February 8, 2004

Tonight the Grammy Awards will be on TV, and after what happened last week at the Super Bowl, CBS has agreed to add a five minute delay, so nobody else can stage a little “wardrobe malfunction” before millions of people on live TV. That’s so sad that it’s necessary to take such precautions, but today the world of entertainment seems to be mostly about exhibitionism. There was a time, however, when the music world was all about music. I want to tell you a story about a man you may have heard of—Elvis Presley.

Who can tell me the nickname they gave Elvis? “The King.” He was called The King of rock and roll, and almost 30 years after his death, the numbers bear him out. In 2002, Elvis’ estate took in $37 million in royalties from his recordings alone. Many thousands of people still tramp through his Graceland estate in Memphis every year. That ought to tell you how big he was during his career. He raked in millions upon millions of dollars. He hobnobbed with presidents and royalty. Women literally fainted in his presence. But Elvis was deeply unhappy.

Priscilla Presley later wrote about her husband and all the troubles he had, troubles that killed him when he was in his early 40s. He became obese; he was drug addicted; he died alone. Priscilla blamed the fact that her husband was empty inside. In spite of his fame, and his wealth, and his adulation, he was empty inside. She said that Elvis had a secret dream: “Honey, I think I have a call to preach.” But he never took action to explore that part of his talent. Can you imagine Elvis as a preacher? He certainly would have had people’s attention.

Today’s Gospel lesson, the story of the master and the talents, is very familiar to anybody who ever has spent more than a few Sundays in church. But in spite of its familiarity, it’s not the most popular of Jesus’ parables, because it is full of challenge. It reminds us that we all have been given a role to play in the great drama that is God’s salvation plan for the world. But some of us clam up when it’s time to speak our lines. My friends, today’s story  is not about the master squeezing his servants for a few extra bucks of interest.. God’s not like that.

God wants us to serve to live according to the example of Christ who came to earth not to rule, not to be a king, but to serve, to be the humblest of men. This story is all about how every one of us has something, some talent that we can use no matter what our station in life, no matter our age or physical condition, to advance the cause of the kingdom.

You have all probably heard of Helen Keller, but let me tell you quickly that a childhood disease left her unable to see, hear or speak. Yet through the determination of her remarkable teacher Anne Sullivan, her other teachers and Helen’s own intelligence, optimism and perseverance, she became a world-famous author and a symbol of hope for millions. She once said, “I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish tasks as if they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the combined tiny pushes of each honest worker.”

That’s the message that Moses left with the Hebrew people as they were about to enter the promised land: “If you all are to build a new land, a nation where everyone can live in peace, it’s going to take the contributions of every one of you.” Moses was about to die after 40 years of leading the people through the desert, so he called them together to deliver his farewell address, and this is what he found most important to tell them: God gives us simple choices: life or death. Prosperity or destruction. Service or selfishness. It’s not a matter of picking the lesser of two evils, it’s a clear choice, like the flight attendant who asked a passenger if he wanted dinner. He said, “What are my choices?” She looked at him and said, “Yes or no.”

But if you choose God, Moses warned, you must be prepared for everything that means. You have to be committed to serve others. It’s just like the old Frank Sinatra song said, “When somebody loves you, it’s no good unless they love you all the way.” Lip service is cheap, easy and worthless. God is not deceived, and you can’t lie to yourself, either. No one can truly love God without serving their neighbor. In the comic strip Peanuts when Lucy was challenged on her assertion that she loved mankind, she insisted, “I love mankind, it’s people I can’t stand.”

I have five principles that will make it a little easier for us to make the transition from an isolated life to a life of serving God and others.

Everything we have belongs to God. Martin Luther said it well more than 500 years ago: “I have held many things in my hand, and I have lost them all. But whatever I have placed in God’s hands, I still possess.”

Anybody here ever rent a car? If you have, you know that they expect it back with a full gas tank. If you don’t bring it back, the price of a gallon of gas becomes an arm, a leg and your right eyeball, all added to your credit card statement. It pays you well to take your car back with a full gas tank.

And the same thing is true with our lives. Everything we have, up to and including our life, our very souls, is on loan from God, and he’s going to want it back, with interest. We are to do his work with his gifts. Unfortunately, we start to forget this as we meander through our days. We start thinking about this being my life, my career, my family, my home, my talents, my money. They’re not. They’re God’s. The only question is, Are we using them in such a way that when we stand before him and give an accounting, he will say, “Well done. Awesome job!”

And that leads straight into the second point: God’s “Well Done” is our reward. Our God is not a cop ready to catch transgressors, he is a loving and hopeful God who can’t wait to see his children succeed, whatever their job. In sports there is an old motto that a successful coach put his players in situations that give them their best chance to succeed, and that’s what God has done for us. He puts us in situations where our talents are sufficient to get the job done, but we have to have the courage to shoot the ball. God can’t do that for us.

In this world we measure everything according to what’s in it for us. And delayed gratification is not satisfactory. We want our reward now. That’s not how God works. In God’s kingdom, payday is not always on Friday. But nobody has a better memory than God when it comes to taking note of who has been faithful to his call. God’s “Well done” comes backed with the promise made to the productive servants: “Come and enter into my joy.”

 Everybody has talents for God’s work. One of the mysteries of faith that we will never fully understand until we get to heaven is this: Why, if we’re all equal in God’s sight, do some people so much more ability than others? It’s indisputably true that God gave some people five talents or maybe 50 talents, and others one talent. And there are many, many more of us one-talent people than the ones who seem to excel at everything they touch.

But the bottom line of our Gospel story today, what Jesus wanted to affirm, is that everybody has something they can do to make this a better world.

