The Church and Risk
Matthew 25:14-30
September 27, 1970
John M. Buchanan

Two weeks ago we thought about the man who, for 38 years, was lying beside
the pool of Bethzatha in Jerusalom, waiting to be healed. You will recall that
Jesus confronted that man and asked him a very curious question: "Do you want
to be healed?" We thought then about the possibility that the man really didn't
want to be healed: that he had made a bargain with fate and that his efforts
to get into the pool were more ritual than authentic attempt. We thought about
that in terms of the risks he was unwilling to take — and the fact that Jesus
seemed to be demanding precisely that willingness as the condition of healing
or wholeness.

I'm going to return today to the same general topic: under a text that is
equally familiar to us. The topic itself is one that I seem to address regularly,
and if you find it repetitious, I apologize. On the other hand, I think there
is none more important. I think the Gospel addresses people in every age a
little differently - and I think it is here -— at the point of willingness to
take risks: at the point of growing and stretching ~ that the Gospel addresses
us most directly.

I stood last week on the spot where John F. Kennedy was assasinated in
November of 1963. I was there because the National Staff of the Board of
National Missions was meeting in Dallas; and included, as always, a representative
of each Synod's National Missions Committee. As I stood on the now infamous
"grassy knoll" I reflected on that event seven long years ago — the flood of
history that has transpired since - and also the content of the National Staff
meetings — which I found related, in a strange way to the assasination of a

young and hopeful national leader. John F. Kennedy, and in a sense - the

entire Kennedy family - beyond their particular political stances, have demon—
strated to this nation a great lesson: namely, that nothing significant is —

accomplished apart from tremendous personal risk.

pt,

In any case, I thought of the man and his brother ~ and that lesson, as
I stood in that place. And I thought of the United Presbyterian Church in 1970,
because in a very real way the National Staff of the Board of National Missions
learned that hard lesson in Dallas - nothing great is accomplished without great
risk. And in a real way — that is the lesson the 1970's are forcing the entire
United Presbyterian Church to learn, and to learn quickly.

Jesus told a story about risk and its results. A man went away on a
journey, and as he left he gave each of three servants money to be kept while
he was gone. To the first servant he gave ten talents: Goodspeed tells us that
a talent was worth thousand dollars - T.E.V. — $5,000 total - a lot of money —
a lot of responsibility. And he took the money, invested it, traded with it
and after a period of time had double the initial amount, a performance that
would warm the heart of any eager capitalist. The second servant received five
talents. He too invested his money‘and doubled it. Both men took a great risk:
the money did not belong to them in the first place: by making it work they were
taking the inevitable risk that they would lose it all.

The third servant received one talent = and promptly hid it in the ground.
No risks there. The man really was very prudent - perhaps even admirable; he
was taking no chances.

When the master returned he was delighted with the first two servants.
"They," he said, "had been faithful", and he heaped on them lavish rewards. Now,
that's a very curious definition of faithfulness - but that's how Jesus told the
story.

The third servant - the one, I would suggest, we might be inclined to call
faithful, because of his prudence, was rebuked - called "wicked, slothful",
his one talent was taken away and he eis Guat into the outer darkmess. All in
all, his treatment was as harsh as any described in the New Testament. Faith-
fulness, Jesus was saying, is more a matter of spending - and taking chances,

than saving and allowing to lie fallow with no risks at all.

j ~3-

The story ends here, but we are forced to speculate that had the one talent
man invested his money, and lost it, his treatment would have been far less
severe. That is, his misdeed ~ was not something he did — but something he was
afraid to try.

| There are a lot of meanings to be drawn from this. But I think there are
important and very immediate meanings here for the Church of Jesus Christ as
it goes about its work in this day. It's a tough time for the church, so tough,
in fact, that some are saying we will never survive it. 3

The National Church finds itself today in the treacherous delemma of having
more and more demands placed upon it ~ by its own sense of responsibility, while
at the same time unten its revenues and reserves decline at an alarming rate.
Listen to these two sentences from the Report of the Budget Comms Step Of the
National Missions staff ...."In terms of real purchasing power, mission monics
have declined so rapidly since 1965 (the peak year) that the amount available
for 1971 has a purchasing power of approximately 60% of the 1965 figure.

Second, we consider that the cuts demanded will be severly damaging to the
work of National Missions."

COEMAR? — listen to these lines from a letter dated July, 1970, Chong ju,
Korea, written by a friend of mine, Bob Urquhart - "This past May, we received
word from the Commission in New York that our services Woadde COEMAR would termin-—
ate with this furlough. Needless to say, this has precipitated some rather
drastic changes of plans and thinking. We frankly do not know what God would
have us do, but we are honestly trying to remain open to His leading wherever
He may choose to put us. We would appreciate your earnest prayers that we will
surely do Christ's will, whatever it may be."

