“I’m Afraid of It!”

Matthew 25:14-30

November 13 and 16, 2003

St. Paul United Methodist Church

Rev. John Fleming

I have often wondered what God really looks like. I know what the scriptures say about this sort of thing. There is a great passage eight chapters shy of the end of the book of Exodus where Moses says to God, “Show me your glory, I pray.” To which God says, “I will make all my goodness pass before you. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will show mercy to whom I will show mercy.” Then God says, “You shall not see my face, for no one shall see me and live.” So God does a great thing. Trying to honor what Moses really wants, God hides the prophet in the cleft of a rock, puts his hand on him as he passes by, and then removes his hand and allows the prophet to see His back as he passes by. Now I do not know about you, but if I were Moses I would feel a little slighted by that whole experience! I think that I would rather see God and then go home to be with Him. I know that I am not the only one who has wondered what God’s features are like, am I? I guess from childhood we all have this picture impressed into our minds that God is up there in heaven, sitting on a throne, looking down on His creation. Near him are angels and archangels tending to his needs. There are clouds around him. Has that picture of God been ingrained in your minds, too? If it is, then I bet that you have God dressed in a long white robe with sandals on his feet. His hair is grey and flowing as is his beard. Is that your picture of God? Well, now that I am a little older and a preacher, I have got more than a couple of problems with that picture of God. Now I picture God as one who is closer to me, as close as my own breath. What image of God do you have in your minds?

Hollywood has helped us along, I think, with our ideas of what God must look like. I remembered the movie, O God, and then rented it at Blockbuster. Maybe you remember the movie. In it, Jerry Landers, a supermarket manager, gets a note from God telling him that he would like to see him and to talk with him one on one. When the two meet, Jerry learns that god wants to tell the world that He still cares about people. Jerry has more than a little trouble with his conversation with God. Jerry, you see, is not what you might call a great believer. He believes, but he believes on the fringes. Jerry cannot even imagine what God looks like and so in response to that, God takes on the form of an older man. If you have seen the movie, then you know that the older man is George Burns. There is a great scene halfway through the movie. In it, Jerry appears on the Dinah Shore Show. For those of us under thirty-seven, Dinah was a front runner for Oprah. So, here show is a talk show. Appearing with Jerry, on this particular show, is a police sketch artist who listens to Jerry’s description of God. As he listens, he draws God. At the end of the scene, Dinah says, “Well, America, here it is. As seen through the eyes of Jerry Landers, God.” I do not know about you, but I have a little trouble picturing God looking anything like George Burns. But now that I think about it, God has taken on some unusual forms and has used a lot of people to minister to me.

What does God look like? Well, here is what I think is a more important question, what does God act like? Now I know that this may sound a little unusual, but by now, you are probably used to unusual things coming out of my mouth. Could it be that God acts like a giant gum ball machine. When I was a kid, my father used to give me quarters to place in the slot of a gum ball machine. I would place the quarter there and then turn the handle and hope for the best. If I was lucky, I would get a purple gum ball. In those days, the gum ball could not have been described as grape. To me it was purple. Floating in the machine along with the purple gum balls, were the red ones, the orange ones, the green ones, and the black ones. The black ones were liquorice. I did not like and do not like the black ones. Let me ask you, is that the way God acts with us? Do we put in our quarters, live a certain way, follow particular rules, and turn the slot. If our sin record is not too bad, if we have not done too many bad things, then a purple gum ball appears? But if we have sinned one too many times, then a black gum ball appears. Is that how it works? Is that the way that God works and deals with us? For some reason I have a problem with that idea of God.

How about this one? Try this one on for size. Maybe God is more like a police officer hiding behind a tree or sitting on a side street while you are on your way to wherever it is that you are going. Since you are running a little late, the pedal on the right side of your floorboard is getting more attention than the one on the left. As a result of that, you pass that tree or that side street going a little faster than you should have. You saw the white car with the lights on top of it as you flew by. You slammed on your brakes, which Susie tells me, is a sure way of being caught, and it is too late. He pulls out behind you and before you know it, you are pulled over on the side of the road. He is behind you complete with blue lights flashing. As he gets out of the car and makes his way towards you, you try to think of the excuse that will free you. Maybe you try this one, “Officer, I am on my way home. My house is on fire.” Well, that won’t work. If he believes you, he will make sure that a fire truck is in route to your house. Before you can utter a word, you hear this, “John, don’t you think that you were going a little fast?” How did he know my name? And all the while, he is starting on the ticket that you will surely pay for. For some reason, I do not like that picture of God, either.

I am a fan of Gary Larson and the Far Side comic strip. Gary is now retired and you cannot see his new creations, but I remember the one where God is sitting at his computer. On the screen is a street with a building in the background. A man is walking down the sidewalk. Above him, a piano is heading his way. I assume that the piano movers lost it somehow. God is there, sitting at His computer, and his finger is about to hit the smite button on his keyboard. I definitely do not like that idea of God. Perhaps one of the things that happens is that we have so many ideas of what God looks like and how he acts, so that if I were to talk about mine and you were to talk about yours, then those images probably would be very different.

