as we like to talk about evangelism. Which is not much. We even refer to our annual pledge campaign as our “stewardship program,” thereby avoiding any reference to money. The danger is that we can talk in lofty language about stewardship while forgetting that this is also about money. I’ve heard stewardship sermons that don’t even say the word. They may include beautifully articulated phrases about the theology of stewardship, but money becomes the giant elephant in the sanctuary. No one dares speak of it. And an opportunity to discuss a critical piece of our relationship with God in Christ is lost.

But I don’t think it’s the topic of money itself that turns us off. Indeed, money is generally one of our favorite topics. We like money, we want money and we enjoy spending money. So it’s not the topic itself that makes us uncomfortable. I think what really makes us squeamish is the topic of giving away our money. And that’s what I want to talk about this morning. (Is it getting hot in here?) 

I just glossed over the word stewardship, but I do think that it’s a critical context in which to look at our pledge program. Because this over-used word isn’t just a way to trick parishioners into talking about money. It’s not just a euphemism to soften the blow. The concept of stewardship is all-encompassing. It’s a recognition that all we are, and all that we have is a gift from God. And that faithful lives are based on the human response to this divine gift. So stewardship is the giving back to God of our selves through service and the sharing of our financial resources. God has made us stewards – caretakers – of this church, this world, and our relationship with one another. Money alone doesn’t fully define stewardship. But one of the ways we act as stewards is by giving money to our church. We can’t ignore this. And Jesus himself never skirted the issue.

This morning we get the parable of the talents. A talent was a sum of money. It has nothing to do with the traditional stewardship “trifecta” of time, talent, and treasure. In fact it was a large sum of money, equivalent to the amount a day laborer would have been paid for fifteen years of work. So rarely would the average person ever have been entrusted with one talent, let alone five. But that’s what happens. A master divides eight talents among three slaves. One gets five, another two, and a third get one. And then the master goes away for what we’re told is “a long time.” Upon his return, the master settles the accounts. The first doubles his return, making five more talents. The second also doubles his return, making two more. And the third returns the single talent he was given.

What’s curious in this parable about God’s kingdom, is the fate of the third slave. The one who buries his talent and then returns the single talent to the master upon his return. He doesn’t seem to do anything wrong. He didn’t lose the money or squander it. Yet his actions are condemned.

In the context of stewardship, this seems to be a warning to those who approach their relationship with money out of fear. Instead of joyfully using our resources, we often bury them. We become hoarders. And along with it we bury our faith; we bury our trust in God. It forces us to keep looking down, worrying about our buried treasure rather than looking up and glorifying Jesus. And many of us have adopted this posture in our relationship with our money. We’re pack rats, living in fear. Waiting for that rainy day that may or may not come. Fearful that if and when it does, God will not be able to provide.

Last month we had an amazing rummage sale. I’ve never seen so much stuff. Rummage was everywhere. This year, I’d like to challenge us all to give as freely of our money as we did of our rummage. It’s easy to give things away that we don’t want or need. We’ll do that by the truckload. Or at least the minivan-full. But what if you were asked to part with things you really cared about? What would you choose to give away? There is grief in giving something away you care deeply about. I’m not asking you to give until it hurts. But I am asking you to give until you at least notice it. We give rummage away out of our abundance. And our pledging habits often follow the same pattern. ‘Only after I have everything I could possibly want or need will I get down to the business of figuring our my pledge to All Saints.’ But unless pledging comes from your heart, unless it comes out of what really matters to you, it’s as easy as giving away the old sporting equipment wasting away in your garage. And Jesus deserves more than that.

Stewardship, like our faith lives, is not always easy. To fully realize our faith, our giving must be a primary part of our relationship with Jesus Christ, not merely a tangential one. Supporting the mission and ministry of All Saints’ as a central piece of your faith identity is crucial to your relationship with Jesus. I can’t be clearer on this. And it’s why I’m standing up here this morning asking you to give money to your parish. Even if it makes us all a bit uncomfortable.

 © The Rev. Tim Schenck 2005

Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 28, Year A)

A Sermon from the Episcopal Parish of 
St. John the Evangelist in Hingham, Massachusetts
Preached by the Rev. Timothy E. Schenck on November 13, 2011 (Proper 28, Year A)

Whenever the Parable of the Talents shows up on a Sunday morning, preachers always toss in a definition of a “talent.” Sometimes it’s worked seamlessly into the body of the sermon or smoothly finessed into the text. But not this morning. I’ll just get it over with and move on. 

