The All-Or-Nothing Gamble
Sermon
Richard Branson launched his first business in 1969, at the age of nineteen. He started with mail-order in discount records, opening his first shop in London just two years later in 1971, under the name Virgin. We all know what's happened since.
Robert Maxwell came to England penniless, as a Czech refugee, but made millions in the publishing industry. Of course, it all then went wrong for Maxwell who became corrupted by his power and his wealth, but even that can't detract from his huge achievements upto that time.
Richard Branson and Robert Maxwell are but two people who have made it from rags, or virtually rags, to riches. Some people, like Lord Archer, have made it several times. They've swung from being millionaires to becoming bankrupt, but then back to millionaires once again. And even though Lord Archer is down at the moment, I suspect he will soon swing back up again and make another million or two.
While the rest of us count our pennies and try to work out whether we can afford to do this or buy that, these entrepreneurs are out in the marketplace busy making money. One dot.com entrepreneur was a 17 year-old Jewish boy, who set up a Web site to link Jewish people with Jewish businesses. He did it using his own computer in his bedroom at home, and very quickly became a millionaire.
But we're not all gifted in that way. Not everybody is good with money, and not everybody can make it grow. It used to be much easier to make money if you could afford to invest in some way, but for those who have very little in the first place it's always been an enormous risk to take that gamble. Those who start with very little can so easily be left with nothing at all, if the venture goes wrong.
And so I feel for that poor servant who was only given one talent and who was so afraid of losing it that he buried it in the garden to keep it safe.
Life was much easier for those servants who were given two talents and five talents respectively. They were both able to double their money, but we aren't told how they achieved that. We don't know that they used the whole of their stake in order to double their money. They had enough to be able to use only a part, leaving themselves a safety net.
If you have two talents, you can afford to keep one and speculate with the other one. If you have five talents it's even easier, for you can save three and speculate with the other two and still make a fortune.
But you can't do that if you only have one talent. For those with only one talent it's all or nothing, and that's a huge risk. The prudent thing to do in that situation is exactly what that servant did. The prudent thing to do is to make sure you don't lose the little you already have. Yet Jesus condemned that poor servant, the one who had so little in the beginning but who at least managed to keep what he had.
Jesus constantly turned the traditional ideas of sin on their head, and if we are really able to hear what he says, he continues to do the same today.
Jesus says very little about sin in the Gospels, accepting people as they are and rejoicing in the company of some pretty unpleasant people - prostitutes, thieves, cheats. He saves his harshest condemnations for the religious people, the upright people, and those who cannot face taking any risks. And there may be a link there.
The Pharisees used their religion not really to the glory of God, although that's how it looked from outward appearances. But in reality it was more of a cloak shielding them from themselves, from God, and from the world. They hid behind the rules and regulations, and so avoided taking any risks and avoided looking at their inner selves.
Jesus summed up this attitude in the story of the Pharisee who went to the temple to pray and thanked God that he was not like other people! When told in a story, such effrontery takes my breath away, but it continues to happen in all religious circles.
A few years ago a priest in this diocese resigned after it was discovered that he had fathered a child out of wedlock years earlier, and that the affair with the child's mother had continued ever since. That priest was only in our diocese for about four years, so he was clearly living a lie when he was appointed.
Religion which is put into a pocket apart from the rest of life is false religion, no matter how good it looks. True religion is life itself, the whole of life, and cannot be separated from life. But true religion takes guts and courage, because it means taking the painful risks of facing what's going on deep inside ourselves. That priest should have openly faced what was going on in his life, but he hadn't the guts to do that. So he coped with the situation by splitting off his religion into a watertight compartment, and acted out the role of a holy person.
There's no spiritual growth in that sort of action, which is why Jesus so roundly condemned hypocrites. But that sort of action arises as a response to fear. If I'm afraid of facing myself, or of being seen by the world for who I really am, then I'll take all sorts of evasive action to cover up my true self. One evasive action is to become very religious. But the more evasive action I take, the more I squeeze God out of my life. God is only able to act in and through those parts of me which are honest and open and genuine and up-front. Secrets can be very destructive, especially if they're secrets kept from God.
And that's why Jesus is so insistent on risk-taking. The man who buried his talent was condemned because he allowed his fear to rule him. His fear prevented him taking any risks, and so he was unable to grow. He was so afraid of falling flat on his face and landing in all sorts of trouble, that he hid from life. We don't know what would have happened if that servant had risked everything he had, and lost it all. But I suspect Jesus would have said something like, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant. It's better to have risked and lost than never to have risked at all."
After all, Jesus himself risked all and lost all. He risked his life just for the sake of integrity, and he lost horribly. He was crucified in the most brutal and vicious manner imaginable. But through that huge risk which appeared to be disaster, he eventually gained everything, for he rose up over death and discovered new and vibrant life in some different dimension.
And that's the point of taking risks. Through risks, through the pain of not knowing and the pain of losing and falling flat on your face, God is able to work. Through the ashes of humiliated failures, God can produce resurrection.
That adulterous priest was found out. His secret was shattered, and his fall was immense. But probably for the first time, God couldn reach him, because he was stripped of all his cover. And resurrection and growth became possible for him.
The parable of the talents is certainly about working on our own particular talents to multiply them and strengthen them, but it's much more about the theology of taking risks. Christianity is the one-talent scenario the huge risk of all or nothing.
