The Rev. Noah Van Niel
The Chapel of the Cross
November 15th, 2020
Proper 28 (C): Judges 4:1-7; Psalm 123; 1 Thess 5:1-11; Matthew 25:14-30
I love this time of year. The air is crisp and refreshing. The changing leaves wallpaper the world in glorious shades of yellow, russet and red. The sun sags heavy in the sky, filling our days with a soft glow and dappling the ground in glimmering shadows. The birds are gathering up their stores. The cider is being pressed. And everyone, everywhere, is asking for your money.
Fall is a wonderful time, the world has decided, for a pledge drive. Calls have probably started coming in from your alma mater. WCPE just went for two full weeks. NPR was right along with them. I’m sure PBS isn’t far behind. And as I hope you are all aware, today, we, here at The Chapel of the Cross come to the symbolic end our annual fundraising campaign. “Ingathering Sunday,” we’ve taken to calling it. A harvest festival of sorts, where instead of the granary we aim to fill the budget for the coming year.
And, thanks to the lectionary, we have some help in our task because this morning it is not just the church that is asking for your money—it’s Jesus. The parable of the talents, is about money, and what you do with it. I want to make that clear because this particular parable has long suffered from an overly-metaphorical interpretation which equates “talents” with the more contemporary use of the word: put your God-given gifts, those things you are good at, to good use. That is a worthy lesson to take. But in fact, a “talent,” was a sum of money, an immense sum, something like 15 times the annual salary of a daily laborer. The servants in this story have been entrusted with more money than they had ever seen, and the question is, what are they going to do with it?
The first two servants take their money, trade with it, and double it. But the third servant takes his and buries it. Why did he do that? Well, because he was afraid! He didn’t want to lose any! It was actually not uncommon, in an age without a centralized banking system and questionable legal protections, for people to bury their valuables to prevent thieves from getting them. And this master is a harsh man, so if the servant were to lose any of the money, he’s afraid he would be toast. So he does the safe thing. And some could very well argue, the sane thing.
But of course, he is outshone by his more entrepreneurial colleagues who take their immense wealth, and rather than sit on it, take a risk with it. And not because of how much money they made, but because they took that risk and tried to put that money to use, they are rewarded with the admiration of their master. We know their reward does not have to do with the amount of money they made because the servant with 5 talents of profit and the servant with 2 talents of profit both received the same commendation. And the master even implies that he would have been satisfied if the third servant had merely invested his money with the bankers, earning at the very least, a little interest. So the point is not how much money you make by putting your money to use, it is to put it to use. Another way of saying that might be, when it comes to the financial gifts that we have been entrusted with, we are meant to be governed by faith, not fear. We should not let the possibility of loss or a sense of scarcity, guide our choices. This lesson is broadly applicable to all the gifts we have been given but it is especially and essentially applicable to our finances. Jesus chose to illustrate his message with money because he knew that chief among all the gifts we have been given, in times of uncertainty or fear, the temptation will be to hold onto it tighter, keep it closer; to bury it in the ground.
As we have been making our calls and writing our emails trying to encourage people to make their pledge to the church for 2021 we have been hearing many heartwarming expressions of gratitude from people about the work the parish has done in this year. Thank you for those. The whole staff has been working incredibly hard in ways that aren’t always terribly satisfying, spiritually or otherwise, and your gratitude nourishes us to continue doing that work. But we are also hearing that when it comes to people’s financial future, and the commitments they are comfortable making, many are feeling deep uncertainty and fear. This is completely understandable. This pandemic has thrown any prospective planning into complete disarray and sent much of the financial world into chaos. For some it has been financially ruinous. And that has left many of us holding our money closer, a protective cushion against the unknowns of the coming year. I am right there with you. But, that impulse to cling ever closer to our finances out of fear for what the future might hold, combined with reduced, withheld or lost pledges, has left us almost $###,### short of our goal, on this, the symbolic end to our campaign. We’ve had about ## new pledges come in this year—which is wonderful especially given the circumstances. But we also have about ### people who pledged last year who have not yet pledged this year. And in these days of distance it’s hard to gauge how many of those pledges we can expect to come in.