What worries me about that last sentence is that the will of God may not
be a factor here - because United Presbyterians are not providing the necessary
funds. His future will be determined by financial necessity; not the will of

God.

a,

It's a tough time to be a church member and church supporter. We are deeply
disturbed about the increasing militancy of our black and brown brothers, and
their shrill insistance that we - here in the saftey and sanctuary of central
Indiana share the responsibility for racism and ewe We are deeply dis—
turbed because our church has made response to the new world of the 1970's,
many times in ways which are Condit +o our personal political, economic and
social preferences. But I think what disturbs us most of all is that we feel
our beloved church going out on a limb, risking its corporate life for the sake
of doing what it considers the priority items in God's agenda for his world, and
we frankly, have a little trouble comprehending that.....

It's very tempting in this time to scurry for the saftey of seourity: ‘to
get off the front line and out of the newspapers and away from all the risks.
It's tempting to read our theology in the Indianapolis Star; to believe the
Chicago Tribune rather than Presbyterian Life: to join the chorus of voices
which - in the name of prudence and security ~ would have the United Presbyterian
Church back away from issues like sexuality, amd drugs, and the war.

Those three issues wore confronted directly by our church this year. The
General Assembly sopke - and the tremor is still felt. A consensus note of
our constituents would probably have had us ignore all three issues - in that
it is impossible to address any of them without aggravating a lot of peuple.

It would be casier, simply, not to take the chance. It's very tempting -
because -ina crassly fiscal idiom - to do so would be to receive more money,
and therefore to invest in a safe and secure future for the church.

Well, allow me respectfully to suggest, that the will of God for his people ~—
his church - us, if you will, -— has very little to do with saftey and prudence
and security. I see, in our text, a strong and clear word about adventuresome
churchmanship. I see here God calling his servant church to risk itself - to
invest itself in the life of the world. I hear God speaking to congregations,

urging us to use the formidable array of resources he has put at our disposal

.

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for something other than our own safe future. I hear him speaking to you and
me, as individual disciples “ calling us to the exci tment and adventure of
investing and risking ourselves in his work, in his world.

In the final analysis, risk is related to love. A man will take risks for
something or someone he lovese To love someone is to en oneself to the possi-
bility of hurt. To love is to become suddenly vulnerable. Think of it in terms
of cub lacen: +o love a child is risky business. Because he's going to grow up =
and that alone will hurt badly. He may not be what we plan for him — he may
never accomplish the goals we have set: he may never say thank you for the
sacrifice and effort. To love him is to risk gettin hurt.

The same is certainly true of romantic love: romantic involvements are
really risky business, and having been hurt badly, we are inclined to say -

"never againe’ But thank God, there is something deep within us that knows that
to love ak to risk is to be authentically human.

I think the life of the church depends directly on the amount of risks it
is willing to take. In Jesus Christ God has called his church into a passionate
love affair with the world. God has equipped the church with power and resources
and people — and sent it out, in his name, to spend - to love — to risk.

C. Se Lewis summed it up in a beautiful paragraph I would like to share
with you —

"Zo love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will

certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping
it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap
it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; evoid all entanglements;
lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that
casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless ~ it will clwngo. It will not be broken;
it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to
tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damation. The only place out~

side heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and pertuba~

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tions of love is Hell." [C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves

I think that is precisely the meaning of the story Jesus told about the
man who hid his money in the ground. I think that is precisely God's word to
his church - and to us individually.”

We are called to live out on the edge — to love other people — to stand
with them and for them - to throw ourselves into causes we know are right. We
are called to vulnerablilty - to take risks. And we are promised that there is
authentic life in this style of discipleship: that anything less is a form of
death.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the story of a risk. God sent his son, to
be born of a peasant family, to live a common life, to present his case to his
people — risking that the whole project would be ignored. | God, sent his son to
be subject to the will of humanity - and the son was crucified. That's the
kind of risks love takes.

Let us remember that, when we are tempted to scurry for security. Let us
recall that God took that risk for us: that he has risked his will by laying
it upon us to be carried out —- or to be buried in the earth. As we go about
the business of our lives this day - let us authentically celebrate the Good
News of Jesus Christ by vowing again to put ourselves at his disposal: by
embracing gladly the risks of discipleship — by going from this place to live

in his name.
Amen.

Our Father - you have given us all we have and called us to spend it for
the sake of the world. One thing we lack - the will, the courage — the willing-
ness to risk ourselves. Give us that too, 0 God, and with it a new sense that
there is true joy in living and spending extravagantly. Through Jesus Christ

our Lord.
Amen.