+In the Name…
“For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away” (St. Matthew 25:29).
In early July of this year, Sir John Templeton died of pneumonia in a hospital in Nassau in the Bahamas, which was where he called “home” An incredible man he was. The Philadelphia Bulletin on the day after his death in its front page article stated, “He will be remembered for his extraordinary money management abilities, his optimism, resiliency, open-minded curiosity, and innovative way of looking at things.”
He established the $1 million-plus Templeton Prize (officially named The Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Religious Realities) in 1972, awarding the first prize to Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The Templeton Foundation was founded by him in 1987, of which our own Dr. Chuck Harper is its Senior Vice-President.
Sir John Templeton sold his mutual fund empire for $913 million in 1992, a month before his 80th birthday.
In this time of economic uncertainty which perplexes and challenges every one of us in one degree or another, wouldn’t be wonderful if such a great financier, innovator, philanthropist, and devout Christian were alive to tell us what we should know and do? But he has died and is not here for to speak to us or to the world in person, but his wisdom can and needs to live on as it was shared in 1987 when he spoke at the Annual Financial Planning Association meeting in Chicago.
At the close of his remarks, he said he wanted to disclose the best investment anyone can make. The attendees listened carefully to this American icon of success, and he told them what it was. Would you like to hear what his advice and conviction was, especially in this time in which we live?
He said, “The best investment anyone can make is spelled T-I-T-H-E.”
Obviously, he said that from a position of obedience to biblical teaching, and as one whose life bore the fruit of such obedience. He obviously had found the reality of the challenge and the promise of God’s Word in the Book of Malachi: “Bring the full tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house; and thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing” (3: 10).
Our obedience to the Lord is not defined by us. It is defined by the Word of God and the teaching of His Holy Catholic Church. It is not a smorgasbord of choices and options that we determine for ourselves. If it is, we are playing God which we know caused the fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve.
If God is Almighty, pure Truth and Wisdom, and through His Son Jesus Christ has said, “I come not to abolish the Law and Prophets,” then we set our minds, hearts, and wills to obey what we are taught. Full stop.
Is it easy? Is it scary? Does it seem not to make sense? Yes! Do we obey with perfect faith and trust in God? No! But God is God, and we are to live and walk by faith, and say to the Lord, “I believe, help thou mine unbelief.”
I have a holy card from All Saints Convent in my St. Augustine’s Prayer Book which states: “Faith is seeing the will of God unfolding day by day in mysterious ways.” I don’t know who said that, but it is absolutely true as we live and walk in faith.
In the parable of the talents we heard as this morning’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of a man who calls his servants and entrusts his property to them. The man (God) distributes to three servants (we are the servants) his property in three different amounts (five talents, two talents, and one talent) according to their respective “abilities.”
We know that the first two servants doubled what they had been given, and the third servant buried what was given to him because he was “afraid.” The first two servants took what was not their own and used it wisely for the sake of their Master. They were both told upon their Master’s return, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.” In other words, their good stewardship of what was not their own benefited their Master and themselves. They were now entrusted with greater stewardship as a reward for their obedience, and invited close to their Master, “…into the joy of your master’ – which means the security of eternity.
The third servant who buried what he had been given, failing to be a steward, burying it, and not even placing it with the bankers through whom what he had been given would have gained interest, hears the Master say, “You wicked and slothful servant!”, and then hears his destiny from the lips of his Master - “…cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.” In other words, “throw him into hell!”
You have heard me say repeatedly that the Parables of Jesus were told to both shock and to set forth clear truth to the hearers.
In the 60’s, one of the expressions was, “Do your own thing.” Christians are to renounce such false and hell-directed teaching. Because we are owned by God as slaves, and as people who are not our own, who’s every breath taken and whose hearts beat because of God the giver and sustainer of life, we are to respond to such love and grace from God with lives of thanksgiving, obedience, and stewardship as caretakers for God for what is His.
One can fight against this reality his or her entire life. A great deal of mental and emotional energy can be poured into such futility. The result will benefit no one and will be offensive to God, and ultimately will have the gravest consequence which God wants no child of His creating to suffer. But God loves us so much that He gave us free will to trust, serve, and obey Him; or to trust, serve, and obey ourselves and thus the Devil himself.
That strong statement of Jesus at the end of this morning’s Gospel reading, “For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away” means that when we know what we have is God’s, more of God’s will be given; and if we think what we have is ours, even what we have (which is not ours, but we have decided that it is) will be taken away. If that isn’t sobering, I don’t know what is.
As you read in the November issue of the Rod and Staff in the Stewardship article written by the late Marge Heidengren, C. S. Lewis stated in his essay “Christianity and Culture”-
“There is no neutral ground in the universe; every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.” C.S. Lewis has been an atheist until his conversion to Christ in the later years of his adulthood. He knew that “every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counter claimed by Satan.”
Your stewardship as a steward of what is God’s that has been shared with you is the critical issue in and for your Christian lives, now and forever. Jesus speaks more about money and material things than anything else in the Gospels. Of course He did, - because He knew what either brings man to God or separates him from God. He said, “You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24).
And who among us does want closeness with God and His pleasure in us? We all want to hear Him say in our hearts, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” I only want Him to say to me, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” That’s all I want.
Our Lord said, “I always do what is pleasing to him (the Father)” (John 8:29). He was without sin and his humanity was completely submitted to His Father’s will. Now that’s not the case for us, but we all do want to increasingly please the Father as our wills are progressively conformed to and in the image of Jesus Christ.
We give of our time, talent, and treasure not to the point of pain, but rather to the point of joy – knowing that we are obedient to God and that we are trusting God. St. Paul writes in II Corinthians, “The point is this: he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that you may always have enough of everything and may provide in abundance for every good work” (9:6-8).
God grant you the desire and the grace to honor and glorify Him, to please Him, to be joyful, and to possess peace as the world cannot give.
+In the Name…
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