Creekside Church Sermon of April 16, 2000 "Risky Behavior" Matthew 25:14-30	Rev. David Bibbee
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I would imagine what it was like to fly through the air with the greatest of ease, but the closest I ever came was swinging on the clothesline post in our back yard. But thanks to an insight by Keith Miller, that all of us are trapeze artists at points in our lives. It doesn't take long until we are comfortable on the bar, knowing when to pump and when to coast. We know what to do to keep our lives swinging smoothly. Then God disrupts everything by throwing another trapeze at us. We didn't ask for it. It is forced upon us and we must decide...do we hang tight to what we know, or let go and grasp the unknown? Do we cling to security and satisfaction, or do we switch? One thing is certain; we can't hold on to one and grab the other. Holding both will leave us stuck in mid air.

In the ever-changing landscape of life, God calls us to leave what is to take hold of what will be. It's a struggle. It takes courage. It requires the willingness to risk. In 1973 I took a risk and left the dream of becoming an architect for the uncertainty of being a minister. In 1992 I took a risk by leaving a church I could have easily served another ten years, and came here to face challenges I had never faced before. I have come to know that to live is to risk. The life worth living always requires a measure of risk.

The Russian dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked, "If one is forever cautious, can one remain a human being?" According to the gospel, the answer is no. To be a follower of Jesus is to live a life of risk. We aren't into Christianity until we are in deep. This is why in the coming weeks we will be asked as Christians and members of Elkhart City to risk the resources of our lives for the sake of the church's continuing mission. I would have no basis for such an appeal were it not for the fact that we are preferred risks to Christ.

The familiar parable of the Talents is about the choices we face when the Master tosses the trapeze of engagement and investment our way. The master was going on a trip...destination and duration unknown, and he entrusted his money to his three servants. It wasn't a grant, a gift, or a loan. Upon his return he would want it back. But it was clear he didn't want them to simply guard it. He wanted them to invest it and make a profit. The master gave to each according to his ability. They did not receive equal sums because they did not have equal abilities.

The first and second servants wasted no time putting their master's money to work. Their willingness to take a chance earned their master a one hundred percent profit. But these two servants aren't the ones who stick in our memory. The third servant we know well. Maybe the fact that he received only one talent said to him that his master wasn't sure of him. He probably wasn't sure of himself. There wasn't much margin for error if he made an unwise investment. He got weak knees. He lost his nerve. He concluded it was better to give the boss an intact talent than none at all. So he put it in a jelly jar and buried it.

Maybe you would be understanding. But Jesus had little sympathy for him. You can understand why when you interpret a talent not just as money, but as life itself...life and all the time, abilities, opportunities, and relationships of which it is made. The third servant chooses to watch from a distance. He didn't play. He chose to sit out instead of dance. Someone said he was, "incarcerated in inertia." He refused risk.

At a church board retreat several years ago, Father Bill Simmons asked us to picture a wooden plank twelve inches wide spanning the top of the World Trade Center towers in New York City. Then he asked, "What would have to be on the other side to get you to walk the plank?" Probably something more than money or material riches. Love, a pain and problem free life, maybe?

If I were to do such a thing, I would likely go only half way and stop...petrified by fear unable to go forward, and unable to go back. This is the one talent servant...stuck between risk and loss, faith and fear.

God has gifted each person in this church, but not in equal measure. In the church the inequality of gifts should never be a source of jealousy or depression. The differences are not significant to God. What matters to God is how we choose to use them. If God has taken the risk of handing us the gift of life and even more took the ultimate risk of handing over his son, God's expectation of His servants is that they will mirror him by investing the time and opportunity and resources entrusted to them.

David Redding put it this way: "God has not thrust us into a nursery next to the Throne Room, but forced us into freedom. We are under the eyes, but not the thumb of God; we are not treated like helpless kindergartners, but responsible adolescents. We're cut from the Almighty's apron strings, nudged from the nest, urged to use our wings, and do what we have been called to do until he returns."

