Creekside Church Sermon of November 24, 2002 "The Equal Employment of Unequal Gifts" Matthew 25:14-30	Rev. David Bibbee
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You're really something, do you know that? Everyone of you, without exception, has something…something for which to be thankful…something which can make Christ's church and God's world a better place. There is no wiggling away from it or talking yourself out of it. There is no denying it. There are no exceptions, no exemptions, and no excuses. Whether you acknowledge it or not, whether you like it or not, whether you want it or not, the fact remains that you are gifted.

"There are varieties of gifts," Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, "but the same spirit, and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but the same God who inspires them all in everyone." As Eugene Peterson translates in, The Message, "Each person is given something to do that shows who God is; everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the spirit, and to all kinds of people."

So, there you have it. You are gifted …people gifted by God. But much of the time we depreciate our gifts, and even more, deny we have them, rather than put them to good use.

Kurt Vonnegut is one of Indiana's contributions to the literary world. He wrote that a long time ago when people lived in small groups and families, each had story-tellers to cheer people up, and hunters who put meat on the table, and people who could paint pictures on cave walls. Being a moderately gifted person provided a necessary service to the group. But today we don't need moderately-gifted people like we did one thousand years ago. Vonnegut said, "These people must go into another line of work because modern communication has put him or her into daily competition with nothing but world's champions."

He went on to say, "The entire planet can get along nicely now with maybe a dozen champion performers in each area of human giftedness. A moderately gifted person has to keep his or her gift bottled up until, in a manner of speaking, he or she gets drunk at a wedding and tap dances on the coffee table like Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers. We have names for them-'exhibitionists'."

In order to restore people's confidence in their gifts…I think we need to ban Wheaties. Beginning with the Olympic pole-vaulter Bob Richards, who, by the way, was a Church of the Brethren minister, stellar athletes have adorned the orange Wheaties box. Wheaties contributes to the unemployment of God given gifts. How good can you feel about your golf game with Tiger Woods watching you eat breakfast? Neither the breakfast of champions, nor the lunch and dinner of champions can make us like the super-gifted. What can my paltry little abilities do that will amount to anything? General Mills should take Wheaties off the shelves. The breakfast of champions is preventing us from exercising our gifts.

I know it sounds silly, but the failure to exercise our gifts is no cause for laughter. Too many Christians think the church is made up of haves and have-nots. Those that have are Super-Christians. Those who have not are on the bottom of the heap. Those at the top have contributions that count. The rest of us go along for the ride. But this doesn't stand up to the scrutiny of scripture.

The parable of the talents is one that topples our ideas about equality. The Declaration of Independence says: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." But all people are not created equal. Look around and you will see that when it comes to individual abilities and capacities, "inequality" is the norm. The life that became you in the womb has God's stamp of uniqueness upon it. You are unrepeatable. There is no clone of you anywhere. The master of the parable understood this fact. He entrusted three servants with his money and left for an extended vacation. He didn't divide the property equally among them-2.66% each. He distributed it according to each one's ability. One received five. One received two. One received one.

Ability can be understood as intelligence. Rebecca and Issac had twins. Why did Jacob get the brains and craftiness while Esau got a lot of hair and half-a-sack of intellectual lunch? How's come television's Homer and Marge Simpson can have children as different in brains and behavior as Bart and Lisa? How did James and Lillian Carter of Plains, Georgia end up with boys as different as Jimmy and Billy? Why can some people read the material once and get it while others go through a gauntlet of stress and struggle to grasp the concept? Intelligence isn't something nature dispenses in equal measure.

The master knew the servant's intellects were not the same. Neither were their abilities. I could listen to some speakers for hours on end, people like the black preacher Gardner Taylor. Someone said "Gardner has a voice like God's, only deeper." Others bore me after the first sentence. Some people are fine artists. Other can't draw stick figures. Some people have green thumbs and can make plants grow. Others can kill a plant by looking at it. Musicians like David Gilliland can make instruments "breath." Some choke instruments. It's a good thing I love my best friend, Vaughn. The guy is so talented in so many areas that if I "didn't" love him, I would have strangled him years ago. Some talents can't be taught. You either have them or you don't. Them that has, gets. Inequality.

