Reverend Ray Osborne, Senior Minister
Please Note That Most Messages Follow
The Revised Common Lectionary

Last Sunday you heard me make mention of the investment firm I use to run while I was going through the process of battling cancer. I mentioned about how everyone was always interested in how quickly they would realize a profitable return on their investment. I also told you that my response to those people was that what we would even call a "short term investment" was longer than a day or a week or even a month.

There is one thing I did NOT mention last week. In every case I know of, with the exception of one, the individual making the investment runs the risk of losing everything that was invested.

The parables we have been looking at are parables for Jesus' followers about living in the time period between His resurrection and His return. They are about how we live in the meantime and our making faithful choices.

"Oh, great! I get the short end of the stick again! Master’s pet, Rufus, gets five talents. Arduus, he gets two—twice as much as me. The Master trusts them more than me. One lousy little talent! Shows you what Master thinks of me. He doesn’t believe in me. Then he’ll come back and expect a whopping big profit. Heaven help the slave who shows a loss! Well, since he obviously doesn’t expect as much from me as he does from the others, I’m going to bury his filthy talent in the backyard for safekeeping."

My dad is the one person I can credit for getting me interested in playing the guitar. I have been playing the guitar since the age of five. This means that I have been playing now for - ummm - a very long time. It is on of the loves of my life. There is nothing I enjoy more than going to the campground and sitting around the fire with my camping friends. One of them plays a madolin, another plays a really mean banjo, another a bass fiddle, and sometimes we are blessed to have a young man who plays a hammer dulcimer. We then sit around the campfire and play wonderful tunes like "Turkey in the Straw," "Cripple Creek," "Foggy Mountain Breakdown," and "Black Mountain Rag."

When I was a teenager I played songs like "Sweet Home Alabama," "Smoke on the Water," "Stairway to Heaven," and "Born to be Wild." I think it was during this time that my dad sat down with me for a heart-to-heart talk. "Raymond, you have a wonderful gift - a gift given to you by God. When I was your age I had that gift too. I could play almost as good as you do now. I played in Honky Tonks and on the radio until one day the same God who gave me the gift decided to take that gift away. I was standing at the corner waiting on the bus to come and take me to my next gig. I reached up and placed my hand on the stop sign and it cut my hand right in two."

At that point he showed me the scar in his hand. "Raymond don’t wait for God to teach you a lesson - learn it now. Take this gift, this talent that God has given you and use it for God. Play in churches. Learn Christian songs and play them to bring glory to God."

As you might can gather my dad was a very wise man, a very godly man. He came to me without realizing that I’d be standing here today and told me "Raymond I was like the third servant. I did not use what the Master had given me wisely and He took it away."

Being in a church like this is a very risky business to be in. We are determined as a church to be all God wants us to be. But we have decided that we just don’t want to "be," we want to "become." We have said that we want to be intentionally involved in the process of making disciples. We have said that we want to be intentionally involved, actively engaged in doing missions and ministry. It order to do that we not only have to be committed as I said last week, "For the Long Haul," but we must also be willing to take some risks.

I have been convinced for many years that God gives each of us a variety of gifts. The parable is set in the Middle East of two millennia ago. The American ideal enunciated a little more than two centuries ago—"all…are created equal"—means that all are equally entitled to God’s unalienable gifts, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But it’s no guarantee that each one will realize those gifts to the same extent. It certainly doesn’t mean that each of us is in actual fact equally endowed with the same kinds or degrees of abilities or of conditions such as health, wealth, or opportunity—or entrepreneurial talent.

I think there are, just like a three part sermon, three parts to this parable. First, everyone has a gift. From the oldest person here on down we all have been given gifts by God. The second part of this parable is that what we do with those gifts are totally up to us. We can choose to either invest the gifts that we have been given in and through the church, or we can bury those gifts and never do anything for the church. The third part is that we will stand accountable for what we have done with our gifts.

In a big city Church, a cafeteria-style lunch was made available to members of the congregation at the conclusion of the Sunday worship. The charge for the meal was relatively modest, and the rule of the Church was that first-time visitors got their lunch free. One Sunday morning, a woman who wandered into the Church for the first time, was so very much inspired by the reverential spirit and the friendly attitude of that worshipping community, she decided to join up. She then followed the crowd into the cafeteria and tried to pay for her lunch. "No, no," she was told, "you are a first-time visitor, so lunch is free." The woman replied, "I appreciate the offer but I want this lunch to cost me something." Hearing this, the man at the cashier's table smiled and said, "If you stay around this Church long enough, this lunch is going to cost you your life."

At the beginning of His public ministry, Jesus said to some fishermen, "Give up the fishing business. I know your way of life means a lot to you but give it up now. There is a new thing for you to do, a lifetime project."

To Matthew, the Tax Collector, He said, "Give up your nice government job. Give up your precious security. Let go, because there is a new thing required of you now."

Later, to a rich young ruler and others He said, "Give up your wealth and power. They are excess baggage. When you travel with Me, you travel light."

Some of the fishermen followed Jesus. Matthew followed Jesus. Others followed Jesus. But, as we read the Gospels, we see that the majority of practicing religionists to whom Jesus spoke turned away from His invitation to follow Him. Jesus was a threat to the comfort and security of their accustomed lifestyle. They felt safer with the status quo than with Jesus.

He was rocking the boat with talk of "worshipping in spirit and truth" and "loving one's enemies" and "praying for one's persecutors." He was challenging them to allow their lives to be transformed and to go out and share what they had seen, heard, and experienced with others in order that THEIR lives might be transformed as well.

