Your "Master" matters: "Our spiritual attitude, our way of seeking peace and perfection depends entirely on our concept of God." Thomas Merton

I've entered my final weeks of service as Interim Pastor at Quesqueya Chapel in Haiti. As I leave I'm trying to say a few things to this fine congregation that will challenge and affirm them as they continue their search for long-term pastoral leadership. (By the way, If you would like to spend a few months on an island in the Caribbean, the church is looking for at least one more person to serve in this interim role. Message me and we'll talk.)

This past Sunday I spoke from the story in Matthew 25 that those of us who used to read the KJV know as the "Parable of the Talents."  I hated this parable as a kid. If you grew up in the Naz Church in the 60's you were subjected annually to an event called "Teen Talent." (If you're younger than 40 think of this as "America's Got Talent" without the cameras, or Howard Stern. This was a great time of year for three or four teens and an annual reminder for the rest of us that God gave "talents" to some people (like them) and not to others, (like me.)

But, of course, this parable has nothing to do with "talent" at all. The servants hadn't been given vocal or athletic ability that they were expected to develop and use before the second coming. They were given bags full of money, lots of money, and, according to the text, left to their own imaginations to determine what they should do with it. (That's right, the "boss" dropped a life-changing amount of gold in their laps and then walked out of the room and went on a trip.)

Most sermons I've heard pass over the two servants who would later hear the master say, "well done," and spend their time trying to get the potential "wicked servants" in the congregation to get up off their butts and do SOMETHING with what they've been given before Jesus comes back, takes it away from them, and sends them to a place where there's nothing to do but weep and gnash teeth.

It's true that the text gives us more information about the "wicked and lazy (W&L) than about the "good and faithful (G&F)" We only know what the first two did. We find out, in detail, not only what the last one did, but also how he "felt." about what he would do.

And this is why the G&F get to spend their lives sharing in the "master's happiness and the other guy gets to spend his crying and gnashing. What the "W&L" servant "felt" was fear. He was afraid of the marketplace, but most important, he was afraid of the master. All we know from the text is that this was not an issue for the first two. They feared neither the potential loss of their initial investment nor the response of the master when he returned. In other words, these three servants  KNEW two very different "masters."

I was reminded immediately of this quote (which has become incredibly important to me) from Thomas Merton's Life and Holiness.

  Our spiritual attitude, our way of seeking peace and perfection depends entirely on our concept of God. If we are able to believe he is truly our loving Father, if we can really accept the truth of his infinite and compassionate concern for us, if we believe that he loves us not because we are worthy but because we need his love, then we can advance with confidence. We will not be discouraged by our inevitable weakness and failure. We can do anything he asks of us. But if we believe he is a stern, cold lawgiver who has no real interest in us who is merely a ruler, a lord, a judge, and not a father, we will have great difficulty in living the Christian life. We must therefore begin by believing that God is our Father: otherwise we cannot face the difficulties of the Christian way of perfection.”

What the two G&F servants knew is that they had nothing to fear from the Master, and if they had nothing to fear from the master they had nothing to fear from the marketplace. And so they took their stuff into the marketplace and spread it around and watched it grow.

It really didn't matter what the W&L servant thought about the marketplace. His fear of the master made it impossible for him to do anything but "dig a hole" and try to preserve what he had received.

And this is what really ticks me off about what the church has told people about this parable. We've told folks for years that the "master" was coming back someday to check up on them, and that when he got here they'd better have more gold to give him than he had given them, and if they didn't, well, let the weeping and gnashing begin.

We want to say that we've done this because we want people to be "ready when Jesus comes." But that's simply not true. We've done this because we want people to teach Sunday School, and serve on the church board, and give regularly so we can keep the doors open and the staff payed.

Merton was right. A church full of people who see the Master only as a 

 "Ruler, a lord, a judge, and not a father, we will have great difficulty in living the Christian life."

