8/9/2019 Thoughts on a parable
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Edwin Friedman in the introduction to his bookA Failure of Nerve
writes, "The emphasis here will be on
strength, not pathology; on challenge, not comfort; on
self-differentiation, not herding for togetherness.
This is a difficult perspective to maintain in a 'seatbelt
society' more oriented toward safety than
adventure." I have no idea how familiar Mr. Friedman is with the
life and teachings of Jesus or Scripture,
but his thesis rings true because it echo's a profound and
fundamental truth of Scripture - "The
righteous shall live by faith." This truth penetrates into the
core of our lives and if we will hear it and
learn to live out of it... life will be an adventure as we
follow Jesus in his mission of love to Calaveras
County and beyond.
Jesus had a phrase, or a principle he was fond of articulating,
"I tell you that to everyone who has, more
shall be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he
does have shall be taken away." You
will find this statement in Matthew 13:12; 25:29, Mark 4:25;
Luke 8:18 and 19:26. In Matthew 25 and
Luke 19 these words are put in the mouth of one of the
characters in a parable. In the other references,
Jesus himself utters the words. In Mark 4 and Luke 18 Jesus
speaks to how and what we hear. In
Matthew 25 and Luke 19 he is speaking to what we do. Either way,
the Lord is saying something that we
need to keep in mind as we pursue our personal and corporate
calling as his disciples.
In Matthew 25 and Luke 19, the context is the parable of the
master who goes away on a trip and leaves
his servants in charge of his wealth. Two of the servants head
out into the market place investing the
resources left to their care. The third servant finds a safe
place to securely hide his masters money
until he can give it back in the same condition he had received
it. When the master returns and calls his
servants to account for their stewardship the first two servants
had doubled their masters' money and
were commended and given more to steward. The third slave
returned exactly what had been
entrusted to him and ended up losing... everything! The master
justifies taking the money from the
third servant and giving it to the first servant with the words
quoted above.
A few points: (1) The master entrusted his wealth based on his
understanding of each servants
capabilities. (2) The actions of the servants seemed to be based
on how they understood the type of
person their master was - an adventurous wise investor or a
hoarding tightwad tyrant. (2) The actions of
the servants seemed to be based on their appraisal of themselves
- the first two seemed to take no
thought of themselves and sought to increase their masters
holdings while the third servant worried for
himself and not his masters business. (3) Taking us back to Mr.
Friedman's observation, the first two
servants resisted the "seatbelt society" mentality and risked it
all in the market place rather than play it
safe while the third servant fell prey to the fearful "seatbelt
society" mentality and ended up losing it all
anyway! In other words, in this parable, the righteous (the
first two servants) lived by faith (they risked
investing their masters resources as they had seen him do).
We have been entrusted with a great deal of wealth. Wealth that
belongs to our Lord but wealth that
he has entrusted to us! This is what stands behind our ongoing
emphasis on being a healthy missional
church here at SACCC, and why we are working on being an
equipping church. In the coming weeks
and months we will be providing opportunities for each member of
our congregation to do an inventory
of the unique gifts, talents and abilities the Lord has
entrusted us with. We will provide a way to
evaluate how you are or can put those gifts and talents "at
risk," investing in the Kingdom work that the
