The Second Sunday before Advent
Sermon
The Second Sunday before Advent
19 November 2023
The Reverend Dr James Gardom
St Matthew 25:14-30
I have a clear memory of a sermon my father preached in St Stephen's Lewisham, when I was six, on the parable of the Talents. Unusually for a rather elderly church it was a children's sermon, and as so often happens, the clergy children formed the core of an attempt to begin a new ministry to families. My mother made little stalls out of bamboo to represent the businesses that were set up by the faithful servants. One was a fishmonger’s stall hung with paper fish. One was a butcher’s stall hung with paper cuts of meat. One of us was given a cloth bag full of pretend money which was hidden in a dark corner of the church, and had to endure the pretend wrath of the master for failing to make proper use of the gifts and resources given to him.
I cannot really remember which of the servants I played, but I can say that I have always had a strong feeling of sympathy for that inadequate man, faced with challenges and opportunities he could not quite cope with, who ran away from those possibilities, and hoped that, if he just sat tight, everything would be all right at the end.
We tend to read the parable of the talents as relating to our individual skills, and often in terms of the narratives of self-actualisation that have come to the front in our society in this generation. That idea has become embedded in our language, so that “Talent” just means and valuable ability. Jesus, however, is not talking about a talent for colour or for playing the piano. The sums of money evoked in the parable are vast, and they represent a serious challenge. In fact Jesus is talking not about our personal aptitudes. He is talking about the gifts that we have been given for the Kingdom of God, and about our duty to build up the Kingdom of God.
Large Gifts from a master who is generous and demanding are a major problem. They keep you awake at night. They face you with awkward and worrying possibilities. They require you to make choices, which may turn out badly, but which cannot be ducked. This is especially true, I suspect, if the gifts we are intended to build up the Kingdom.
I think that is the position in which St Bene’t’s finds itself today. We have been given great gifts, and great possibilities, and it is crucial that we turn to and use them for building up the Kingdom, because one thing is certain - if we do not use them, they will, in the end, be taken away from us.
What are these gifts which promise to make such an awkward difference to our lives, and for which our God will ask us to account? There are many, but for the moment I will stick to three.
The first gift is the gift of faith. We are the people who know that God created us, that he has purpose for us, that he loves us so much that he sent his Son to die for us, that he is close to us through the Holy Spirit, offering us strength and wisdom. When we are happy we know who to be grateful to. When we are sad we know who to ask for help and guidance. That should be gift and burden enough for any of us.
The second gift is the gift of community. The congregations of St Bene’t’s are wise, kindly, tolerant and at peace with themselves. I can say to anyone that I meet “Come and join us, and you will find a welcome, interesting and thoughtful people who would like to make you feel at home”. The intermingling and mutual respect of young and old is extraordinarily rare. In a society of lonely people, that has forgotten most of the skills of community, these communities are a real achievement.
The third gift is the gift of resources. I hardly dare tell my clergy colleagues outside St Bene’t’s the riches of resources that we have been given. A beautiful, warm, watertight, open, well-lit medieval church, wired for sound. Servers, readers, prayer leaders, youth leaders, with engagement and reverence. A positive and established place in our community. Innumerable specialist skills. I often reflect that, if the people of St Bene’t’s set to do something together, there is almost nothing that they could not achieve.
We have been given great gifts. They are gifts with a purpose. The purpose is the building up of the Kingdom of God. These things are an extraordinary blessing to us – they bring us back week after week, to celebrate our faith, to find our friends and to rejoice with them, and to experience the peace, the thankfulness, the joy in God’s presence. But the purpose all these gifts in which we rejoice is growth, transformation, building and spreading. These are gifts to us, but they need to be gifts through us to God’s world.
How can we grow these gifts, like the first and second servants, rather than hoard and hide them, like the third. We can look at this many ways, but we should commit ourselves to grow in faith, to grow in commitment, and to grow in numbers.
How can we grow in faith? I think it is important to realise that there is nothing very mysterious about this. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened. Make time available to grow in faith, and understanding, and you will grow, if you use the time wisely. We are coming towards Advent, one of the two great seasons of self-examination and spiritual growth. We really need to think how we can work together on a range and diversity of ways for the people of St Bene’t’s to be moving forward in their faith. There are resources to hand – evening prayer, the daily Eucharist, the Advent reading group, Lectio Divina, the contemplative prayer group, the Jesse tree Advent calendar, in the New Year the Study Days, for those lucky enough, the 20s-30s group, our extensive back catalogue of sermons…
How can we grow in commitment? This is not primarily to do with filling rotas – although there is plenty of scope for that, and it is often, much more often than not, really rewarding. It is about allowing the things that we come across as we grow in faith to make a real and sometimes awkward and demanding difference to our lives. The faith, the community and the resources with which we are blessed should properly challenge us as people, as voters, as students and academics, as parents and children. We have to put them to work, rather than hide them away.
How can we grow in numbers? When I leave the church on Sunday morning, after a good service, I see the people in the streets, or queueing to come into the car park, and I’m powerfully struck by a sense of what they are missing. Only a tiny proportion of those are currently in a position to understand how good it might be to be a Christian, and to belong to a Christian community – but when we come across people who might be able to understand, I think it is genuinely our duty to take the risk, and make the suggestion. We should be asking ourselves whether there are people we know who would really benefit from being part of the St Bene't's community, or indeed who used to be part of the community and are no longer connected.
Over the years many of us will have received large, awkward and demanding gifts, which we can only really have if we allow ourselves to be transformed by them. The gift of a place at University. My weary first years are industriously transforming themselves into Theologians, Anthropologists, Engineers. The gift of a lifelong exclusive love, if we are so fortunate – to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse – if it does not change you, if you will not let it change you, it will not work. The gift of children, if we are so blessed, decades of domestic service followed by decades of worry!
These gifts of faith and community and of our shared life and purpose are of a similar kind. They can only work if we let them change us – and that is why our master, who is loving as well as demanding has given them to us. All of which can sound like hard work – and I hope you are not feeling weary already.
But this is a challenge with promise.
There is a promise in the parable with which we began. “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!” To enter into the happiness of our master, weary perhaps, but triumphant, is a hope worth living for.