We all are equal recipients of God's love. The grace of Jesus is poured out in equal measure on everyone. Average people can't complain to the gifted, " God always loved you best!" There is nothing in the parable of the talents to suggest that one servant was better, more moral, or more valued than another. The crux of the parable is not what the servants have, but what each servant did with what they had.

The boss divided his money among them and took off. Nothing of when he would return. No instructions about what to do with the money. It was their call. But there was an implied expectation that they were to put it to good use. Make something of it. Wheel and deal. Servants one and two did. They did well with mutual funds. They bought stock in the tech sector. They dumped stock before it nose-dived and made the master a bundle. Doubled his investment. Earned themselves promotions.

What about servant three? He didn't have the ambition and drive of the others. He figured the master had little confidence in him. He only got one talent. The trouble was he had no confidence in himself. When asked what he did for a living he would say, "I'm only…," or "I'm just a…" or "There's nothing special about me."

He was scared to take risks. The others had more money. They could afford to lose a little, but he had more to lose. What if he had invested in WorldCom stock? The boss and the other two may have been wheeler dealers, but not him. Something is better than nothing, so he sealed the money in a jelly jar and buried it in his back yard under the dog house. When he went before the boss he said, "I know how you hate losing money, and with the volatile economy we're in I didn't want to take a chance, so I took it and buried it till you got back. Here you go."

Here is where we wish Jesus had ended the parable because the boss becomes a bully, calls the poor guy names, chews him up one side and down the other. "Since you know me so well you should have put my money in simple savings at Bank One and gotten me 2.28% interest. Take the money from this guy. Give it to the one with ten talents and toss this spineless servent out with the teeth gnashers." "To those who have will more be given. From the have-nots, even what they have will be taken away."

Be honest. You don't like this master, do you? We feel sorry for the little guy. If it had been up to us we would have given him a break. "There, there, now friend. Don't be too hard on yourself. I'm sure your heart was in the right place. Sometimes it's best to be cautious. At least you didn't so something stupid with my money. You just take it and try harder the next time.

But this isn't what the parable says. We're not dealing with a bearded, benevolent God on a throne who takes this sort of thing lightly. The third servant thought the master was an ill-tempered tight wad whose only concern was to make a buck. He was scared of God and scared of himself. He figured the safest thing was to hang on to what he had. He failed to see the master's generosity.

God is an extravagant giver. There is so much waster space in the universe. As far as we know most of it is a dark, freezing, empty vacuum. But in the midst of the Milky Way God put a little blue and green ball and planted us upon it. God tried every way conceibvable to draw the world to himself and tell its people he loved them. God took excessive measures and became one of us.

His son was moved by the extravagant giving of people like the widow who placed all she had in the Temple treasury, and the woman who washed Jesus' feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. He told stories about a shepherd who left his whole flock to find a lost sheep, and a father who welcomed home his prodigal son who had broken his heart. "This is what God is like," Jesus said. And for those who still didn't get it, he took all the life God had given him and risked it on a cross. And his investment has been making returns ever since.

God is no grouch. God is a great giver who has entrusted us with gifts. Regardless what they are, there is a expectation of a return. No exceptions, no exemptions, no excuses. We are gifted-- not equally, but we all have been given something…not to bury, not to sit on, not to set on a shelf, but to share. The Master we will face on judgment day will not be Mr. Rodgers, but the God who out of extravagant love gave us Jesus Christ his Son.

Its not just what we have that counts. Its what we do with what we have that concerns God. There is an expectation of extravagance in the equal employment of unequal gifts, sharing money, time, care, compassion, and faith.

This is the time to be thankful for all God has given. So be thankful. But it is not enough to simply be thankful. Next we ask ourselves, "What shall we do with what we have for the Kingdom?" I'll leave you with John Weslely's answer:

Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as you can.

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