Renewal by Rev. Gabrielle Martone at Pearl River United Methodist Church on Sunday 29 December 2019
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Matthew 25:14-30 NRSV
“For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Today's service is focused on a covenant renewal service which is what John Wesley would do every year, that he would gather his congregants and his leaders together on watch night which is New Year's Eve. Together they would go through an even longer service, I edited this one down quite a bit, and they would renew the covenant that they had made with God in preparation for a new year and a new time.
The covenant prayer, for those of you who have not heard it, I will read it to you in contemporary language. We will read it again later but it goes, "I am no longer my own but yours. Put me to what you will, place me with whom you will. Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me be put to work for you or set aside for you, praised for you or criticized for you. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and fully surrender all things to your glory and service and now a wonderful and holy God, creator, redeemer, and sustainer, you are mine and I am yours, so be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it also be made in heaven. Amen."
The covenant renewal service is all about remembering that our call is to turn it over to God. Our call is to let go of the stuff and to fully trust in who Christ promises to be from the very beginning of time. Is about saying, "Whatever you want, God, that is what I will do." Being able to trust that even when life doesn't work out the way we expect or anticipate or want it to, God still is in the midst.
That story we read today to the kids about the three trees who had great dreams of success and wealth and wanting to hold treasure, because who doesn't want to be a treasure chest if you're a tree, to hold the greatest gifts in the world, to be a big, strong ship that would carry kings and to be so tall that every time someone looked at you they thought of the beauty and the splendor and the wonder of God.
Then the woodcutters come and cut those trees down and, for some, that's where we want our story to end. "My life is not as I anticipated it to be, I am not doing what I thought I was going to do when I was four years old and therefore there must be nothing left for me," but the story continues. Yes, the first tree is made into a manger, a feeding trough, which certainly was not what that tree wanted to be, and the second tree was made into a tiny fishing boat, and that third tree was cut up in beams and left in a woodpile.
Yet they bloomed where they were planted as so many of our journals and wall hangings say, and that tree was turned into a feed trough held the greatest treasure in the whole world. That tree that really wanted to be a boat, a big sailing vessel, instead held Christ and the disciples, transporting the King of the world across a sea. Then the third tree became the symbol that you and I and pretty much everybody in the world recognizes as belonging to God.
Life doesn't always happen the way we anticipate or want it to but that doesn't mean that God is not still in the midst of it. When I was 18 years old, 17 years old, I had an opportunity to go out to Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, it's my favorite place in the whole wide world. There, a United Methodist Church, Adam Hamilton, you've done many of his studies before here, is the lead pastor over there. They worship upwards of 10,000 people a week. Yeah.
I was 17-years-old and I got on a plane with my church leadership,, and we went to Kansas and I stood in awe. Back then it wasn't what it is now but it was still incredible and amazing to be able to lead with and talk to all of these people who were doing something different in the midst of the church. The track that I was on, I was on a young leaders track and so they asked us to write down where we saw ourselves in five years. If you do the math, 22 is five years after I'm 17. My plan when I was 17-years-old was that I was going to finish my undergrad, and I knew I was going to Smith but I was going to do my seminary degree at Emory in Georgia, right in Atlanta, and then I was going to become a military chaplain outside of a Marine Corps base.
That's what my plan was at 22, that's what I was going to be doing at 22 and it's not what I did. It's not where I am. I believed so strongly that that's what God was leading me to and when the doors didn't open, and I got into Emory but I really felt God was telling me that that was not where I was supposed to be. What God opened for me were doors in different ways and in different places, because if I had been that-22 year-old military chaplain outside of a Marine base I would not be here standing in front of you all in my onesie and my parka hoodie, right?
Life isn't about what you make it, it is how you surrender to God's will. Everybody says, "Life is what you make it." Life is about what you do with it. Life is about taking the bull by the horns and making something out of nothing but what the Christian journey tells us is that life is about being willing to surrender and say, "God whatever your will is." I, unlike many people, love the itinerant system. I know everybody has a complicated relationship with the itinerant system. For those of you who are not recognizing my stained-glass language here, the itinerant system is the process by which United Methodist pastors are sent to congregations.
It means that the Bishop, the guy who has been elected to serve as our lead pastor, as our lead leader, as the person who makes the decisions for us, meets together with his cabinet or her cabinet and decides who's going where. I have heard, I've never sat at the cabinet table before, but I have heard that there are baseball cards and every church has a baseball card and every pastor has a baseball card. What they try and do is match the baseball cards together so your stats are on the cards, which I think is kind of cool.
I am never going to have a baseball card in real life so I'm glad that the church gives me a baseball card. It's kind of fun, somebody is looking at my statistics. God, please don't look too hard. The itinerant system means that we get called and sent constantly. I have been in ministry since 2014, that's almost six years and I have moved four times. Yes, I may be one person and a dog and two cats but moving is a lot. It also means that I've changed jobs four times in less than six years.