A talent, as you might have guessed from the context, does not refer to a skill or a special ability. It has nothing to do with being able to play the French horn or speak German. A talent is a sum of money; a large sum of money. It actually referred to a specific weight of precious metal. One talent was equivalent to the wages a day laborer would have been paid for fifteen years of work. So rarely did the average person even ever see a talent, let alone have one to spend or be entrusted with one. How much would that be around here? I did a little math, which is in itself a bit scary, but at least I used a calculator. According to my anonymous internet sources, the average annual household income in Hingham is $91,783. Multiply that by 15 years and you get $1,376,745. So in Hingham dollars a talent is worth over $1.3 million. And the guy who’s given five talents? That’s almost $7 million. I’ll admit this is very “fuzzy” math, but the point is that a talent was a lot of money.

Now that we got that out of the way, we can start digging a bit deeper. There’s no question that this is an odd and confusing parable. It’s certainly a strange way to characterize the Kingdom of Heaven, as Jesus tells us he’s doing. A master divides eight talents among three slaves. One gets five, another two, and another one. And then the master goes away for what we’re told is “a long time.” Upon his return he settles up the accounts. The first made five more talents, doubling his return. The second made two more, also doubling his return. And the third returned the single talent he was given. 

In many of Jesus’ parables, with a little reflection, we can figure out the larger message. Often there’s a metaphorical God figure – as in the story of the Prodigal Son where the father embodies forgiveness as he welcomes back the son who squandered his inheritance on wine, women, and song before repenting and returning. Or there’s a response to God’s message – as in the Parable of the Sower where seed is sown upon different types of ground representing both fruitless and fruitful responses to God’s Word. 

The Parable of the Talents is a bit more elusive. Okay, a lot more elusive. When it starts out you think, okay God must be the master and the three slaves must represent different ways of responding to God. Unfortunately this theory comes crashing down once we hear a bit more about this master. He’s a bully! He’s unethical in his business practices and abusive to his employees. We hear that he reaps what he does not sow – in other words he takes what doesn’t rightfully belong to him – and that he is a “harsh man.” He’s also tremendously wealthy – the Donald Trump of his day. All of which adds up to a pretty lousy metaphor for God.

The next possibility is that the story is about money. Jesus talks a lot about money – in his parables he addresses the right use of money more than any other topic. But, while I’m sure I could squeeze a decent stewardship sermon out of this passage, I don’t think that’s the point either. It’s not really about the money. It’s not the ‘parable of the wise and foolish investors’ and the underlying moral of the story is not that “it takes money to make money” (that phrase is not in the Bible, in case you were wondering). Although even the slave who buried the one talent and returned it to his master would be considered a financial genius in the current economic climate. He didn’t lose money!

But this parable isn’t about the money itself. It’s about how we receive the God-given gifts we’re offered and entrusted with. This starts with our very lives, the greatest gift that God offers to us. Do we accept our God-given gifts and talents (and this time I’m using the word in its conventional sense) or do we ignore what has been entrusted to us? Our natural inclination is often to bury our own gifts and talents. Instead of using them joyfully and making ourselves vulnerable by using them and challenging ourselves, we often bury them, living in fear of failure. We bury our gifts and talents because it’s safer that way. Nothing ventured, nothing risked.

So, acknowledging that we all bury or at least partially obscure some of our gifts and talents, the question must be asked: what aspect of your life have you buried for safe keeping? Why have you buried it? Is there something you fear? Like failure or ridicule? It may just be time to dig this gift up, unearth it, dust it off, and reexamine it. If the slave’s talent with which he was entrusted never saw daylight, how could it have possibly been nurtured; how could it possibly have grown?

I bet you have a hidden talent. Something that you once had aptitude and passion for but that’s been buried amid the busyness of life. It might be writing poetry or refinishing antique furniture or fishing or gardening. Whatever it is, if it’s not being used it will wither away. And a spark of potential joy is lost. When we are engaging new challenges and rediscovering lost passions, God is glorified and our hearts overflow with gratitude. The paralysis of fear is discarded and a newfound love of God abounds.

I have a feeling that the master in this story would have been more forgiving if the slave had tried to use his talent to make it grow but had nonetheless squandered the whole amount. And while I don’t see this man as a helpful metaphor for God, the parable does show us that inaction and the inability to move past our own fears shows a lack of trust in God. The slave approached his master out of an attitude of fear. “I knew that you were a harsh man, so I was afraid,” he says. His fear paralyzed him. And his reaction was to turn inward, to bury his fear rather than confront it. Out of sight, out of mind.

God desires that we live as children of the light, not buried in darkness. In a sense we are all talents – that is valuable commodities. For we are all made in God’s own image. God wants nothing more than for us to come out of the darkness that entombs us; to see the light; to be nurtured by our faith in Christ; to use our God-given gifts to glorify God; to cast aside the fear that grips us; and to grow and flourish and live in the true freedom that comes only through faith in Jesus Christ.

