Prayer: Come Holy Spirit, come.  Take my lips and speak with them, take our minds and think with them, take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you.  In Christ’s name, we ask it.  Amen.

Life is risky.  In fact, if you are a person who is risk adverse, do not ride in automobiles; they cause 20 percent of all fatal accidents.  Do not stay at home; 17 percent of all accidents occur in the home.  Do not walk on the street or sidewalk; 14 percent of all accidents occur to pedestrians.  And do not travel by air, rail or water; 16 percent of all accidents happen on one of those three.  However, I do have some good news, only .001% of all deaths reported occur in worship services.  Therefore, the safest place for you to be is in church.  It’s my understanding that Sunday school is also relatively safe, so by all means please stick around for that as well (Dinner after church is also relatively safe so by all means stick around for that as well). 

Now in all seriousness, most of us are not going to limit our life experience based on these risky statistics.  Even as a priest, I have to admit that a life which involved church only would be painfully boring.  Most of us, thankfully, don’t take a risk assessment before we determine our daily schedule.  We all know that living abundantly involves risk taking which is, at least in part, Jesus’ point in the parable of the talents which we just heard read.     

Jesus tells the story of a man who goes on a journey, and before embarking on his trip he distributes his property among his servants.  To one he gives—in modern, pre-inflation capital—$1,000,000, to another, $400,000, and to a third, $200,000.  The one with a million invests his million and makes another million.  The one with $400,000 turns it into $800,000.  But the servant with $200,000 incredibly digs a hole in the back yard, stashes the cash in a coffee can, and waits.  This guy is so risk adverse—so afraid of the master’s reaction if he loses the cash—that he simply will not risk the loss at all—he sits on the cash.

The five-talent entrepreneur, on the other hand, goes straight to work.  He looks around and sees a world of abundance and a universe of opportunity.  He knows that he can multiply his holdings if he is willing to take a few chances—risky business, for sure, but, as the parable notes, insanely profitable.
 
Jesus’ use of money in the parable is obviously a metaphor for the gifts, skill, and resources that God gives to each of us.  In fact, this parable had such a tremendous circulation in the middle ages that the word talent which up till then was a denomination of money was translated into the English language to mean God given gifts and skills—talents—as we use the word today. 

Now, as I mentioned, it’s fear that keeps the servant with one talent from investing the money given to him by his master.  Fear is the opposite of faith because fear controls while faith frees.  If you want to control or manipulate a group of people you do so by fear.  How do you think David Koresh convinced a large number of people to commit mass suicide in Waco in 1993?  The answer is fear.  How do you convince much of the entirety of a nation to participate, at least passively, in genocide like in Germany in the 1940’s?  The answer is fear.  The servant given the one talent was immobilized by his fear. 

There is another option for us other than allowing our fear to control us.  We can have faith that God is good and that God is with us when we step out in faith to do God’s work in the world.  We can trust God enough to make use of the gifts and abilities we have been given, whether our particular passion is for teaching children or cooking meals or repairing homes or programming computers.  God wants us to be the unique individuals he’s created us to be, we all have valuable abilities for building God’s kingdom and he wants us to use them.

Among those stepping out, trusting God, and using their talents, we find nursing assistants who take great pride in keeping their patients clean and comfortable, carpenters who gain enormous satisfaction from building quality homes, teachers who find joy in the discoveries of the classroom, attorneys who keep the goal of justice at the very center of their practices, artists who are committed to bringing beauty into day-to-day life, store clerks who place good service at the heart of their own personal mission statements, and students who use their education to improve life in our world.  Most of us will never achieve national recognition for our accomplishments in life, but we will make a lasting impact on the world around us if we will willingly invest the talents we have been given.

A distinguishing characteristic of genius is immense productivity and risk taking.  Thomas Edison held 1,093 patents—still the record.  He guaranteed productivity by giving himself and his assistants idea quotas.  His own personal quota was one minor invention every 10 days and a major invention every six months.  Bach wrote a cantata every week, even when he was sick or exhausted.  Mozart (who we are enjoying this morning) produced more than 600 pieces of music.  Einstein is best known for his paper on relativity, but he published 248 other papers.  T. S. Eliot's numerous drafts of The Waste Land constitute a jumble of good and bad passages that eventually was turned into a masterpiece.

In a study of 2,036 scientists throughout history, Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California at Davis found that the most respected scientists produce not only great works, but also bad ones.  And there are many more of the bad ones.  These men and women took their immense talent and stepped out.  They risked failure—and failed often—to create innovations and masterpieces that radically improve life in our world.  I don’t believe that God minds when we try to do good and fail.  I really don’t.  I think that God is sad when we don’t even try at all.  

For that matter, even God risked—taking human form in the incarnation and suffering an ignominious death, only to rise again in the miracle of resurrection.  If God risked everything in the person of Jesus Christ for the sake of our salvation, doesn’t it seem likely that this same God might expect more than self-seeking, self-motivated, safety—conscious behavior from those who have been so wondrously saved.

Like the first two servants in the parable, at the very least, we can all invest our love in countless ways, which in my opinion is our greatest asset.  Just as there are thousands of ways of making money, there are thousands of ways of loving.  We can love our friends, our neighbors and even our enemies.  Mother Teresa invested her love among the dying on the streets of Calcutta.  Desmond Tutu invested his love in the poor black townships of South Africa.  Some visit jails, and hospitals, and shut-ins at home.  Even just taking time to pray for others is a meaningful investment in loving.

But love is risky.  A lover is a risk taker.  Loving children is risky, loving a partner is risky, loving people of other nations is risky, and loving people in church is most risky of all.  The more we love the more we are likely to get hurt. Jesus took the risk of loving and was crucified.  Nonetheless what is not acceptable is to allow our fear to control us to the point that we hide our talent in the ground and refuse to take the risk of loving.

Of course, some will risk loving, and some will not.  Some will be like the servant with five talents, and some will be like the servant with one talent.  Some will take risks and be generous, and some will remain cautious and close-fisted. Some will accept the idea of abundance, and some will hold to the myth of scarcity.        

Trust God.  Step out.  Try new things.  Share your love and abilities in creative and innovative ways.  Look outward to a world in need, and do what you can to feed hungry children, house homeless adults, and welcome the strangers and immigrants in our midst.  Again, I don’t believe that God minds when we try to do good and fail.  I really…really don’t.  I think that God is sad when we don’t even try at all.  Amen.  

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