That leads us to our scripture lesson for this morning, taken from the middle of Matthew’s gospel. I guess that a lot of preachers have taken this passage as a way of preaching an encouraging sermon about how we all have a talent and how we should use the talent in some way. For some that might mean playing the piano at children’s choir, or driving the van on a Sunday morning, or teaching a Sunday School class. So the interpretation goes, regardless of how many talents we have, God wants us to use them wisely and not to waste them. That would be a good sermon, but it is not the one that I want to preach this morning. Other pastors use these words during stewardship season to talk about what we do with the money that we have. I promised that I would not preach such a sermon this morning and so I won’t.

Here is what I think. I think that both of those interpretations are too tame for this lesson. The lesson emphasizes, in it’s own way, the delay of the kingdom of God and what we are supposed to do while we wait. Could we look at this passage with different eyes this morning? In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus tells three stories about the absence of someone. In the first one, it is the absence of a bridegroom. The bridegroom is coming, so you had better get ready. When he arrives, there is going to be a wedding. Then there is our story. Two slaves have a gracious and good view of their master. This master goes away on an extended trip. To two of his servants, he gives five and two talents respectively. You need to know that giving them these talents was no small thing. In the days of Jesus, a talent is a lavish amount of money, worth about fifteen years worth of wages for an average wage earner. The master says that he will return. Do you see this? This parable is not a nice little story about what Christians do with their individual gifts and talents, but a disturbing story about what Christians do or do not do with the gospel as they wait for the kingdom. So what do you do while you wait, this passage asks. The answer is not to sit in pews and wait. That is obvious to me. We are supposed to wait for it, to pray for it, and to be ready for it, but not to sit still.

So Jesus tells this story. The first two servants are good and trustworthy. That is how Jesus describes them. They are that way because they take what they have been given and immediately work with the treasure entrusted to them. What is this treasure? Listen, it is the gospel, the good news, and the teachings of Jesus. The first two servants, the five and two talented ones, symbolize for us everyone who hears Jesus’ words and does something about them. How does Jesus put this, “Let everyone with ear to hear, hear.” These guys do not hold back. In fact, I imagine that they took great risks to do what they did. They were not afraid. Do you know why they were not afraid? Well, it is because they have this idea of a master who says, “Go for it! I am with you!” Then there is the third slave. Jesus, by the way, calls him wicked and lazy. His defense was to claim that he was afraid. Afraid? Afraid of what? Somehow he got the idea that his master was a harsh man, reaping where he did not sow and gathering where he had not sown. So he was afraid.

I just have to ask you church, where did he get that idea of his master? You will not find it in these sixteen verses. Look at what the master did. He trusted his servants with vast sums of money, not just to make a deposit at the bank and not just for a night or two, but for an extended period of time. Jesus says that the man went on a journey. In addition to that, in a culture where slaves were expected to do what they were told to do and nothing else they took risks. Also, slaves never were patted on the back, praised, or had brass plaques hung in their honor, and yet this master does exactly that. When he arrives home, he gave them more authority and even welcomed them into his home. That is what the words, “Come, enter the joy of your master” mean. Do you see this? Everything in this story leads us to see the master as an extra ordinary man, a trusting man, a welcoming man, a benevolent man. That is the way that Jesus wants you to see him. Otherwise the slaves would not have had the courage to act boldly and freely. I do not know where this one mousy little servant gets this idea of his master. Even if this servant had somehow missed all the trust and the joy and the generosity of his master’s spirit, he could have, at the very least, done a little low risk investing. I want you to see this, not only did the servant see him as hard, he saw him as evil. In his mind, the master is so hostile, that the only action to take is no action. It paralyzed him into doing nothing at all!

Now I know that not many of us have this view of God. At least I hope that you don’t. I hope that your view of God is more like the first two servants than that of the last one. Maybe Jesus has these words for us this morning as a way of saying, don’t dig a hole. Don’t be afraid to try new things. Take some risks and some chances. Do your very best. But still we are like the servant with one talent. A lot of the time I am like him. The other morning, I was putting the final touches on our sermon. One of our members saw its title, “I’m Afraid of It!” and asked, “What are you afraid of, John?” It took me only a minute to answer, “Preaching.” I am afraid of it. For some reason, more than any other time in a long time, I struggled with our sermon. You ought to stand in fear and trembling when you preach. I know that a preacher never stand in pulpits with confidence that comes from themselves. I know all of that. But I am afraid that the sermons that I preach won’t feed you or will disappoint you. I am afraid of disappointing my wife. I know that I have a few times. I am afraid of disappointing God. I do not know if you have gotten the theme here, but disappointing others is huge for me. But it will not cause me to dig a hole. I will not hide the one thing that God has blessed me with. I will not let it paralyze me and neither will I let it paralyze you. Today is Consecration Sunday. Today we commit again to God’s church without fear!

I started our sermon with some strange ideas about God. I would like to close with some that are not so strange. I believe in a God who cries with me when I cry. I believe in a God who loves me when I am not so loveable. I believe in a God who preaches with me when I preach and teaches with me when I teach and counsels with me when I counsel. I believe in a God who tries his best to settle me down when I am anxious and says to me, “John, it is all right.” I believe in a God who says to me, “Don’t ever be afraid to try. Because even if you fail, you are my son, and with you I am well pleased.” That is the picture of God that I want you to have.