Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Stewardship: Using, Not Hoarding"

Text: Matthew 25:14-30

that I wish with all my heart

Jesus had never told.

There is a part of me that I recognize so well

in that third servant.

Timidly hiding away,

paralyzed into doing nothing

by the fear of doing something wrong.

Hiding, and hoarding what I’ve been given,

afraid to use it ‘cause I might misuse it,

not trusting the goodness of God.

And that is what it always boils down to …

timidity may be the symptom, or fear;

but the root cause is lack of trust.

For many of us, part of the problem may be

that our notions about God

are a lot like the master in the parable:

greedy, selfish, harsh, judgmental …

Not concerned with us as persons,

but with what we produce.

Making us guess what he wants,

but punishing us if we guess wrong.

And if God were like that,

we might be right to be timid,

and fearful, and mistrustful.

But that is not who God is.

And consequently, that’s not how we can be.

Even if we consider ourself to be

only a one-talent servant …

We can’t hide that one talent in the ground.

We must go out and use it,

and watch it multiply.

Like the servants in the parable,

we are expected to be good stewards, good managers.

And though the parallel isn’t exact,

God, like the master,

expects to see some kind of results.

It doesn’t matter whether we started out with

five talents, or two, or only one.

What matters is that we did something with them,

and did not simply keep them hidden away

for ourselves.

You know, in a more general sense

I think that’s what Martin Luther meant

when he said that we Christians should "sin boldly."

Not that we should go out and deliberately do

all the bad things we can think of to do …

though for a little while that might be fun!

No, Luther was acknowledging that

there are times when we must make a decision

when it’s not yet clear

what the right and wrong choices are.

So we have to "sin boldly,"

go ahead and make a decision,

based on what we know up to this point,

and move ahead.

If we’re right; well, hallelujah!

If we’re wrong; well, that’s why he said,

"Sin boldly,

but believe and rejoice in God more boldly still."

Believe and rejoice that the power of God

is stronger than the power of our mistakes.

Believe and rejoice that God forgives

the wrong choices we sometimes make.

Sin boldly.

Move ahead.

Use what we’ve been given;

don’t just sit on it.

Now having said that,

let me interrupt myself for a moment.

Sometimes, we talk about "being prepared"

as one important aspect of stewardship.

"Being prepared" might often include saving up money

toward something big coming up:

college expenses, retirement, whatever.

But for today, what I’m saying may sound like almost the opposite:

that we should use what we have

and not salt it away.

There’s not necessarily any contradiction.

It’s just that frequently

there’s a very fine line between

responsible saving and miserly hoarding.

Sometimes it seems that it would have been much easier

if Jesus had given us some more specific rules to go by

instead of just telling those interesting stories.

But that’s the wonderful and scary thing

about our Christian faith:

God leaves us free to make our own decisions.

Which means that

sometimes we’ll do the gloriously right thing,

and other time we’ll be miserably wrong.

Nevertheless, sin boldly!

However, if you’re a person for whom having rules is helpful,

here’s a guideline that I’ve found useful.

Do you know who Charlie Shedd is?

Presbyterian minister, now retired,

has written a number of books.

In one of those books he describes

how he and his wife, Martha,

decided early on in their marriage

how they would manage their money.

Their rule was: "Give 10%, save 10%,

and spend the rest with praise and thanksgiving!"

Now you may want to adjust those percentages a little

to suit your needs and your family’s needs.

But overall, it’s not a bad guideline

to help us find our way between

saving and hoarding.

Of course, the rest of it is important too.

Particularly the attitude that Charlie Shedd talks about:

"spend the rest with praise and thanksgiving."

Often that’s hard.

At best, our spending is usually routine:

writing checks to pay the bills,

shopping for the usual groceries,

replacing the clothes the kids have outgrown.

At worst, it can be a time of stress:

trying to stretch our limited dollars

to cover expenses we can’t avoid,

making difficult decisions about which items will have priority

and which will go unpaid.

"Praise and thanksgiving," for many of us,

seems to be asking a little much!

Or is it?

Being a student of American history,

I’m really rather amazed that

the first Thanksgiving ever happened.

Here’s a ragtag bunch of folks,

fleeing religious persecution.

They’ve endured a long and dangerous sea voyage in a tiny ship …

Some people died on the way over.

They’re so far from home it takes months

to exchange letters with family and friends.

Their new land is beautiful,

but it will require backbreaking labor

to make it ready for cultivation.

The weather is not like anything they’ve ever experienced.

And to top it off,

there are these native people around,

who dress strangely,

speak a funny language,

and sometimes they seem friendly,

and sometimes not!

How amazing that, in the midst of all that,

it even occurred to people to stop,

and give God praise and thanksgiving.

But they did.

And so do we.

Whether we’ve received five talents,

or two, or only one …

We give thanks to God,

and then we use them.

I’ll leave you with a story.

There were once two brothers,

who had farms on plots right next to one another.

And of course each had a barn,

and each had a fair amount of grain stored up

to see them through the winter,

or other hard times.

But one day the first brother got to thinking,

and what he thought was,

"My brother has a wife and kids.

They eat more than I do.

They need more than I do.

I can help."

And so every night,

he’d take a couple of bags of grain out of his barn,

and sneak over across the way,

and put them in his brother’s barn.

But the second brother was also doing some thinking.

"I’m so lucky," he thought.

"I have a wonderful family,

but my brother has never married.

He has no one to take care of him

in his old age.

I can help."

And so every night,

he’d get a couple of bags of grain from his barn,

and sneak quietly over the fields

to put them in his brother’s barn.

And this went on for some time,

with both brothers making their nightly journey,

and each wondering why his own supply of grain

never seemed to dwindle.

Until one night, under the full moon,

they met each other halfway across the fields.

And each realized what was happening …

and they dropped their bags of grain,

and fell to their knees,

and wept on each other’s shoulders.

The story has it that the Temple of Jerusalem

was built on that very spot.

We are good stewards

when we use what God has given us:

be it grain, money, skills, talents, time, whatever …

when we use them

for ourselves and others.

Not hiding ourselves and our gifts away somewhere,

timid and afraid,

but spending them, richly,

with praise and thanksgiving.

Thanks be to God for all good things!

Amen.