A new rector was surprised to learn that the wealthiest member of his congregation didn’t give a dime to the parish. He talked to the man and asked him why he didn’t give anything to the parish.
“Well,” he said, “Did you know that my mother is extremely ill and has very high medical bills?”
“I did not know that and I’m sorry to hear it,” replied the rector.
“And did you know that I have three children in expensive private schools? Or that my brother was in an automobile accident and disabled and that he has a wife and three children?”
“I had no idea,” said the rector. “I’m so sorry.”
“Well,” he concluded, “if I don’t give them any money then why do you think I’d give anything to the Church?”
This person has some growing to do with regard to stewardship!
The place is a little town in New Hampshire by the name of Grovers Corners. The time is the turn-of-the-century, that is, 1901. It’s just an average day in the life of some very average people. Dr. Gibbs has just delivered twins. The milkman has just delivered the milk and Mrs. Gibbs has just poured a cup of coffee for her husband. She tells her husband that he needs to talk to their teenage son, George, about helping out more around the house.
Next door, Mrs. Webb has prepared breakfast for her two children, Emily and Wally. The two children carry on a conversation at the same time that George and his sister, Rebecca, are conversing in the house next door. It’s just a regular day in a regular week in a regular town in America.
Several years pass by and George Gibbs and Emily Webb fall in love and get married. Emily gets pregnant and sadness descends upon that family and this little town when Emily dies in childbirth.
Emily goes to the place of departed spirits, but she isn’t ready to be there. She wants to go back to the land of the living. She gets to go back for a day and she chooses to go back to a day when she was 12 years old. She can see and hear everyone, but they are not aware of her presence.
When Emily goes back she is keenly aware of how wonderful every little aspect of life is, every breath taken, and she is struck by how the living just don’t understand what a gift they have in just being alive and being with one another. “Live people just don’t get it,” she says when she goes back to the place of departed spirits.
This is the plot of the play Our Town by Thornton Wilder. Of course, the effect of the play is to warm the hearts of those who watch it by helping them to understand how wonderful this life really is and that we should be thankful for this life.
In a very real sense, to be Christian is to be thankful. After all, our principal act of worship is called the holy Eucharist, which means thanksgiving. We are a people who give thanks on a daily basis for “our creation, our preservation, and all the blessings of this life, but above all for God’s immeasurable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory.”
Life is a gift from God, our life together is a gift from God, this parish is a gift from God. What a great gift it is to be able to worship here, in this beautiful place, with a wonderful parish family, our beautiful music, our great children’s and youth programs, our extensive mission and outreach, our men’s and women’s ministries. These are all gifts from God and yet they are also an extension of our response of thankfulness.
It works this way. We are thankful for God’s gifts to us, we take those gifts and invest them in ministry, and God gives them back to us in immeasurably greater forms, just as he takes our bread and wine and gives them back to us as the body and blood of Christ to nourish our souls.
We give freely out of thanksgiving, and yet, as the Gospel for today reminds us, God expects us to invest the gifts he has given us, and he does hold us accountable for investing those gifts. In the parable that Jesus told about the talents, one servant was given by his master five talents, another two talents, and another one talent. A talent was a unit of weight, so it would make a difference whether it was a talent of gold, say, or of silver, but whatever substance it was it represented a large amount of money.
The servants who were given five and two talents invested the money and both of them doubled what they had been given. The person with only one talent buried it and was only able to give the same amount to his master when he returned. The master was pleased with the servants who had invested their talents and was angry with the one who had not. He took away the one talent from the wicked and slothful servant and gave it to the one who had 10. The moral of the parable is that God has given each of us gifts that we are to use for his glory. He wants us to invest those gifts for the building up of his kingdom and he will hold us accountable for how we invest those gifts.
I am frequently reminded of our Lords words, “Of the one to whom much is given much is required.” We have been given so much. Our giving in response needs to reflect that abundance.
The message of the play Our Town is that people don’t realize what a wonderful gift this life is. May all who see the people of The Redeemer be led to a far different conclusion that indeed we know what a wonderful life we have in our Lord Jesus Christ, we are thankful people, and we invest the gifts God has given us.
Sermon preached by the Very Rev. Fredrick A. Robinson
The Church of the Redeemer
Sarasota Florida
23 Sunday after Pentecost
16 November 2014