I love the story of the 38 year old scrubwoman who would go to the movies and sigh, “If only I had her looks.” She would listen to a singer and moan, “If only I could sing like her.” Then one day someone gave her the book, “The Magic of Believing.” She stopped comparing herself to actresses and singers. She stopped crying about what she didn’t have and started concentrating on what she did have. She remembered that when she was in high school, she always had been able to make others laugh. She was plain-looking and had a scratchy voice, but she could make people laugh.

And at the height of her career back in the 1960s, Phyllis Diller was making over a million dollars a year. Everybody has something. The master builder doesn’t make defective units.

God hates wasted potential. There are few human problems that would cause us to link God and hate in the same sentence, but clearly wasted potential is one. In our lesson the one-talent servant says “You’re a hard master and it would have been impossible to please you.” And the answer comes back, “Hard cheese, pal. You didn’t even try.” It reminds me of a sister who taught me math in grade school, or tried. We called her Attila the Nun. She was tough, and took no excuses. If you told her you couldn’t solve a math problem, you’d better have sheets full of numbers where you could show you had tried to solve it, or your mother would be getting that dreaded phone call, “Johnny has so much potential but he doesn’t apply himself.”

But it’s true—God hates it when we waste our potential, and that’s reflected when the master takes the one talent that the servant has not used, and gives it to the man with 10 talents. Whoa! Way harsh, God. That’s our reaction, possibly because we see ourselves in the one-talent man’s story. To get past that resentment, we need to redefine the investments that God has made in us, and the return he’s looking for. Imagine if the first servant was a Sunday School teacher who comes back to the master and said, “Lord, at first I was afraid to teach children about you, but I found the more I taught the more I learned, and gradually I got better at it and I’ve been able to teach hundreds of children and bring them to God.”

And Jesus’ reply might be something like, “Well done. Because you have been faithful, I’ll give you even more understanding and more skills, so you can reach people on a deeper level.”

And the second servant comes to the master and says, “Lord, you gave me the gift of compassion, so that I could visit people who were hurting and talk with them and hug them and even cry with them, so I could share your love with them. At first I felt embarrassed and awkward, but the more I used my gifts the easier it became, and the more people responded and felt your presence.” And Jesus might reply, “Well done! Every time you give even a cup of water in my name, it’s as if I’m there ministering, too. I’ll give you even more gifts, because you have been faithful.”

But then the third servant came and said, “Lord you gave me the gift of interpreting the scriptures, but I was too scared to share my gift with others. I thought that I might lead your people astray if I was wrong with what I said, so I just never said anything. I know you get angry if someone misuses their gifts.” Imagine what an angry Jesus might say then. “I entrusted you with a gift so that others could learn about my love and forgiveness. Now it’s too late, and souls have been lost because of your laziness. My work is too important to trust to the likes of you. I will take your gift and give it to the teacher.”

Let no handicap, real or imagined, stand in your way. People make all kinds of excuses about why they can’t answer their call. They’re too busy. They have health problems. They have money problems. There’s something in their background, like an unhappy childhood. But God has heard all the excuses in the book and then some. Excuses didn’t work for the one-talent servant, and they won’t work for you and me.

Last fall a young man named Neil Perry made history in a very special way. Some three years ago, Neil Perry suffered the greatest blow that can happen to a young athlete; he lost one of his legs. That would be the end of the story for many, but not for him. He went through 25 operations in the next three years. He had dozens of painful fittings until he found the right prosthetic leg, the one that fit perfectly. And he had to convince his coach that he could still run adequately and defend himself.

But this past fall, Neil Perry took the field for San Diego State University on the kickoff team, the first non-kicking college football player ever to wear an artificial leg.

Can you imagine the impact that Neil’s actions had on his coaches? His teammates? Everybody in the stands? I remember seeing the video of Neil running downfield and getting blocked and knocked down, but he bounced up and trotted off the field. That attitude needs to fill all of our hearts. We need to say, “Lord, give me the heart of a warrior. Help me to bounce back when I get knocked down, but don’t let me ever quit until I’ve paid dividends on your investment in me, and let me keep paying dividends in service to others until the day you call me home.”

I haven’t finished my story on Elvis yet, and here is why I started by taking note of the Grammy Awards: Elvis was nominated for 14 Grammy awards in his career, but he won only three. And all three of the awards were for his gospel recordings, not his rock and roll albums. One of his gospel songs includes the following lyrics:

“After the lightning has flashed, after the last bell has rung, I want to bow before my savior, And hear him say, ‘Well done, my son.’ He is my reason for living. He is my king of kings. I long to be in his possession. He is my everything.”

Might this world have been a better place if Elvis had taken those lyrics more to heart? Might Elvis’ story have had a better conclusion?

I’ve done a lot of name dropping this morning, and talked about people you’ve heard of and some you haven’t. But I want to assure you of this: no matter how big you get in the eyes of men, no matter how much fame or wealth you accumulate, you will never be happy, you will never fill up the emptiness inside you, until you use the talents God has given you to serve others in his name. It doesn’t matter whether you have five talents or two or just one.

But you have to believe that God knows you by name, and has done great things in your life already, so that your service is a thanks offering for what you have received. Have faith that the great God we worship has given you something that is yours alone. A role in his great drama. Find that role, rehearse it and put it to work, so that one day you too might hear the great critic say, “Well done.”

God said, “Build a better world,” and I said, “How? The world is such a cold, dark place, and so complicated now. And I’m so tired and useless, there’s nothing I can do.” But God in all his wisdom said, “Just build a better you.”