Drawn In: Risk
The word talent stands out to me in today’s scripture. Although we are in the middle of a worship series on holy creativity, the word talent in today’s scripture does not refer to the natural or refined skills of any particular individual. Rather, it was the “largest unit of currency in the Hellenistic world. A single talent was equivalent to fifteen years of wages for a laborer.”
Even without any precise mathematical calculations for what that would mean for any of our households, I think we can agree it was an amount of currency that would be a great deal of responsibility for all but the most wealthy. Indeed, it was enough currency that the householder did not want to see it sitting idle but wanted his money making more money while he was away.
So, as the bits of the story before the passage we read today tell us, the wealthy man summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them while he was gone. “To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, each according to his ability.” Both of the first two invested the money and doubled it, but the one who one who was given only one talent buried it in the ground and gave it back untouched.
Most interpreters agree we are meant to understand God as the wealthy one and we humans as the slaves entrusted with that wealth. What is that wealth? Is it money? Is it time? Is it indeed our passion and our skill? I think the answer is yes to all of the above, and that we may justifiably respond to this scripture passage by asking ourselves, how is it we are using our God-given talents? Are we sharing them for the expansion of God’s love and grace in the world? Or are we burying them in the ground rather than avoid the risks that come with letting those talents loose from our hands?
I have a lot of compassion for the slave who hid his one talent out of fear. Sharing our God-given talents does not come without risk. Sharing our God-given talents, whatever they may be, quite often makes us vulnerable.
In her book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, researcher Brené Brown coins the term “vulnerability hangover” for the experience that happens after we’ve risked sharing our gifts and we wonder if we shared too much or if it will have the intended effect. Brown’s research shows this is a common human experience, and she encourages readers to take risks anyway, especially in service of the happiness and well-being of ourselves and others.
When asked in an interview what she would put in a “Museum of Daring Greatly,” she responded she would never found such a project. Instead she would start a “Museum of Epic Failure,” so that we could all see how even the people who we think of as successful also experienced failure and found a way to persevere through the risk. They chose to try again.
There’s another word that catches my attention in this story, and that’s the word slave. I’m not keen on the ways this story sets God up as a slave master and we humans as slaves. I think it comes too close to endorsing the practice of humans owning other humans or the idea that humans are completely depraved, worthless creatures–neither of which I can agree to. But I also don’t love this word because slaves have very little choice about what they risk.
Elsewhere Jesus taught about the love and blessing God shares with all of us. In this series we have read the scripture in which he reads from the prophet Isaiah in claiming Jesus’ own call to “proclaim release to the captives and… to set free those who are oppressed.”
No, Jesus does not condone slavery. Rather, he is using real images of his time to help followers understand what God wants from them and for them. It is our choice how we will respond.
Whoever we are, God has gifted us with something to share, the story claims. It doesn’t seem very important what value our unjust world places on our gifts. We are called to share them just the same, whether the world says that’s worth five talents or only one. What we have to share matters.
We are not at all worthless. Who we are and what we bring matters to God. What’s more, we are called to share those gifts with the world in spite of the very real and often justifiable fear of failure. There’s no guarantee that what we share will be doubled in value, but there is every guarantee that the gifts we never share will never grow –for our good or anyone else’s. For me the story is very clear. God calls us to risk sharing vulnerably of our gifts with the world.
Maybe that idea excites some of us. Maybe there’s someone among us here today who is on the verge of launching a great creative work. If so, I hope you hear the bone deep encouragement of this passage.
For others of us, maybe that idea brings out our skepticism. Maybe some of us are feeling way too exhausted to get excited about being creative, much less taking a vulnerable risk with that effort. Maybe we’ve already risked quite enough. If that’s you, maybe the vulnerable risk you're called to take is one that is oriented toward creative ways of finding rest and releasing yourself from undue obligation.
However, we come today, I wonder if we may agree that even small risks can expand God’s love and grace in the world in creative ways. Psychologist Gillian Sandstrom became interested in the big pay out of the small risk of developing “weak ties” with strangers and acquaintances. For psychologists, “weak ties” are the ones that we have with the checkout clerk we talk to about the weather or the neighbor we don’t know well but who always waves.
Sandstrom became interested in this idea when she went back to school to become a psychologist instead of a computer programmer, her original career. She was ten years older than most of the students around her, and she had a hard time shaking the feeling that she didn’t belong there.
Enter the hot dog lady. On her daily walk from one university building to another, Sandstrom would pass a hot dog stand. “I never bought a hot dog,” relates Sandstrom, “but every time I walked past, I would smile and wave at her and she’d smile and wave at me.”
Sandstrom remembers looking forward to seeing the hot dog lady daily, and she found herself disappointed on the days she wasn’t there. This brief interaction broke the isolation for Sandstrom even though she and the hot dog lady never developed a deeper relationship.
Years later, remembering this recurring interaction, Sandstrom designed a study that investigated the benefits of social connections, including brief encounters with strangers, acquaintances, and anyone outside our close circle of family, friends, and colleagues. While much of the growing research on social connection focuses on the closest relationships in people’s lives, “Sandstrom and other scientists are now learning that even the most casual contacts with strangers and acquaintances can be tremendously beneficial to our mental health.”
Sandstrom’s 2014 study asked 50 participants to carry two clicker counters each and count every time they talked to someone during the day. One clicker counted “strong ties” or close relationships. The other counted “weak ties” with strangers and acquaintances. Sandstrom found people who tended to have more weak ties tended to be a little happier than people who had fewer of those kinds of interactions on a day-to-day basis.
Sandstrom admits she was never fond of talking to strangers before. It made her uncomfortable not knowing how someone else would respond. Even when it wasn’t necessarily dangerous to talk to strangers, she avoided that risk. Now, she makes a point, when she can, of cultivating those weak ties and recommends others looking for a little more happiness try it, too, especially since she knows how much one of those weak ties once meant to her.
What risks are we called to take big or small? What might those risks we take create in our world?
I believe God calls us to risk sharing vulnerably of our gifts in service of expanding the experience of holy love and grace in the world. When we share of our own passion and creative gifts, not only do we serve our own joy and well-being, but we serve, as the lintel over the Highland Avenue church building door reads: “the glory of God and our neighbors’ good.”
Wherever we go, may we have the courage to risk sharing our passion, joy, and talent with the world.
May it be so. Amen.
