The Adventurous Lectionary – November 16, 2015 – Pentecost 23

The Adventurous Lectionary – Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost – November 16, 2014

Judges 4:1-7
Psalm 123
Philippians 5:1-11
Matthew 25:14-30

Today’s passages are challenging to those preachers who wish to include all four readings in worship. If you read the Old Testament/Hebraic scriptures, you must preach about them. Otherwise, you may perpetuate unhealthy and problematic images of God. The parable of the talents is a reminder that opening to divine possibility, even when it means the risk of novelty, awakens new and unexpected energies. God wants us to flourish and to use our resources for the well-being of our communities. This is not the prosperity gospel but a recognition that our agency contributes to intensity of God’s presence in the world.

Frankly, I will not use the Judges passage in worship this or any week unless I use it as an example as “how not to think about divine activity.” It projects an image of God that is unhelpful to anyone going through a difficult time. God is seen as the source of national calamity, selling the people into bondage in response to their evil-doing. Our actions as persons and communities have consequences and may lead to individual and corporate disaster, but passages such as this have been used to blame marriage equality, the acceptance of homosexuality, women’s rights, and other forms of self-affirmation as the source of our nation’s trials, including economic recession, plague, and natural disasters. It is doubtful that there is a one-to-one correspondence between acts and consequences. To assume so is to create unnecessary guilt and moreover blame the victim for her or his suffering. Life is too complicated; success and failure and health and illness are the result of many factors, rather than one-dimensional causation, be it karmic or divine.

Psalm 123 is equally unhelpful. It assumes that God’s mercy is arbitrary rather than constant. The nature of God’s actions in our lives is contingent on our actions. When we turn toward God, God is able to provide us with more energy and possibility. When we turn away from God’s path, we diminish God’s impact in our lives. Our turning can lead to results that feel like god-forsakenness but divine mercy is ubiquitous and constant despite our infidelity.

Thessalonians 5 speaks of God’s coming into our lives as being like a “thief in the night,” unexpected, surprising, and often unnoticed. The author counsels wakefulness. Be alert for God’s comings in your life. While apocalyptic authors connect this passage with the Second Coming of Jesus, a healthier and more responsible theological approach is to affirm that God comes to us moment by moment; and that we need to be aware of the God-moments, disguised as chance encounters, synchronicity, dreams, and unexpected events. Will we sleep through God’s visitations in our lives? Or, will we be alert to angels in disguise, bringing tidings of great joy and inviting us to creative transformation?

Jesus’ parable, known as the parable of the talents, is about the ways we use our gifts and resources. The Master congratulates and rewards the business savvy of two servants, while punishing the servant who holds onto his allotment, fearful of risk-taking. There is no need to punish prudence. Still, the times call out for prudent risk-taking, that is, trusting God with the future and acting creativity and responsibly. Often congregations are too conservative with their resources, preferring a gradual slip into irrelevance and oblivion to taking the risks necessary for growth and faithfulness in their particular situation. Adventure is risky, and it is rewarding, opening to us new gifts and horizons of possibility.

Today’s Epistle and Gospel readings invite us to be agents of our destiny as individuals and congregations. They beg the questions: What prudent risks do we need to take as individuals and congregations? What are we missing in our current setting? What would happen if we were awake to synchronicities and energies emerging in our current situation? Many congregations and persons are imprisoned by self-imposed limits and fail to see that limitation – another word for concreteness – is the womb of possibility. Let us be bold in our prudence, launching out into deeper waters trusting God as our companion and lure to the future.