Time and Talent or Gift?

... this is the 2nd of a 2-sermon "Stewardship Series."  Confession: I neither like the word "stewardship" nor "series" in churches.  Both are really loaded terms.  Anyway, I'm still trying to transcribe the sermon from last Sunday (I preached only with notes and didn't write a manuscript), but I talk faster than I type.

Being a disciple is not an easy thing today.  It’s not an easy thing for us, and it was not an easy thing for the disciples in 1^st Century Palestine.  They have watched Jesus in Nazareth, where the people came and said, “Are you serious?  Isn’t that Joseph and Mary’s boy?  Did you hear, they weren’t even married when he was born, and now he’s a Rabbi?  Well, I never…”  They saw him heal a few people, but nothing like the miracles they had seen up to now.  And then Jesus does the most peculiar thing: he sends them out, two by two, with nothing except the clothes on their backs.  There aren’t instructions for what to say, there are no instructions for what to teach… and, frankly, it seems like a poor use of time and talent, our stewardship theme for this week.

Just two weeks ago, Jesus asks the disciples, “Have you still no faith?” and now they are witnesses to Jesus, healing and preaching and teaching in his name.  These people, who were afraid of the storm at sea, are being sent out into the storm that is the world.  They had nothing.  With barely any faith and barely any material possessions with them, I can’t help but wonder what Jesus was thinking.  

What must God’s idea of stewardship be, if he sends these flawed people, out into the world?  We talk about being responsible with that which we have been entrusted.  We talk about different gifts and abilities.  We talk about our time and our talents.  And so I look at these disciples and at Paul and have expectations that they’re going to be… well… better than this.

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And I realize that this is mostly because of the assumptions I make about God and about God’s use of resources, of people, of time, and of resources.  I assume that God makes the same choices I do with respect to people that are trustworthy and people who are not, of what are good uses of my time and what is not, and what are good uses of my resources and what are not. 

What sort of people would you send out to proclaim Jesus’ message?  What do they look like?  Now, if we were going to send them out, what would we send with them?  We would send out someone that looks a little more like a superhero, whereas Jesus sends out people that look a little more like, well… you and me.  What does this have to do with stewardship, you ask?  It has to do with our understandings of what is necessary of our time and our talents to participate in God’s work in the world, you know, the work of healing, proclaiming, teaching, and saving.

It all sounds like pie in the sky, doesn’t it?  That’s how we get out of the stewardship of faith, making the responsibility for those who seem like they ought to be sharing the message, you know, people who have training, you know, people who have the resources to do it, you know, the people who aren’t like us.  So we begin to believe that we are not enough: not smart enough, not religious enough, don’t know the Bible enough… and part of us does this because we really believe we are not enough, but I think part of us also does this because we want to distance ourselves from any responsibility with this.  It is a lot easier to just come to church, to not have this faith stuff follow you wherever you go.  So we do our best to go about our business, ignoring the fact that we have been called and sent out into the world.  We describe how little time and how few talents we have to give to church.  There is always something demanding our time, and there are always demands on our gifts.  We act as though these are things that we have earned, things we must protect, things that we have taken for ourselves.  But is that really how we came by both time and talent?  We, who have been given eternal life, act as though time is the enemy.  Friends, we have time in spades.  Without a God who paints the sky new each morning, there would be no artists.  Without a God who taught the stars the song of creation, there would be no musicians.  Without a God whose handiwork created the natural wonders of the world, there would be no builders and no craftsmen.  Without a God who had spun clothing for the birds and the lilies, there would be no seamstresses.  All of our talents are given as gift, as reflection of God’s creative power in the world.  We have been given time and talents as gifts from God, and yet we hoard them, thinking we can protect ourselves

Jesus didn’t ask the disciples if they had room in their schedules or if they could take a week off from work; he didn’t ask if they felt like they had the appropriate skill set to be sent out into the world.  He could have sent anyone, people more intelligent, people who knew the right thing to say (unlike Peter), people with fewer doubts (unlike Thomas), people who had some religious training… but that is not what is required.  God’s stewardship of time and talent works a lot differently from ours, it seems.  God does not require of you that you be usable to be used.

This is God’s stewardship and God’s idea of time and talent.  Both are rather inconvenient.  I wonder if part of the reason for this is that everything is topsy-turvy in God’s world.  The gift of eternity is given in the face of death.  We see God using anyone to proclaim the Gospel in the world, whatever their gifts.  God uses even Paul, a persecutor of the church.  Nothing is as it seems with this God.  Paul quotes Jesus saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”  Power is made perfect in weakness?  Weakness is the very source of our strength?  It is when we take nothing, when we have nothing, when we hold nothing, that our hands are empty to receive the gift.  Gift and giver are one and the same: Christ is the gift, and Christ is the giver.  “This is the body of Christ, given for you.”  Freely given and unworthily received, we carry our savior into the world.

We are sent out, with life eternal, with gifts that point to a generative, creative, redemptive Spirit that continues working through you, drawing you into God’s reality.  It is all gift, for your sake that you might see God working in your own life, and for the sake of the world, that they may come to realize God has not left the world abandoned or forsaken, but continues drawing it forward.  Countless martyrs and saints have gone before us, carrying Christ into the world, pointing to God’s reality in the world through their time and talents.  You are invited into the fray and sent out into the world, not for the sake of your salvation, but for the sake of the salvation of the world.  It’s not really about your time, and it’s not really about your talent; it never was.  It’s really about God and God’s work in the world; it always was.