And that's a theology the Church itself needs to learn.
Robert Maxwell came to England penniless, as a Czech refugee, but made millions in the publishing industry. Of course, it all then went wrong for Maxwell who became corrupted by his power and his wealth, but even that can't detract from his huge achievements upto that time.
Richard Branson and Robert Maxwell are but two people who have made it from rags, or virtually rags, to riches. Some people, like Lord Archer, have made it several times. They've swung from being millionaires to becoming bankrupt, but then back to millionaires once again. And even though Lord Archer is down at the moment, I suspect he will soon swing back up again and make another million or two.
While the rest of us count our pennies and try to work out whether we can afford to do this or buy that, these entrepreneurs are out in the marketplace busy making money. One dot.com entrepreneur was a 17 year-old Jewish boy, who set up a Web site to link Jewish people with Jewish businesses. He did it using his own computer in his bedroom at home, and very quickly became a millionaire.
But we're not all gifted in that way. Not everybody is good with money, and not everybody can make it grow. It used to be much easier to make money if you could afford to invest in some way, but for those who have very little in the first place it's always been an enormous risk to take that gamble. Those who start with very little can so easily be left with nothing at all, if the venture goes wrong.
And so I feel for that poor servant who was only given one talent and who was so afraid of losing it that he buried it in the garden to keep it safe.
Life was much easier for those servants who were given two talents and five talents respectively. They were both able to double their money, but we aren't told how they achieved that. We don't know that they used the whole of their stake in order to double their money. They had enough to be able to use only a part, leaving themselves a safety net.
If you have two talents, you can afford to keep one and speculate with the other one. If you have five talents it's even easier, for you can save three and speculate with the other two and still make a fortune.
But you can't do that if you only have one talent. For those with only one talent it's all or nothing, and that's a huge risk. The prudent thing to do in that situation is exactly what that servant did. The prudent thing to do is to make sure you don't lose the little you already have. Yet Jesus condemned that poor servant, the one who had so little in the beginning but who at least managed to keep what he had.
Jesus constantly turned the traditional ideas of sin on their head, and if we are really able to hear what he says, he continues to do the same today.
Jesus says very little about sin in the Gospels, accepting people as they are and rejoicing in the company of some pretty unpleasant people - prostitutes, thieves, cheats. He saves his harshest condemnations for the religious people, the upright people, and those who cannot face taking any risks. And there may be a link there.
The Pharisees used their religion not really to the glory of God, although that's how it looked from outward appearances. But in reality it was more of a cloak shielding them from themselves, from God, and from the world. They hid behind the rules and regulations, and so avoided taking any risks and avoided looking at their inner selves.
Jesus summed up this attitude in the story of the Pharisee who went to the temple to pray and thanked God that he was not like other people! When told in a story, such effrontery takes my breath away, but it continues to happen in all religious circles.
A few years ago a priest in this diocese resigned after it was discovered that he had fathered a child out of wedlock years earlier, and that the affair with the child's mother had continued ever since. That priest was only in our diocese for about four years, so he was clearly living a lie when he was appointed.
Religion which is put into a pocket apart from the rest of life is false religion, no matter how good it looks. True religion is life itself, the whole of life, and cannot be separated from life. But true religion takes guts and courage, because it means taking the painful risks of facing what's going on deep inside ourselves. That priest should have openly faced what was going on in his life, but he hadn't the guts to do that. So he coped with the situation by splitting off his religion into a watertight compartment, and acted out the role of a holy person.
There's no spiritual growth in that sort of action, which is why Jesus so roundly condemned hypocrites. But that sort of action arises as a response to fear. If I'm afraid of facing myself, or of being seen by the world for who I really am, then I'll take all sorts of evasive action to cover up my true self. One evasive action is to become very religious. But the more evasive action I take, the more I squeeze God out of my life. God is only able to act in and through those parts of me which are honest and open and genuine and up-front. Secrets can be very destructive, especially if they're secrets kept from God.
And that's why Jesus is so insistent on risk-taking. The man who buried his talent was condemned because he allowed his fear to rule him. His fear prevented him taking any risks, and so he was unable to grow. He was so afraid of falling flat on his face and landing in all sorts of trouble, that he hid from life. We don't know what would have happened if that servant had risked everything he had, and lost it all. But I suspect Jesus would have said something like, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant. It's better to have risked and lost than never to have risked at all."
After all, Jesus himself risked all and lost all. He risked his life just for the sake of integrity, and he lost horribly. He was crucified in the most brutal and vicious manner imaginable. But through that huge risk which appeared to be disaster, he eventually gained everything, for he rose up over death and discovered new and vibrant life in some different dimension.
And that's the point of taking risks. Through risks, through the pain of not knowing and the pain of losing and falling flat on your face, God is able to work. Through the ashes of humiliated failures, God can produce resurrection.
That adulterous priest was found out. His secret was shattered, and his fall was immense. But probably for the first time, God couldn reach him, because he was stripped of all his cover. And resurrection and growth became possible for him.
The parable of the talents is certainly about working on our own particular talents to multiply them and strengthen them, but it's much more about the theology of taking risks. Christianity is the one-talent scenario the huge risk of all or nothing.
And that's a theology the Church itself needs to learn.
