on the walk

This week our sermon series on finances continued. It was a good week. The message revolved around two poles. The second pole was a simple (but not easy) call to disciplined financial living. 10-10-80 is a simple way to remember to plan a budget: 10% to give away, 10% to save or invest and 80% to live on. I will post about the plan soon. My first reflection is on the first pole.

Most of the sermon was a reflection on the parable of the talents. I have several troubles with this parable. I know that it is not an allegory, and I should not hope to apply every little detail, but it seems like an allegory. Additionally, I can never figure out if this is a parable about money, or if money is just an element of the story that it is used to teach about something else. (For instance the the parable of the sower is not a parable about farming even though it is a parable about a farmer.) Finally and most significantly, something inside me wonders, “What exactly did that third guy do wrong? So he was a bit to careful. He did not want to mess up. He wanted to protect what he had been given. Isn’t that commendable?”

Apparently not.

Which reminds me. I played in a Jazz band for a few years. It was wonderful. I was a mediocre bass player, and my old Junior High band director (I used to play the trombone) had recently joined the music faculty at Milligan College. He is a wonderful jazz trombonist and immediately started a jazz band. He needed a bass player, and to my great honor and horror he invited me to play and I said yes. I am pretty sure that for at least that first year(and maybe the whole time), I was the worst player in the group. And that first night I arrived with an almost fatal flaw: timidity. We were reading the first song, and we came to the bar 5 (where I was supposed to come in) and I did nothing. He stopped the band. He looked at me; I was 12 again.

“Magness, are you gonna play?”

He started the song again. I came in this time. I think that I played the right notes 10% of the time, but I kept time, and I played out.

He was a tough director. He reaped where he did not sow, etc. So I practiced at home and at rehearsal I lived by one simple rule: When in doubt, bust out.

I think that this is what I learn from the parable of the talents. If God says to us, “My grace is sufficient for you, so go for it,” and then I live as if God is not ready to back me up. That is disobedience. I know that God wants me to act wisely and exercise appropriate caution. I know that fools in the name of Christ have done damage to God’s name and God’s people. But I also wonder how many times in my life I missed a chance to play because I was to timid.

Ultimately I suppose that the parable of the talents is not about money, but what this teaches about life is true about our financial life as well. God has called to live without timidity. God has called us to live lives that are fueled by glorious godly risk.

Paul writes:

1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus, 2To Timothy, my dear son:Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3I thank God, whom I serve, as my forefathers did, with a clear conscience, as night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. 4Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I may be filled with joy. 5I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. 6For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. 7For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.
8So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, 9who has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 11And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. 12That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him for that day.

on the walk

-Ethan

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