Parable of the Talents

In the movie Babette’s Feast, Babette, a French woman living in a remote part of northern Denmark, spends every penny of her lottery winnings preparing an elaborate meal. She serves it to the two sisters she works for and their small congregation, in celebration of their father and founder’s 100th birthday. But this community worries more about the dangers of good food and wine, and fails to recognize the incredible gift that Babette has offered. As it turns out, she was once a renowned chef, and in preparing this meal, she is not only offering her money, but also her extraordinary abilities. Yet when a visiting general comments on the soup, the man next to him replies, “I think it will probably snow all day tomorrow!”
In my short time here at Christ Church Lutheran, I have met some incredibly gifted people. Not only are they gifted in their abilities, from music to leadership, from hospitality to fix-it-ness, and a huge variety of others, but, like Babette, they are gifted in their desire to share those abilities. I should say, you are gifted in the desire to share your abilities. And I see a desire not only to share your gifts with one another, but with the community. This congregation has made a decision to be a transforming congregation, to be a transformed congregation, not for your own sake, but for the sake of the community and for the glory of God.
I am blessed to be at Christ Church at a very special time in the life of this congregation. In Greek, it is called a kairos time. A time of receptivity, a time of openness to what God is up to, a time of pausing to listen and to see what is stirring. It is often translated as opportunity, or right time. Kairos is a word that is about the in-breaking of God’s kingdom. When Jesus begins his ministry in the book of Mark, he says “The time is fulfilled, the kairos is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has come near.” This is the context into which you offer your gifts, whether they are gifts of money or gifts of time or gifts of ability. The in-breaking Kingdom of God, here at Christ Church Lutheran, in the company of the Body of Christ, is where you bring and share your gifts.
But it’s scary to offer our gifts nonetheless. We see that fear in the words of the third slave in today’s gospel reading. “I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground.” Even if we do not believe that God is as the slave described the master, “harsh, reaping where you did not sow, gathering where you did not scatter seed,” we may experience community that way. Though we would hope that the church would be different, we are human, we are sinners as well as saints, and we fall short of the call that we have, to receive one another graciously. And so, it is often with fear that people meet us, the church community, and it is often with fear that we meet one another. We fear rejection, we fear humiliation, we fear being taken advantage of, and so we hide our talents in the ground. We fear that, like Babette, our gifts will go unrecognized, and while we pour ourselves out for them, people will talk about the weather.
But there is another word that is spoken in today’s text. Twice the master says, “enter into the joy of your master!” The Greek word for “joy” is chara. It is not actually related to kairos time, but the words echo one another. Chara means joy, and its relative chairo means rejoice. It is what the Magi did when the star stopped over the stable where the baby Jesus lay. They chairo-ed with great chara. They rejoiced with great joy. As we talked about in the adult forum Bible study a couple weeks ago, the magi were overwhelmed with joy. They were struck by an almost external wave of joy that washed over them and overwhelmed them. And then “they knelt down and paid him homage.” They worshipped.
In today’s text, that word comes again – enter into the chara, enter into the joy, of your master. It is a joy that is already there, and an invitation that is already there, no matter how, or even if, we choose to use our gifts. And it is a joy that is already there, no matter how, or even if, those gifts are received as we might hope. In spite of their selves, the dinner guests find themselves transformed by Babette’s feast. They find old jealousies and rivalries melting away, and they end the evening holding hands, dancing around the well in the center of the village, singing a song of worship and service. The Spirit moves through Babette’s gift, in spite of those who would ignore it.
And that is our calling: setting aside our fear, trusting that the Spirit will take care of how our gifts are used and received, we are called to enter the space where kairos time, God’s opportune moment, meets chara, the joy of our master, meets indeed the joy of our own hearts. We are called to hear what God is up to in this moment and to enter into that with our own passions and our own gifts. We are called to transform and to be transformed by the intersection of God’s kairos time and chara joy. In this way, our offering of time, of money, of ability, becomes something more than mere volunteerism. It becomes the mission of the Body of Christ in the world. It becomes the overwhelming joy that moves us to worship. It becomes worship.
What is the passion, the joy, the chara, of Christ Church Lutheran? What are the needs of our community, both inside this building and out, that our passion might serve? That is the question that this kairos time has set before us. As we listen, we will surely hear God’s answer, and God’s kairos time, God’s in-breaking kingdom, will collide with our God-given chara and passion. And the results will be spectacular!