Talents for the Talentless

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.:: Emma Lazarus

If there is one sermon illustration that has constantly been worn down to a shoe sole, it would have to be the parable of the talents in Matthew chapter 25. My heart gets hardened even thinking about the story because I have heard it so many times before. And the moral always seems to be: use whatever God has given you to glorify Him, because he has made you talented in some areas of your life.

But what if he hasn't?

This idea of talent is such a Western mindset, and the parable has been misconstrued to be something where we can take our abilities and mold them into what we think God would like to use. But...how many people in the world face the reality of routine where they are unable to use their talents? A large majority of the world relies strictly on agriculture and much of their time is focused on doing menial tasks throughout the day. It does not involve any special talent. Why do I think that my talents are anything extraordinary?

God doesn't ask for us to perform, He asks for us to be obedient. And that might mean doing things in life that aren't our "giftings." The point of the parable is obedience, not attempting to blend word definitions to place the focus of our lives once more on us.

""His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!" {Matt 25: 21}

You have been faithful...not talented.

The text speaks for itself, but as I really look at it, I realize that many pastors I have heard have attempted to stretch this to mean personal giftings and talents to be developed.

Lies. When will we understand that the point of our existence is to glorify God? Oh wait...but that would mean we would have to stop glorifying ourselves.

I relinquish any of my talents. Let me be like the poem I posted at the beginning of this entry. Let me be faithful to the point where I reach heaven and Christ says "Come to me. You have been faithful, which has taken everything that you could ever have had for yourself, but you have happily offered to me. Your bondage to yourself is broken, you can experience freedom due to your faithfulness. Not because you were particularly good at anything, but because you were obedient."

The Devils Thumb, Or, My Life Right Now

"I tried left, then right, but kept striking rock. The frost feathers holding me up, it became apparent, were maybe five inches thick and had the structural integrity of stale corn bread. Below was thirty-seven hundred feet of air, and I was balanced on a house of cards. The sour taste of panic rose in my throat. My eyesight blurred, I began to hyperventilate, my calves started to shake. I shuffled a few feet farther to the right, hoping to find thicker ice, but managed only to bend an ice ax on the rock.

Awkwardly, stiff with fear, I started working my way back down. The rime gradually thickened. After descending about eighty feet, I got back on reasonably solid ground. I stopped for a long time to let my nerves settle, then leaned back from tools and stared up at the face above, searching for a hint of solid ice, for some variation in the underlying rock strata, for anything that would allow passage over the frosted slabs. I looked until my neck ached, but nothing appeared. The climb as over. The only place to go was down." {John Krakauer, author of Into the Wild, describing his climb on the treacherous mountain of Devil's Thumb.}



Anyone who follows Christ knows the Christian life is a climb, and a difficult one no less. We may climb the same jagged rock several times before we finally overcome it, and even then, we might face a similar expanse only later in our climb. Sometimes we have people climbing with us, often we climb alone (with Christ as our navigator). To even write a comparison about life compared to a mountainous climb proves to be overly cliche, but the analogy works in describing the past year of my life at Crown.

This year has been filled with difficult circumstance: jagged rocks, loose footing, and faulty equipment. But it has also been filled with accomplishment, and actually crossing the divides and gaps.

John Krakauer really gets the metaphor of climbing compared to difficulties in life. The book Into the Wild, although about Chris McCandless' journey to Alaska, reveals a side of the author that is vulnerable and weak. Through expressing weakness, he is then made strong: able to overcome his mountains.

I have not overcome the mountain, but God has helped me to reach the top of this peak! I am so ready to take the next stretch, and I don't think that it is because I see it as easy. It is a challenging stretch, but by reaching the peak I see God's glory above the clouds where I am standing, and their white appearance brushes over my arms as I reach to the sky.

I have faith that can move mountains, but do I have faith that will get me to the top of this one?

My mountain is nothing to the LORD.

"The mountains melt like wax before the LORD/before the Lord of all the earth." {Psalm 97: 5}

Set a flame to my mountain and let the wax pool into the sea. That shall be my prayer. As I climb, the rocks will slip from under my feet, and I will forget they ever existed.

Inpsire Me

These days it feels like I need so much to be ignited. Where my passion once fueled my actions, routine has settled in. And its hard to garner passion once its lost. I don't have the time or the energy to reclaim what has been scattered across various social circles, priorities, and responsibilities. Life just feels too...normal.

But at the same time, God does not equal normalcy. I know life feels pretty routine and normal right now, but that's going to be shaken up this summer. God will break this heart, and I am praying He will. In fact I think he's already started. There were things that happened this weekend that allowed me to be stirred, basically in the form of two films.

The first film watched was "Heima" by Sigur Ros. I have only been truly listening to them for several months now, and I really gain a lot of peace and beauty from their music. The film was just the same. Ugly sides of life like to smash into me until I am battered and bruised. I equate fallenness with ugliness and think about the sinfulness of the world that sometimes I wonder what good is actually in it? This film really moved me. The combination of natural images and images of people combined with Sigur Ros' music makes me truly believe that life is beautiful. Sometimes I forget.

Heima Trailer


The second film I watched is entitled "The Agony and the Ecstasy," which stars Charlton Heston and Rex Harrison playing Michelangelo and the Pope. The narrative revolves around the painting of the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo. Michelangelo, comfortable in the title of sculptor, does not feel capable and is barely willing to complete a painting on the ceiling of the Pope's church. He begins his task of painting frescoes, and comes to the realization that he does not want the public to experience art that does not inspire them to be closer to God. After a revelation, he paints God reaching out to man and completes the chapel.

The Agony & the Ecstasy

I analyzed this picture as it was on the screen, and I finally realized it. God is working so hard to reach man, while man simply lays on his side, barely lifting his arm. It made me think of God's passionate love for us. How often am I lazy within my relationship to him that I forget his awesome love for me?

This film is also inspiring in making one wonder how they will bring glory to God. For Michelangelo it was painting, but what is it for me? Perhaps I won't know, and that is okay.

The passage that I think of in regards to this is 1 Peter 4:10, which says, "Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithuflly administering God's grace in its various forms."

I suppose my only option right now is to arise to whatever I am facing with a Christlike attitude and a child-like faith. And its okay if I don't know.

Lavender Flag

Sunday before church, the verdict in my heart was that I was not going.

I didn't have time.
I didn't care to hear preaching.
I wanted a break.

So I went.

And I really wasn't that moved by much. My heart was hardened. I explicitly stated to God that I was not in the mood. Yet his presence met me, through a little boy.

Worship was similar to previous Sundays. Nothing new. The choir sang, accompanied by instrumentals. But, for the first Sunday in all of the Sundays I have been to Sanctuary (which now has totaled to approximately 20), a little boy with downs syndrome was waving his small lavender flag to the music. His movements matched perfectly to the music. He swayed and danced, smiling and laughing.

And it made me think of how I do not offer myself fully up to God because of my unrighteousness. I am not perfect, so why would God want me. But I need to wave my flag. I need to offer my unholy self to Him. I need not be perfect. I need only to be.

Oh, it also helped my heart that the choir sang one of the most relevant songs to my life.
The Lord Is Blessing Me: Right Now, Right Now