Poolesville Presbyterian Church
11.13.11; Rev. David Williams
Before rolling too far into this sermon, I wanted to be sure we’re clear about something. The title of this sermon is “The Doing.” That’s “doing” as in “to do,” meaning “to perform,” “to execute,” “to accomplish, finish, or complete.” It derives from the Old English “dun,” and is related to the the Dutch verb “doen,” and the Archaic German “tun.”
The title of this sermon is not “The Doinggg,” as in the sound your rapidly vibrating head makes right after Bugs Bunny hits you in the noggin with a cast iron skillet.
I know you were wondering about that, and it’s important to clear up these things on the front end.
We all like to think of ourselves, in our best moments, as doers. Being someone who can “get things done” is one of those values we celebrate in our culture. If we’re the person who can juggle a thousand events and activities and still maintain the kind of house where things are so you could feel comfortable eating off of the kitchen counter, we’re doers. This is to be distinguished from maintaining the kind of house where you regularly eat off of the kitchen counter.
If we’re the sort of person who puts in those long, long hours to get a project done, or complete that assignment, then we have that good solid feeling about ourselves and our ability to deliver whatever it is that we’ve been asked to deliver.
Doing, unfortunately, can be something that Presbyterians struggle with. The challenge we have, I think, is a tendency to think that doing is the same thing as thinking about doing, or meeting to think about doing, or thinking about meeting to think about doing. While thinking about things beforehand is an excellent way to insure that you’re going to do something right, it can also be an excellent way to insure that you don’t ever do anything at all.
It’s easy, if you’re the sort of person who wants to get everything perfectly right, to think your way into making a task so much more complicated than it needs to be that it becomes impossibly daunting.
I can recall a seminar quite a few years back with a group of earnestly thoughtful Presbyterians, in which the concept of “putting up a website” was discussed. There was much thinking involved. Could you use pictures of people? People scratched their heads. What about liability issues? What about waivers and official policies about site use? Congregational leadership really needed to set up a task force to examine the potential issues before they could even think about creating a web site. People asked how you put up links to worship audio and video. Well, what about music that was copyrighted? Again, an exploratory task force was required.
It was...well...a bit silly. Every possible negative eventuality was considered, turning what could be easily be done in a single afternoon by a single motivated congregant into a process involving many months and countless meetings.
Overthinking leads to inaction, to analysis paralysis, and it was to that issue in the lives of Christians that Jesus was speaking in the parable we heard from Matthew’s Gospel this morning. This is the second of three stories that comprise the twenty-fifth chapter of this Gospel. It comes to us from what scholars call the “Q” source, meaning it comes from a hypothetical text, now lost, that contained all of the sayings that appear in Matthew and Luke, but not in Mark. Though the version of the story that Luke presents is somewhat different, the two share a common essential narrative.
In them, a wealthy and powerful man goes on a journey, and entrusts his property to three of his slaves. Upon his return, he discovers that the one who’d received the most had invested it in business ventures. He’d taken risks, and doubled what he’d received. The one who’d received less than half of that amount had also doubled it.
The last one? Well, he’d been cautious. He’d been careful. He took what he’d been given, and he dug a nice little hole in the ground, and buried what he’d been given. It’s the careful thing to do. It’s the prudent thing to do, particularly given that his boss was demanding.
And hearing this, the rich man takes back the money, gives it to the first slave, and fires the guy with a flourish worthy of Donald Trump, casting him into the outer darkness of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
We don’t like hearing this story, which strikes us as a tiny bit unfair. It’s not like the slave squandered the money. He didn’t go to Atlantic City with it, after all. Heck, if you bury it in the ground, you’re getting nearly the same interest you’d be getting if you put it in 6 month Bank of America Certificate of Deposit these days. Doesn’t that count for something?
There’s another version of this parable that occurs in an early Christian Gospel that didn’t make it into the Bible, one that changes it around in exactly that way. The Gospel of the Nazarene has the first slave investing, the second burying it, and the third blowing it all on the ponies, or doing the first century equivalent. That’s easy for us to buy in to. It’s a straightforward tale about doing what is morally right. It’s simple. It’s fair.
But that’s not the point Jesus was trying to make. This is not that simple.
This isn’t a parable about investment strategies, one that provides us with Seven Rules for Making Partner at Goldman Sachs. It’s a parable about what it means to actively and purposefully engage in the work of God’s Kingdom. As we engage in that work, both individually and corporately, there are a couple of key things we should take away from this passage.
First, this is a call for boldness. It follows on last week’s parable of the Bridesmaids, which counseled adequate preparedness and wisdom. This parable balances that call for wisdom by reminding us that taking the safest course of action is not always the path to grace.
There are times we need to risk if we’re going to live into the Kingdom, and there are times when the appropriate action is not doing the safe thing, or the easy thing, or the thing that maintains the status quo. That doesn’t mean being foolhardy. It doesn’t mean taking wild and unnecessary swings at glory.
But it does mean steering away from that false wisdom that counsels keeping things quiet and safe, that warped prudence that seeks to protect what is by not doing what needs to be done.
That sort of thinking was what drove mistake after mistake in the tragic and horrific Penn State scandal. Play it safe. Keep it quiet. Bury it away. That sort of caution, caution that covers it’s own behind instead of taking the risk that comes with seeking justice, always leads to ruin.
When something must change, then risk is a prerequisite for that change. That’s true for every venture in life. It’s true in relationships. It’s true in our work-life, and in our schooling. And it is particularly true in the lives of congregations. If we are called...as we are called...to be servants of the transforming love and grace of Jesus of Nazareth, then we need to be bold about it.
Second, this is a call to make a little noise. Bold action is not invisible action, the kind of thing you whisper about inaudibly to yourself as you go about your business. In the early church, being willing to be forward and visible and audible in their actions was absolutely essential.
That, I think, is one of the greatest challenges facing churches. They can be engaged in wonderful, meaningful, important work in the world. But if you engage in work that is vital and important and has the potential to transform lives, you need to share its importance. It’s not just in the doing of good, but in the spreading of the desire to do good. As PPC prepares itself to work towards another year, to apply the resources of our time and our treasure, we need to be mindful of that call. Don’t hide away this good thing. Don’t be reluctant to be bold about the doing and the speaking of it.
I guess, honestly, now that I really think about it, that this story isn’t just Jesus telling us about “doing.” He’s also giving us a little whack in the head, to remind us what we're about in the world.
So... “doingg.”
Let it be so, for you and for me, AMEN
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