Now, that being said, I believe we are going to make our goal. Because I believe in the people of this parish and the work God is doing in this place and in our lives. You all have surprised us time and again with your generosity and I am hopeful for our future. But if we’re going to raise what we need fund the mission and ministry at this parish for 2021, many of us will need to take a little bit more of a risk financially than might feel comfortable, or even prudent, at this moment in time. We’re going to need to invest in our church and be willing to put not just our faith but our finances in God’s hands. And while faith may feel like a questionable metric by which to make fiscal decisions, let me tell you why I think that investment in your parish is an important one, perhaps maybe the most important investment you will make, as we move into next year.
As I look into the future, it seems pretty clear that next year is going to be a rebuilding year. We are, hopefully, going to spend most of 2021 slowly, painstakingly, piecing back together the shards of our parish life. On the whole, I think that is going to be a joyous process, but it is also going to make shutting everything down 8 months ago look easy by comparison. We’re going to need a fully supported staff team to help shepherd us through that process. We’re going to need technology that doesn’t leave some portions of our parish behind as we evolve from virtual to in-person worship. We’re going to need buildings that are sound and up to the task of doing things like circulating and filtering air. We’re going to need increased cleaning and sanitation. We’re going to need instruments that function reliably if we want once again to gladden our hearts with song. We’re going to need fried chicken so we can once again share in the fellowship of a Sunday supper. In order for us to be restored as a community of faith, once again fully alive with the Spirit, celebrating the various ways we give and receive God’s love, filling our souls with the power to go out in the name of Christ and work to bring about God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, then we’re going to have some real, basic material needs. We’re going to be back, but us coming back, you coming back, will require every ounce of the ingenuity, energy, and money that we can muster. If we’re limping into next year due to budget cuts, it will severely hinder our ability to worship God and serve the world in this place; a place I know you all love deeply and miss terribly.
But that’s not all. For as we move into next year, the work of rebuilding our parish life is going to be miniscule compared to the work the church will be called to do to rebuild our common life beyond these walls. As we grapple with the current socio-political climate of our country, and the ideological rift that runs right through it, it is more and more clear that the soul of America is wounded. And while I appreciate the calls for healing being modeled and talked about right now, the truth is, it is going to be on us, small, community based organizations like churches, to do the real, difficult, long work of nursing our nation back to health. Because you can’t rebuild trust with an executive order. You can’t manufacture mercy. You can’t legislate love. As we stagger forward, we—not some big metaphorical “we,” but you and me and us, “we”—are going to have to find ways to stitch back together that which has been torn apart. As a church, as a religious institution, this is work we were made to do. The very word “religion,” derives from the Latin root of the verb “to bind up.” And rarely has our country needed to be bound back up like it needs to be right now. Over the next year, and probably for many years to come, it will be on us, as disciples of Jesus Christ and members of the Chapel of the Cross, to take on the work of reconciliation and restoration in our country and our community.
That is what lies ahead of us as we enter 2021. It’s daunting, but also, exhilarating. As we wrote in an email to the parish recently, we were made for such a time as this. People of love and mercy; people of healing and hope; people of courage and compassion; people of justice and peace; people of faith, not fear. People who are devoted to binding up the world’s hurts even if, especially if, it is the whole world that hurts. But if we’re going to meet the needs of this time, as I believe, by the grace of God, we can, then we need to be fully functional on all fronts—from worship, to programs, to building maintenance, to mission and outreach. And for that to happen we need your help. We need your prayers. And we need your money. If you haven’t made your pledge yet, please do. If you have, thank you. In this difficult year, I know many of you have already given as much as you can, even if that has meant a reduction in your pledge. But for those of us who have not given as much as we can, could we risk making it a little bit more? That may feel imprudent, or scary even given the times we are living in. But I hope you’ll agree it’s risk worth taking. Because if you thought the church was important this year, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Amen.