We may very well get people tithe and teach Sunday School, but they will be scared to death of the "marketplace."  The "church" is a great "hole" to keep your "talents" in if you want to keep them safe 'til the "harsh, cold master" returns, but the marketplace is the place to spread your "talents" around if you want to see them grow.

One more thought. There is no real guarantee that "taking our talents into the marketplace" will result in amazing growth. I've found myself wondering, since Sunday morning, how this parable might have gone if the third servant had come to the master and said, "Master, I took the bag of gold you gave me into the marketplace. I invested it where I thought it would do the most good, and make the most profit, but then the "housing bubble" burst and the economy collapsed and what I've got left is this bag.  I wonder if the master might have said, well done, good and faithful servant, you've gone into the marketplace and invested what you had, here, let me give you a couple of bags from these other two guys. Come and share in the Master's happiness."

American Christians are a frightened lot these days. We're afraid of almost everything in the "marketplace" so, we dig holes, put crosses on top of them, and call them "chruches." We live in fear. We vote from a position of fear. We make our "plans for the future" from a position of fear. I think I used to think this was because of all the "scary thing" in the world. I'm not so sure anymore. I'm coming to believe it might have more to do with the way we see the "master" than with the way we see the "marketplace."

Merton was right.

If we are able to believe he is truly our loving Father, if we can really accept the truth of his infinite and compassionate concern for us, if we believe that he loves us not because we are worthy but because we need his love, then we can advance with confidence. We will not be discouraged by our inevitable weakness and failure. We can do anything he asks of us.

Confession Matters: Reading the story of the Prodigal in the season of Lent

If I have a favorite text from which to preach it is the story of the loving Father and his two lost boys. We know this as the parable of the Prodigal Son, but most have come to understand that it's mostly about the father, and about his two boys who each missed the point of the Father's love, though in very different ways. My understanding of this story has been profoundly impacted by Henri Nouwen's "Return of the Prodigal." If there's still anyone out there who hasn't read it I encourage you to do so.

Nouwen and others help us to understand this as the story of what Brennan Manning has called the "relentless tenderness" of Jesus shown through the life and love of the Father. But, as I reread the story this week in preparation for what will be my first message at Quesqueya Chapel in Haiti I was impressed by importance of something I'd made little of in the past, the Prodigal's confession. I must confess (Theyt tell me this is good for the soul,) that I've even poked fun at the boy for "practicing a speech that no one wanted to hear." Indeed, as he practices and then recites his confession to his Father the Father seems to brush it aside in his excitement as he lavishes gifts and glory on his son who "once was dead, but not is alive."

But I've been wrong about this. The boy's confession, and the conviction that gave rise to it are an essential part of the story. In fact, without them there is no story. In our efforts to tell people about the unconditional love of the Father from whom they feel so estranged, we have often forgotten to tell them that the reason they are estranged, the reason they can't feel the father's love, is that they have sinned. And we forget to tell them that "sin separates us from God." We've forgotten that sin is the thing, has always been the thing, that breaks relationship both with God and with one another. And when we forget to tell this part of the story we also neglect to tell folks (or to remind ourselves) that relationship is never healed by pretending that sin doesn't matter. Relationship is healed in the process of confession and forgiveness. Yes, it was the father's unconditional love that placed the robe and the ring on the shoulders and hand of the broken and dirty boy-come-home, but it was the Spirit's work in "bringing him to his senses" and his honest response, "I have sinned and I am not worthy" that became the paving stones on the road home to the Father's embrace.

I must never forget that it is sin, acting against love, that breaks relationship, and that reconciliation begins not in denying or ignoring that fact, but in open acceptance of what I have done, and of the damage it has caused.

This puts the story of the "Older brother" in a different light for me as well. I'm sure there's more to learn and understand here, but, for now I'm just pondering the "first person" statements of these two boys. The prodigal comes to the father and says simply, "I've sinned." The Older boy, the one who stayed home looks the father in the eye and says "I've served."

I'm pretty sure that, at some level, "serving" matters. Today I'm thinking that confession matters even more.