It's four congregations that I have loved, and prayed over, and grown with. It's four groups of people and communities with whom I have shared so much. I love the itinerant system because while it is heartbreaking we submit ourselves to where God calls us to be, and we have very little to no control over it, which is nuts. This is an exercise in people like me, I am such a planner. I tell people, plans ease my anxiety. If I could plan out the next 55 years of my life, I would be a very happy lady.
One of my wrestling prayers with God is constantly, "Can you just drop a glimpse of the 10 year plan? I don't need the whole thing but just for a second? Then I'll give it back to you, God. I just just want to see it." I love knowing what's coming next, I hate surprises. Do you want to know how hard it is for a family of mine who loves surprises? Their favorite thing to do is surprise people, and I hate it. It makes me anxious, and it makes me angry, and it makes me mean.
When you send me a message that says we need to talk and you don't tell me what we need to talk about I sit and cry. This is vulnerability hour. I like plans. I like knowing what is coming, I like knowing where I will be tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day after that. The itinerant system forces me to surrender that need to know to a greater being. By greater being I don't just mean the Bishop, although we have to say, "Okay, Bishop Shoal, wherever you want us to go we will go."
I also submit myself to knowing that no matter where I am sent God will work something through it. Sometimes I talk about Jasper as being my miracle dog. Jasper, when I first got to Central in 2018, was being raised by folks who are puppy raisers for the Seeing Eye School and he was my best friend. He came to church every week and he held my hand after service all the time. I would walk up the aisle, we would process and he'd be laying on the floor and he'd come up and he'd lick my hand and I would tear up.
I had always wanted a German shepherd. I have spent my whole life desiring and wanting a German shepherd but I am also a person who does rescue and it's very difficult to find a German shepherd on rescue and I've been living on my own working crazy schedules for six years and so I wasn't sure that I had the wherewithal to be able to raise this dog. Jasper came to me at a time in my life when I really needed something to remind me that it is okay, that I am not alone, and to remind me that I needed to take care of myself and I needed to have someone else to take care of me.
I got a phone call because as Jasper was going off to Seeing Eye School I looked at his puppy raisers and I said, "If he fails, call me, I'll take him." Right at probably one of the lower moments of my last 18 months I got the phone call that said, "Jasper failed, will you take him?" I said yes and then we hung up the phone and five minutes later she called me back and she was like, "Were you serious?" I said, "Yes." For somebody who is a planner, the miracle of the dog showing up does not go with the plans.
Then here was this being who loved me unconditionally, who needed to be taken for walks, who needed to be taken care of, which meant that I had to leave my 15 hour work days to go home and take care of the dog. He's been the constant that has reminded me of enjoying life and that sometimes God shows up in ways we do not expect. In many ways Jasper saved my life and gave me a new lease on being able to understand love and the depth of it.
Parable of the talents is all about surrendering yourself to God. God has given us something. Are we willing to submit ourselves to whatever God has for us, not to bury our lives in the sand but to ride the roller coaster of the ups and the downs? I will tell you that anybody works with money in any way, those of you who have retirement accounts or 401ks, are in the financial firm, know that money does not work quite like it did in our parable today.
You don't just magically say, "Ooh, I want to double what I have," and then it stays there. Supermark ... Supermarket crashes, stock market crashes. Thank you, thank you, glad you all picked up on that stock. Stock market crashes, the economy drops. It's not so easy to just double what you have. What that first and second servant did was submit themselves to doing the best that they could, and the last guy just buried what he had in the sand and walked away and then got mad.
How often are you getting mad at God for your life not being the way you want it to be? I get mad at God a lot for my life not being the way I want it to be, something I still struggle with. How often are we getting mad at God for not giving us what we want in the way that we want it? How mad are we ... This is a children's book, the trees don't really get that angry, but can you imagine what it would be like if you got cut down and all of a sudden it felt like everything was done and all of the dreams and plans that you had were gone?
How do you hold onto the idea that even when life stinks God can still make something beautiful? I don't know what all of your 2019s were like and I don't know what you're hoping for in the new year, but today our service focuses on saying, "Whatever you want, God. Put me to doing or put me to nothing." Let me be okay with it, knowing that God never brings us somewhere he will not bring us out of. What God's plans are for our lives, while they may not be our plans, nothing stops God from doing what God needs us to do.
May you today and every day remember that you are a tree, and a talent, and a gift, and may you surrender and live fully into all of the things that God is calling you to do and to be, especially when it doesn't look like what you expected a year ago, six years ago, 70 years ago, or yesterday. May you trust that what life brings you to, God will bring you through, today and every day. Amen.
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