© The Rev. Tim Schenck 2011

Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 28, Year A)

A Sermon from All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Briarcliff Manor, New York
Preached by the Rev. Timothy E. Schenck, Rector on November 16, 2008 (Proper 28A)

Pirates are in vogue these days. I’m not sure exactly why and I don’t see too many examples of pillage and plunder around Westchester County. It may have something to do with the popularity of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies starring Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow. I hear they’re filming the fourth one. And a few weeks ago the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times ran an article about the popularity of pirate re-enactors titled “Can I Get an Arrgh?” The article cited statistics predicting that more than 1.7 million American adults dressed as pirates for Halloween this year; beating out zombies, cowboys, devils, and French maids combined. Perhaps there’s something profound at work here. But I suspect that with the state of the economy and the specter of foreign wars all this pirate stuff is just good, old-fashioned escapism.

I bring this up not because I’m considering a career change, but because of the whole notion of buried treasure. Specifically, burying our own faith and God-given talents. That’s what gets the slave in this morning’s story in trouble. He buries his treasure, his talent.

A quick word about the use of the term “talent” is helpful here. A talent doesn’t refer to a skill or a special ability. It has nothing to do with being able to play the trumpet or speak French. A talent is a sum of money; a large sum of money – equal to the average worker’s wages for fifteen years. So we’re not talking about pocket change.

But still, this is a confusing parable; it’s a strange way to characterize the Kingdom of Heaven, as Jesus tells us he’s doing. Let’s look at the math: a master divides eight talents among three slaves. One gets five, another two, and another one. And then the master goes away for what we’re told is “a long time.” Upon his return he settles up the accounts. The first made five more talents, doubling his return. The second made two more, also doubling his return. And the third, the slave who had buried the talent, returned the single talent he was given. And then gets a major tongue lashing.

It’s a startling ending to the parable. Does the punishment really fit the crime? It’s not like the poor guy lost the talent with which he was entrusted or squandered it on wine, women, and song. No, he didn’t make any money but those of us who have watched our stocks plummet over the last few months might view this slave as an economic genius.

But this parable isn’t just about money. We are ultimately stewards not of talents, not of money, but of the gospel. And the question is what will we do with the faith that has been entrusted to us? Will we, like a pirate, bury it or horde it or will we use it and share it with others? There’s a choice to be made.

And so this parable is about how we receive the God-given gifts we’re offered and entrusted with. This starts with our very lives, the greatest gift that God offers to us. Do we do what is necessary to make the most of it through service to God and one another or do we spend our time predominantly looking downward and inward? And burying ourselves in the process. Do we accept our God-given gifts and talents (and I use the word this time in its conventional sense) or do we ignore what has been entrusted to us? Our natural inclination is often to bury our own gifts and talents along with our faith. Instead of using them joyfully and making ourselves vulnerable by using them and challenging ourselves, we often bury them, living in fear of failure. We bury our gifts and talents because it’s safer that way. Nothing ventured, nothing risked.

So, what do you do with your faith? I disagree with the notion that faith can ever be a private matter. It’s not like a voting booth where you can go in and draw the curtain. Our faith impacts our actions. And sharing the faith with others – either by word or example – is part of being in authentic relationship with Jesus Christ.

This can play out in a number of ways – you don’t have to go knock on your neighbor’s door and hand out religious tracts. But faith is not a passive activity. You can’t accept the faith, bury it deep in your heart, and do nothing with it. And that’s what makes it so challenging to be a disciple of Christ. It takes action; it takes picking up your own cross and following your own calling – whatever that may be and whatever gifts you have. So I encourage you to ask how you can use your own gifts and talents in service of your faith? How can you use your giftedness to the glory of God? If you have an idea, talk to me. If you’d like to have an idea, talk to me.

Because to take a miserly approach to faith is to act like the slave in this parable. It’s to bury your faith. And perhaps the classic miser, especially as we head into Advent in a couple of weeks, is Ebenezer Scrooge, the cold, tight-fisted, selfish banker of Charles Dickens fame. The one who despised Christmas and all the ensuing happiness; the one who even resented giving his clerk the day off on Christmas; the one who had only contempt for the poor.

Of course, Scrooge repents and all becomes well. But for some, his old ways represent the approach to faith. Take all the God-given talents and reject gratefulness; reject community; reject joy. That’s what happens when we bury our faith. And that’s not what Jesus wants for us. Just as he called Lazarus out of the grave, he calls faith out of our souls.

It’s hard not to view the master in this parable as a bit Scrooge-like. And we make a mistake if we automatically associate the master in this story with God. I don’t see God ripping what he has out of the hands of the poor and handing it over to the rich. God isn’t the anti-Robin Hood. But we do have responsibilities that can’t be ignored.

And I have a feeling that the master in this story would have been more forgiving if the slave had tried to use his talent to make it grow but had nonetheless squandered the whole amount. Inaction and the inability to move past our own fears shows a lack of trust in God. The slave approached his master out of an attitude of fear. “I knew that you were a harsh man, so I was afraid,” he says. His fear paralyzed him. And his reaction was to turn inward, to bury his fear. Out of sight, out of mind.