In the coming weeks, we will wrestle with risk. There is one risk we cannot take...the risk of not using the resources and opportunities we have to insure the continuation of the church's ministry. Staying put...refusing to take the risk which change requires, makes us offspring of the third servant. As any athlete or artist will tell you about abilities... "If you don't use them, you will lose them." Guarded, hidden gifts are wasted gifts. Investing them is so important that God will give them to someone else rather than see them wasted.

I think about the American industrialist who spent an evening in an exclusive club in London. After a fine dinner he sat in the lounge and decided to befriend a local member sitting nearby. "Would you like to join me in a hand of Rummy?" he asked. "I don't think so," the man replied. "I tried it once, didn't like it." "What would you say to a game of Billiards?" "I tried that once as well, and didn't care for it." The American thought a moment, then suggested, "Let's go into the sitting room and enjoy a good cigar." "I did smoke one of those dreadful things once, and found it repulsive, thank you. I'll just sit here by myself until my son arrives to share a spot of tea." At this, the industrialist thought for a moment and said, "Only child, I presume."

I think of this story whenever a new venture is proposed and we respond to with, "We tried that once. It didn't work. No one was interested. It costs too much." This is the third servant speaking. We become overly cautious and make tentative investments, or none at all. But not Jesus. He stuck out his neck because of the joy that was set before him. The distinguishing mark of a disciple of Jesus is a daring spirit, and willingness to risk.

A few years ago I read about a junior executive at IBM who made a mistake that cost the company $3,000,000. The devastated executive walked into the CEO's office and handed in his resignation before he would be fired. "What's this?" the CEO asked. "My resignation, Sir." To his amazement, the CEO tossed the letter in the circular file and said, "You're not going anywhere. The way I see it, we just made a $3,000,000 investment in your education."

This spirit is more akin to Christ than that found in many churches. Show me where Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is like a man stretched out on a Lazy Boy watching satellite TV." Jesus said, "The kingdom is like a man who finds treasure buried in a field and sells everything he has to buy that field." "The kingdom is like a pearl merchant who finds the pearl of a lifetime and sells every earthly possession to buy it." To follow Jesus requires a high tolerance for risk. The harshest judgment in the gospels is not upon those who did something, but on those who didn't. Come judgment day we won't be tested on doctrine or Bible memorization. It will be, "Here are all the things I gave you...time, talents, resources...life. What did you do with it?" The parable of the Talents is the next to the last parable Jesus tells us in Matthew. You know the last one...what you did for those in need...the resources you invested to minister to the needy, you did to me."

In God's sight, there are no lesser or greater gifts. What matters more to God is what we do with what we have where we are. I want you to do something. During the next three weeks I want you to engage in risky behavior. This is a critical period in the Elkhart City Church's history. The decisions we each will make between now and May 7 will have a decisive impact upon the church's future.

Someone asked me if I was comfortable gambling with the church's future. "Not at all," I replied. "But I would be uncomfortable if I didn't ask the church to take the risk which this moment in its history requires. Taking calculated risks isn't the same as courting disaster. We must take the risks necessary to have a preferred future. Like the servants in Jesus' parable, we have been entrusted with something we do not own. It has not been distributed in equal measure, nor will there be equal returns.

In our "Walk By Faith" campaign we will emphasize "not equal gifts, but equal sacrifice." God doesn't expect us to give what we do not have. None of us can tell any of us what to give. This determination is a matter of prayer between you and God. We don't have equal potential, but we do have equal opportunity to risk. From cradle to grave to resurrected glory, Jesus never held back. He took the risk to fulfill his mission...and he asks us to take risks to fulfill our own.

While in France next month on the trip you have made possible, I will visit the famous cathedral at Chartes. The story is told that during this great cathedral's construction, a traveler stopped at the site at the end of the workday. He asked a man what he did there. He said he was a stone mason. He carved rocks all day. He asked another man who said he spent his days making slabs of colored glass. A blacksmith told the visitor he pounded iron all day. Then making his way inside, in the half-light he saw an old woman sweeping up stone chips, wood shavings, and glass shards from the day's work. He asked, "What are you doing?" She leaned on her broom, looked up at the enormous vaulted arches and replied, "Me? I'm building a cathedral for the glory of Almighty God."

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