Visited Wesley Mission’s international morning service yet again yesterday. Am always reminded when I visit, why I don’t go there. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with their service. The praise and worship is joyful and the sermons are not lacking. So then why? I can’t put my finger directly on it, but there must be something about the challenging activism that St. Barnabus excites. I suppose it needs be explained that my mind has be trained to pick, unravel and need to understand to - for lack of the lesses biased word - categorise in my mind.
I was reminded of this on listening to the message at Celebration service yesterday afternoon. I expected it to be somewhat of a lesser degree confronting, since it was supposed to be a celebration service. But, as always, was challenged to commit not just to the “ah, yes that is right” but the “I really ought to do something.”
We looked at Matthew 25:14-30. And its interesting how, at the start of my woe-begotten period of two years ago, that I remember saying to Michi, “all I want is at the end of my lifetime that when I meet Jesus, he will say to me ‘well done good and faithful servant.’” To be exact, I can’t say I actually knew which verse I was quoting - but now I do. And I think the period forth from here I shall commit the lesson here to heart and memory.
The most often heard lesson from those verses is that we are to be good stewards with what God has given us. Have five talents, make five talents more. Have two talents, make two more. Don’t be like the third slave who dug a hole. The harder lesson here to be confronted was of the third slave, who was accused by the master of being “...wicked and lazy slave...” (25:26). Of the two good steward slaves, the master said this, “well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of a many things; enter into the joy of your master.” (25:21,23), then he took the 3rd slave’s talent and gave it to the first. Then the worthless slave was to be thrown into nothing short of damnation, “into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (25:30).
Lesson apparent - you can’t keep your hands “clean” as a Christian. You are supposed to get involved in Christ’s work, which spoke to me to be more than just the mission field, but questions of poverty and also of ethics. And yet, what do most of us end up doing? We talk alot and we do little. Talk is cheap and we are a lazy lot. And those who do stuff, we call them activists and point at them and mock at their “neiveness” when we ought to be ashamed that we are being as s l a c k as the third slave in the parable. Why get involved? Why bother?
Sometimes, our sins are of commision and action, but as christians, our sins are also of omission, of what we do not do. George Bernard Shaw, a philosopher which I plan one day to read said “the true joy of life is being used up with a purpose recognised”. I can all but see how everything works to a fulfillment and culmination of God’s purpose in my life, in my thinking since my aforesaid woe-begotten era.
I wondered for a while if we were like the third lazy slave, would be be judged likewise as Christians? What happened to the concept of Grace when we commit to Christ as our savior and lord? Could we pass through Heaven's gate in Christ's vestitures if our actions charged us to be that of the third slave? What we do is an outward reflection of an inward condition and our lack of involvement reveals our true hearts. So, how can I even consider dodging the
OMF ‘bullet’ that God had sent me by way of Japan, regardless of my weak-kneed reason that I would be a lousy ambassador for Christ? One talent or five, I have been given a portfolio of international diplomacy. My indecision thus answered.
Audio: Soundtrack to my American Renaissance seminar.
Arn't we cool?
Biblio: Moby Dick by Herman Melville.
Cerebio: Employment contract has arrived.