Following Jesus is risky business! But I want to go back to a statement I made at the beginning of this message. I said:

"In every case I know of, with the exception of one, the individual making the investment runs the risk of losing everything that was invested."

See whenever we take what God has given us, and we invest that in Jesus, and we step out on faith to share these things with others, we will never - ever lose. We can only win.

When I sit down on this platform and I look across our congregation and see your faces I know that everything we do each and every day is worth our investment. When I see these children gather around me for children’s time I know our investments are paying huge dividends. When I look on those back pews at our youth, I know we are winning! When I look out and know the physical needs and emotional needs represented here on any given Sunday - it’s all worth it. Here we find peace. Here we find comfort, here we find answers and strength and fellowship. Here we find love. Just think what this place would be like if no one had ever taken a risk?

I know I have shared this story with you before but this really brings home the point of Jesus’ parable to me that I just had to use it again. It’s written by Jeff McMullen.

A number of years ago (1983-1987), I had the opportunity to play the character of Ronald McDonald for the McDonald's Corporation. My marketplace covered most of Arizona and a portion of Southern California.

One of our standard events was "Ronald Day." One day each month, we visited as many of the community hospitals as possible, bringing a little happiness into a place where no one ever looks forward to going. I was very proud to be able to make a difference for children and adults who were experiencing some "down time." The warmth and gratification I would receive stayed with me for weeks. I loved the project, McDonald's loved the project, the kids and adults loved it and so did the nursing and hospital staffs.

There were two restrictions placed on me during a visit. First I could not go anywhere in the hospital without McDonald's personnel (my handlers) as well as the hospital personnel. That way, if I were to walk into a room and frighten a child, there was someone there to address the issue immediately. And second, I could not physically touch anyone within the hospital. They did not want me transferring germs from one patient to another. I understood why they had this "don't touch" rule, but I didn't like it. I believe that touching is the most honest form of communication we will ever know. Printed and spoken words can lie; it is impossible to lie with a warm hug. Breaking either of these rules, I was told, meant I could lose my job.

Toward the end of my fourth year of "Ronald Days," as I was heading down a hallway after a long day in grease paint and on my way home, I heard a little voice. "Ronald, Ronald." I stopped. The soft little voice was coming through a half-opened door. I pushed the door open and saw a young boy, about five years old, lying in his dad's arms, hooked up to more medical equipment than I had ever seen. Mom was on the other side, along with Grandma, Grandpa and a nurse tending to the equipment.

I knew by the feeling in the room that the situation was grave. I asked the little boy his name - he told me it was Billy - and I did a few simple magic tricks for him. As I stepped back to say good-bye, I asked Billy if there was anything else I could do for him.

"Ronald, would you hold me?"

Such a simple request. But what ran trough my mind was that if I touched him, I could lose my job. So I told Billy I could not do that right now, but I suggested that he and I color a picture. Upon completing a wonderful piece of art that we were both very proud of, Billy asked me to hold him again. By this time my heart was screaming "Yes!" But my mind was screaming louder. "No, you are going to lose your job."

This second time that Billy asked me, I had to ponder why I could not grant the simple request of a little boy who would probably not be going home. I asked myself why was I being logically and emotionally torn apart by someone I had never seen before and would probably never see again.

"Hold me."

It was such a simple request, and yet... I searched for any reasonable response that would allow me to leave. I could not come up with a single one. It took me a moment to realize that in this situation, losing my job may not be the disaster I feared.

Was losing my job the worst thing in the world Did I have enough self-belief that if I did lose my job, I would be able to pick up and start again? The answer was a loud, bold, affirming "Yes!" I could pick up and start again.

So what was the risk? Just that if I lost my job, it probably would not be long before I would first lose my car, then my home... and to be honest with you, I really liked those things. But I realized that at the end of my life, the car would have no value and neither would the house. The only things that had steadfast value were experiences. Once I reminded myself the real reason I was there was to bring a little happiness to an unhappy environment, I realized that I really faced no risk at all.

I sent Mom, Dad, Grandma, and Grandpa out of the room, and my two McDonald's escorts out to the van. The nurse tending the medical equipment stayed, but Billy asked her to stand and face the corner. Then I picked up this little wonder of a human being. He was so frail and so scared. We laughed and cried for 45 minutes, and talked about the things that worried him.

Billy was afraid that his little brother might get lost coming home from kindergarten next year, without Billy to show him the way. He worried that his dog wouldn't get another bone because Billy had hidden the bones in the house before going back to the hospital, and now he couldn't remember where he put them. These are problems to a little boy who knows he is not going home.

On my way out of the room, with tear-streaked makeup running down my neck, I gave Mom and Dad my real name and phone number (another automatic dismissal from McDonald's, but I figured that I was gone and had nothing to lose), and said if there was anything the McDonald's Corporation or I could do, to give me a call and consider it done. Less than 48 hours later, I received a phone call from Billy's mom. She informed me that Billy had passed away. She and her husband simply wanted to thank me for making a difference in their little boy's life.

Billy's mom told me that shortly after I left the room, Billy looked at her and said, "Momma, I don't care anymore if I see Santa this year because...

I was held by Ronald McDonald!"

Sometimes we must do what is right for the moment, regardless of the perceived risk. Only experiences have value, and the one biggest reason people limit their experiences is because of the risk involved.

Click Here To Receive FREE Notification When
New Sermons Are Posted

This Site is a Member of the Kerusso Sermon Web Ring.
[Skip Prev] [Prev] [Next] [Skip Next] [Random] [Next 5] [List Sites] [Join]

People Have Reviewed This Sermon