Many of you have been reading about risk-taking mission and service through this week. Here are some of the quotes that stood out for me:

"The stretch of Christian discipleship is to love those for whom it is not automatic, easy, common, or accepted."

"What is the most unexpected place to which your faith in Christ has taken you in order to make a difference in someone's life?"

"The life of service flows naturally and inescapably from the teachings of Jesus Christ, and no congregation or disciple can avoid the direct gift and demand of God's call to love and serve others."

     and finally:

"Just do it. For Christ's sake!" (Cultivating Fruitfulness, Chapter 4)

It is in the context of this chapter on taking risks in God's service that we gather to hear what is often called The Parable of the Ten Talents. Co-incidentally enough it is also the time in our church that we celebrate our stewardship and re-commit ourselves to supporting God through the life of this congregation. The parables of Jesus are never "once for all." That is, we are never finished learning and growing from them … they are many faceted. We experience them a bit differently each time we read them, we look at them through a different lens … knowing at the same time, they are all part of the one story that claims us as God's people. And so, this morning for us the facet we find in the parable is that of risk taking.

A few words of background on the parable are first in order. For those that are interested in such details, this is the longest of his parables. Some of what Jesus describes in the story is typical for his day. For example, it was common practice to bury money for safekeeping. Then, as is also typical for Jesus, he stretches things around … includes the outrageous to make a point. He describes the sums of money given as talents. Unfortunately the word for us has such a different connotation that we miss a bit of the outrageousness of the story, and has us reduce the parable to something like, "make the most of what you have got." When we realize the scope of what a talent represented in the time of day we begin to sense this is about much more than simply using our abilities. For a talent represented the largest denomination of money in Jesus' time. It was a coin not for the weak, as it could weigh in at around 75 pounds. Some math and economics could put the sum given to the first servant in today's equivalent amount at 5 million dollars. How many of us would know what to do with such an amount?!

Knowing that, we know that Jesus is talking about way more than simply using our God-given gifts to the best of our abilities. It is beyond the challenge of our Step-Up Campaign for our financial giving in the coming year. The parable becomes our challenge for faith-filled living. It goes against our cultural grain that tells us to acquire all that we can, share a bit of that … and lash out at those who we define as our enemy. It reminds us that we have our stewardship backwards when we see it as primarily a duty to give back to God a certain percentage of what we have gained. Stewardship only makes sense when we can first see everything we have as God's gift to us, entrusted to us that we would further the work of God's kingdom building … only then can we make God-informed decisions about allocating our resources. The Psalmists capture the sense of God's amazing love and care for us: "I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where will my help come … the Lord." "Know that the Lord is God, It is he that made us, and we are his … the Lord is good, his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations." We all have our favorite Psalm excerpts that remind us of God's power and love. Even the beloved 23rd Psalm becomes in this case a call to risk-taking service and mission – for in knowing God's constant presence and care, how can we help but not step out in service as our response?

And so, this parable becomes for us our call to live as those responding to God's love without reservation. As we have been loved, how will we love others? There is no way to bury God's love for safe-keeping, doling it out carefully as we determine. To do so is as ridiculous as the servant who attempted to bury his million dollars. To do so is to incur the judgment of God that next week's parable speaks of in the story of the sheep and the goats. To take this story to heart is to know that God's love is so much bigger than we can imagine … that's why Jesus uses such ridiculous amounts of money to describe it. And only in following the example of Jesus can we begin to fathom what to do with such an overwhelming gift entrusted to us. Left to our own devices, we don't have a clue!

How are you being called out to serve? We so often dismiss ourselves as having nothing to offer … and in that, risking becoming like the servant who buried his million. We hear the stories of the "newsworthy" people. Those who leave all they know and work in the jungle, or the place no one else wants to go. And we think, that's not me … I'll never be in that kind of mission and service. (Well, actually you never know … ) I suspect that is why our reading this past week included the "everyday" kind of stories. They are responses of people we can relate to: a look around our neighborhood, intercultural experiences, even a story of a failure of sorts to remind us the work is not easy or comfortable.

We have been entrusted with more than we will ever earn on our own merits and abilities. And as this story is primarily about God's judgment, we will be judged primarily on how we have served. We will be judged on how well we have served Jesus in the needs of the least and the forgotten. Next week's parable is an even more vivid declaration of that.

Today we are called to step out on the promises of God and take the risk of responding in mission and service in response to the extravagant love God has given us. As we prayed together this week we will continue to pray:

Lead us, we pray, in the ways of justice,
mercy and peace. Inspire us to live for all,
to assist in ways open to us to alleviate
the suffering of others. Amen.
(Cultivating Fruitfulness, p. 66)