The other two slaves, on the other hand, approach their master out of an attitude of gratitude. They were entrusted with responsibility and in turn sought to show their own gratitude for what they were offered. These are fundamentally different approaches to God. One is fearful, the other trusting. One dwells on God’s loving mercy, the other on God’s wrath.

This sermon’s gone from pirates to Scrooge with a lot of questions in between. Sometimes you can’t really map this stuff out. But the point is, don’t bury your treasure. You do have a choice. God has entrusted us with many things: money, natural talents, spiritual gifts, the saving truth of the Gospel. He expects us not just to conserve these things, not to bury them, but to nurture them, grow them, and watch them bear fruit.

© The Rev. Tim Schenck 2008

Twenty-Fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 28, Year A)

A Sermon From All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Briarcliff Manor
Sermon preached by the Rev. Timothy E. Schenck, Rector, on November 17, 2002. 
Based on Matthew 25:14-15, 19-29 (Proper 28, Year A).

Whenever the parable of the five talents shows up on a Sunday morning, preachers almost always work in a definition of a “talent.” Sometimes it’s seamlessly finessed into the sermon. But not this morning. I’ll just get it over with and move on. A talent doesn’t refer to a skill or a special ability. It has nothing to do with being able to play the trumpet or speak French. A talent is a sum of money; a large sum of money. One talent was equivalent to the wages a day laborer would have been paid for fifteen years of work. So rarely did the average person even ever see a talent, let alone have one to spend or be entrusted with one. How much would that be around here? I did a little math, which is in itself a bit scary, but at least I used a calculator. I recently read that the average yearly household income in Briarcliff is $237,075. Yes, you heard that correctly. Multiply that by 15 years and you get $3,556,125. So in Westchester dollars a talent is worth over $3.5 million. And the guy who’s given five talents? That’s almost $20 million. I’ll admit this is very “fuzzy” math, but in any case a talent was a lot of money.

This parable, however, isn’t really about the money. It’s not the ‘parable of the wise and foolish investors.’ The underlying point is not that “it takes money to make money.” And it doesn’t offer us a Scriptural approach to financial planning. After all, even the slave who returned to the master the one talent he was given would be considered a financial genius in the current economic climate. He didn’t lose money!

But as I said, it’s not really about the money. This parable is a strange way to characterize the Kingdom of Heaven, as Jesus tells us he’s doing. A master divides eight talents among three slaves. One gets five, another two, and another one. And then the master goes away for what we’re told is “a long time.” Upon his return he settles up the accounts. The first made five more talents, doubling his return. The second made two more, also doubling his return. And the third returned the single talent he was given. 

But again, this parable isn’t about the money itself. It’s about how we receive the God-given gifts we’re offered and entrusted with. This starts with our very lives, the greatest gift that God offers to us. Do we do what’s necessary to make the most of it through service to God and one another or do we bury ourselves by only looking downward and inward? Do we accept our God-given gifts and talents (and I use the word this time in its conventional sense) or do we ignore what has been entrusted to us? Our natural inclination is often to bury our own gifts and talents. Instead of using them joyfully and making ourselves vulnerable by using them and challenging ourselves, we often bury them, living in fear of failure. We bury our gifts and talents because it’s safer that way. Nothing ventured, nothing risked.

So, acknowledging that we all bury or at least partially obscure some of our gifts and talents, the question must be asked: what aspect of your life have you buried for safe keeping? Why have you buried it? Is there something you’re afraid of? Like failure or ridicule? It may just be time to dig this gift up, unearth it, dust it off, and reexamine it. Sometimes we bury relationships or emotions. And they need to be set free. They need to see the light of day. If the slave’s talent with which he was entrusted never saw daylight, how could it have been nurtured, how could it have grown?

I have a feeling that the master in this story would have been more forgiving if the slave had tried to use his talent to make it grow but had nonetheless squandered the whole amount. I think of the prodigal son. Inaction and the inability to move past our own fears shows a lack of trust in God. The slave approached his master out of an attitude of fear. “I knew that you were a harsh man, so I was afraid,” he says. His fear paralyzed him. And his reaction was to turn inward, to bury his fear. Out of sight, out of mind.

The other two slaves, on the other hand, approach their master out of an attitude of gratitude. They were entrusted with responsibility and in turn sought to show their own gratitude for what they were offered. These are fundamentally different approaches to God. One is fearful, the other trusting. One dwells on God’s loving mercy, the other on God’s wrath.

God desires that we live as children of the light, not buried in darkness. In a sense we are all talents – that is valuable commodities. For we are made in God’s own image. God wants nothing more than for us to come out of the darkness that entombs us; to see the light; to be nurtured by our faith in Christ; and to grow. 

 © The Rev. Tim Schenck 2002